best player to receive a single HOF vote 2000-2009

I thought maybe one player from such a large list would jump out as at least a borderline case and make for an easy vote, but none of these guys were even borderline, good players though they were. So it'd require some close comparison. Instinct says...Tony Phillips among position players, Rijo or Finley among pitchers. (Knoblauch's peak value was HOF.)

Tony Phillips was one of my favorite players when he was with those super entertaining early-'90s Tigers teams, the Whitaker/Trammell/Fryman/Deer/Fielder/Tettleton-era squads.

Finley's not a bad pick for pitchers, he was probably the Cole Hamels of his era.

Looked at Finley's career box, and maybe you could say he was borderline borderline. Very durable, 7.3 K/9 when that meant something, just shy of 60 WAR. His two biggest problems when he showed up on the ballot were a modest win total when that still mattered (200), and a high ERA with the second half of his career spent during the PED boom years. But JAWS puts him ahead of Tommy John, Orel Hershiser, Andy Pettitte, Whitey Ford, and others, and not too far behind Don Sutton and Early Wynn.

Rijo was filthy when he was healthy at his peak, the problem was he was injury prone.

Tony Phillips was one of LaRussa's super subs on the Bash Bros teams too. He started games all over the diamond.

Quite a few big award winners in the list, MVPs, Cy Youngs, Rookie of the Year, World Series MVPs and even an Allstar Game MVP.

For me it's Orosco. Most games ever! Still contributing value at 44! And there's just something awesome and timeless about the guy.

Dykstra probably has a better case. Retired when he was just 33 and still effective. Huge OPB guy before people grasped how important that was.

American League Cy Young Award (1990)
Two-time All-Star (1980, 1990)
Led league in wins (27, 1990)
Led league in shutouts (4, 1987)
Led league in games started (35, 1991)
Tied at #84 on the all-time wins leaderboard
Third most wins in MLB in the 1980s

Struck out Reggie.

Wow, i don't think I realized just how badly Clemens got shafted for the 1990 Cy Young.

uh, neither did i

top bWAR seasons from this group:

Rijo - 9.2 in 1993
Dykstra - 8.9 in 1990
Lonnie Smith - 8.8 in 1989
Knoblauch - 8.7 in 1996

In a weird way, the Welch/Clemens finish was mirrored exactly by the order of that year's two big closers: Thigpen (4th) finished ahead of Eckersley (5th) because he had more saves, but look at the rest of their pitching line and it's not even close.

(Thigpen broke the record, I should add.)

the save stat is the biggest trick of all

Interesting list!

Without checking, I'm guessing that Mark Davis has the lowest career WAR of any Cy Young winner.

Chuck Finley was arguably the Harold Baines of pitchers, so I guess he should be in the HOF too.

Bob Welch was a legit great pitcher, but he's mainly remembered for that lucky 27-win season these days.

I knew that Clemens was far better than Welch in 1990, but I didn't know that Welch had the lowest WAR of all seven pitchers who received CY votes that year.

(Pete Vuckovich pulled it off in 1982 as well, in a field of mine who received votes).

That is, Vuckovich is the go-to guy for flukey, undeserved Cy Young awards outside of the late 80's closer mania. Somehow Bob Welch managed to place himself in that company.

Nobody ever talks about it, but Orosco's games pitched record might be unbreakable. The current crop of relievers throwing 95 on a bad day always flame out too quickly, and with 7-8 man bullpens, nobody gets to 70+ GP per year consistently.

The closest active pitcher is Fernando Rodney, who's 41 and 356 games behind Orosco. The youngest active pitcher in the top 100 is Joe Smith, 34 years old and 498 games back.

LaMarr Hoyt also holds the distinction of having the lowest WAR of all the pitchers receiving a Cy Young vote the year he won. Quisenberry had the highest among the vote getters, but the highest in the league belonged to Dave Stieb by some distance, and he didn't even get a single vote!

career bWAR leaders here seem to be Tony Phillips, Knoblauch, Welch

Tim Wallach higher than you'd think

Wallach was a very good third baseman, i think his defense elevated him a decent amount.

the guys who probably would have made a serious HOF run if they'd remained healthy were Rijo and Knoblauch. Tony Phillips was a guy who got such a late start, but he put up a bWAR of 32.9 from his age 31 to his age 37 seasons. those seasons he had in Detroit, Chicago, and Anaheim were on the cusp of being HOF-caliber.

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