The Veterans Committee Meets Again In Late July
Ron Guidry is eligible for the Veterans Committee ballot for the first time, as are Graig Nettles and Tommy John. As I've said before, I believe the Quiet Cajun has been lost in the shuffle in recent years, with the Yankee organization and fans focusing intently on Donnie Baseball's candidacy. But with Guidry being newly eligible this year, I would hope the Yankees and their fans would start drumming up support for Gator. The process could start in the television and radio booths at Yankee Stadium this summer.
I have a suggestion for Michael Kay, Kenny Singleton, John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman: it's time to start reminding fans that Ron Guidry had as much to do with those three pennants and two world championships thirty years ago as Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles and Goose Gossage - perhaps more. It's safe to say that without Guidry's epic performances down the stretch in '77 and '78 the Yankees wouldn't have made the post-season at all. No world championships. No three HR game from Reggie Jackson in '77. No spectacular display of leather legerdemain in '78 by Nettles. No one-game playoff at Fenway, no "sacrifice thigh" by Reggie, no Bucky Dent.
The Yankees should also get behind Allie Reynolds' bid for the Hall. Reynolds missed induction by one vote in last year's pre-1943 Veterans Committee balloting, and yet the Yankees haven't retired Allie's No. 22. A ceremony to retire Allie's number and remind Yankee fans of his huge contributions to six world series winners could help put him over the top. And Reynolds' induction would further Guidry's candidacy because of the striking similarity in their careers and accomplishments. The case for Reynolds' induction is virtually the same as Guidry's: each was an extraordinary performer in the post-season and down the stretch of multiple heated pennant races, and each must be considered among the top big-game pitchers of his generation.
Reynolds wasn't even among the finalists in the 2005 and 2007 Veterans Committee ballots, and finished tied for 10th in the 2003 balloting. He collected just three votes fewer than Joe Gordon, however, and Gordon's induction last year bodes well for Reynolds. Last year's pre-1943 Veterans Committee vote suggests that the players, writers and historians who comprise the committee have a distinctly different approach than the Hall of Famers who vote on the candidacies of post-1943 players. In elevating Gordon, and giving strong support to Reynolds and Wes Ferrell (Ferrell fell three shy of the nine votes required for induction), the pre-1943 committee revealed a perspective radically different than previous Veterans Committees, who gave Reynolds and Ferrell marginal support. The appearance of Bucky Walters and Carl Mays among the ten finalists in last year's pre-1943 balloting suggests that the writers and baseball historians may have more regard for pitchers with relatively short careers than the former players who voted in previous Veterans Committee elections.
It's not clear how much, if any, the decisions of the pre-1943 committee influence the voting of the post-1943 Veterans Committee; the pre-1943 committee was formed only in 2007 and held its first election last year. One would hope, however, that the induction or near-induction of players like Reynolds, Ferrell and Walters would prompt the post-1943 Veterans Committee to consider the candidacy of Ron Guidry in a new light.
Guidry should have some significant support among the Hall of Famers he played against if they have any recollection of their confrontations with Louisiana Lightning. Certainly Eddie Murray, Robin Young, Carlton Fisk, Paul Molitor, Carl Yastrzemski, Rickey Henderson, Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson should be willing to seriously consider Gator for the Hall - they batted a combined .237 against Guidry and slugged .410.
So here's a shout-out to the Yankees and their television and radio broadcasters: it's less than three months until the Hall of Fame will start considering the candidacies of Ron Guidry and Allie Reynolds for induction by the Veterans Committee. It's time to remind Yankee fans that these two pitchers were fierce competitors who rose to the occasion when October beckoned. It's time to remind them of Gator's and Superchief's contributions to bringing world championship banners to the Bronx. Retire Reynolds' number as soon as possible. And remind viewers and listeners of Yankee broadcasts that Ron Guidry made 40 starts in the post-season and in September pennant races and went 31-6.
