I would LOVE to see a “10 best years” comparison between Joe Morgan and the Rajah. I do know that for their careers, here were their OPS+ numbers:
Morgan 132
Hornsby 175

Uh, yeah. Give me the guy who hits better than Mickey Mantle or Albert Pujols.

1969 178 OPS+ 48 Hrs
1970 170 OPS+ 44 Hrs
1968 170 OPS+ 44 Hrs
1967 153 OPS+ 36 Hrs
1962 149 OPS+ 31 Hrs
1963 147 OPS+ 28 Hrs
1971 144 OPS+ 26 Hrs
1965 138 OPS+ 21 Hrs
1966 127 OPS+ 18 Hrs
1961 119 OPS+ 15 Hrs

What a terrific hitter with those numers in the core of the worst era for hitters and playing in Dodger Stadium and RFK Stadium.
Hondo deser

For a non basesball fan, you make a good point. That that point has already been made and researched and discussed is immaterial to my being impressed that you came up with it on your own. To the point itself: it is a known factor. Speaking very generically, it’s easier to put up better rate stats (something like ERA, or even Winning Percentage, that does not inherently denote the amount of what it’s measuring, as opposed to a counting stat like homers, which does not denote the rate) when one can go all out at every opportunity. But what you’re describing is known as “pitching to the score”, and it has been researched. And in fact, Baseball Prospectus did so specifically for Jack Morris, here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1815 . Conclusion? Not a repeatable skill, a necessity (by dogma, though reasoned dogma and accepted by me) to say that it’s done in real life or is able to be done.

Additionally, there is the counterbalance that in times of high run scoring, where it is easier to put up a high ERA+ (because it’s easier to deviate from a large number than a really small one), you *must* bear down against all hitters as they can all hurt you. The amount of IP where you’ve got the kind of lead that you can just fling BP fastballs over the middle are so small that they’re of tiny effect on the overall ERA+.

I don’t mean to imply that this is not a valid point. It is. It’s been (so far) researched to the somewhat weak determination that it is a valid, yet small, impact on ERA+ overall and not a repeatable skill which we should credit to the pitcher. This would mean that its application for someone like Morris and the judging of his career is not advisable. Now you’re talking about even a subset of pitching to the score, pitching to the score in late innings. You can make a really small adjustment to the career ERA+ totals for guys who threw a lot of CGs relative to their leagues, but it’d be less than a full point total, so there’s little practical effect.

You frequently point out that wins don’t mean that much for a pitcher, and I’m down with that. But when you combine wins with complete games, it seems to me that it could end up screwing up ERA+, a stat you do seem to like, for obvious reasons. Let me explain.

If you’re ahead (or even behind in the AL, where substitutions for hitting don’t matter) in a 1 run game in the 7th inning, you throw your best stuff that you have at that moment. You need the outs. But if you’re ahead by 4 or 5 with nobody on, as I understand it, you throw strikes. You need the outs.*

* Imitating you with the asterisk. I still remember, even as a non-fan, when the Giants met the Angels in the Series, and there was “K-Rod” on the mound against Barry Bonds, who had hit everything into the next time zone all season. The Angels were up by 2, so Rodriguez was throwing fastballs. To Barry Bonds. The expected happened, and Rodriguez had my favorite quote. “I just wanted to see how far he could hit a ball…”

But, from a baseball perspective, he was right to do it. You have a two run lead. Don’t let him get on base easily. Throw your best stuff. If he hits it, he hits it. Giving up a towering homer made as much sense to me as giving him first base, and Rodriguez wasn’t getting him out without his fastball. Now, back to my point…

This kind of pitching gives up hits, and maybe a run or two. But you can afford to give up a run or two. As we all know now (hell, even *I’ve* read “Moneyball” and the critics of the book), it’s the walks that correlate with the 4 or 5 run inning. So don’t give those up, and stay ahead.

But pitchers, like Morris and Carlton, who prided themselves on going 9 innings, were going to see that situation more than other pitchers, certainly more than today’s 100 pitch count pitchers. What effect did this have on their ERA’s? Doesn’t this make wins a more important stat, since they pitched differently in some of those wins, at least in the late innings, than they did in their losses?

Just a question. Baseball is such a stat game that I have little doubt somebody has thought about this. THANKS!