[Droford]

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Starting pitching: We’ve left moundsmen to the side, but there’s a good reason for that -- Jack Morris, and the odd notion that somehow he was a great pitcher. Given that the ’80s comprised the bulk of Morris’ useful career, you’d expect that he’d rate among the best pitchers of the era. He doesn’t. Taking a look at the pitchers’ table, you’re sure to ask: Where’s Morris? Take it all the way down to 15th, and that’s where you’d find the mustachioed workhorse -- behind Teddy Higuera and Bruce Hurst, and behind fellow warhorse Charlie Hough. The top 10 is an interesting group itself, because it includes so many guys who suffered major arm injuries or early burnout. The ’80s represented a new, tough challenge for pitchers. Run-scoring increased, and a lot of guys broke down trying to live up to workload standards established in the ’60s and ’70s. Gooden, Tudor, Saberhagen, Hershiser -- outside of Clemens, the best pitchers of this generation all blew out their arms. The field was open for odd ducks like Mike Scott and Dave Stewart to wind up having tremendous but brief runs of greatness, but as wonderful as they were, nobody’s putting them in the Hall of Fame. Let's bring this back to Morris. Say you want to just look at the good bits of Morris’ career -- 1978-92. Morris was just the seventh-best pitcher in that span via WAR, behind the Rocket, the Ryan Express, the Eck and Bert Blyleven, not to mention those stars of the ’80s who usually don’t get much press -- Dave Stieb and Bob Welch. What Morris leads in from his own heyday is two big counting stats. First, there’s his 236 wins. That’s a product of three things: playing with a star-studded lineup, great run support and his durability. In the rush to condemn Morris’ worthiness, the durability seems to get short shrift, but he did throw 400 more innings than anybody else in baseball in this “Age of Morris.” If you want to argue that a man should make the Hall for being durable during an age of fast burnouts, that’s not such a bad thing. But at that point we may as well start talking about Stieb’s worthiness as well, since he had the best balance of durability and quality during this time. But like Whitaker, Stieb is someone the BBWAA forgot, eliminating him in his first year on the ballot in 2004 with just 1.4 percent of the vote. But that isn’t going to stop me from tabbing Dave Stieb as the starting pitcher of the ‘80s, not Morris. Besides Stieb’s leading WAR tally, he was third in wins (158), behind Morris (177) and Welch (164), tied with Fernando in shutouts with 29, and his ERA+ of 128 tops even Doc Gooden (125) and the oft-injured Tudor (126). Besides, Stieb had no-hitters broken up in consecutive 1988 starts with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, and a perfect game busted up with two outs in the ninth in 1989. (He did finally get a no-hitter in 1990, against the Indians.) If anyone in this field deserves a break, it’s Stieb.

Saw that article on ESPN looking for something else and thought I'd share.