Tonight, Andy Pettitte makes the 39th start of his postseason career. In the first 38, he threw 237 1/3 innings with 3.83 ERA and a 154/63 K/BB ratio. Twenty-four starts, including his last six and nine of his last 10 dating back to the 2003 World Series, have been quality starts. That’s one big reason why his teams are 23-15 when he takes the mound in the playoffs.
Any discussion about Andy Pettitte’s Hall of Fame chances has to start-not eventually get to, not politely acknowledge, not use as a supporting piece of evidence-with those 38 starts. Pettitte’s career matches exactly the three-playoff-tier era that has elevated the playoffs to a spot just above the regular season. During Pettitte’s career, we’ve diminished regular-season performance, pennant races, the six-month trial, and we’ve elevated October above all else.
In that crucible, in games deemed so important that we needed to create another round of them, and build entire narratives around the heroes and goars created by them, Pettitte has been great. That 3.82 ERA isn’t anything special by regular-season standards; in a related story, he has no postseason starts against the Royals or Pirates. Pettitte has a season’s worth of innings in the highest-profile games at a time in the game’s history when we care more about the postseason than at any other. Nearly 2/3 of his postseason starts have put his team in position to games, games that can directly lead to a championship.
I’m not a fan of the increased importance we place on the postseason, but I don’t get to make the rules. We play more postseason games and care more about them than at any point prior, and we have to evaluate Hall of Fame candidates in that light. Pettitte is part of a large group of pitchers whose regular-season work will get him considered as a Hall of Famer. He’s the type of pitcher who used to be better handled, before the voting pool decided that 300 wins was just about a bright-line test for induction. When you add a season’s worth of high-leverage innings thrown at an above-average level of quality, though, it becomes nearly impossible to keep him out.
I can’t come up with a way to factor this into JAWS, and maybe I shouldn’t. What I do know is that Andy Pettitte, like John Smoltz, has the postseason track record that isn’t just an adjunct to a reasonable Hall case; it’s one that demands he be a Hall of Famer.
I don’t know if tonight will add to that case. It is, and I may be the first person to use this phrase at a World Series in a while, unseasonably warm, and there’s just a light breeze out to center. It feels like a great night to have a bat in your hands-no, the other kind-and while I’ve pounded the idea that Cole Hamels is going to have a great World Series into the ground, I’d feel better about that meme if the mercury was slightly lower. We’re supposed to get intermitten showers, and at about 7 p.m. as I post this, we’re getting one.
To some extent, tonight’s game just sets the narrative up. We don’t know yet whether we’re going to have a classic World Series, a long one, and tonight won’t give us that information. We’ll be 2-1 in the morning, and then Game Four happens, and we can worry then about one team trying to take a commanding lead and the other looking to make it a best of three. For tonight, we just have one lefthander on his way to Cooperstown off a great postseason resume, and the version of himself about ten years younger.
The Jerry Hairston Experience doesn’t get to start against a lefty, as Nick Swisher is back in the lineup. Down Hideki Matsui, it seems Joe Girardi wanted to get some power back into the lineup. Matsui was never a real option, as he’s rarely played right field and barely played any outfield this season. One reason he had a strong year this season was his being limited to DH, which helped his knees tremendously. It will be interesting to see if Girardi is able to get Matsui into the game in a high-leverage spot; his ability to hit lefties will help if that spot is against Hamels.
In case I didn’t mention this last year…Citizens Bank Park is gorgeous, one of my favorite of the new breed of parks. Everything is, to one extent or another, a Camden Yards knockoff, but they pull it off here very well, and even by new-park standards it has a lot of open space on the inside.
In another online forum at which I regularly comment I get hammered for this point of view, but I still all but ignore postseason performance, in my own personal assessment of who should be a HOFer. Though there's another round of playoffs, considering the postseason still, at heart, remains unfair because of the lack of equal opportunity among players. Roy Halladay has had a great career but has yet to pitch a postseason inning. You're going to reward Pettitte over him on the basis of postseason play?
No thanks.
I think if a player needs the postseason to get into the Hall of Fame, he's not a Hall of Famer, pretty much by definition. Smoltz, Schilling, Mussina, Brown (yes, Brown)... these pitchers don't need to hang their HOF argument on the postseason. Pettitte's career hasn't (yet) been up to the level of theirs, and I can't get behind his candidacy because the lords who run the game decided -- not that the postseason was "more important," Joe -- but that adding another round would be a huge money grab.
