Blue Jays long-time ace overlooked again on Hall of Fame Era's ballot

The Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot for the 2026 Hall of Fame class has been unveiled and much to the chagrin of long-time fans of the Toronto Blue Jays, a very important figure in team history has been overlooked once again.

Dave Stieb has been omitted from the ballot and it feels at this point like these committees are just trolling fans with some of the names they leave off.

Blue Jays long-time ace overlooked again on Hall of Fame Era's ballot

While the Blue Jays do have a couple of connections to this years ballot, Stieb is a name whose credentials line up with some of the best of them, especially among his peers in his era.

The 1980's basically belonged to Stieb. He threw 2537 innings, only Jack Morris threw more and Morris eventually got to the Hall of Fame through a ballot committee himself. If you like the traditional stats, Stieb was third in wins from 1980-90 with 158. Of the pitchers who threw at least 2000 innings in that time, Stieb had the third best ERA of 3.29 behind Nolan Ryan's 3.16 and 3.18. He led all of baseball in shutouts (29) and was fifth in complete games (94) and first in quality starts (225).

Stieb wasn't a strikeout artist but he did punch out 1505 hitters, the sixth most of that time frame, although his strikeout rate is on the lower side at 14.3% with 10 guys ahead of him. However, diving into more of the advanced stats, his .231 average against is third, his 1.22 WHIP is third, and his BABIP of .256 is second.

Stieb never won a Cy Young award despite seven All-Star seasons and several years where he led the league in some major categories. His 2.48 ERA in 1985 was a career and league best. He led the majors in innings pitched in 1982 and '84, while his 19 complete games and five shutouts in '82 topped all pitchers.

The advanced stats show that he led the league in ERA+ and H/9 in both '84 and '85 and he led the league in bWAR three straight years from '82-'84. In eight of his 16 seasons in the big leagues he had a bWAR of 4.0 or higher and in only one full season was he a negative war player.

And while one moment doesn't make a Hall of Famer, his quest to pitch a no-hitter is a legendary story that culminated in a storybook ending when he finally added his name to the record book on Sept. 2, 1990.

The 1980's are an under serviced era of baseball in the Hall of Fame. Only five starting pitchers who mainly pitched in their prime in that time have been elected to the Hall of Fame; Morris, Rich Gossage, Dennis Eckersley, Nolan Ryan and Bert Blyleven and Steib's career bWAR of 56.5 ranks right in the middle of that group, ahead of Marris and Gossage and behind Eckersley, who converted into a formidable closer in the second half of his career.

While this Hall of Fame committee needs to right at least one wrong and vote in Carlos Delgado who is on the ballot, they also need to adjust the players eligible the next time around and include Stieb.