Quote:
Originally Posted by the 'stache
No, they weren't equally valuable. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
If one horse takes two minutes to run a mile, and a second horse takes 2:20 to run the mile, they've both run a mile, but the first horse was much faster than the second. The first horse wins races, and gets put out to stud. The second gets turned into glue.
Kaat needed an extra 4 years, or a career that was 20% longer than Murray's, to get the same value. Not the same. Not even close.
You can dismiss all the stats you want. But the same formulas apply equally to all players in the game's history. And one says, for his career, Kaat was 8% better than the average pitchers in his era. The other says that Murray was 29% better than the average hitters in his era.
Oh, and Eddie Murray was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2003, receiving 85.3% of the vote the first time he was eligible.
Jim Kaat was on the Hall ballot for fifteen years, and never cracked 30% of any vote. He was dropped from the ballot.
85% vote, got in on first try vs. 15 years on the ballot, and never sniffed induction.
But, yeah, they were equally valuable. Uh huh. That's what we call an untenable position.
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so I didn't say they were equal players on a year by year basis, but the RESULTS of their career say they provided equal value.
so what? the voters were mostly morons back then who still thought batting avg and RBI's had value (as well as pitcher wins). Voters are smarter now.
There are only 4 pitchers IN MLB HISTORY who aren't in the HOF, with more fWAR than Kaat, Tommy John, Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown and Curt Schilling, all 5 (including Kaat) are in the top 30 of starters all time per fWAR. (and 2 of them, Brown and Schilling, have had the PED thing associated with them)
BTW, 4 of Kaat's last 5 seasons he was a pen arm so he accumulated his WAR in 21 seasons of starting.
(oh and fWAR adds defensive production to batter WAR along with baserunning this is why it doesn't show up on pitcher WAR stats)