P.S. Hey, Kenny Singleton, you hit .167 against Ron Guidry. Why don't you pick up the phone and remind your buddy Eddie Murray that he hit .237 against Gator? Maybe Eddie can help round up support for Gator on the Veterans Committee.
Gator's Case For The Hall Of Fame
Ron Guidry Was The Greatest Big-Game Pitcher Of His Generation
Ron Guidry participated in five pennant races with the Yankees between 1977 and 1985 where a spot in the post-season hung in the balance (there was nothing at stake for the Yankees in September in the strike interrupted '81 season because they already had a playoff spot locked up by virtue of leading the division when the strike occurred in mid-June).
Guidry's record during these five pennant races was quite simply astounding. This consistent and amazing success in tight pennant races is perhaps the most compelling argument for Guidry's inclusion in the Hall, relatively brief career notwithstanding.
Ron Guidry made 30 starts in September during these pennant races. He won 26 of them. Let me clear: he didn't merely win 26 of 30 DECISIONS. He won 26 of 30 STARTS.
Guidry did a season's worth of pitching in his five September pennant races in his prime - 245.2 innings. He won 26 and lost 4 in 30 starts. He struck out 181 and walked 60. His ERA was 2.67. All but 6 of these 30 starts came with the Yankees leading or trailing by 5.5 games or less. All but one of these 30 starts came before the Yankees had clinched or been eliminated (Guidry's last start of 1983 came after elimination). Every start but one during the '77 and '78 pennant races - when Guidry was as at his most dominant - came when the difference was 3.5 games or less. He pitched five shutouts and had two other 7 inning starts in which he didn't surrender a run.
He started six games in September against the teams the Yankees were battling for a post-season berth. He faced the Red Sox in September '77, the Red Sox three times in Sept/Oct of '78, the Orioles in '83 and the Blue Jays in '85. He was 6-0 with a 1.97 ERA in those six starts.Guidry made four starts in the World Series and was 3-1 with a 1.69 ERA. His post-season record was 5-2 with a 3.02 ERA in ten starts. In the 40 biggest starts of his career - 10 in the post-season and 30 in September during pennant races - he was 31-6 with a 2.74 ERA in 308.1 innings. In the 40 biggest starts of his career Guidry was basically Denny McLain in his historic 1968 season.
Click here for a comparison of the September pennant race records of many of the greatest pitchers in the last 60 years. No one can match Guidry's astounding 26 wins in 30 starts. Perhaps only Randy Johnson can claim to have been as dominating in the heat of a pennant race.
Related Posts: The Best Big-Game Pitcher Of His Generation; Guidry's Extraordinary Big-Game Record; Big Games, Big Pitchers; The Biggest Games Of Their Lives
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The 1978 one-game playoff between the Yankees and the Red Sox was one of the greatest, most dramatic games ever played. They were unquestionably the best teams in baseball that year.Each team would have certainly won well over 100 games but for the waves of injuries that afflicted them, the Yankees early in the season and the Sox late in the season. The Yankees were the defending world champions. The two teams had battled until the last week of the season in the AL East the prior year. And then there was The Rivalry, nearly 60 years of bad blood and history borne of the Sox's sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.
The game started with Ron Guidry on the mound for the Yankees, on his way to one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history. The Sox countered with Mike Torrez, who had been one of the heroes of the Yanks' world championship the year before. It finished with Hall of Famer Goose Gossage inducing Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski to pop-out to end the game. In between Yaz homered, Jim Rice knocked in a run to give the Sox a 2-0 lead, and Reggie Jackson homered for the Yanks' critical 5th run. Baseball legends abounded in this game, and each seemed to rise to the occasion.
And then of course there was Bucky Dent.
Given the history of the rivalry between the two teams, the Yanks' historic comeback from 14 games back, the Sox's gutty dash at the end of the season to catch the Yankees after being given up for dead in the wake of the Boston Massacre, and with numerous Hall of Famers playing critical roles in the game, it's difficult to imagine a more compelling game in the long history of baseball. Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post dubbed it the "greatest game ever played." He just might be right.
