Most undervalued HOFers

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

As to "Who would you rather have on your team?", let's look at it from the position of a GM.

Chronologiacally, Perry's time with a team that ever came close to being in contention to win a WS occurred mostly before Ryan's career began to find its footing, so Perry would be the only choice for those particular seasons if we're using a true timeline. Additionally, Ryan's record with his lone WS championship team was very minuscule and not an accurate representation of what people would come to expect from him after he had a few more season under his belt, so I wouldn't wish to use that in my consideration, either. That's fair, isn't it?

For the years where Ryan and Perry were productive at the same time, neither man was pitching for good teams for the most part. Now, if anyone else wishes to go back and review every single season of both Ryan's and Perry's teams from 1971 onward, be my guest, but in several of these situations, the GM had to have known that their teams wouldn't be in contention to win the WS. Now, I wish to reiterate that I am only speaking of seasons where these pitchers' careers ran alongside each other and when they both played for lousy-to-average teams. Yes, Ryan's teams found some moderate success a handful of years, while Perry did have that one season with the 1980 Yankees.

What always matters above all to a GM? Money. How does my team bring in more asses to fill the seats? With ridiculously fast and hard pitching and the possibility of the fans witnessing some magic. We're not getting anywhere this season, so that difference of a few percent between Perry and Ryan is far less consequential from the vantage point of an obvious non-contender.

The fans bring emotion to the table. They want to be entertained. They bring the money, and money matters most to the continued existence of a team. If there's no shot at the coveted WS purse and additional revenue, we're going to have to do our best to profit in other ways. If those factors can't be included in these types of discussions, then we are not looking at the full picture. Baseball is not solely number crunching. If math is all that can be included in such a discussion, there have to be SABR forums that would be a better fit. The discussion of baseball without considering emotion just does not make any sense to the vast majority of people.