Baseball Courtroom Week 4: The Positions

Here are the positions for this weeks debate:

Jeterian 2's Position:

Andy Pettitte had one great career. He was a true Yankee and helped the Yankees win 5 World Series championships. Though the Hall of Fame is not a team accomplishment. It is a single player accomplishment. It is for the better players of their generation and of all-time. I think when Andy Pettitte retired the other day we all were on the edge. And I have to be honest here Andy Pettitte is borderline for the Hall of Fame. It just depends how you see his career.

I'm taking his side for the Hall of Fame, and it's not just because I'm a Yankees fan. Us Yankees fans will look at Pettitte's career to be greater than the general fan. Still Pettitte was a work horse and had a lengthy career. My take on this will be broken down into sections on how I believe Andy Pettitte is a Hall of Famer. 

So lets get right into this. The first section will be where does he rank as a Yankees pitcher. The Yankees are the greatest sports franchise, ever. We have had many great players in our history. While pitching isn't and concrete as out hitting we still had some great pitchers. Yet if we had to make a staff of 5 of the greatest Yankees pitchers Pettitte would probably be on it. Lets take a look at his stats. 

Andy Pettitte accumulated a fWAR of 66.9 over his career. Taking out his years in Houston, Pettitte had a WAR of 55.7 as a Yankee. Some of the greatest Yankee pitchers post-1980 can't touch Pettitte's WAR as a Yankee. David Wells, David Cone, Mike Mussina, Dwight Gooden, and even Roger Clemens don't have a higher WAR as a Yankee than Pettitte. The next closest WAR total as a Yankee is Mike Mussina, who sits at a 38.2 WAR. Clearly Andy Pettitte is the Yankees best pitcher since 1980.

Pettitte also ranks very high in Yankees history. As I used fWAR above (fangraphs), I am forced to use bWAR (baseball-reference) because fangraphs does not have pitchers WAR before 1980. Baseball-reference does. His bWAR would be 42.7. That ranks behind Whitey Ford, Mariano Rivera, Red Ruffing, Ron Guidry, an Lefty Gomez. So Andy is 6th all-time on the Yankees career leaders in WAR. Being one the greatest franchises in baseball history will help Andy Pettitte's case in getting into the Hall of Fame. 

Now how does Pettitte use the rest of his numbers to get into Cooperstown? Still sticking to WAR as of now I'll present to you his fWAR/200 and bWAR/200. Which is WAR/200 innings pitched. So Andy's fWAR/200 is 4.4 which is really good. His bWAR/200 is 3.3. Which is a full run below his fWAR/200. It's not fair to go based on one of the other so when you average them out his aWAR/200 (average) is 3.8. Which is what I think is just above the mark the declares someone a Hall of Famer or not. If you want his total aWAR it would be 58.9. And that would be another just above borderline result.

Pettitte never had a string of seasons that you just said wow, but he was consistently good year in and out. You knew you could rely on him coming out for a lot of starts and a ton of innings. He had 13 seasons of 30+ starts out of 16. Pettitte had a GB% of 48.8% and a LOB% of 71.5%. He induced a lot of ground balls which stranded runners on base. His rate stats are also good. Maybe not superb, but good enough for the Hall. His K/9 6.63, 2.83 BB/9, and 0.77 HR/9. Pettitte had a 3.88 ERA and a 3.75 FIP. His best year had to be 1997 where he had a 7.4 WAR and a 2.96 FIP. You knew what you were getting with Pettitte and you knew it for 16 seasons. 

All but six seasons did Pettitte not reach 200 innings pitched, and he just missed 200 IP in two seasons. He could go deep into ball games and not allow runs to cross the plate. He changed the way base runners ran on him with his pick off move. The greatest pickoff move of all-time. I remember attending a few Andy Petttitte pitched games, and I've seen a pick off or two in them. 

While the Yankees were a great team you must look at Andy's ability to pitch in big playoff games. He's one of the better playoff pitchers in MLB history. He has the most playoff wins as a pitcher, but I don't like using wins. Some examples of this was 2009 post-season performance. He pitched in every series clinching game for the Yankees. He pitched in game 6 of the ALCS and won it. He pitched in game 6 in the World Series and won it. A few times I rather have the older Andy Pettitte out there than C.C. Sabathia. 

A guy I learned SABR from taught me well on how to analyze a player's career. He looked up to Tom Tango a huge saberists. He once said the following...

"As I’ve talked about in the past, the best way to get a sense of someone’s place in history is to compare the player to his peers.  And typically, you get about 20-25 players elected to the Hall of Fame for every decade of birth years (with about one-third of those pitchers)." - Tom Tango

If this is true than Pettitte looks like he could be in the clear. Tom Tango recently put a list of Andy's generation of pitchers and ranked them. He had Pedro, Mussina, and Rivera above Pettitte. Tim Hudson was 5th just below him. This helps Andy's case a bunch. 

Another case for Pettitte is that Tom Glavine is most likely a Hall Of Famer. If so than Pettitte must be too. They have almost identical statistics. Another point to Andy's case is that he did it in 1,400 less innings. Pettitte might also be considered better than a pitcher who is already in the Hall of Fame. Catfish Hunter, though debatable it's also very close. 

