Mark Buerhle > Jack Morris?

1) The whole '80's thing is irrelevant, as has already been pointed out

2) If you want to see how un-HOF Morris is, consider his competition for "Best of the '80's." And his carbon copy hasn't even been mentioned. Bob Welch. Compare the numbers. Welch is pretty much Morris without the Game 7 (which didn't happen in the 80's).

 

Clemens pitched four full seasons in the '80's. How is he eligible for this conversation? Probably the same way the conversation is even being had: complete arbitrariness. At least Gooden had six full seasons.

 

It must be arbitrary, since I asked you how one becomes eligible to be the "Pitcher of the 80's," and you did not provide any guidelines. Between 1984 and 1989, Orel Hershiser beat Clemens in innings (1449 to 1285), wins (98 to 95) and ERA (2.68 to 3.06), won a Cy Young, had four Top 5 Cy Young finishes, and placed sixth in MVP voting. And won a World Series MVP. Yet this is the first time his name is mentioned in this thread. So Clemens' half decade trumps other guys' full decades, but Hershiser's doesn't? The point is that the whole thing is arbitrary. I can't make a case for anybody, because you have set no parameters. If you are saying that I am the general manager of a team in charge of winning as many baseball games as I can in the 1980s, and I can choose between a pitcher who will give me five seasons like Clemens', or a pitcher who will give me 10 seasons like Stieb's, then I will take Stieb, and a host of other guys. If that's not the question, then what is it? And once I know, then I will be able to construct an actual case instead of cherry-picking facts from my keister.

 

I can't remember if it was Rob Neyer or someone else who originally pointed it out, but Mark Grace led the 1990s in hits. Sometimes there are just weird statistical quirks like that depending on where you put the start and end point.

 

Back to the "ace" argument. That just means he was better than Petry & Wilcox.

 

With regard to performance enhancers, I think that's realistic.

 

Hershiser. And Cone.

 

If he starts for 10 more years he most likely wins 300.

 

It's only May but I think he's already reached his quota for the year.

 

Yes, what I was trying to say was that we get caught up too often in saying so-and-so was the "Best of X Decade" as HOF support. But there's nothing special about the beginning and end years of that distinction besides the first begins with a 0 and the other begins with a 9.

For example, change the discussion to "Who was the best pitcher from 1983 to 1992?" That span includes some of Morris' best credentials (all three of his 20-win seasons, '84, '91 and '92 World Series). But he'd have a hard time making the top 5 in a poll of best pitchers in that span, considering Clemens, Gooden, Maddux, Glavine, Hershiser, Saberhagen, Stieb, Viola ... even Ryan led his league in strikeouts four times and ERA once in that span.