Jack Morris and the Best Pitchers of the 1980s

Omar Vizquel. He’s next, friends. But for now, until the painful enshrinement next month, I can’t let Jack Morris go. The 2018 Hall of Fame inductee and the man soooooooooooo incorrectly proclaimed the pitcher of the 1980s by people who believe there’s no better measure of a pitcher’s greatness than how many runs his offense scores for him while he’s in the game (in other words, pitcher wins), continues to draw my ire.

As I mentioned last week, I began thinking about these posts when trying to find another way to show Rick Reuschel’s greatness. It was when Morris was elected by his Era Committee that I decided to look at the 1980s as well. Thus, the series was born. And I’ve run int yet another way to show how great Reuschel was.

Through five different measures, I’ll show in this post that Morris is clearly not the top pitcher of the decade. The Hall would be a better place if the actual best pitcher of the 1980s replaced him on the Hall podium at the end of July.

We’re also going to see in this post that my measures, which, frankly, haven’t been much of a change from straight WAR in previous decades, really change things in the 1980s. More on that later.

By my formula, the guys who rank 7-12 are within five percentage points of each other, which makes me pay close attention to the postseason to help rank. Frank Viola is #12 overall. His playoff work was nice, but not at all excellent, so there’s no reason to elevate him. The guy at #11 was so impressive that he jumps a few ranks. And Phil Niekro at #10 drops out off the list as a result. Enjoy the best pitchers of the 1980s. And sorry Morris fans.

The Series

Explanation and 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s

The Best Pitchers of the 1980s

#10 Jack Morris (7, 14): Since I come in with a very strong anti-Morris bias, I want to do everything I can to make things as fair as possible. You may remember that in this series, I include seasons surrounding the ten in question at a reduced rate. I also include a tiny speck of career greatness. But those aren’t ways all people would determine the best pitcher of a decade. Some might just go by straight WAR, so I want to show that here too.

By my adjusted WAR for the decade of 1980-1989, Jack Morris ranks #7, though he’s closer to #37 than he is to #1. That’s right. If we just look at my adjusted WAR from 1980-1989, Jack Morris is closer to the 37^th best pitcher in the decade than he is to the best. I must admit that I think 1980-1989 is the wrong way to look at things. The first year of whatever calendar you use wasn’t year 0; it was year 1. Thus, the first year of the 1980s, if we’re trying to be accurate, was 1981, and the last was 1990. If that’s the case, our numbers change. Without the help of his very strong 1979 season, Morris falls to the 14^th most WAR in the decade. Mike Boddicker and Charlie Hough do better, for example. Also, if you gave Jack Morris an extra two WAR every single season, he still wouldn’t be the best pitcher of the decade.

For Morris and the remaining nine pitches on this list, I’ll include two numbers after their names. The first is the ranking from 1980-1989 and the second from 1981-1990, using only my adjusted WAR.

One more note about Morris before we move on for a bit. I considered elevating him based on his four October starts in the 1980s. They were good, a 3-1 record with a 3.00 ERA. By itself, it should put him ahead of Bob Welch, but Welch’s straight WAR numbers are clearly better, and I really just wanted to begin the list with Morris.

#9 Bob Welch (5, 5): The 1980s were a weak time for starting pitchers. That’s clear whether Bob Welch is the fifth best or the ninth. In the previous decade those rankings went to Fergie Jenkins and Rick Reuschel. In the next, spoiler alert, they’ll go to pitchers like David Cone and John Smoltz. Don’t get me wrong, Welch was a nice pitcher. He was excellent in 1987, and he had ten other seasons of 2.5-4.7 pitching WAR. But again, we’re only looking at a nice pitcher; the other four I just mentioned are all easy HoMErs.

#8 Steve Carlton (11, 29): What we see here is a potential flaw in my system. I include the years one away from the decade at 90% value, two away from the decade at 70% and three away at 50%. I do this because a “decade” is largely a false construct. It doesn’t really mean anything. Carlton was very good in 1978 and approaching great in 1977. Those seasons add a ton of value. The other tricky part in the 1980s is that the top pitchers weren’t as great as those in previous decades. For example, there are 25 pitchers in this decade within 50% of the leader’s value. In the 1970s, there were twelve. It was only five in the 1960s, four in the 1950s, and eight in the 1940s.

#7 Orel Hershiser (4, 4): He gets a bump from #11 all the way up to #7 because of his incredible playoff run in 1988. He was baseball’s second best pitcher by WAR from 1984-1989, behind only Roger Clemens. And you might be wondering where Clemens falls on this list. That’s fair. By formula, he’d actually rank #2. However, he didn’t pitch 1400 innings in the decade, which 52 other hurlers did. My argument is that if you’re not among the top-50 in innings pitched, you’re not really a pitcher of that decade. There are other pitchers who were so great in limited innings that my lists might not be perfect in your eyes. That’s okay. The 1980s will skew a lot of things because of a lack of inner circle greatness at the top.

#6 Ron Guidry (14, 19): The best four pitchers in baseball from 1977-1979 are on this list (well, they would be if Phil Neikro weren’t shoved off by Orel Hershiser’s fall of 1988). Guidry is the second best. Your mileage may vary.

