Here are Monday’s minor moves from around the league…
- The Tigers announced today that right-hander Jacob Turner cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Toledo. Having been outrighted in the past, the prospect-turned-journeyman will have the ability to decline that assignment in favor of free agency if he is so inclined. The 27-year-old Turner was designated for assignment over the weekend when Detroit signed Zach McAllister. Turner pitched just one inning in his return to the Tigers and allowed a whopping five runs in that outing. He soaked up 39 innings for the Nationals last season but hasn’t topped that mark since the 2014 season. In 369 career innings at the big league level, Turner has a 5.37 ERA with 5.8 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 1.22 HR/9 and a 46.5 percent ground-ball rate.
“He soaked up 309 innings for the Nationals last season but hasn’t topped that mark since the 2014 season.”
He probably has a dead arm, doesn’t he Steve?
Not necessarily — Old Hoss Radbourn would contend that 309 innings constituted an incomplete season from a soft pitcher!
Thanks for the heads up on that, ha.
I don’t understand how Old Hoss in in the HOF but not Will White. I mean Will White was just as good and also has the record for CG in a season at 75 and innings pitched in a season at 680+. All while having an ERA under 2.30. Now I know the WRA shouldn’t matter as much since it’s from a while ago, but in comparison to Old Hoss, he’s just as good.
*ERA
White is technically qualified for the hall, but his career was way too short. Only pitched 7 seasons and less than 27 innings in three others, and that was it. Also lost 42 games one season and pitching records of that era were pretty much a joke – batters in 1879 told the pitcher where they wanted the ball pitched and the pitchers mostly threw underhand. White hit lots of batters, almost entirely intentionally. He was also, I believe, either the first player or maybe just the first pitcher to wear glasses on the field. But 7 seasons is just to short, he rarely led the league in anything except bulk stats – the year he completed 75 games with a 1.99 ERA he didn’t lead the league in wins or ERA. In 1882 his ERA was 1.54 and he didn’t lead the league. He wasn’t close to the best pitcher of his era, and pitchers of his era had a considerably different role than they do now.
Or here, in starker terms: Will white compile 35 WAR in his career – not a bad total; it’s a few wins less than Jake Peavy, and Peavy was a good pitcher, not a Hall of Famer. Radbourn put up 79 WAR in his career, over twice as much as White.
Exactly – Will White had a few great years, but he didn’t have nearly enough longevity to warrant a Hall of Fame nod. Now if you’re looking for a pitcher from that era who should have been inducted years ago but has been inexplicably overlooked, then you should look up Bobby Matthews. That guy was a hoss before Old Hoss had ever thrown a pitch…
Mathews? He was a pretty average pitcher for his era. Won almost as many as he lost, which mattered then as pitchers completed all their games; Mathews played for mostly bad teams, so it’s not quite fair to dun him for the losses, but he never led the league in anything – losses once, CG and IP once – he allowed 700 more hits than innings pitched, and his 2.87 ERA was actually below-average for the years in which he pitched. He pitched just 9 complete seasonsCareer WAR of 55 is not bad though, and he’s often been mentioned as a candidate but:
A) He wasn’t in even the top-ten pitchers of the years in which he pitched. He pitched for 7 teams in those years because baseball was just getting established bu he also wasn’t seen as particularly valuable and
B) I’m not sure what we think we are accomplishing by putting guys in the Hall who died in 1898. Nobody alive today has ever met anybody who ever saw him pitch. I don’t really think we know if he was any good. I mean, baseball in 1875 was not recognizable as the game it is today, and inducting a guy who died before 1900 seems like a particularly pointless exercise.
Good point, I didn’t think to compare the WARs it must have slipped my mind.
I mean, if we’re going to be advocating for pitchers in the Hall, Mussina is the guy who is preposterously head-and-shoulders above all the rest. 83 career WAR – compare to Jack Morris and his 43 career WAR. Even by traditional stats Mussina easily trounces Morris – more wins, better ERA, better ERA + by 20% (Morris was a league-average pitcher by ERA+). Mussina’s lack of consideration for the Hall is absolutely baffling to me. (Kevin Brown is a similar argument but nobody liked him so that makes more sense. Everybody liked Mussina). Halladay, too, But for Morris to be in and Mussina to not be in is baffling and insane.
I agree with Kevin Brown he was good but never got the recognition. Another one is Curt Schilling. I get his views are sometimes crazy and people don’t like what he says, but he was a great pitcher and he deserved to be in. It’s called the baseball HOF, not baseball and political views HOF. Put him in for his career, which was great.
Schilling is qualified . By far; he isn’t in because nobody liked him, there have always been PED allegations, everybody on earth knows the bloody sock was a fake, and his chicanery with cheating the taxpayers of RRhode Island is truly abhorrent and crooked. . I think his politics are less relevant – most baseball players lean conservative, I’d bet – they are mostly white millionaires. Schilling is a lousy human being, but he should be in the Hall. By bWar, he’s the 26th best pitcher in history, PEDs or no.
But also, Schilling is a racist. So it’s a very tough call
TINSTAPP
Well, they said the same thing – dead arm – about Verlander and look at him with the Astros right now. Same is happening with King Feliz. They all go through this at one point or another…
Verlander was a very specific injury – he had one below-average season in 2014, and a shortened 2015 in which he was still good, but by 2016 he was back to being dominant and durable. For King Felix, it’s been a long, inexorable slide downward.
Boy, this is a slow news day!