Uh ... what does that have to do with Wes Ferrell?

You'll see in just a moment. Anyway, back to the aforementioned Mr. Ferrell.

Can a guy play too long? Don Sutton hung around along enough to win 300 and get a plaque, ditto Phil Niekro. Would Carl Yazstremski have made the Hall with 7500 AB instead of 11988? At one point Ferrell looked like a lock. In 1936 Ferrell had six twenty win seasons and a 161-96 won loss mark. He also sported an ERA of 3.71. Before you pooh-pooh his ERA bear in mind two things. One, he pitched in the big hitting 1920's and 1930's and second he pitched in hitters' parks (Fenway Park and League Park in Cleveland).

OK ... now that tidbit about that .336 hitter. It was Riggs Stephenson. My point is, in the era in which Ferrell pitched was an era of almost decadent offense. Despite (on paper) the high lifetime batting average, in context of that period of time it wasn't necessarily as eye-popping as you might think. So conversely, if a .336 BA isn't as good as it looks considering the era, therefore a lifetime ERA of 4.04 isn't as bad as it looks when regarded in context. For example ... most likely the greatest year of offensive output in baseball history was 1930. That was the year Hack Wilson plated 190 RBI (Lou Gehrig drove in 174 and Chuck Klein 170) while setting an NL record in HR (since broken ... if you have to ask who did it, go stand in the corner). Other feats of this year included Bill Terry hitting .401 (Babe Herman hit .393) and Babe Ruth's .359 BA was good for third place in the AL batting race.

That season Wes Ferrell posted an ERA of 3.31. Sounds pretty average wouldn't you say? Well the "average" American League pitcher in 1930 had an ERA of 4.65!! So, again in context, we can see that Ferrell had a rather remarkable year. In fact the only other AL pitcher that was better than Ferrell over the course of that season was a fellow by the name of Lefty Grove.

Other things to take into consideration when considering this era ...

... is that both Waite Hoyt (3.59 ERA) and Herb Pennock (3.60 ERA), contemporaries of Ferrell are both in the Hall-of-Fame and they pitched in a much pitcher friendly environs (Yankee Stadium), and besides this, the Yankee duo only had a combined four twenty win seasons playing mostly for the aforementioned Yankee juggernaut.

However ...

From 1937 to 1941 he was a .500 pitcher (32-32) with a (quite frankly in any era) ghastly 5.41 ERA. Those final seasons of mediocrity pushed his earned run average to an un-Cooperstown-like 4.04 although his winning percentage remained over .600.

So ...

Was he a Hall-of-Fame calibre hurler from 1927-36 when he posted a winning percentage of .626 with a fine (all things considered) ERA of 3.71 with six twenty win campaigns over ten seasons?

Suppose he garnered those numbers in pinstripes? He'd have far more wins

As mentioned in the outset, whereas Yaz's, Sutton's and Niekro's longevity aided them in getting into Cooperstown, it seems to have injured Ferrell's chances for immortality. But if he was a HOFer up to 1936 should his years from 1937-41 be held against him?

Let's isolate a segment of Ferrell's career. I'm going to use Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax as examples ... two no-questions-asked HOFers. Why them? Well, for all intents and purposes they rode into the Hall on the strength of four (or if you're feeling generous) five great seasons. In fairness, however, it should be noted that these two luminaries were also the dominant hurlers of their eras, played significant roles on championship clubs and had other peripheral qualifications (no-hitters, 30-win seasons etc ...)

Pushing right along, I'm going to isolate Ferrell's years from 1929-32; 35, 36. During those years he went 136-77 with an ERA of 3.66 (again in hitters' parks in a big hitting era).

Is he a Hall-of-Famer now?

Other things to bear in mind is that Ferrell may well have been the best hitting pitcher of all time. He hit .280 lifetime and it wasn't a soft .280 either ... he slugged .446 and ripped 38 longballs. As a point of interest he had 1176 lifetime at bats. So just for fun, let's look at his hitting as if he were a fulltime hitter. He would've had two seasons of 588 AB. So he had two seasons where he hit ...

Pretty impressive don't you think?

Now I have to admit I've done some creative number-juggling here. But there is a method to my madness. When Ferrell's name comes up in Hall-of-Fame discussions, what people generally point to as proof he is NOT a viable HOF candidate is that 4.04 ERA, which easily, would be the highest earned run average among Hall-of-Famers. This one matter clouds what was a remarkable pitching career and I'm trying to get you to look beyond that ... to see the big picture if you will. There are players with mediocre stats in a given category in Cooperstown (Eddie Matthew's batting average, Phil Rizzuto's good-but-not-great hitting stats, Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock's ERA, to name a few) but they're in there because the rest of their accomplishments outweigh that one "blemish" on their record. I'm not completely certain that Ferrell's lifetime ERA would disqualify him. His ERA in historical context is actually quite good. After all ... there aren't a lot of twentieth century hurlers with six twenty win seasons not enshrined at the cathedral in Cooperstown, in fact I can't think of a single one ...

Can you?