"I think if a player needs the postseason to get into the Hall of Fame, he's not a Hall of Famer, pretty much by definition."
There is no clear definition of a Hall of Famer. It's not the Hall of Greatness or hall of significantly better than his peers as many an official ballot will testify.
It stands as a largely imperfect public relations endeavor and for the casual fan, the postseason does matter more.
If Cooperstown adopted JAWS as their metric for induction, then I could see a problem with awarding extra credit for October heroics.
But the Hall of Fame as we know it is largely about preserving the legend and lore of the game. And pointing out that Halladay is a better pitcher remains a debate to be had over beers.
You'd have to be pretty drunk on those beers to think Pettite is better than Halladay. Halladay's spent a good chunk of his career compiling those numbers against the Yankees. Put Pettite on the Blue Jays (spending a good chunk of his career throwing against the Yankees) and Pettite isn't even in the HOF discussion. Pettite is more comparable to a David Wells type. Good, but not elite.
My point is not that I wouldn't want Roy Halladay on the hill for my team everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I would.
But the Hall a reflection of the game's popular legend. It's the popular narrative that awards CY Youngs to Bartolo Colon and keeps Bert Blyleven out. It's the populist view of the game and not terribly consistent with the facts of the matter.
Which is all the more reason to stick to the facts and talk to them so that, over time, the "populist view" is more in-line with the facts on the candidate.
What I do know is that Andy Pettitte...has the postseason track record that isn’t just an adjunct to a reasonable Hall case; it’s one that demands he be a Hall of Famer.
Ugh. No. No it doesn't. Yeah, he's pitched a lot of post-season games, and he's pitched fine. But there are a lot of guys with multiple post-season starts over that span who've pitched better. His ERA over those starts is essentially average for all post-season starts over that period. If you want to put him in the Hall of Fame based on his post-season numbers, you're rewarding him solely for being an average starting pitcher and for having good enough teammates to get him lots of starts.
I'm not philosophically opposed to your larger point, that what happens in the post-season warrants disproportionate weight in the decision-making process. But I don't see what Pettitte's done to really bump up his case other than get lots and lots and lots of starts, in which he was essentially an average performance. That doesn't "demand" HoF induction in my book...
I think Pettite's performance in the postseason neither helps nor hurts his HoF candidacy.
Also note, before tonight, he has a losing record in the World Series (3 wins, 4 losses). So, I don't see anything demanding here in the "games that count".
Also, in order to be logically consistent Joe should also be PENALIZING players who (A) end up with BAD stats in the postseason and/or (B) end up being "goats" in one form or another (e.g. Bill Buckner).
Pettitte should be kept out simply for the damage he has done to the future of baseball fandom.
It's not FOX, it's not commercials, making these games go four hours...it's Pettitte, all by himself.
At least, that's my reaction to tonight. When people are arguing his case, I'm going to remember his 35,498 throws to first, after which Rollins stole second without Posada even making a throw.
Exactly what I meant. Philly losing the first home game totally changed the Series. They essentially HAD to win the next two and the first of those came with a decidedly unfavorable pitching matchup.
With Lidge's implosion in the 9th tonight, this thing has passed from "in jeopardy" to "affirmatively over." Somebody will hurry up and give me a negative rating for being honest, but by the same token I'll bet none of those negative voters have the stones to bet against NYY closing it out.
Can we please bury the "anything can happen in a short series" cliche once and for all? No, the Twins never had a chance of beating the Yankees in the first round and, no, the Yankees are not going to blow a 3 games to 1 lead.
You kind of contradict yourself there. If you don't believe that "anything can happen in a short series", and you thought the Yankees were favored to win, then the Phillies losing their first home game wouldn't have totally changed the series. From your viewpoint, the outcome would've been inevitable. Therefore, the Phillies losing tonight changed nothing from your perspective, and it was already "affirmatively over" before the series began.
Also, just because the Yankees happen to be ahead at this point does not negate the possibility, even if it is an unlikely one, that the Phillies go on a three-game winning streak.
I'm not contradicting myself at all; you're mistakenly assuming I thought the outcome of THIS series was inevitable before it started. I did not.
With respect for the Phillies' accomplishments, I expected this World Series to be a bit of a tossup. Splitting the first 2 games in NY did not change that at all.
