Len started the new season very hot, going 8-3 with a 2.49 ERA through June 14, when he shutout the powerful Detroit Tigers. He stood 2nd in the AL in strikeouts, and 1 victory shy of the majors lead while sporting the 7th best ERA.

In 12 of his first 13 starts, he gave up just 3 runs or less. In 11 of those first 13, he also went at least 7 1/3 IP. He was rock solid, just as the Indians needed from him after the teams #1 pitcher Bert Blyleven went down for the season with an arm injury.

His 14th start was pretty good too, when he left the game in a 4-4 tie after the 10th. His ERA was still a slim 2.59 after the game,

It seems he was being overworked though, as he didn’t even make it through the 3rd inning of his next start. He gave up 8 runs against the Yankees in just 2 2/3 IP.

His season seemed to fall apart from there, as he struggled to find the consistency he made look easy earlier in the year. Including that awful Yankees game, he’d end up allowing 4+ runs in a game, 8 different times. If we split his season after his 14th start, his pitching numbers look like this—

From that, we can see exactly what his problem was. Even though he was striking out more batters and walking less, the batters were generally hitting him better after June 20.

He was allowing more hits per 9 innings, and many of those hits were HR’s (note the huge increase in HR/9). This is almost the sole cause of the near-100 point increase in the SLG allowed. Extra HR’s will always hurt the ERA, but most of these home runs came with runners on base. Ouch.

Interestingly, this last half of ’82 was also the epitome of the rest of Len’s career afterwards. The once young and promising pitcher was suddenly a 4.90 ERA pitcher allowing .90 HR/9 from June 25, 1982 through the rest of his career.

The culprit might’ve been a bone spur that finally began to wear him down. When Len was traded to the Braves in ’83, Joe Torre commented that he knew of Len’s pitching problems, “It’s a bone spur, he’s pitched with it since high school. It’s no problem. At times he’ll need an extra day of rest.”

Len himself talked about it during the beginning of the ’82 season, “I’ve had a bone spur the size of a dime on my elbow the last six years … It flares up every once in a while, rubs against the bone a little bit”. He goes on to mention that it began to bug him during the April 16 game against the Royals and that he should’ve taken himself out of the game but didn’t.

Eventually, Len would get the spur removed and he pitched worse than ever, but we’re left to wonder just how good he might’ve become if he’d had it removed sooner. Would he have learned to pitch differently? Would he have thrown more no hitters? Continued to lead the AL in strikeouts? Won a Cy Young? Helped win a World Series? Whatever the case, Len will always be remembered for pitching his heart out & being one of the games best even if only for a brief time. And hey, he’s probably the only guy with a bone spur who ever threw a perfect game. How cool is that?

There’s so much written about Bert’s pitching prowess that you’ve probably already heard that Blyleven is one of the All-Time leaders in wins (27th), strikeouts (5th now, 3rd when he retired), and some advanced & interesting stats. I’m going to share a few stats you might not be aware of though, which show the depth of his greatness.

Did you know that Bert had 75 CG losses? This includes 15 games where his defense allowed at least 1 unearned run—turning a no decision or possible victory, into a loss. It’s a great example of why pitcher wins & losses are overrated. Also a great example of how confident his manager was in Bert’s pitching ability.

Did you know that the more outs there were in an inning, the tougher it was to hit Bert?

That’s the mark of a rally preventing pitcher. Notice as the inning progresses, the BA drops 22 points, SLG drops 16 points, and BABIP drops 21 points. If you can’t hit the ball when there’s someone on base and the pitcher ain’t walkin’ you, it’s just going to be very very hard to score any runs. That gives your team the best chance to win.

of course, if somebody ain’t the best pitcher on their team, they certainly don’t deserve to go to Cooperstown…no matter how many games they won or lost. So how did Bert rank among the others pitchers on his teams? Here’s how he ranked in fielding independent stats & ERA, among pitchers on his team who had at least 10 W’s & 50 IP during the time he played for each team—

So when he was on the Twins (70′s), Rangers, and Indians, he was pretty much the best pitcher on his team. That covers 12 1/2 years of his career. He wasn’t the best when he was on teams like the Pirates (who had good pitching), and after he turned 35 when he played for the Twins (80′s) and Angels. Very few pitchers after age 35 will be the best starter on their team, so this is completely understandable.

He was clearly one of the best pitchers on his teams ’til he got old. Even in Pittsburgh, he managed to strikeout a lot of batters, even though he had a tough time getting used to NL hitters.

I could go on and on about Bert Blyleven. He’s clearly one of the best pitchers not in the Hall of Fame, if not the best.

I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be in that situation. He probably looked at his card throughout the year and kept thinking that one day he’d get back to the majors. After all, the Cubs gave up on him after 1977, trading him to the Indians for two career minor leaguers and then spent all of 1978 in AAA before finally making it back to the major leagues for 56 games of 1979.

In all honesty, Dave Rosello was never a major league talent. I mean, he was a career .277 hitter in AAA, only getting on base at a .337 pace. Sure, shortstops back then didn’t need to hit, so I should be focusing on his defense stats right? Well, his defensive stats show him as being worth negative runs…lots of negative runs. For example, for his career, his rTot/yr is -34.7 runs as a major league player. That basically means he was costing his team 35 runs every 1,250 innings he played SS. Ouch.

His best season had been 1978, for the Indians AAA club in Portland (the Beavers), when he hit .282/.365/.429. At some point in his career he played winter ball in Puerto Rico too, but I’m not sure if he did that a lot or just a little.

The back of his card mentions some trivia about Reggie Jackson and Tom Seaver. Back then, before the internet, you couldn’t just look this stuff up. You could only find tidbits like this on the back of cards and in baseball magazines, or by listening to commentaters during games.