August 2009
Bert Blyleven, Unsung Pioneer of Dutch Baseball
By Evan Pritchard for Amazine
In this Quadricentennial Year where we celebrate the arrival of the Dutch ship the Half Moon into New York Harbor, with its star player the long-inning specialist Henry Hudson, let us take a look at a baseball player born in Holland, who racked up some of the most amazine stats in baseball history, Bert Blyleven. His peak years were surprisingly similar to Randy Johnson (1999-2004) in terms of the quantity of quality innings he pitched. In fact, in 1985 Blyleven lead the AL in strikeouts, and in 1973, he exceeded 250 strikeouts. He was a 20 game winner that year. However, Bert has not been elected into the Hall of Fame in all these years that have passed since. He is an unsung hero of baseball and a true pioneer. Let’s hear a cheer (in Dutch) for Bert Blyleven, pioneer of Dutch baseball.
Here’s my quick analysis. IPR is innings per run, the inverse of ERA. 9IG is nine inning games (total innings divided by 9)
YEAR IP ER 9 I G IPR CUME
1971 278.3 87 30.888 3.1988505 98.80609
1972 287.3 87 31.9222 3.3022988 105.4166
1973 325 91 36.1111 3.571428 128.96823
1974 281 83 31.2222 3.38554 105.7033
1975 275 92 30.555 2.98913 91.33436
1976 297.6 95 33.06666 3.128421 103.4464
1985 293.6 103 32.62226 2.85098 92.9889
1989 241 73 26.7776 3.3013698 88.402
These are his best years. He broke 100 four times, which is excellent.
Check out this page of my hall of fame for glavstats and you can see the range of scores of great pitchers over time.
http://amazinehalloffame.blogspot.com/2006/09/greatest-seasons-ever-pitched.html
Mets Have Shot at 101 Wins
Good news has been hard to come by of late, and now the news about Delgado’s new injury! But here at Amazine we always try to keep on the positive side. I was unhappy when Tony LaRussa had that runty rookie sinkerballer fire a fastball at David Wright’s famous face, the only recognizable face on the lineup and the only uninjured player not visiting from Triple A. If that fastball had hit David in the nose, there would be no more recognizable faces on the Mets, trust me.
But Tony LaRussa deserved a little credit. He led the A’s to 104 victories in 1988, and 103 victories in 1990. He topped that in 2004 and led the Cards to 105 victories. Due to the Melvillian luck of the 2009 Moby Dick Mets we will not be getting 105 wins this year. Blame it on injuries, wah wah wah, but on the bright side we could still get 101 victories, All we have to do is win every single frigging game until the end of the year. No losses! Come on guys, I know you can do it! Didn’t they teach you anything in Triple A?
This may sound like an unfounded dream, but do the math.
We have 61 losses in a 162 game schedule. That means we can still break the 100 mark and complete a respectable season of 101 and 61 (101+61=162, see?) just by not losing. No more blown saves by KRod. (K for krying in baseball). No more dropped popups by Castillo. No more airballs to a vacant first base because Dan Murphy left his “OUT TO LUNCH” sign at home. Just win win win. It’s that simple.
Let’s start a writein campaign to the Mets, asking them to stop losing so that we can break 100 wins this year.
Okay, maybe that’s harsh. Let’s ask them to match the 97 wins they got in 2006. That would involve 44 more victories in 51 more games (53 wins plus 44 wins is 97 wins, see?) That means they could lose 5 or so games and still be remembered as one of the best Mets teams ever. I say we go for it.
It’s never too late to have false hopes!!!!!
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