August 28, 2022

By Andrew Hendriks

Canadian Baseball Network

TORONTO - Though there's a growing contingent of fans vying for a review of his Cooperstown candidacy, former Toronto Blue Jays ace Dave Stieb says he tries not to think about the Hall of Fame anymore.

"I've always said I don't deserve to because my stats don't warrant it," explained Stieb ahead of the Blue Jays’ ('Stiebian' 2-0) loss to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Saturday. "(Voting) was based on wins, basically."

The seven-time All-Star referred to pitcher wins, an antiquated statistic subject to overall run support and a factor that American League pitchers had zero control over during his MLB career.

For context, Stieb wound up with 176 wins against 137 losses over his 16 major league seasons. The majority of those came during the 80s, a decade that saw him notch a combined 140, good for second-most over that span (Jack Morris, 162).

"Apparently, they look at it differently now with the new analytics and so forth," added Stieb. "I've had people tell me that if you look at it that way, it might be justified."

Those analytics include wins above replacement (WAR), a sabermetric statistic that encompasses a series of figures relating to players' individual performance and compares it to a league median. Stieb accounted for 45.2 wins above replacement during the 80s decade. The next closest pitcher in Major League Baseball during that stretch was Bob Welch with 35.1.

His performance numbers are padded by the fact that he led the American League in innings pitched on two separate occasions (1982, 1984), complete games in 1982, and ERA with a 2.48 mark in 1985. Additionally, Stieb would also go on to appear in five postseason games and be named to seven of the 10 All-Star squads assembled that decade.

Although he officially fell off the Cooperstown ballot in 2007, Stieb's case for Cooperstown lives on.

Earlier this year, Secret Base --an SB Nation YouTube channel dedicated to sports storytelling-- published "One More Afternoon / The Story Of Dave Stieb".

The video was the fourth (and final) feature in a series of posts relating to the "Poetic, Fascinating and Shocking" career of Toronto's former ace. Within, author Jon Bois offered the viewer a deep dive look at Stieb's body of work as a professional ballplayer, culminating in a near hour-and-a-half long video spent talking about his final years and expressing why a Hall of Fame nod should be reconsidered.

Informed of the project by his daughter, Stieb reached out to the author and had a detailed discussion during the recording process between the second and third episodes.

"He originally said it was going to be a four-part, 20-minute documentary," explained Stieb at Rogers Centre on Saturday. "But then he said they looked at all of my stats and said there's no way they could do that in an hour... It became a four-part, 40-minute episode deal."

Sparking a comment section filled with little debate as to where its subject stands among his peers, the Secret Base production has over 339,900 views on YouTube to date.

Although the recent spike in recognition is as deserved as it is welcomed, Stieb's standpoint on his Hall of Fame prospects remains unchanged.

"I really don't give it a whole lot of thought anymore," he said. "I've accepted the fact that I'm not in it."

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