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twinsfan -> RE: MLB General Information PT 4 (11/23/2016 12:52:33 PM)
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Found this by Jay Jaffe:
Where is Javier Vazquez?
Good question. In any given year, among the newcomers are several who stick out as players with absolutely zero chance of election and little chance of getting even a single vote. This year's group includes Cabrera, Guillen, Mora and Rhodes. For such players, some of whom made All-Star teams and helped win championships, merely appearing on the ballot is the final stop of their fine careers. But not every eligible player who attains that level makes it past the screening committee and onto the ballot, and weird things can happen along the fringes. In 2014, for example, Shannon Stewart (who finished fourth in the AL MVP vote in 2003) and Esteban Loaiza (the AL Cy Young runner-up that same year) were left off the ballot while Jacque Jones and Armando Benitez made the cut. Last year, Chan Ho-Park, who won 124 games, made an All-Star team and was the majors' first Korean-born player, was left off.
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This year's recipient of the ballot screw job is Vazquez, who spent 14 years in the bigs with the Expos, Yankees, Diamondbacks, White Sox, Braves and Marlins, going 165-160 with a 4.22 ERA with one All-Star appearance and three trips to the postseason. No, that's not a Hall of Fame ERA (the highest is Red Ruffing's 3.80), but it’s lower than Wakefield’s 4.41. In addition, Vazquez’s 105 ERA+ matches that of Wakefield and is better than those of the enshrined Hunter (104) and Rube Marquard (103). The knuckleballing Wakefield has exactly 200 wins while Vazquez does not, but his total is still the highest of any player born in Puerto Rico. As with the snub of Park, that's a bad look for the BBWAA.
This can't be a matter of won-loss record, since Vazquez is five games over .500 while past candidates such as Bobo Newsom (211-222), Tom Zachary (186-191) and Danny Darwin (171-182) had losing records. Among BBWAA-eligible players with a 3.50 ERA or higher, I could find only four with more wins who never made the ballot: Bob Friend (197-230, 3.58 ERA, 107 ERA+), Murray Dickson (172-181, 3.66 ERA, 109 ERA+), Bill Lee—not the Spaceman—(169-157, 3.54 ERA, 106 ERA+) and John Burkett (166-136, 4.31 ERA, 99 ERA+).
What's more, Vazquez ranks 30th all-time in strikeouts (2,536), with six years in his league's top five. Yes, he played in a strikeout-heavy era, but no player with that many strikeouts has ever been skipped. Vazquez's 41.1 JAWS is tied with Hall of Famer Addie Joss for 136th all-time, ahead of six other enshrined starters (Hunter and Marquard included), as well as Morris (38.4) and Wakefield (29.8). It's still 21 points below the standard at the position, low enough that in my series he'd get a brief career summary instead of a full rundown, but he deserved one more chance to take a bow for his distinguished service.
http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/11/22/2017-hall-fame-ballot-jaws-javier-vazquez
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