What totally transformed the complexion was losing the first game in Philly. Returning home at 1-1, all you're trying to do in a macro sense is take 2 of 3 in your park. However, using up that 1 loss in the first of the 3 home games--with, as we said, an unfavorable pitching matchup looming in the second home game--is what put PHI behind the eightball. Now down 3-1, we can all start looking forward to the Hot Stove League because this is just a formality.
By contrast, the Twins/Yankees series is one where I expected at the start the Twins had zero chances in a hundred. The outcome of that series is one I would've characterized as "inevitable." This World Series? I said it was "in jeopardy" with NYY leading 2-1 and only now with NYY holding a 3-1 lead am I saying the outcome is inevitable.
Go ahead and hold on to that hope of a miracle, but I'm just being realistic about the chances of this Yankee team blowing a huge lead against an opponent with a terminally-ill bullpen. In other words, it ain't happening.
I'm not holding onto hope for a miracle, even though miracles (or relatively minor runs of good luck like a three game winning streak can happen). I favored the Yankees would win the series in six games. They match up with the Phillies quite well and do everything except defense just as well, if not better.
Halladay is a silly comparison. If he pitches as long as Pettitte - or even close - of course he'll get in.
Joe says Pettitte's ERA is good by post-season standards, Lyford says it's average. The first one to actually give us the average ERA number wins the argument.
From 1995-2008, the average ERA of all post-season innings from pitchers who made post-season starts* was 3.92. Andy Pettitte's ERA was 3.96.
Both of those numbers have changed in the last three weeks, of course, but not enough to change the point.
There have been 51 pitchers with 5+ starts in the post-season. Their cumulative ERA is 3.70. Pettitte's 3.96 is the 32nd best out of those 51 pitchers.
There have been 23 pitchers with 10+ starts in the post-season. (Again, these numbers are all for the 1995-2008 time frame.) Their cumulative ERA is 3.51. Pettitte's 3.96 is 17th best of those 23 pitchers.
What Pettitte's post-season performance has is lots and lots and lots of innings. Which is because he happens to have been on teams with really good teammates.
* - There are certainly some relief innings in that set, but I suspect that it's a reasonably representative data set anyway.
In addition to ERA considerations, I'll add that the cumulative playoff record of the Yankees and Astros during the years Pettitte was on their team is 78-51 (.605). The winning percentage with Pettitte on the bump? 23-15 (.605).
I'm willing to consider the concept that playoff performance matters somewhat to the HOF case, but if Pettitte is in, then Jimmy Key, El Duque, and David Wells are in too. Much as I'd love to hear Boomer's HOF speech, I don't think they merit election.
Minor: According to Baseball Reference, Pettitte's cumulative postseason ERA is 3.88, not 3.96. And, that 3.88 includes Andy's 6.00 ERA performance lst night against the Phillies.
More Important: Comparing Pettitte to all postseason starters is a bit unfair, since the majority of his career (and thus the majority of his postseason starts) have been spent in the American League.
Of Pettitte's 39 postseason starts, 24 were in the ALCS or ALDS against the DH. And, for most of Andy's career, against the stronger league.
With that in mind, if Pettitte's postseason ERA is indeed smack-dab at average, or a tiny notch above or below it, then he's been a better than average postseason starter.
Note -- I suppose ideally the postseason starts could be further broken down. In particular, in the World Series. Did the pitcher face a DH or no in his starts?
It turns out that out of Pettitte's 12 World Series starts, 6 were against the DH and 6 were not.
So, 30 of Andy Pettitte's 39 starts (77%) came against a lineup with a DH. Definitely a higher percentage than the average postseason starter has faced.
By the by, I don't think Pettitte is a Hall of Famer.
I do think ignoring 243 innings the guy has pitched is ridiculous, since that could have eaten into his career, for all we know.
Some have made the argument that it's not fair, for example, to Roy Halladay that we consider Pettitte's postseason. I don't buy that. It's more unfair to Pettitte if we completely disregard 243 high-pressure innings he threw. He didn't throw them for the hell of it, he pretty much had to.
I don't see the big deal in judging each on their own merits. Halladay (whenever the time comes) on everything he did during his career, and Pettitte likewise.
You do make a valid point- in looking at the potential Hall of Fame cases for Pettitte and Halladay, it is not an either/or scenario. Both can go in, and neither must go in. Time will tell. Maybe Will, Christina and Rob Neyer (and others) will be able to sway the numbers a little by the time we have to consider those two....
If we break down by league, AL starters in the post-season (1995-2008) have a 4.04 ERA, NL starters have a 3.79 ERA. So that does make a difference. And clearly, average performance in the post-season (and Pettitte's, barring punitive park-adjustments, is slightly better than average) is better than average performance in the regular season.
