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Mike Mussina Pitching: 475 points League leaders: 15 points (led league in wins, innings and FIP) Defensive bonus: 20 points A career of near-misses: 10 points (almost won 20 a bunch, almost threw a perfect game, etc.) Moose nickname: 5 points Hall of Fame Race to 400 points: 525 I've...
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I hope that the very well qualified Schilling is struck by a massive case of laryngitis on the day of the ceremony but is otherwise enshrined.
Mussina was a great, great pitcher and certainly very deserving of the HOF. But to see it, you have to understand both the era in which he pitched and, to a lesser degree, the parks he pitched in and defense behind him. If you look merely at the raw numbers that have been the core of generations of discussions, Moose is no different than Jim Kaat or Tommy John:
Mussina 270 Ws, 3.68 ERA
Kaat 283 Ws, 3.45 ERA
John 288 Ws, 3.34 ERA
Of course the other two played when scoring was well below what it was during the latters career so by ERA+ it goes
Moose 123
Kitty Kaat 108
Frank Jobe’s patient 111
And by bWAR
Stanford boy 82.9
Kaat 45.4
John 62.5
I think the electorate is coming around on the post Bill James / Pete Palmer understanding of statistics, but Mussina had an uphill climb in the face of tradition.
Yeah, both Mussina and Schilling are poster children for the pre and post advanced stats era judging players. Honestly I’m not sure Schilling would get postseason bonus though. I can’t think of a single player whose postseason pushed him over the top. MAYBE Maz? And he had to wait for the VC.
Personally I hope Schilling gets inducted the same year as Bonds and Clemens so no one will care about him or give him any attention.
I think the only way you can possibly ding both of them is on their peak numbers. They are both below the average HOF line while Halladay is above. However, the peak average is skewed by the deadball era guys. Clemens is the first modern guy at 11 and Koufax does not make it either.
It will be interesting to see how they judge modern starting pitchers coming up. Kershaw, Scherzer, Greinke and Verlander are the top 4 current pitchers and probably will not increase their peak numbers (all below the baseline) and no one else is even close. Then you might add in Sabbathia who does not have the peak of those guys but has been close in longevity (I think the writers will say no). Who else could we see going into the Hall from today’s pitchers. Lester, Hamels and Sale seem really far away. With the decreased workloads, who can compile enough value? May have to be a committee to just review pitchers in the future. After Schilling and Mussina (ignoring Clemens), we could only have 2-4 pitchers in the next 20 plus years (I think Greinke and Scherzer will have a tough time while Verlander and Kershaw will sail in).
I think all four will be in. Obviously Keyshawn and Verlander as you said. I’m not sure why you think Scherzer will struggle. Name a pitcher with 3 CYs who’s not in the HOF? He has an interesting career in that his value came later in his career than most. But, the good side of that is that (at least up to last year) he’s still pitching at his peak. He could still add a lot of value in the next few years. Either way, it’s impossible to ignore his high peak and 3 CYs even if he drops off a cliff this year. He’s been the best, or next best pitcher in his league for at least 4-5 years out of the last 6.
Greinke has a CY and probably should have another one. He has compiled 66 WAR and, again as recently as last year, is still going strong. Another season like last year will comfortably put him into the 70s with more years to compile. He’s under contract for 3 more years, so I don’t see him going anywhere.
But the biggest point is that you named the 4 big guys from this current generation. There are others that will merit consideration. But when they hit the ballot in 8-10 years, who’s their competition? The current ballot will be cleared. There won’t be a bunch of starting pitchers meriting consideration. In fact, with current trends, their numbers will look huge in comparison to the next generation. All 4 are in easily. Maybe not all first ballot (though that can’t be ruled out at this point). But the writers will vote then all in.
*Kershaw. Geez.
The most interesting name you listed, to me, is Hamels, who will end up with a much stronger case than people will give him credit for, which is to say, I don’t think he gets in. He’s entering the “crafty lefty” phase of his career and I could easily see him last another five or six years there if he wants to. He’s at 56.4 bWAR and 2,400 strikeouts. If he goes another five years, conservatively, he’ll be somewhere in the low-to-mid 60s in BWAR and pretty close to 3,000 career strikeouts. If he can clear 3,000 strikeouts or add another 15 bWAR (I know, easier said than done), he could sneak in.
Hamels is an interesting case. He has a lot more work to do, and he’ll be 35 next year. In addition, he’s had some health issues over the last few years that have cut into his value. Not only is he going to have to maintain a rotation spot and be productive, he’s going to need to stay healthy. I personally don’t think he’ll get there, unless he takes the Don Sutton route and literally pitches successfully, if not spectacularly, into his 40s. I’m not certain that he’s that guy. I don’t think he is IMO.
I’ll go out on a limb and say Sabathia, Verlander, Kershaw, and Scherzer will be slam-dunk BBWAA electees. I think Greinke is a stretch at this point, as are Hamels and Lester.
I know Schilling has the great postseason numbers, but I don’t see his overall career as substantially different from Kevin Brown’s. And as far as the playoffs go, Carl Mays had a terrific “stretch run” resume, when the pennant race was all the “postseason” there was.
