Bert Blyleven

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Bert Blyleven

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Bert Blyleven

Bert Blyleven was elected to the Hall of Fame in his fourteenth year of eligibility, 2011, with 79.7% of the vote.

Five highlights of Bert Blyleven's career:

Bert Blyleven was born in the Netherlands. He is the only person elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as a major-league player who was born outside of the Western Hemisphere.

Blyleven was the youngest player in major-leage baseball when he debuted on June 5, 1970, at the age of 19 years and 60 days old. Blyleven was the sixth-oldest player in the major leagues in his final season, 1992, when he was 41 years old.

Blyleven pitched 200 or more innings in 16 seasons. His 4,970 career innings pitched is the 14th-most in major-league history. Blyleven had 200 or more strikeouts eight times and his 3,701 career strikeouts are the fifth-most in major-league history.

Blyleven threw 60 complete-game shutouts in his career, the ninth-highest total in major-league history.

Blyleven pitched for two World Series winners: the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and 1987 Minnesota Twins. For his career, Blyleven pitched 23 innings in the two World Series (4 games, 3 starts) with a traditional record of 2-1 with a 2.35 ERA. His overall postseason record was 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA in 47.1 innings pitched.

The first two tables below present Bert Blyleven's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1970	MIN	19	27	10.5	10.3	2.0	0.7
1971	MIN	20	38	18.0	15.5	5.6	3.6
1972	MIN	21	39	17.9	17.1	3.9	1.8
1973	MIN	22	40	18.7	13.6	7.3	5.2
1974	MIN	23	37	15.8	12.8	5.0	3.2
1975	MIN	24	35	15.0	11.9	5.0	3.2
+– 1976		25	36	17.5	14.5	5.2	3.2
	MIN		12	4.9	4.8	0.8	0.2
	TEX		24	12.6	9.7	4.4	3.0
1977	TEX	26	30	13.3	10.8	4.3	2.7
1978	PIT	27	37	15.3	13.5	4.4	2.7
1979	PIT	28	38	12.7	12.5	2.6	1.1
1980	PIT	29	37	11.4	12.9	0.8	-0.7
1981	CLE	30	20	8.0	6.8	2.3	1.3
1982	CLE	31	4	1.3	1.6	-0.0	-0.2
1983	CLE	32	24	8.9	8.5	1.6	0.5
1984	CLE	33	33	14.1	9.3	6.6	5.0
+– 1985		34	37	17.5	15.2	4.7	2.5
	CLE		23	10.3	8.9	2.8	1.5
	MIN		14	7.2	6.3	1.9	1.0
1986	MIN	35	36	17.5	16.9	3.0	0.8
1987	MIN	36	37	16.7	15.9	3.2	1.0
1988	MIN	37	33	11.7	14.5	-0.9	-2.6
1989	CAL	38	33	13.7	9.4	6.1	4.5
1990	CAL	39	23	6.7	8.4	-0.5	-1.5
1991	-	40	-	-	-	-	-
1992	CAL	41	25	7.1	9.7	-1.4	-2.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			699	289.2	261.4	70.6	35.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			8	3.3	2.1	1.8	1.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			707	292.6	263.5	72.3	37.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1970	MIN	19	27	10.6	10.1	2.5	1.2
1971	MIN	20	38	17.9	15.6	5.6	3.6
1972	MIN	21	39	17.9	17.1	4.1	2.0
1973	MIN	22	40	19.4	13.0	8.6	6.5
1974	MIN	23	37	16.3	12.3	6.0	4.1
1975	MIN	24	35	14.9	12.0	4.8	3.0
+– 1976		25	36	17.7	14.2	5.6	3.6
	MIN		12	4.8	4.8	0.6	0.0
	TEX		24	12.9	9.4	5.0	3.6
1977	TEX	26	30	13.9	10.2	5.4	3.8
1978	PIT	27	37	15.5	13.3	5.0	3.4
1979	PIT	28	38	11.8	13.4	0.9	-0.6
1980	PIT	29	37	11.7	12.6	1.3	-0.1
1981	CLE	30	20	8.2	6.6	2.6	1.6
1982	CLE	31	4	1.5	1.4	0.2	0.1
1983	CLE	32	24	9.4	8.0	2.6	1.5
1984	CLE	33	33	13.8	9.7	5.8	4.3
+– 1985		34	37	18.5	14.1	6.8	4.6
	CLE		23	10.6	8.5	3.5	2.3
	MIN		14	7.9	5.6	3.2	2.4
1986	MIN	35	36	17.4	17.0	2.9	0.7
1987	MIN	36	37	15.3	17.3	0.4	-1.7
1988	MIN	37	33	12.5	13.7	0.7	-1.1
1989	CAL	38	33	12.7	10.4	4.0	2.5
1990	CAL	39	23	7.3	7.8	0.6	-0.4
1991	-	40	-	-	-	-	-
1992	CAL	41	25	7.7	9.1	-0.2	-1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			699	291.8	258.9	76.3	41.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			8	2.8	2.6	0.7	0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			707	294.6	261.5	77.0	41.7

Bert Blyleven: One of the Best Pitchers of the 1970s

Bert Blyleven took a long time to be elected to the Hall of Fame and was a cause celebre among sabermetric baseball fans for much of that time. One of the main weaknesses in Bert Blyleven's Hall-of-Fame case, I think, was that his peak coincided with the peak of a lot of Hall-of-Fame pitchers. Bert Blyleven's best years were probably in the 1970's, which were something of a golden age for Hall-of-Fame pitchers.

