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