NFL HoF

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by slotdirt

Hunter led the league in ERA precisely one time. He led the league in ERA+ precisely zero times.

Also, re: 1973, 21-5 and 3.34 are great, but as anybody who's watched a baseball game ever knows, wins are literally 50% influenced by somebody other than the pitcher, and aside from finishing 4th in wins and first in HR's allowed, Hunter missed finishing in the top 10 that year in any single measurable pitching category for the season.

His career ERA+ was basically the level of a replacement player. There are no amount of phony award votes that can argue him out of the fact he was a perfectly average pitcher for some very, very awesome teams.

Well win may be a overrated stat but losing 5 games while starting 36 games, pitching 250 innings and completing 11 of them is pretty impressive regardless of how you want to degrade it. Yes he was 16th that year in ERA (one spot above fellow HoF'er Gaylord Perry) but his er was still well above the league average. Of course he was 6th in h/9 and 9th in BB/9 that year but why bother with that. And we are talking about his supposed "average" year.