The Jon Heyman twitter thread

[FedEx227]

Morris was fine, but so was Ellis Burks. I'm not saying he was awful, but as I've said in previous posts, if you let him in he instantly becomes one of the five worst Hall of Famers ever.

The bigger problem is, we have a subset of writers who, when they were covering Morris didn't feel he was one of the best pitchers in the game, now suddenly lauding him as being one of the best pitchers in the game.

[Guest]

Morris was fine, but so was Ellis Burks. I'm not saying he was awful, but as I've said in previous posts, if you let him in he instantly becomes one of the five worst Hall of Famers ever.

The bigger problem is, we have a subset of writers who, when they were covering Morris didn't feel he was one of the best pitchers in the game, now suddenly lauding him as being one of the best pitchers in the game.

Which is really weird when you think about it.......what has he done to change their minds since then?

[FedEx227]

Bloggers started using statistics.

It's one of my biggest gripes with the Hall of Fame. There shouldn't really be a period of hemming and hawing over a guy. Is he a Hall of Famer or not? The only time it works positively is when more people investigate and really look into Tim Raines, but there's also the inverse that we've seen with a lot of guys gaining support just because people feel bad for them or lie to themselves about their impact because they were nice guys.

[NAHSTE]

@JonHeymanCBS

new system works better. but must question fairness in some cases. laroche, nats mvp, got $24M/2. e-jax, mediocre, $52M/4

@JonHeymanCBS Or, it simply shows that teams value young pitching more than aging first baseman.

[Warner2BruceTD]

There is something to be said about 54% of your starts going 8+ innings, in terms of saving the bullpen, etc. It is pretty impressive. But if it's one of the first things that comes up in your Hall of Fame defense, you have a weak case.

Plus, consider this about the "workhorse" when you put him into the context of his era. Despite all of those long starts...

-Morris only led the league in innings pitched once
-Morris only led the league in CG's once
-Morris only led the league in shutouts once
-Morris only led the league in strikeouts once
-Morris only led the league in wins twice

In fact, Morris only led the league in batter's faced one time. So when matched against his peers, Morris doesn't seem to be the amazing workhorse that people make him out to be. The only area where he stood above his peers, even when it comes to "workhorsey things", is that he didn't miss a start for over a decade, and was literally never injured for 18 years.

So what does that 54% number mean? Not much. Clearly there were guys doing similar things, because Morris barely ever led the league in any of the "workhorse" categories.

[FedEx227]

And again, that's what's so stupid about this Morris championing. He wasn't THAT good relative to his era. So much so that the very people that are saying "HE WAS SO GREAT WHEN WE COVERED THE GAME!" couldn't be bothered to vote him for any major baseball awards during this dominating period.

[NAHSTE]

Someone at work just argued for Jack Morris because he is the only SP to pitch his entire career in the AL during the DH era.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Someone at work just argued for Jack Morris because he is the only SP to pitch his entire career in the AL during the DH era.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/guidrro01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stiebda01.shtml

Two off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a few others.

The first guy was no question better than Morris, but had a short career.

The second guy is actually a pretty decent comp to Morris, although again, shorter career and Morris was probably a little better.

The point is, neither sniffed the HOF, and Morris isnt significantly better than either, if he's better at all.

[Warner2BruceTD]

How about this guy? Just thought of this one, too. Throw him at your co-workers who clearly have no memory.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/keyji01.shtml

Another great Morris comp, and this guy even has the postseason resume that writers love, too.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Highest HOF voting totals for those three players:

Guidry - 8.8%
Stieb - 1.4%
Key - 0.6%

[Warner2BruceTD]

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/boddimi01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/flanami01.shtml

Tell your co-workers to get lost, I can do this all day.

[SuperKevin]

All of those guys played for the Orioles at some point it seems

[Goober]

My favorite Jack Morris for the HOF argument is, he led MLB in runs allowed in the 80's. He must have been really good, if they let him out there long enough to give up that many runs!

Outside of this being really bad logic, it doesn't put Morris in good company at all.

Leader in Runs allowed, 1990-1999: Jaime Navaro.
Leader in Runs allowed, 2000-2009: Jeff Suppan.

[Goober]

Jon Heyman @JonHeymanCBS

Sorry to see a jonathan suspended for failed test (singleton). we still have papelbon, niese and matlack, clean #jonathans

[Senser81]

Outside of this being really bad logic, it doesn't put Morris in good company at all.

Leader in Runs allowed, 1990-1999: Jaime Navaro.
Leader in Runs allowed, 2000-2009: Jeff Suppan.

But neither Navaro nor Suppan can boast Morris' 14 opening day starts. I remember when the Braves in the 1980's would start Rick Mahler on opening days, because he tended to always win those starts. Odd.

The whole decade statistical leader concept annoys me, because anyone whose career happened to span the entire decade has a huge advantage. I think of all the great hitters in the 1990s, Mark Grace ended up having the most hits for that decade.

The one comment that I found most funny was the claim that Jack Morris was the ace on a staff that included Dave Stewart...yet Stewart isn't a HOF pitcher, either. Don't understand how that could possibly be a HOF argument..."was better than a pitcher not in the HOF!"