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I think Boyer ought to be a member of the baseball HOF. He’s right there or better than Santo in every respect.
Here is most of an article I wrote in 2009 explaining why I was against the Cardinals retiring Sutter’s number. These decisions should not be made with emotion or in the heat of the moment.
Pieces of our old Scout content are still out there.
https://247sports.com/mlb/cardinals/Article/facts-put-sutters-retired-42-in-question-104340252/
Everyone remembers Sutters 82 ws clinching strikeout. What I remember most was in July at Philly he induced Mike Schmidt to hit into a 123 dp with the bases loaded. Cardinals took over first and never looked back. Those 2 big moments define his Cardinal career. When he was on he was unhittable. But I agree his # probably shouldn’t have been retired.
Everyone has their favorites and I happen to think that if the Cardinals would have signed him for another season or so, #55 would have eventually been placed on the unavailable shelf and retired. A case could be made that he didn’t play in StL. long enough to justify retiring his number, but the fans were crazy about him and the intangibles that Manny Motter brought on to the field of play are undeniable. The Redbird manager certainly saw that to be the case.
Yeah KCB, the Schmidt come backer was probably the single most important play of the regular season that allowed the Cardinals to win their first NLE title. Schmidt was a monster that had terrorized me for several years.
I have zero issue with Sutter being in hall of fame or the cardinals retiring his number. To this day, I still consider him the best cardinals closer ever and I wouldn’t say it’s close.
I agree, Willie. I happen to believe he’s in the top 5 closers of all time and I don’t think anyone can deny that he’s one of the top 10. Sutter was the best at a time when that role was still beginning to take shape.
I’ve always found the below interesting, especially Jay Jaffe’s alternate reliever WAR metrics. Again, I do think Sutter was a good pitcher, just not as good as a lot of people seem to remember him being, and not as good as some other names whom most wouldn’t consider HOF-caliber.
Any of the arguments about Sutter in the HoF or Number retirement are all about numbers. But there was an intangible aspect involved. He was part of the team that finally broke the long drought all through the 70s that we Cardinal fans of the time endured after the legendary 60s WS teams had faded into Cardinals history. That team bringing home the WS win was glorious indeed and it never happens without Sutter. Lining up one column of numbers and comparing it with another, and thinking that tells the story, misses the mark pretty badly in this case. Anybody else who spent a lot of time at Busch Memorial back then know what I mean.
What does any of that have to do with Bruce Sutter and his individual performance? Are you saying if the Cardinals had been a juggernaut in the 1970s, Sutter’s HOF credentials would be diminished because he would lack those “intangibles”? For reasons that have nothing to do with him one way or the other?
Those arguments sound more relevant for the Cardinals HOF than the Baseball HOF. I can understand why that backstory might affect Cardinals fans a certain way, but why would anyone else care or think it’s pertinent to judging Bruce Sutter’s individual career as a pitcher? Particularly given that over 3/4 of his career value was generated with the Cubs.
As for that 1982 season and “it never [happening] without Sutter,” that’s impossible for any of us to say. FWIW, 1982 was one of the worst seasons of Sutter’s career, and Rollie Fingers out-pitched him that year–now, that doesn’t mean the Cardinals would have won the WS anyway, but it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have, either. Remember in 1985 when Herzog said he was going to be “45 games dumber” without Sutter and it turned out the bullpen-by-committe was statistically as good or better? These are counterfactuals we just can’t possibly know.
It’s not really possible to argue whether the intangible aspect I mentioned is relevant or not. It depends upon what you want the honors like HoF and number retirement to acknowledge. Think in terms of the All Star Game. There are those who think it should be the All Stats Game, with selections being essentially made by lining up columns of numbers. There are those who think there should be an intangible factor in deciding who the stars of the game are. It’s not useful to argue about it.
I for one see different levels of recognition, including Cooperstown (reflecting entire career) and team-specifics such as retired number and team Hall of Fame. All of these players were great, but their contributions were not all the same, nor over the same periods and not all with the same team, further complicating matters.
In some cases, perhaps because not all avenues were available at the time or because emotions were high due to a premature passing or other events, some individuals may have been placed higher in the hierarchy than otherwise may have been warranted. So be it, but I don’t always have to agree.
We have these same kinds of discussions at the Cardinals Hall of Fame committee meetings. As in many cases, there are no right or wrong answers, just a lot of informed opinions. An added dimension there is inside views of how the players conducted themselves, what kind of teammates they were, etc… Having the views of Whitey, Joe Torre and TLR are extremely important, as we all can see the numbers on the page.
An example I see as a parallel to Sutter is Orlando Cepeda. He was a Cardinal just three years, but won an MVP and was the leader of a World Series champion. My theory is that if that had happened in 1964, when the long title drought was broken, instead of 1967, he might be thought of similarly to Sutter. But because Cepeda retired 50 years ago, fewer and fewer people understand how good and important he was. Red was very positive about Cepeda and he should know. Yet, to date, probably because his time was so short, Cepeda has been passed over by the committee each year in favor of longer-tenured Cardinals.
