Tom Glavine's left arm and the Hall of Fame

I had some thoughts about Tom Glavine that were sparked by reading a Yankees blog. And they're not about the 1996 or 1999 World Series.

Over at It's About the Money, Stupid, Will shares some thoughts on Andy Pettitte's Hall of Fame case, as compared to other pitchers of the era. In discussing the merits of the 10 pitchers considered (Pettitte, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, and Kevin Brown), Will discusses at some length how poorly Glavine comes off, relative to the other guys. Glavine doesn't stack up against his peers when it comes to Winning Percentage, WAR, ERA+, Ks, K/BB or WAR/9IP. About the only things going for Glavine in Will's chart are Wins and Innings Pitched. So this got me thinking about Glavine -- surely such a highly regarded pitcher must have SOMETHING on his Hall of Fame resume besides Wins and awards with questionable voting processes (Glavine has two Cy Youngs, four other Top 3 finishes, and four Silver Sluggers).

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com -- one of the best sites on the internet -- I found out he does.

It's kind of insane how durable Glavine was. He made at least 25 starts and pitched at least 165.1 innings TWENTY YEARS IN A ROW. And that one year when he made only 25 starts and pitched 165.1 innings was the strike-shortened 1994. Aside from that season, his lightest workload of that 20-year stretch was 183 innings over 32 starts in 2003. (He also made "only" 29 starts in 1989, his second full season, and the truncated 1995 season, but he averaged more innings a start in those years.)

IIATMS isn't the only place you'll find analysis suggesting that Tom Glavine's Hall of Fame case is over-hyped because of his high win total (305). And yes, it's true that the pitching win is a very flawed stat, and Glavine was aided by pitching most of his career for very good teams who scored runs for him. But he also helped himself get all those wins by averaging 215 innings a season from when he was 22 until he was 41. That durability by itself is incredibly impressive. And when you consider that Glavine was above average at preventing runs from scoring (as measured by ERA+) 15 out of his 20 full seasons, it's even more impressive. Glavine also had an ERA+ of 125 or more in 10 different seasons (all Top 10 finishes), including outstanding marks of 140, 141, 147, 153 (which led the league) and 168.

Sure, Tommy Glavine didn't strike out a ton of guys (5.3 K/9 career) and walked more than half as many as he did strike out (1.74 K/BB career) and only cracked 5.6 WAR once (in his excellent and deserving 1991 Cy Young season). But he made all his starts, pitched deep into games, and prevented runs from scoring. Year in and year out for two decades. Not to mention that he has a "signature moment" -- 8 one-hit, shutout innings in the clinching Game 6 of the 1995 World Series. I'd vote for him.