Clutch Pitchers and LevERA+
1. Steve Trachsel 7.5%
2. Pat Hentgen 5.7%
3. Jeff Suppan 5.5%
4. Johnny Podres 5.3%
5. Jim Palmer 5.3%
6. Darryl Kile 5.2%
7. Pedro Astacio 5.2%
8. Billy Pierce 5.1%*
9. Juan Pizzaro 4.9%
10. Ron Guidry 4.5%
11. Vida Blue 4.5%
12. Tom Seaver 4.4%
13. Al Leiter 4.4%
14. Bartolo Colon 4.2%
15. Roy Halladay 4.2%
Each of these pitchers have an ERA+ that can fairly be said to be deceptively low. Another way to put it is that they were better pitchers than their ERA+ figures might indicate. The fact that Steve Trachsel pitched much more effectively in higher leverage situations may not be particularly interesting, but the significant clutch factors for the more notable pitchers on the above list should be of interest. Five have LevERA+'s well over 120, putting them among the top ranks in this statistic among pitchers with 2000 IP since 1952:
Halladay has a 140.1 LevERA+, behind only Martinez and Clemens.
Seaver has a 133.7 LevERA+, which ranks 7th
Palmer is 8th with a 132.7
Pierce is 12th at 128.2.*
Guidry is 17th at 124.3.
Some might be moved to ask "why all this attention to LevERA+, Gator Guy?" The answer is simple: LevERA+ is a more accurate measure of pitching prowess than ERA+ because it is more highly correlated with pitcher W-L records. Regression analyses of the 202 pitchers who have pitched more than 2000 innings since '52 reveal that the correlation coefficient between LevERA+ and winning percentage is .726, as compared to a correlation coefficient of .682 for ERA+, a significant difference given that (i) the difference between ERA+ and LevERA+ is generally very small, rarely exceeding 4%, and (ii) only about half of a pitcher's winning percentage is determined by how many runs he allows, with run support of course determining the other half.
Regression analyses of 617 pitchers who have pitched at least 500 innings since 1952 similarly revealed that winning percentage was more correlated with LevERA+ than ERA+. The larger sample size also permitted analyses that controlled for run support by selecting a data subset that excluded pitchers with extremely good or poor run support. This was done by removing from the data set pitchers with very high or low ratios of winning percentage to LevERA+. After multiplying winning percentage by 1000, the average ratio of winning percentage to LevERA+ was approximately 5.0. There were 437 pitchers with a ratio between 4.5 and 5.5, and the coefficient of correlation between LevERA+ and winning percentage for this subset was .8848. The correlation between ERA+ and winning percentage was .8473.
The correlation coefficients for the 240 pitchers with a ratio of winning percentage to LevERA+ of between 4.75 and 5.25 were extremely high: .9662 for LevERA+ and winning percentage and .9152 for ERA+ and winning percentage. At levels of correlation this high, the difference between the LevERA+ coefficient and the ERA+ coefficient is very significant. For the 240 pitchers with a ratio between 4.75 and 5.25, the R-squared coefficient of determination for LevERA+ was .9336, meaning that run support and other factors accounted for less than 7% of the variation in winning percentage. The corresponding R-squared coefficient of determination for ERA+ was .8376.
The findings with respect to the correlation between LevERA+ and winning percentage are consistent with regression analyses of the primary set of 617 pitchers that showed a correlation between clutch adjustment factor and winning percentage of .2697 and an R-squared of .0727.
The regression analyses described above establish conclusively that LevERA+, calculated on the basis of the win probability-based "clutch" statistic at B-R.com, is a more accurate predictor of pitcher winning percentage than ERA+.
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* Pierce pitched nearly 700 innings prior to 1952, but the LevERA+ stated above reflects only the 2610 innings he pitched since 1952.