The Glint of Light

One of the major claims made by Jack Morris for the Hall of Fame supporters is that he was the best pitcher of the eighties since he won so  many games. I wanted to see just how many games he “deserved” to win and just how many he won by virtue of being on very good offensive teams.

MORRIS = Jack Morris
STIEB = Dave Stieb
SABERHAGEN = Bret Saberhagen
MARTINEZ = Dennis Martinez
FLANAGAN = Mike Flanagan

From this, I think I get that Stieb and Saberhagen were far superior to Morris.
Martinez is Morris’ most similar player (B-Ref similarity scores). I get that he was a better pitcher.
Flanagan, a player no one has ever heard of, provides a very comparable case to Jack Morris in terms of his pitching profile.

In much of this period, there were better pitchers (Roger Clemens in the later half, Bert Blyleven throughout, etc).
This little table is only to illustrate:
a) Jack Morris’ win total is extremely inflated
b) Jack Morris was not the best pitcher of the 1980s

I apologize for the horrendous state of the table. I have no idea how to make actually good tables in WordPress.  It looked better in NotePad. I now realize I probably should have done it in Word with a regular table. My bad.

RS/GS is run support in games started. This is the number of runs scored by the pitcher’s team.
RS/GS is NOT under the control of the pitcher. It is an effect of the strength of the team’s offense.
It includes runs scored AFTER the pitcher left.
ERA is earned run average.
W-L is win-loss record.
Neutralized W-L record is according to Baseball Reference. Their methodology can be found on their website.

All statistics from baseball-reference.com.

MORRIS   STIEB   SABERHAGEN   MARTINEZ   FLANAGAN   Av(MLB)
1979 (RS/GS)   5.3      4.6     n/a          4.0        4.9        4.5
1979 (ERA)     3.28     4.31    n/a          3.66       3.08       4.00
1979 W-L       17-7     8-8     n/a          15-16      23-9
1979 W-L(neut) 12-9     6-7     n/a          15-16      16-12

1980 (RS/GS)   4.5      3.8     n/a          4.4        4.5        4.3
1980 (ERA)     4.18     3.71    n/a          3.97       4.12       3.84
1980 W-L       16-15    12-15   n/a          6-4        16-13
1980 W-L(neut) 12-14    13-12   n/a          4-6        11-15

1981 (RS/GS)   5.4      2.8     n/a          4.4        4.3        4.0
1981 (ERA)     3.05     3.19    n/a          3.32       4.19       3.58
1981 W-L       14-7     11-10   n/a          14-5       9-6
1981 W-L(neut) 16-14    16-13   n/a          13-14      6-12

1982 (RS/GS)   4.2      3.9     n/a          4.8        4.8        4.3
1982 (ERA)     4.06     3.25    n/a          4.21       3.97       3.86
1982 W-L       17-16    17-14   n/a          16-12      15-11
1982 W-L(neut) 12-15    19-12   n/a          11-15      11-13

1983 (RS/GS)   4.8      4.4     n/a          4.3        5.3        4.3
1983 (ERA)     3.34     3.04    n/a          5.53       3.30       3.87
1983 W-L       20-13    17-12   n/a          7-16       12-4
1983 W-L(neut) 16-15    19-11   n/a          4-11       7-6

1984 (RS/GS)   5.1      4.2     3.5          3.9        4.4        4.3
1984 (ERA)     3.60     2.83    3.48         5.02       3.53       3.81
1984 W-L       19-11    16-8    10-11        6-9        13-13
1984 W-L(neut) 12-13    18-10   8-8          4-10       11-12

1985 (RS/GS)   4.6      4.5     4.5          6.3        4.0        4.4
1985 (ERA)     3.33     2.48    2.87         5.14       5.13       3.89
1985 W-L       16-11    14-13   20-6         3-11       4-5
1985 W-L(neut) 15-12    20-8    15-10        6-12       3-6

1986 (RS/GS)   5.5      4.8     3.3          3.0        4.1        4.4
1986 (ERA)     3.27     4.74    3.36         4.73       4.24       3.97
1986 W-L       21-8     7-12    7-12         3-6        7-11
1986 W-L(neut) 16-12    8-13    7-9          4-7        8-10

1987 (RS/GS)   5.3      6.1     5.4          5.0        4.7        4.8
1987 (ERA)     3.38     4.09    3.36         3.30       4.06       4.29
1987 W-L       18-11    13-9    18-10        11-4       6-8
1987 W-L(neut) 16-12    9-10    16-11        9-6        7-8

1988 (RS/GS)   4.4      4.8     3.9          4.4        5.0        4.2
1988 (ERA)     3.94     3.04    3.80         2.72       4.18       3.73
1988 W-L       15-13    16-8    14-16        15-13      13-13
1988 W-L(neut) 10-14    12-9    13-14        15-10      9-13

1989 (RS/GS)   3.5      5.3     4.8          4.5        4.3        4.2
1989 (ERA)     4.86     3.35    2.16         3.18       3.93       3.17
1989 W-L       6-14     17-8    23-6         16-7       8-10
1989 W-L(neut) 6-11     10-11   19-8         13-11      7-10

1990 (RS/GS)   4.9      4.7     4.6          4.3        6.9        4.3
1990 (ERA)     4.51     2.93    3.27         2.95       5.31       3.86
1990 W-L       15-18    18-6    5-9          10-11      2-2
1990 W-L(neut) 10-16    13-9    7-6          14-10      1-1

1991 (RS/GS)   5.0      3.7     4.6          3.5        3.0        4.3
1991 (ERA)     3.43     3.17    3.07         2.39       2.38       3.91
1991 W-L       18-12    4-3     13-8         14-11      2-7
1991 W-L(neut) 14-12    4-2     12-8         16-7       7-3

1992 (RS/GS)   5.6      3.4     3.0          3.9        n/a        4.1
1992 (ERA)     4.04     5.04    3.50         2.47       n/a        3.75
1992 W-L       21-6     4-6     3-5          16-11      n/a
1992 W-L(neut) 11-14    3-6     5-5          15-8       n/a

1993 (RS/GS)   4.3      4.6     4.5          4.5           n/a        4.6
1993 (ERA)     6.19     6.04    3.29         3.85          n/a        4.19
1993 W-L       7-12     1-3     7-7          15-9       n/a
1993 W-L(neut) 4-12     1-1     9-6          13-11      n/a

1994 (RS/GS)   6.5      n/a     5.1          5.3        n/a        5.0
1994 (ERA)     5.60     n/a     2.74         3.52       n/a        4.51
1994 W-L       10-6     n/a     14-4         11-6       n/a
1994 W-L(neut) 7-14     n/a     18-8         16-11      n/a

RS/GS(career)  4.9      4.5     4.6          4.6        4.6
ERA(career)    3.90     3.44    3.34         3.70       3.90

W(career)      254      176     167          245        167
L(career)      186      137     117          193        143

W(BRefNeut)    195      173     160          216        127
L(BRefNeut)    218      137     117          215        161

One can see that the neutralized records given by baseballreference are therefore accurate, since Morris was given extraordinary run support.