Vida Blue was a man of his times: the 1970s.
Just like the decade he had his fare share of brilliance (three twenty seasons, three World Series rings) and confusion (four seasons of 13 losses or more). Think about movies in the decade. You have some of the best of all time (the two Godfather films, "Jaws," "The Sting," Network," "Chinatown," Star Wars, "The Exorcist") yet you had some clunkers that were inexplicable. (Andy Worhol's "Dracula," "Night of the Lupus" - yes a movie about killer rabbits. Only Monty Python can pull that off, whoever made Lupus was an idiot.)
And of course, since it was the 70s, drugs were involved.
So, to look at Vida Blue's career, you have to realize he's more 70s than the BeeGees.
Bill James, in his 2003 Historical Baseball Abstract, ranks Blue as the 86th best pitcher of all time. That's ahead of John Smoltz but behind Rick Reuschel and Tony Mullane. I'd have to say James is being a bit harsh.
Baseball-Reference.com lists the right-hander's Hall of Fame monitor at 114. A likely inductee is usually at 100. The Web site might be a bit generous there.
The Web site also lists the 10 players most similar to Blue. They're either in Cooperstown or were borderline candidates. The group includes Billie Pierce, Catfish Hunter,Orel Hershiser, Hal Newhouser, Bob Welsh, Lois Tiant, Milt Pappas, Kevin Brown and Don Drysdale. Drysdale, Hunter and Newhouser are in Cooperstown and it's safe to say the other guys were by no means slouches.
That analysis might be the most spot on.
Consider Blue's first full season (1971). It included a 24-8 mark, a 1.82 ERA, 301 strikeouts and 312 innings pitched.
That's rediculously dominant. He basically came out like Sly Stallone in Rocky.
But as James points out, he never came close to putting up those numbers again.
Sure, he won 20 games in '73 and 22 in '76, made six All Star teams and finished his career with a tidy 3.27 ERA. But he never again had 200 strikeouts in a season and only twice had an ERA under 2.50.
Blue's problem appears to be that once he lost whatever it was that helped him strike out all those batters in '71, he had to win on guile and guts. And at times had trouble doing so. Now, there's no problem with that. Guys like Greg Maddux, Jamie Moyer and Dennis Martinez made great careers out of guts and guile after losing their fastballs.
But it seems to have affected Blue more. His walks never went up dramatically. Except for 1977, neither did the amount of hits he gave up.
That said, after 1971, Blue went 182-152 for his career.
So, after looking at his career there is definitely a parallel to the 70s, especially the film industry: There's some greatness (1971 is his "Apocalypse Now"), some very good (1973,1976 is like "Marathon Man" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), some awkward (14-14 in 1979 is his "Moonraker") and some bad (0-5, 8.03 in 1983 his own personal "Jaws 2").
But overall, he has to be considered very underappreciated, much like the decade's movies which often take a back seat to the 50s and 40s when it comes to great movies.
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