Bert Blyleven is the 21st inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats and, as a native of the Netherlands, our first inductee born in a nation with no major league team.

While it took 14 long years of voting with Blyleven on the ballot for the Baseball Writers Association of America to induct Bert into the Hall of Fame, COG voters have now inducted him at the first opportunity.  You picked Bert in preference to ten guys that the BBWAA elected while making Blyleven wait (Gwynn, Sandberg, Murray, Dawson, Winfield, Puckett, Rice, Sutter, Eckersley and Gossage).   More on Byleven and the 1951 round of voting is after the jump.

Top Pitching WAR in an Age 22 Season, over the past 100 seasons (1913-2012):
1. Bert Blyleven (1973) 9.9 WAR
2. Hubert “Dutch” Leonard (1914) 9.3
3. Larry Dierker (1969) 8.6
4. Bill James (1914) 8.2
T5. Bob Feller (1941) and Sam McDowell (1965) 8.1

Top Pitching WAR in an Age 38 Season, over the past 100 seasons (1913-2012):
1. Randy Johnson (2002) 10.9 WAR
2. Phil Niekro (1977) 8.9
3. Emil “Dutch” Leonard (1947) 6.6
4. Bert Blyleven (1989) 6.0
5. Babe Adams (1920) 5.8

Since 1901, only Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton have struck out more batters than Bert Blyleven.

Seven hitters faced Bert Blyleven more than 100 times over their careers.  Three of those seven guys were Hall of Famers.  The records of those three guys when they faced Blyleven:

Reggie Jackson (140 PAs) .214 BA/.264 OBP/.397 SLG/.661 OPS
George Brett (128 PAs) .231 BA/.281 OBP/.342 SLG/.623 OPS
Robin Yount (114 PAs) .182 BA/.211 OBP/.300 SLG/.511 OPS

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This round’s 1951 birth-year newcomers garnered enough interest, even beyond Blyleven, that the holdover group has now been re-stocked with three new members: Dave Winfield, Goose Gossage and Dwight Evans.  And there was enough continuing support for the existing group of nine holdovers that none of them were knocked out either.

But the voting, other than for Blyleven, was so widely spread around that no one on the bubble reached the 25% support level required to get off the bubble next round (Ryne Sandberg and Dave Winfield came close but fell just short).  So next round will see six, count ’em six, holdovers at risk of losing their spots on the ballot.  On the bright side for those guys, after the 1950 vote is complete we’ll do our every-ten-birth-years redemption round.

Tony Gwynn, who always gets solid support from the COG voters, came into this round averaging 22 votes per round, and this round he received: 22 votes.

Voting participation generally was up this round, to a level (65 ballots submitted) we haven’t seen the past five rounds.

As usual, you can check out the complete voting record for this past round at Google Docs. The link is here: 1951 COG Vote Tally

If you would like to review the history of the COG voting, a spreadsheet summary of the voting is here: COG Vote Summary , with a summary of the raw vote totals on Sheet 1 and a summary of the percentage totals on Sheet 2.

The Circle of Greats membership thus far:
Jeff Bagwell
Bert Blyleven
Wade Boggs
Barry Bonds
George Brett
Gary Carter
Roger Clemens
Tom Glavine
Rickey Henderson
Randy Johnson
Barry Larkin
Greg Maddux
Paul Molitor
Mike Mussina
Mike Piazza
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Curt Schilling
Ozzie Smith
Frank Thomas
Larry Walker
Robin Yount