Others on the ballot

MLB.com turns attention to three pitchers up for Cooperstown.

Bert Blyleven

It's become an annual tradition, of sorts, for Bert Blyleven at this time of year.

That is to wait and see if this will indeed be the year that his long wait to get into Cooperstown has finally ended.

In his 11th year on the Hall of Fame ballot, Blyleven is still hoping for the one honor that is noticeably missing from his 22-year career.

There are many people who have wondered why Blyleven has yet to receive enshrinement in Cooperstown. In a career that spanned from 1970-92 with the Twins, Rangers, Pirates, Indians and Angels, he's in the top end of almost every all-time pitching category.

That includes 287 wins, which is 25th on the all-time list. Blyleven is fifth in career strikeouts with 3,701. He is ninth in games started with 685. His 60 shutouts are also ninth all-time.

Blyleven also ranks in the top 20 in games pitched, and he is 13th all-time in innings pitched with 4,970.

But despite the long list of accomplishments, Blyleven's highest vote total was 53.3 percent in 2006. A candidate must get 75 percent of the vote to gain election.

Tommy John

At some point, having more wins than anyone not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame loses its distinction and becomes just a festering frustration.

Tommy John, winner of 288 games, reached that point a long time ago. And he still appears a better bet to make the American Medical Association's Hall of Fame than baseball's.

As a pitcher, consistency was his chief asset. He won 13-plus games 11 times, with an amazing 22 seasons spanning the first (1965) and last (1987).

As a Cooperstown candidate, John has been just as consistent, which, in this case, isn't such a good thing.

The left-hander is in his 14th year on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, making this his next-to-last shot at being voted in by the writers. He reached his highest vote total percentage of 29.61 in 2006, but his annual support has been in that same range since his first year of eligibility, in 1995.

Jack Morris

Jack Morris knows his sometimes cantankerous mood around reporters as a player might have hurt his chances at getting into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It would bother him more if it was something else.

"I think my relationships with the press probably had something to do with it," Morris said a couple of years ago. "And I regret that. That was then. I was an ornery crank, no question about it. I did it to protect my players. I wish I could go back and do it over. But if you're voting on my personality, I can understand your argument."

But that's not really the debate regarding Morris' chances. Ironically, it has less to do with the subjective evaluation of his personality and more to do with the normally objective job of analyzing stats.

His regular-season statistics are very good, but his postseason stats are sterling. Thus, when looking at Morris' statistics, one question always arises: Were his teams great because he pitched on them, or was he great because of his teams?

Morris' aura was built on winning. He won more games than any other pitcher in the 1980s, and it carried over to the game's greatest stage. He won three World Series with three different teams and started the series opener for each of them. His Game 7 performance for the Twins in 1991, dueling John Smoltz in a game that went scoreless into the 10th inning, still stands as one of the greatest single-game performances in the history of Fall Classic.

My thoughts on the three. None will get in this year. Blyleven and John may get in when the voting gets around to the Veteran's Committee. Morris will probably get in on the writer's ballot in a few years.