Eight pitchers who are now in the Hall of Fame won thirteen Cy Young awards during the 1970s. Bert Blyleven was not among them.

Six pitchers who pitched during the 1970's won at least 300 games in their careers. All of these pitchers are in the Hall of Fame. Bert Blyleven "only" won 287 career games.

Bert Blyleven's Hall-of-Fame worthiness was, perhaps, more subtle than that of some of his contemporaries. But Bert Blyleven was, in fact, one of the best pitchers of the 1970's. The top 10 pitchers of the 1970's, as measured by eWins over replacement level for the decade, are shown in the table below.

		eWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Tom Seaver	175.1	140.5	46.1	64.4
2	Gaylord Perry	176.6	149.7	35.2	55.3
3	Jim Palmer	162.1	130.7	36.2	54.4
4	Bert Blyleven	156.0	131.2	30.8	48.6
5	Fergie Jenkins	167.9	146.3	27.7	47.0
6	Steve Carlton	177.7	165.4	24.2	44.1
7	Nolan Ryan	169.9	153.4	20.4	41.0
8	Don Sutton	157.1	149.2	19.7	37.6
9	Phil Niekro	175.8	174.4	14.3	34.8
10	Vida Blue	141.0	129.5	16.7	33.5

As measured by eWORL, Blyleven was the fourth-best pitcher of the 1970's. To reinforce the earlier notion that the 1970's were a golden age for pitchers, the top nine pitchers in the above table have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bert Blyleven: One of the Best Pitchers of the 1980s

Bert Blyleven started 20 or more games 21 times in his career. While the plurality of these seasons, 10, were in the 1970's, a significant number of these seasons, 8, took place in the 1980's (with the last two taking place in 1990 and 1991).

The next table repeats the previous table, but for the 1980's instead of the 1970's.

		eWins over Replacement Level Top 10 Players
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Dave Stieb	138.1	117.3	22.7	39.3
2	Roger Clemens	80.9	56.5	25.4	34.5
3	Fernando Valenzuela	136.5	129.9	17.0	32.8
4	Orel Hershiser	91.5	77.3	20.8	30.9
5	Bret Saberhagen	79.8	59.7	21.1	30.3
6	Dwight Gooden	84.3	70.7	20.2	29.4
7	Nolan Ryan	133.5	130.5	13.0	29.0
8	Bob Welch	127.0	121.4	13.6	28.5
9	Bert Blyleven	120.8	110.8	12.3	27.3
10	Mike Scott	114.0	110.7	12.5	26.0

Blyleven was one of the top 10 pitchers in major-league baseball for two consecutive decades, which is quite impressive. He is one of only two pitchers to appear in each of the two preceding tables.

The 1980's were a somewhat less impressive time for Hall-of-Fame pitchers, as evidenced by the fact that, whereas in the 1970's, 9 of the 10 pitchers are now in the Hall of Fame, in the 1980's, only 2 of these 10 pitchers have been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Bert Blyleven: One of the Best Pitchers of the Past 100 Years

The next logical step is to extend our look to all of major-league history. The next table shows the top 25 pitchers in career eWORL for all seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records (all games since 1928; the majority of games since 1916).

		eWins over Replacement Level Top 25 Pitchers
	Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Roger Clemens	314.8	230.7	90.6	127.2
2	Greg Maddux	329.0	269.9	84.8	121.9
3	Warren Spahn	343.4	302.5	61.7	101.2
4	Randy 'Big Unit' Johnson	276.4	224.4	64.1	97.2
5	Gaylord Perry	320.1	285.7	50.8	88.7
6	Lefty Grove	249.6	205.4	58.6	87.3
7	Tom Seaver	300.3	264.8	53.7	87.1
8	Pedro J. Martinez	191.6	138.6	61.5	83.7
9	Bob Gibson	259.6	221.2	54.8	83.6
10	Nolan Ryan	354.5	329.7	39.9	82.8
11	Mike Mussina	222.1	175.0	50.8	78.2
12	John Smoltz	237.3	203.2	49.0	77.6
13	J. Kevin Brown	206.1	162.7	52.7	76.8
14	Bert Blyleven	291.8	258.9	41.3	76.3
15	Steve Carlton	328.8	312.6	38.4	76.1
16	Pete Alexander	211.9	170.3	51.9	75.8
17	Walter Johnson	196.3	156.6	49.9	72.2
18	Tom Glavine	272.6	254.9	37.8	70.6
19	Fergie Jenkins	280.8	256.5	36.9	69.9
20	Don Sutton	314.3	301.5	32.4	69.5
21	Robin Roberts	290.9	274.4	34.9	69.5
22	Early Wynn	303.9	288.4	33.2	69.2
23	Red Ruffing	279.9	258.9	36.9	69.0
24	Curt Schilling	204.5	174.1	42.9	67.6
25	Jim Palmer	229.8	197.9	39.1	65.9

Being one of the top 25 pitchers of the past 100 years seems like a strong argument in support of a player's Hall-of-Fame candidacy.

Article last updated: January 15, 2020

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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