Pettitte : 66.9 fWAR, 4.4 fWAR/200, 6.63 K/9, 2.83 BB/9,0.77 HR/9, 3.75 FIP 

Glavine : 68.5 fWAR, 3.1 fWAR/200, 5.32 K/9, 3.06 BB/9, 0.73 HR/9, 3.95 FIP

My last case is for the people who look at Pettitte's chance of not getting in due to HGH. HGH is not a PED. I found this post on fangraphs.

"HGH isn’t a PED though. For a while it was thought to be, but then the medical studies came out. If you have higher than normal levels, there’s no positives to it and it does a lot of harm. It’s still a felony to use and against baseball rules as well, but there’s no plus to using it."

Also I'd like to point out there is there was PED enhancing drugs during the other era's. They were called greenies or amphetamines. They improved reaction time, feelings of alertness, and a decrease sense of fatigue. Why do I bring this up? Well baseball takes a lot out of you. It's a 162 days a year with not a lot of off days. You will often feel tired before a game after a long road trip. But wait, I'll just take a greenie and I'll be awake and ready to play. You know who lived on greenies? Hank Aaron. So when you judge the players of today lets look at the players of yesterday. 

I think I've done my best to prove that Andy Pettitte is a Hall of Famer. If I couldn't convince you well let's agree to disagree. Theres no doubt the #46 will be in monument park, but I'm not doubting that a gold plaque in Cooperstown, NY won't be there. 

Sources : Fangraphs, Baseball-reference, Disco, and Tom Tango 

Jump the jump for Drizzzy's position.

Drizzzys Position:

Andy Pettitte is one of the greatest pitchers in Yankee history. He has been a workhorse his entire life and is clutch in the postseason.  Yet Andy belongs in the Hall of Very Good.  He is NOT a Hall of Famer.  His stats look very good but not on the level of Hall of Fame pitchers.

Andy's final career stats include 3055 IP, a 6.63 K/9, a 1.35 WHIP, a 3.88 ERA and a FIP of a 3.85 with a total FanGraph's WAR of roughly 67.  It's a damn good line no question but if we compare Pettitte to other pitching greats in his era we see that they vastly over-shine Pettitte.  These guys aren't Hall of Famers yet and it shows that while Pettitte is a very good pitcher, he just wasn't Hall of Famer like.

Greg Maddux,career: 5008 IP, 6.06 K/9, 1.14 WHIP, 3.16 ERA, 3.26 FIP, and a total WAR of 120.6

John Smoltz, career: 3473 IP, 7.99 K/9, 1.18 WHIP, 3.31 ERA, 3.24 FIP, and a total WAR of 82.5

Pedro Martinez, career: 2827 IP, 10.04 K/9, 1.05 WHIP, 2.93 ERA, 2.91 FIP, and a total WAR of 89.4

Roger Clemens, career: 4916 IP, 8.55 K/9, 1.17 WHIP, 3.12 ERA, 2.09 FIP, and a total WAR of 145.5 

Randy Johnson, career: 4135 IP, 10.61 K/9, 1.17 WHIP, 3.29 ERA, 3.19 FIP and a total WAR of 114.8

Curt Schilling, career: 3261 IP, 8.60 K/9, 1.14 WHIP, 3.46 ERA, 3.23 FIP and a total WAR of 86.1

Mike Mussina, career: 3562 IP, 7.11 K/9, 1.19 WHIP, 3.68 ERA, 3.57 FIP and a total WAR of 85.6

These are HOF level pitchers.  These guys are very highly durable while getting the job done.  Pettitte is a horse himself no doubt but looking at these insanely high innings total makes Pettitte look almost young with the exception of Pedro.  They seldom allow walks and strike out at a high clip.  While Pettitte can do this he also lets a lot of batters reach on base with his WHIP being a lot higher than these type of pitchers.  His final FIP is very good but not extremely awesome like Clemens or Pedro.  They have a massive amount of wins above replacement which Pettitte can only dream of having.  Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens essentially was TWO Andy Pettitte's in their entire career according to WAR. That's insane.

No doubt will I see the counter argument that Andy Pettitte is perhaps the best postseason pitcher ever due to the 19 wins.  While no doubt Pettitte has been nothing but clutch in the postseason his stats aren't better than these same pitchers.  That takes away probably Pettitte's biggest argument of why he should go in the hall.

(Note: I'm only using pitchers with comparable innings totals as much as Andy)

Andy Pettitte, Postseason: 263 IP, 5.92 K/9, 1.30 WHIP, 3.83 ERA, and a 3.86 FIP 
John Smoltz, Postseason: 209 IP, 7.99 K/9, 1.14 WHIP, 2.67 ERA and a 3.18 FIP
Roger Clemens, Postseason: 199 IP, 7.82 K/9, 1.22 WHIP, 3.72 ERA, and a 3.52 FIP
Greg Maddux, Postseason: 198 IP, 5.68 K/9, 1.24 WHIP, 3.27 ERA, and a 3.66 FIP

Pettitte's line is very good but as FIP indicates he's not quite HOF material.  His WHIP is pretty high and the lack of strikeouts doesn't help him.  That doesn't mean Pettitte isn't good, he's great but when looking at these recently retired guys I truly can't see Pettitte being there with them.  And that's not including older guys in the league who seem to be HOF bound like Roy Halladay.  We thank you Andrew Eugene Pettitte for helping the Yankees win 5 more championships on to our already illustrious history.  We'll dedicate a plaque for you among the Yankee legends in the stadium but you just missed the cut in the HOF.