Circle Me Bert...right Into the Hall of Fame

How long does Bert Blyleven have to wait until the Hall comes knocking on his door. He has 287 wins...287 wins. He pitched 22 seasons. Do the math and you see that if he won about .5 more wins per game in his career he would have the magical 300 wins and I wouldn't be typing this post. The fact that he pitched on some pretty bad teams should factor into the equation. I understand he never won the Cy Young awards, but neither did a lot of pitchers...including Nolan Ryan.

I'm not saying he's on the same level as Nolan Ryan, but they do have some similarities. They both pitched on some pretty bad teams and shared success despite that circumstance. The fact is Bert is the 5th all-time leading strikeout pitcher in the history of MLB. He was third when he retired, but has since been passed by The Rocket and The Big Unit. He is 9th on the all-time shutout list with 60. Most pitchers in today's generation won't have 60 complete games, yet alone shutouts. He won a World Series in 1987 so he's won the big one. Critics will say that he hung around to accumulate the stats, but he had some impressive single-season accomplishments as well.