Dominant in Their Era

Tuesday, I introduced the idea of looking at pitcher VORP to ascertain pitcher dominance. Today, I want to go back and look at other pitchers in this context.

In Tuesday's column, I noted that 11 pitchers since 1954 have compiled seven or more Top 10 VORP seasons in the majors. Of these pitchers:

• Five are in the Hall of Fame (Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning and Whitey Ford)
• Five are active or recently retired (Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, and Pedro Martinez)
• Bert Blyleven is eligible for induction but is not in the Hall.

MLB Pitchers with 5 or 6 VORP Seasons: 1954-2008

Pitcher	# of Years	Career Adjusted ERA	HOF?
Don Drysdale	6	121+	YES
Gaylord Perry	6	117+	YES
Jack Morris	6	105+	NO
Kevin Brown	6	127+
Dave Stieb	5	122+	NO
Fergie Jenkins	5	115+	YES
Jimmy Key	5	122+	NO
Johan Santana	5	143+
Juan Maricial	5	123+	YES
Kevin Appier	5	121+
Steve Carlton	5	115+	YES

We now have 11 more pitchers to look at. The names included here are probably as surprising as the names that aren't. Depending on your age, Stieb's inclusion here is either surprising or a total yawner. If you're in your late 20s or younger, Appier might surprise you, and if you're a pup (in college or younger), Brown might surprise you.

I included Adjusted ERAs in this post because now we're looking at a group of pitchers where it doesn't seem so certain that they should be in based on the number of dominant seasons. Santana's the only pitcher on here whose Adjusted ERA screams that he should be included, but we'll have to see how he bounces back from his injury.

Kevin Brown is the most interesting case on this list. His Adjusted ERA and # of dominant seasons seem to at least put him in that borderline category. However, Brown's 211 wins are somewhat underwhelming. He never won a Cy Young (finishing in the Top 3 twice), only won 20+ games once, and his postseason record is incredibly lackluster. He has a ring from the 1997 Marlins, but he had two of the team's three losses that year and put up an ugly 8.18 ERA in the series.

Of course, these benchmarks aren't necessarily the greatest benchmarks for HOF inclusion. Don Drysdale only won 20+ games twice in an era when starting pitchers went much deeper into games and only won one Cy Young award (though to be fair there was only one award for both leagues until 1967).

Looking at this list, wins do seem to be a pretty significant factor in determining whether or not a pitcher is worthy for the Hall (excluding the case of Drysdale). We might not like to think it, but accumulating stats is probably more important than how "dominant" a pitcher was.