With MLB and other sports sidelined right now due to the coronavirus, welcome to part two of our future Hall of Fame class breakdowns. Today we’ll be looking at Mark Buehrle, a five-time All-Star who won the 2005 World Series with the Chicago White Sox, where he spent 12 of his 16 MLB seasons.
Pre-MLB Career
No one thought Buehrle was going to be a Hall of Fame candidate one day when the White Sox drafted him in the 38th round of the 1998 draft after his freshman year at Jefferson College in Missouri. In 1999, he spent the year with Single-A Burlington, where he made 14 starts and six relief appearances with a 4.10 ERA. He showed impressive command, allowing just 16 walks in 98 2/3 innings, but wasn’t impressive enough to be on major prospect radars. He impressed in spring training in 2000 though, and continued to pitch great in Double-A Birmingham, getting an opportunity to join the MLB roster in July as he had a 2.28 ERA while issuing just 17 walks in 118 2/3 innings. He wouldn’t pitch a single game at Triple-A in his career.
MLB Career
Buehrle made his MLB debut in relief on July 16, 2000. Three days later, he would make his first career start and earn his first win in a seven-inning, two-run performance. His next two starts didn’t go as well, and he was moved back to the bullpen for the remainder of the year. He ended his rookie season with a 4.21 ERA in 51 1/3 innings over 28 appearances.
In 2001, Buehrle earned a spot in the starting rotation and took off, leading the AL with a 1.066 WHIP while completing four of his 32 starts including a pair of shutouts. He finished the year with a 3.29 ERA, good for a 140 ERA+. He would make his first All-Star game the following year at age 23, though his ERA+ dipped to 126.
2005 was Buehrle’s best season and only one in which he would receive Cy Young votes. He had career bests in ERA, ERA+, and SO/W that year, earned his second All-Star appearance and finished fifth in Cy Young Voting. Oh, and his White Sox won the World Series. Buehrle got the win in his lone start in the ALDS and ALCS, the latter being a complete-game one-run gem against the Angels. The Sox were also able to win his game 2 start in the World Series when he went 7 innings allowing four runs in a 7-6 win, and he picked up a save in game 3 when he was called on to get the last out in the 14th inning with two runners on and a two-run lead.
Buehrle will always be remembered for his perfect game in 2009 as well. That year, he earned his fourth and final All-Star selection with the White Sox and kicked off a four-year run of Gold Gloves which concluded with his lone year with Miami. He would make one last All-Star game in 2014 with Toronto, his best season not in a White Sox uniform.
Buehle’s career totals: 3.81 ERA (117 ERA+) in 3,283 1/3 innings pitched, a 214-160 record in 493 starts. 1,870 strikeouts and 734 walks for a 2.55 K/BB ratio, 1.281 WHIP and 59.1 WAR.
So, is this guy a Hall of Famer or not?
Buehrle didn’t have a high enough peak or a long enough span of being consistently great to be a good candidate for the Hall of Fame. Only two Hall of Fame pitchers never posted an ERA+ higher than 150 in a single season: Fergie Jenkins and Jack Morris. Morris won three world series titles including winning World Series MVP in 1991 with his hometown Twins, was inducted into the Hall via Veterans Committee, and is mostly in because of his 10-inning shutout in game 7 of that ’91 World Series. Jenkins threw1 4,500 innings in his career, threw 267 complete games and used that long career to rack up 284 wins, 3,192 strikeouts an 84.2 WAR. Jenkins also won a Cy Young award when he led the NL in wins, starts, complete games, BB/9 and K/BB with his career-best 141 ERA+.
JAWS is the most favorable Hall of Fame predicting metric for Buehrle, and even that puts him 90th all-time among starting pitchers. His 59.1 WAR falls short of the average 73.3 for a Hall of Fame starting pitcher, and his 35.8 7-year peak is similarly distant from the 50.0 average. Ultimately, his JAWS score is 47.4 compared to a 61.6 average for HOF starting pitchers.
Hall of Fame Standards thinks Buehrle is even further from being a Hall of Famer, as he scored just a 31 in a metric where 50 makes you a likely candidate for the Hall. His career ERA of 3.81 netted him 0 points, and his strikeout total of just 1,870 isn’t doing him many favors, either. 31 puts him 148th among starting pitchers.
Lastly, Hall of Fame Monitor has Buehrle at 267 among starting pitchers at just 52 with an average HOFer scoring 100. The fact that Buehrle never posted a season with a sub-3 ERA, 20 wins or 200 strikeouts really hurt him for the Monitor.
We’ll see how the lack of depth in the incoming class affects voting, but Buehrle has a chance at slipping off the ballot if voters decide to use this year as a chance to get candidates that have been on the ballot for a while their chance rather than rewarding newcomers for standing out in a weak class.
Up next: Torii Hunter.
Stats and info courtesy of Baseball-Reference.
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