Luis Tiant

[Katz's Killers]

I was looking over the new additions to the player set, and saw that Luis Tiant (1968) has a $10.45M card?! It's the 7th most expensive pitchers card. This makes no sense to me. Gibson and McCain won the Cy Young award in 1968, and their cards are less expensive. Tiant is a 3 time All-Star and never was the best pitcher in the league....why should he have such a top-tier card? He's not a Hall of Famer and that season is not super special (like a Maris 1961). What am I missing?

[andycummings65]

Tiant's Wins Above Replacement for PItchers was 7.2 and led the AL, which was higher than McLain's 5.9. Tiant was nigh unto unhittable in 1968

Gibson's 1968 was better than Tiant's, but Luis' balance over Bob's 4R probably increased his price

[raslavens]

McLain won Cy in 1968 because of his win total.

Tiant, meanwhile, pitched for the Indians but had a better year statistically (ERA, WHIP).

[rburgh]

Another factor in Tiant / Gibson was that Gibson pitched for an actual major league team, with guys who could field all over. Tiant pitched for the Indians, with statues at multiple positions. So his card benefits from the bad defense.

But I am amazed at the guys here who don't feel comfortable seeing a great card from a merely good player. Roger Maris was a pretty ordinary good player, except for 1961. Brady Anderson hit 50 HR in a season. Tony Oliva and Harvey Kuenn each won batting titles as young players. Tony Conigliaro was a budding star before he got hurt. Jim Nealon led his league in RBI at age 21, then got sick, and died at age 25. None of them are going to the Hall of Fame, but they had talent, and demonstrated it on the field.

The thing that irks me is the number of really good, and even great, players who don't have decent cards here. Bill James rates Arky Vaughan as the 39th best player ever, he's 44th among hitters in career WAR, and he's in the Hall, but we have one card for him that is used sporadically. Harlond Clift was a 3B who had essentially an 11 year career where ten of the years were indistinguishable from good years for Sal Bando, or Ron Santo, or Ken Boyer, or any of a dozen guys. We have the 11th year. Bill Dahlen, George Davis, Cap Anson, and Paul Molitor are in the top 50 in career win shares. Use any of them lately?

Come on, Bernie, fix this issue. If a guy had a long career with solid results, how about making sure we get something approaching his true value.

[Valen]

[quote:9b38dc6e6c]Another factor in Tiant / Gibson was that Gibson pitched for an actual major league team[/quote:9b38dc6e6c]
Ouch. :lol:

[george barnard]

[quote:f616f51469]The thing that irks me is the number of really good, and even great, players who don't have decent cards here. Bill James rates Arky Vaughan as the 39th best player ever, he's 44th among hitters in career WAR, and he's in the Hall, but we have one card for him that is used sporadically. Harlond Clift was a 3B who had essentially an 11 year career where ten of the years were indistinguishable from good years for Sal Bando, or Ron Santo, or Ken Boyer, or any of a dozen guys. We have the 11th year. Bill Dahlen, George Davis, Cap Anson, and Paul Molitor are in the top 50 in career win shares. Use any of them lately?

Come on, Bernie, fix this issue. If a guy had a long career with solid results, how about making sure we get something approaching his true value. [/quote:f616f51469]

I agree with you that better years of great (and not so great) players should be included. But if one thing that compiling the wish list of everybody showed me is the varied constituencies that play this game. Live draft guys that want the extraordinary years, keeper guys that want better representative players from individual teams, guys that want heretofore non-ATG players, guys who want speed, guys who want walks, guys who want sluggers, guys who want defense, guys who want heroes from their past, guys who want Bob Uecker. You square the circle. I think that is what Bernie is going to be trying to do every month, giving us a little of what each of those constituent groups wants (because it's all coming from what we want). Some months may be disappointing to you, some may overwhelm you. I guess I would just advise patience. A great Harlond Clift will probably get there sooner than later.

I'll start a new thread with the links to the wish lists so that you all can look them over and make more suggestions.

Bill

[durantjerry]

Tiant broke through in 1968, after he altered his delivery so that he turned away from the home plate during his motion, in effect creating a hesitation pitch. According to Tiant, the new motion was a response to a drop in his velocity due to an arm injury.[1] Twisting and turning his body into unthinkable positions, Tiant would spend more time looking at second base than he did the plate as he prepared to throw. In that season, he led the league in ERA (1.60), shutouts (9, including 4 consecutive!), hits per nine innings (a still-standing franchise record 5.30, which broke Herb Score's 5.85 in 1956 and would be a Major-League record low until Nolan Ryan gave up 5.26 hits/9 innings in 1972), strikeouts per nine innings (9.22, more than a batter an inning), while finishing with a 21-9 mark. Beside this, opposing hitters batted just .168 off Tiant, a major league record, and on July 3 he struck out 19 Minnesota Twins in a ten-inning game, setting an American League record for games of that length. His 1.60 ERA was the lowest in the American League since Walter Johnson's 1.49 mark during the dead-ball era in 1919, and second lowest in 1968 only to Bob Gibson's 1.12—the lowest ever during the Live Ball Era. With lefty Sam McDowell, Looie is the only right-hand starting pitcher in the AL to S0 9 batters/ 9 innings 2 seasons (1967 & 1968). With McDowell and Sonny Siebert and others, the Indians staff led the AL in SO 5 consecutive years, including a record 1189 SO in 1987, a record that would stand for 30 years until the steroid era.

[supertyphoon]

I'm sure some of you did full-season replays of 1968, "the year of the pitcher".

Does anyone think it would be cool to match the 1968 pitching staffs against the 1930 hitters, and the 1968 hitters against the 1930 pitching staffs?

They always say good pitching beats good hitting. I wonder if that would be the case here in a matchup between the best pitching season and the best hitting season of the modern era.

[ozziesmith]

[quote:f6166dbf5f="Katz's Killers"]I was looking over the new additions to the player set, and saw that Luis Tiant (1968) has a $10.45M card?! It's the 7th most expensive pitchers card. This makes no sense to me. Gibson and McCain won the Cy Young award in 1968, and their cards are less expensive. Tiant is a 3 time All-Star and never was the best pitcher in the league....why should he have such a top-tier card? He's not a Hall of Famer and that season is not super special (like a Maris 1961). What am I missing?[/quote:f6166dbf5f]

Cy Young award winners in any given year will not necessarily have the best statistical card for SOM.

[rburgh]

Yes. Case in point - Don Newcombe won the Cy Young Award in 1956, when they only gave one for the two leagues combined. I predict it will be weeks before someone uses that card. The Herb Score card and the good Early Wynn card are both from 1956.