#5 Rick Reuschel (15, 22): There’s some strangeness going on here. Reuschel is on the aforementioned list with Guidry, third from 1977-1979. He had five of his best seven seasons in the 1970s, yet he’s only the ninth best pitcher in that decade. In the next decade, when he’s clearly a lesser pitcher, he’s fifth? That’s right. By my measures, the two decades include six overlapping seasons, 1977-1982, so 1970s Reuschel gets a little from the 1980s, and 1980s Reuschel gets some of his greatness from the 1970s. Also, the competition is lesser in this decade, so less value can still take you a long way. Considering the six who are only on one list or the other, we’re looking at Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer and Luis Tiant against Ron Guidry, Orel Hershiser, Bob Welch, Jack Morris, and the #1 and #3 guys on this list. It’s not remotely close.

#4 Nolan Ryan (10, 11): Known quite accurately as the greatest strikeout pitcher ever, topping second place Randy Johnson by 17%, he was even more prolific at allowing free passes, topping second place Steve Carlton by an astounding 48%.

#3 Dennis Eckersley (16, 12): So was Eck a starter or a reliever? Up through 1986, he was a starter, albeit a pretty stinky one in 1981, 1983, and 1984. From 1987 on he became a reliever. He’s helped quite a bit by 1977-1979 as well as 1990-1992, but the three starting seasons outside the decade were worth seven more wins than the three relieving seasons. He ranks where he does more because of his greatness as a starter than as a reliever.

#2 Bert Blyleven (2, 2): He’s still criminally underrated. Virtually any way you cut it, he’s the second best pitcher of the 1980s.

#1 Dave Stieb (1, 1): A reason I’ve taken up for Rick Reuschel is that there are already plenty of smart people who speak very highly of Dave Steib. It’s not just that he’s the best pitcher of the decade. It’s that it’s not close. The table below shows five different rankings. The first is my system. Then you’ll see the rankings if we only looked at pitchers with 1400 innings in the decade from 1980-1989 and the rankings of those pitchers from 1981-1990. The final two columns are all pitchers from 1980-1989 and all pitchers from 1981-1990, regardless of their inning totals. You’ll note that Dave Stieb tops every single one.

    My Rank       Qualified      Qualified      All            All
                  WAR 80-89      WAR 81-90      WAR 80-89      WAR 81-90
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1  D.Stieb        D.Stieb        D.Stieb        D.Stieb        D.Stieb
2  B.Blyleven     B.Blyleven     B.Blyleven     B.Blyleven     R.Clemens
3  D.Eckersley    F.Valenzuela   F.Valenzuela   R.Clemens      B.Blyleven
4  N.Ryan         O.Hershiser    O.Hershiser    B.Welch        B.Saberhagen
5  R.Reuschel     B.Welch        B.Welch        F.Valenzuela   B.Welch
6  R.Guidry       J.Tudor        F.Viola        O.Hershiser    F.Viola
7  O.Hershiser    J.Morris       J.Tudor        B.Saberhagen   D.Gooden
8  S.Carlton      C.Hough        R.Sutcliffe    J.Tudor        O.Hershiser
9  B.Welch        R.Sutcliffe    B.Hurst        D.Gooden       B.Hurst
10 J.Morris       N.Ryan         C.Hough        N.Ryan         N.Ryan
11 P.Niekro       S.Carlton      N.Ryan         C.Hough        J.Tudor
12 F.Viola        R.Rhoden       D.Eckersley    J.Morris       F.Valenzuela
13 F.Valenzuela   F.Viola        M.Boddicker    T.Higuera      C.Hough
14 J.Tudor        R.Guidry       J.Morris       F.Viola        T.Higuera
15 R.Sutcliffe    R.Reuschel     R.Rhoden       R.Sutcliffe    R.Sutcliffe
16 B.Hurst        D.Eckersley    C.Leibrandt    R.Guidry       M.Boddicker
17 C.Hough        B.Hurst        D.Alexander    S.Carlton      J.Morris
18 F.Tanana       D.Alexander    D.Stewart      M.Soto         M.Gubicza
19 D.Sutton       M.Soto         R.Guidry       R.Reuschel     D.Eckersley
20 D.Martinez     F.Bannister    D.Darwin       D.Alexander    D.Alexander

Let’s combine lists. For anyone who makes each of the five, I’m going to share their total points. The best you can possibly do is five (one point for first place in each of five categories).

1  Dave Stieb (5)
2  Bert Blyleven (11)
3  Bob Welch (28)
4  Orel Hershiser (29)
5  Fernando Valenzuela (36)
6  Nolan Ryan (45)
7  John Tudor (46)
8  Frank Viola (51)
9  Charlie Hough (59)
10 Jack Morris (60)
11 Rick Sutcliffe (62)

There are only eleven guys who make all three lists. As you can see, there’s just no way we can call Morris the best pitcher of the decade, and there’s no way we can avoid giving that title to Stieb.

I’ve said a few times in this post that the 1980s were a weak time for pitchers. Next week, it’s the 1990s and a return to some glory days.

Miller