Miller: Halladay an example for a generation of pitchers

Fast-forward to 1983: Justin Verlander, who appears to be on track to make the Hall, and Zack Greinke, who is building a very strong case, are born. Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw follow, as do Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels and Chris Sale and Madison Bumgarner.

In between, though, was a pitching desert. For 12 years, the world simply quit making Hall of Fame pitchers. The 10 best pitchers (by WAR) born between Pedro and Verlander include a bunch of guys who either weren't that great (Brad Radke, Mark Buehrle, Bartolo Colon) or, for reasons of longevity, came up well short of Hall of Fame standards: Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, Johan Santana. This top 10, of course, sits atop a mountain of other promising young pitchers who turned out to either not be that good or lack longevity: Brandon Webb, Mark Mulder and Mark Prior but also Ryan Anderson, Matt White and Paul Wilson. Only two pitchers from the entire period have a reasonable chance of making the Hall of Fame: CC Sabathia, who arguably still has work to do, and Halladay, who arguably does not. He was the best pitcher of his era. In a 12-year drought for elite pitching, Roy Halladay was the exception.

It wasn't a coincidence, I don't think, that this pitching desert appeared.

From 1993 onward, the sport was absolutely brutal to pitchers, especially young, developing pitchers. PEDs took over the game, new ballparks tended to favor hitters, and the scoring environment exploded. Middle infielders grew thick forearms, and lineups got deep. For the pitcher, this meant spending a lot more time working with men on base, in high-stress situations. He had to throw every pitch with full effort and concentration, knowing that mistakes over the plate were far more likely to be hit over the fence, and he had to treat every batter, even the No. 8 hitter, as a threat to do damage. Offense begets more offense, such that for a pitcher there was no letting up.

Roy Halladay remade himself into a star pitcher after his career got off to a rough start in Toronto. Dave Sandford/Getty Images

A pitcher also had to throw more pitches per plate appearance (because batters were working deeper counts every year) and more pitches per inning (because more batters were reaching base). He did this in an era before careful pitch counting was broadly appreciated, and he might well have thrown 210 innings as a 19-year-old in low-A. For all of this, his reward would be a set of statistics that, while perfectly fine for their era, did not resemble those encouraging benchmarks of success that he was raised on.

Besides the relievers Rivera and Hoffman, every great pitcher we named from the baby boom debuted before 1993, before the game changed. Some struggled: Tom Glavine led the league in losses at 22, Greg Maddux went 6-14 as a rookie, and Randy Johnson was a famously late bloomer. But they struggled in an era that was more forgiving of bad pitching and more rewarding of good. Halladay and his contemporaries struggled in an era in which, if you weren't careful, you'd have an ERA of 10.64. Or you'd tear your labrum.

Bagikan Berita Ini