All that said, I still don't see Pettitte's 3.96 in the post-season as a compelling HoF argument.
Re: "All that said, I still don't see Pettitte's 3.96 in the post-season as a compelling HoF argument."
I mostly agree.
ERA is not perfect, but I don't see park/opponent/team defense adjustments making much of a dent here anyhow. (Aside: Fangraphs has Pettitte at a 4.12 FIP in his postseason career.)
His rate stats in postseason are very similar to his career numbers.
So, he's basically been Andy Pettitte in the postseason -- no more, no less. And that's pretty good, mind you, especially over 230+ innings. And it's probably worth a nudge over the edge for anyone who considers Pettitte to be teetering on the line of deserving HoF induction in the first place.
If that performance is that *starting point* for a discussion of a given pitcher's HoF chances, however, then his regular season body of work is likely not enough to warrant consideration in the first place.
"With that in mind, if Pettitte's postseason ERA is indeed smack-dab at average, or a tiny notch above or below it, then he's been a better than average postseason starter. "
Though Pettite has had to face the DH, he hasn't had to face the Yankees while his AL playoff counterparts have.
If Pettite's postseason ERA is indeed smack-dab at average, then he is an _average_ postseason starter. That's kind of the definition of what "average" means.
Re: "If Pettite's postseason ERA is indeed smack-dab at average, then he is an _average_ postseason starter. That's kind of the definition of what 'average' means [sic]."
Making the jump from average postseason ERA to average postseason starter continues to ignore something pretty beefy:
In comparing Pettitte to all postseason starters, we're completely ignoring that the NL and AL are different animals.
77% of Pettitte's postseason starts have come against a DH-lineup. For Maddux, it's 10%. We can't simply leave their stats unadjusted and directly compare the two, as the original argument was doing.
If you think Pettitte not facing the Yankees completely overtakes and negates that effect, then fine. The Yanks have met up with equal or superior offenses in the AL playoffs more often than you might realize:
Total More Runs than Yanks: 8
Total Less Runs than Yanks: 9
Obviously a very basic quick-and-dirty look...runs are not a perfect measure of an offense, after all. But well enough that the sloppily thrown out there "he didn't have to face the Yankees" argument looks pretty bad, and almost certainly doesn't negate the DH Pettitte had to deal with in the vast majority of his playoff starts.
After looking at that chart, the "haven't faced the Yankees" argument I made seems like it does not factor much into the argument. I'm not quite sure if it's as "equal" as the quick-and-dirty look suggests though.
I understand that 77% of Pettite's starts have come against a DH-lineup. Though that DH slot is better than a pitcher hitting in that slot, I'm a bit unsure if the quality of those DHs is strong enough to be an extremely signficant factor. Sure you have David Ortiz in there once and Travis Hafner in there, but you also have the likes of a late-career Eddie Murray and Lee Stevens in there in the earlier years.
The overall question, though, is whether his postseason performance should contribute to his HOF changes. To echo what R.A. Wagman said, he has the quantity. In addition, Pettite's postseason performance is on par with his career, not a ton better or worse. At the very least, his postseason performance is not "obviously better" to where he's considered a postseason stud. So, overall, though I give him credit for the extra innings, I don't give him much credit for any particular postseason "clutchiness".
The overall question, though, is whether his postseason performance should contribute to his HOF changes.
Just to clarify, while I think that I basically agree with your position, the question isn't whether his postseason performance should contribute to his HoF chances - it's how much should it contribute to his HoF chances. Those are all ML innings that he's thrown, and they are in games that are more important than September vs. Kansas City when everything's already settled. I think the question is really, "do we just throw those appearances on the regular season performance pile and consider it all the same, or does he get 'extra credit' for all of those innings that his teammates are largely responsible for?"
When I think of "whether", I'm thinking in terms of the sportsmanship/character element in the HOF criteria. Does he get some extra consideration for some postseason clutchiness which shows what a competitor he is?
At this point, I just say "no". He wasn't extra clutch in the postseason. He threw innings at his previous rate of success, so he gets no extra character points from me based on his postseason performance. I guess I could give some Don Sutton durability points, but that'd be about it.
I don't understand. If we're going to use records and numbers based on opportunities produced by teammates, why can't we go back to using RBI as a standard metric?
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Oh God, no. Please, don't start the Andy in the Hall conversation again. I beg you.