Completely disagree with you on Blyleven. Screw the saber-numbering - Bert's claim to fame is that he averaged 14 victories and 170 strike outs for 20 years. Longevity alone should not be the basis for getting into the Hall of Fame (emphasis on Fame). Just because Sutton's in doesn't mean we further tarnish the HOF. Blyleven was good, but you wouldn't take him over Palmer, Seaver, Hunter, Niekro, Jenkins, Perry, Carlton, or several others who are not in the HOF. Never once during his career did anyone place him amongst the best in the league (and I'd bet that very few, if any, articles written about him during his career stated he was HOF-worthy). He's borderline, and IMHO, if you're borderline, you're out.
By the way, did you know how deadly Blyleven was in the postseason? He's 5-1 with a 2.47 lifetime postseason ERA, including 2-1 with a 2.35 in the World Series. There are a lot of Hall of Famers who only wish they had been that deadly in the postseason.
Blyleven is almost a classic career-value Hall of Famer. (By the way, "borderline" can also mean you're in: it can mean, essentially, that while you don't think he looks like a Hall of Famer at first glances you don't think he doesn't, either.)
Blyleven also meets the criteria for an average Hall of Famer. First conjugated by Bill James, the average Hall of Fame pitcher would meet 50 percent of the Hall of Fame Pitching Standards and score 100 on the Hall of Fame Pitching Monitor. Blyleven meets exactly 50 percent of the former and scores 120 on the latter.
Damn straight! Definitely agree with you. Blyleven was like Mike Mussina. A very good pitcher for a decent number of years, but not Hall of Fame good. The complete games are nice, but that's how the games were played back then. I don't get why people want to mess around with so-called borderline guys. Let the veteran's committee deal with that when their turn comes up. For the voters, it's very very easy to tell a Hall of Famer from a hall of famer.
Let me demonstrate:
Randy Johnson: Hall of Famer
Bert Blyleven: Um, can I see his stats, er---bzzzzt. No.
Greg Maddux: Hall of Famer
Mike Mussina: Um, he was very good, er---bzzzzt. No.
Rickey Henderson: Hall of Famer.
Tim Raines: Well, if you look at total bases, and outs, and---bzzzt. No.
If Andre Dawson is in, I guess that means Fred McGriff will get in, which is ridiculous. Why not put in Dave Kingman while you're at it? Then again, Willie Stargell probably didn't belong either.
To sum up, here's what a list of modern hall of famers looks like:
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
RIckey Henderson
Here's what a list of also-rans looks like:
Bert Blyleven
Mike Mussina
Tim Raines