Comments on: Maddux, Clemens, Pedro… Brown?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:19:32 +0000

I just saw this article. This site has Brown’s career WAR well in the Hall of Fame range and b-ref’s WAR has Brown in the HoF range as well. I think he deserves it. He at least deserves to make it to a second year on the ballot.

By: Adan

Adan — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:13:45 +0000

I agree with those who have said that Brown isn’t a HOFer. I think his career warrants consideration but I do believe he comes up short when evaluated in detail. What interests me most about guys like Brown is when we consider their career value as a pitcher against a pitcher like Bruce Sutter. I think its difficult to argue that someone like Sutter was more valuable as a pitcher, in which he only totaled 1042.3 IP over 12 years, than a guy like Brown who totaled over 3200 IP. Not only did he pitch more innings he had 12 seasons of good to great performances out of 19 years while Sutter only had 8 good to great years out of 12 total. I just find it ridiculous that a guy like Brown is likely and rightly to be on the outside looking in of Cooperstown while Sutter is safely inside. I thought Sutter’s election was a terrible mistake and guys like Brown just convince me more. Simply put if you had to select between Sutter and Brown when building a team who would you really take? I think its obviously Brown. Guys like Brown just convince me that relievers should have insanely good numbers to warrant election to the HOF if starters like Brown who’s career value dwarfs theirs are likely excluded.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:53:47 +0000

The fact that a pitcher wouldn’t get into the Hall because he doesn’t have enough wins is disgusting. I do think though that the people who said KB didn’t pitch well long enough have a point. Most of the other guys on that list are still in the game today. Brown might as well have retired in 2000. Pedro is the durability exception on that list, but he had one of the most dominant 5-year stretches in the history of the game and that can’t be ignored. Brown wasn’t dominant enough to get into the hall for 12 good seasons.

By: SamoanRob

SamoanRob — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:42:06 +0000

Brown’s best years coincided w/my personal black period for baseball, the years following the 1994 fiasco, when I didn’t follow baseball much.

He never had a great year on an east coast team. Does anyone really pay attention to good years from Rangers and Marlins pitchers? Not a countrywide fan base or major ESPN coverage there.

He bounced around too much to build up a fan base. If you bought a Kevin Brown jersey, you wouldn’t be able to wear it for very long.

He definitely needed a cool nick-name. Kevin Brown sounds so generic.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:35:03 +0000

This is what I found, and posted on Pos’s site in response to one of his Mussina posts.

*****************

I like Mussina, but I want to throw out a counter argument: It’s all about peak v. average.

In Mussina’s best ERA+ was 163, and that was in the strike shorted 1994 season. Baseball-Reference lists the top 500 ERA+ season, cutting off at 149. Mussina has two (2) of them, none in the top 50.

# Pitcher
9 Clemmens (3 in top 50)
9 Maddux (2 in top 50)
8 Unit (3 in top 50)
6 Pedro (5 in the top 50)
4 Schilling (0 in top 50)

The big four here (Clemmens, Maddux, Unit and Pedro) had lot of great seasons, and multiple unbelievably great seasons. Schilling had twice as many great season as Mussina (by this measure) and no unbelievably great seasons.

And that is why there was never the fear. He — like Schilling, or Pettitte (2 in the top 500, 0 in top 50), Peavy (2 and 0), Cone (2 and 0), Tom Glavine (2 and 0) and others — never was one of the all time great best pitchers ever. Not even for a single season. He was a mortal, though a really really good one.

(By the way, Walter Johnson had 9 in the top 500, with 4 in the top 50.)

**************

What about Kevin Brown? 5 of the top 500, and one in the top 50. That’s better than Moose. That’s better than Schilling. That’s better than everyone else in his era, other than that top 4, as best I can tell. But why didn’t it even occur to me to include him in my original list?

His peak was not monstrously high, unlike Pedro, Maddux and Clemmens. His absolute peak was short — 1996. And his next level was not long enough. Sure, he pitched for 20 years, but he won more than 10 games barely half of them. Lots of not just average years, but kinda lousy years.

Except that I don’t quite believe that. His ERA+ is WAY better than his wins. His K/BB is way better than his wins. His WHIP is way better than his wins.

His problem is his win-loss record. If he was that good, how could he only have 3 seasons of 18+ wins? What if we lower the bar further? 15 wins. How many 15+ win seasons has a pitcher had since 1980. (I might have missed a pitcher or two, but this makes the point)

18 Maddux
12 Clemens
11 Johnson (Unit)
11 Morris
11 Mussina
10 Glavine
8 Schilling
9 Wells
7 Finley
7 Pedro

6 BROWN
6 Colon
6 Gooden
5 Halladay
6 Hersheiser
6 Hough
6 Nagy
6 Santana
6 Smoltz
6 Stieb
6 Viola
6 Welch

5 Appier
5 Cone
5 Blyleven
5 Buehrle
5 Moyer
5 Mulder
5 Rogers

As measured in wins, the most basic pitching stat — and likely the worst — Kevin Brown was a good pitcher, but not one of the top ten of his era. He’s in with another group of staff aces, but not the kind of guys who were really a threat to dominate every year. The best guys near him had only partial careers in this (1980-2008) time frame, derailed careers or some other exception (e.g. Pedro’s unbelievable peak, Smoltz’s years as a closer).

Perhaps this could be put another way. Kevin Brown was the complement to to Jack Morris. Both had dominant decades (1990′s and 1980′s, respecitively), but one’s value is overstated by wins and the other understated by wins.

I’ll shut up now.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:59:49 +0000

The real problem is counting stats. It’s not the bad taste left in the mouth. It’s not that Kevin Brown wasn’t a nice guy. He just didn’t pitch at a high level for long enough.

211-144 3.28 ERA 127 ERA+

Compare to the only pitcher I can think of who pitched a shorter amount of time and still made it into the hall: Koufax

165-87 2.76 ERA 131 ERA+

Better winning percentage, better raw stats, better comp stats, and better story (as Rob Neyer noted about Pedroia’s MVP, it’s all about the story). There’s no doubt the Kevin Brown was good. There’s also no doubt in my mind that had his best years been with the Yankees rather than his worst years, he’d be getting more talk. But that’s not the case, and he’s not a hall of famer.

By: Bob Warja

Bob Warja — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:50:27 +0000

You know you bring up a valid point – he was a much better pitcher than I gave him credit for. Another 2-3 solid years and he’s a HOF’er. The poster that talked about perception inadvertintly brought up a good point – Brown, in fact, had 2 real good stints in the playoffs but he is remembered for 2004 when he got hit hard.

By: Eric Seidman

Eric Seidman — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:43:47 +0000

Rich, actually, if you read the whole article, I mentioned that the major reason for Brown’s exclusion from our minds with regards to lists like these is that the others continued to be very successful after 2000, while Brown was injury-plagued and not very effective.

So, no, there’s no problem restricting the seasons given that the whole point of the article is that from 1989-2000 he was right on par with others, but from 2001+, not even close.

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:38:38 +0000

The problem with restricting the seasons to ’89 – ’00 is that you’re including only Brown’s best seasons and ignoring the fact that all the other pitchers pitched well after ’00. All except Clemens pitched in ’08 and of course Clemens won 2 cy youngs prior to ’89. Similar to some “Jim Rice” arguments I’ve seen…

By: Jason T

Jason T — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:57:21 +0000

That’s a pretty impressive list of pitchers one way or the other.