(Just my personal view, but I don’t put much weight on “he helped break a long title drought” as a reason for recognition. All that means to me is that his timing was good. To me, every title is equally important.)
Also, like Sutter, many identify Cepeda with a different team because he played the majority of his career elsewhere. This also came up with Hernandez and with Carlton, who is currently on the fan ballot. My approach has always been to focus on what the player accomplished as a Cardinal. If Carlton continues to fail via the fan ballot, I bet our committee will put him in the first year eligible as a veteran (rather than modern era).
To me, every title is equally important.
Just another counting stat.
I disagree, and to illustrate the point, it would be absurd to claim that the Red Sox WS title in 2004 and their subsequent titles were equally important.
Just different points of view… (P.S. If these were team awards, rather than honors for an individual, I would look at it differently.)
I, for one, oppose the whole concept of retiring numbers. We’ve got the Hall of Fame for recognizing the game’s greats, we don’t need multiple recognitions.
As an aside, in 1984 Sutter pitched 122.2 innings (with 45 saves).
Last season the Cards had one (1) pitcher throw that many innings. Just one. In 2022 the Cards had three.
I would never begrudge Sutter his HOF accolades because he was not only a pioneer, not only a dominant player during his time, but he likely had a much longer career stolen due to overuse.
Baseball is constantly evolving and I think it’s always important to look at a player in the era in which he played.
Agreed, Albert. The body of Sutter’s career work made him a Hall of Famer. My rub was how to best put his Cardinals time into context.
CIF, remember how the Cardinals’ situation evolved. Despite other teams (like the Reds, for example) having team Halls of Fame back to the 1950’s, the Cardinals refused to do it until 2014. By then, they had the most retired numbers in the National League. And that water is already over the dam…
I don’t care about alternate reliever statistics or whatever that stupid stuff is. It’s all well n good for non traditional baseball fans but I have zero use particularly for older players. Nowadays I don’t pay much attention to non cardinal players so they might have more context but back in the day I paid attention to all of baseball. So I know that watching players gives you far more context than numbers in a graph. There’s a big difference between actually evaluating a player vs just looking at a sheer of paper. You can push the pen and paper jockeys all you want but I’ll never take those views over anyone who watched players actually play. It’s why I can trust my evaluations of the historic greats of the game. While I didn’t watch them play, I have read stories from plenty of people and former players who did.
Why would you assume that people who examine the numbers don’t watch a lot of games? Who knows, perhaps some of them watch even more than you. When did people who watch games and dive into the numbers get excluded from “traditional baseball fans?”
The problem with just using the “eye test” is precisely that it doesn’t provide context. You can’t have the same set of eyes in 29 other cities at the same time. I’m guessing everyone on here, myself included, sees far more Cardinals games than they do of any other team. So how can one possibly contextualize and interrogate what one’s eyes think they’re seeing when one is only seeing the game through the prism/perspective of 1 of 30.
The eye test is fine, but like any tool, it can be well-used or misused: you can use it to confirm what you already want to believe; or you can consistently and rigorously test it through falsification, and that’s where examining the numbers is incredibly helpful–it checks what we think we’ve seen against greater context and a more objective lens or ruler. But it’s uncomfortable, because when we’re forced to look at our favorite team and players through an external, more objective set of metrics, the answers are often unpredictable and there’s no guarantee they’ll confirm our priors.
As an aside, in 1984 Sutter pitched 122.2 innings (with 45 saves).
Last season the Cards had one (1) pitcher throw that many innings. Just one. In 2022 the Cards had three.
I would never begrudge Sutter his HOF accolades because he was not only a pioneer, not only a dominant player during his time, but he likely had a much longer career stolen due to overuse.
AdM — The problem with that argument is that one of the main reasons Sutter accumulated an impressive 19/24 fWAR/bWAR in his career is because he pitched a lot of innings for a reliever. The fact that he pitched more than modern relievers was an important contributor to his value. Had he been used more judiciously by the Cubs and Cardinals, it may have prolonged his career, but there’s no guarantee it would have made him any more valuable/productive.
Looks like we have Sutter covered. Brian can you explain why Medwick isn’t on the wall? 10 or 11 seasons as a Card. WS Champion. MVP. Triple Crown. 64 doubles in a single season.
Guy should’ve been one of the first players on the outfield wall!
Yeah, I am not big on some of the number retirements. Bruce was good here in 3 of his 4 seasons, but did not do enough to warrant a number retirement. I don’t think they should have retired Whitey’s number either. I don’t think manager’s numbers should fall into the retired number category – should only be players.
I am okay with Boyer’s since he is my favorite all-time Cardinal. But understand if folks don’t agree.
Conversely, based on the criteria used for retired numbers I still don’t get how Ducky Medwick’s #7 has not been retired. You have Enos Slaughter’s 9 and Dizzy Dean’s 17 – how can you not also retire Medwick’s 7 if those two are honored in that way?
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