Quote:
Originally Posted by z28jd
That 4.04 career ERA for Wes is what has likely kept him out. People made a huge deal about Jack Morris having a 3.90 ERA and getting in, so imagine what a 4.04 would look like to voters before Morris.
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Besides his high ERA (but solid ERA+) and failure to reach 200 wins, Wes Ferrell’s temper doesn’t help his case. On multiple occasions, he refused to hand over the ball after his coach came to yank him from the game for pitching poorly. One one such occasion in 1934 when Red Sox manager Bucky Harris came out to relieve him, not only did he refuse to hand over the ball, but when he was finally persuaded to return to the dugout he punched himself in the jaw with his fist and slammed his head against a concrete wall. He had to be forcibly restrained to prevent him from doing further harm to himself. During the 1936 season, Ferrell walked off the field in disgust and refused to continue pitching twice in the span of five days, angered each time by his teammates’ defensive shortcomings. On the second occasion he was fined $1,000 and suspended for several days. Ferrell’s reaction was to threaten to punch the manager, Joe Cronin. (SABR)
But I hope that the attention Ferrell has gotten in the wake of Shohei Ohtani for being one of the best two way players ever will tip the scales in his favor and he’ll eventually get in. His career ERA+ of 116 is better than some other pitchers in the HOF discussion such as Luis Tiant (114) and Hershiser
(112) and as pointed out, is higher thsn a lot of guys already in the HOF.