I think Verlander, Kershaw, Scherzer, Sabathia, and Greinke are all locks, maybe 2nd ballot for Greinke. Lester is a lot lower on the WAR lists than I thought, so probably not.
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Schilling is substantially ahead of Brown in WAR & WAR7, so I don’t know why he’s looking like Brown to you. Brown would probably be in if not for his roids and roid-raging. I wonder how many pitchers have a higher postseason WPA than Schilling’s spectacular 4.09.
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The highest-probability active pitcher is probably Felix Hernandez, who I think most people had in the Hall a couple of years ago. Then there’s a long drop to Kluber, and another long drop to Price. De Grom may be in the hunt in a year or two.
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I think Schilling and Mussina have got to be the most qualified non-PED, eligible, non-Hall of Famers, by far, except maybe for Rivera.
I meant to write that Felix is the top active pitcher that was *unmentioned* in the comments so far. 🙂
I’ll up the ante and say that one day soon, this batch of pitchers, all about the same age, will be regarded as a historically great bunching of pitchers, much like our generation views the bunch that includes Carlton, Ryan, Sutton, and others of the 1970’s and early 1980’s.
I don’t think I’d include Sutton in that list of historically great bunching of pitchers. I’d mention Seaver and Palmer well before Sutton.
Sure… Seaver and Palmer are definitely ahead of Sutton. And here’s the 4-year span I was thinking of, with birth years of some of the top pitchers:
1944 Carlton, Seaver
1945 Sutton, Palmer, Messersmith, Wise
1946 Hunter
1947 Ryan
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The current batch will not match the one above. The best I can come up with is a 2-year batch:
1983 Verlander, Greinke, Hamels
1984 Scherzer, Lester
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But I think this batch beats the 1944-1947 batch, with any four-year group:
1962 Clemens, ChuFinley, Moyer, Drabek
1963 RanJohnson, Cone, Wells
1964 Saberhagen, Gooden, KenRogers
1965 KevBrown, Leiter
1966 Maddux, Schilling, Glavine
1967 Smoltz, Appier, AndBenes
The 1944-1947 batch has six HoFers, and you can’t quite do that with this group, but the 1966-67 group will have four HoFers once Schilling goes in.
Glad to see someone cite Moyer on this string . An all time great.
Here’s why Schilling looks like Brown to me:
Schilling: 127 ERA+, 3261 IP, 216-146 (.597), leaderships: K 2x, Wins 2x, WHIP 2x, K/BB 5x, FIP 1x
Brown: 127 ERA+, 3256.1 IP, 211-144 (.594), leaderships: WAR 2x, Wins 1x, WHIP 2x, K/BB 1x, FIP 1x, ERA+ 1x
Schilling was a better strikeout pitcher, but he tempered that by being a much more egregious homer granter. Though each pitcher does claim one FIP title, so their balance among strikeouts, walks, and homers isn’t especially divergent. Once it all gets lumped together, Schilling career FIP is 3.23, and Kevin Brown’s is 3.33 – practically no difference at all.
The JAWS calculation isn’t really a “peak” – seven disparate “silos of excellence” don’t help define a “peak” in any sense of the word. And if the examples of Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax are instructive at all, it really only takes five years to define a Hall-worthy peak. So let’s look at their best contiguous five-year spans.
Schilling (2000-2004): 36.5 WAR, 144 ERA+, CY: 3 seconds, leaderships: 2 W, 1 IP, 1 FIP, 4 K/BB
Brown (1996-2000): 36.9 WAR, 164 ERA+, CY: 1 second/1 third/2 sixths, leaderships: 1 ERA+, 1 FIP, 2 WHIP, 1 K/BB
Yeah, they definitely look very similar that way. The reason for their large WAR difference looks to be mainly that Schilling gave up much fewer unearned runs, about 100 fewer. WAR doesn’t care about ERA, only RA, so there you go. And Schilling beats Brown in their 6th-best WAR seasons, 7th-best, and probably all the way down, which I think is significant. They’re close, but I think Schilling has a significantly better record. And that’s before getting to the postseason, which I really think should count, and turns Schilling into an “inner circle” Hall of Famer.
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But again, I believe Brown would’ve been in the Hall a long time ago, and I’d have voted for him, if he’d kept off the roids… but would he have had the same record without them. Nope…
Also… I see Schilling having more leaderships than you listed: 2 IP, and 2 WHIP’s, and 2 K’s, lots of GS and CG, lots of SO/W… what happened there?
I did list WHIP, K’s and K/BB: for simplicity I didn’t include those categories that don’t index especially well with “greatness” (rather “longevity”), so no GS/GC/IP. Both Brown and Schilling have 3x GS, Schilling 2x IP and Brown 1x IP, and Schilling has 4x CG (with 20 ShO), while Brown has no CG leaderships (with 17 ShO). I don’t see these as particularly distinguishing.
OK. I was looking at the leaders in the 5-year spans, my mistake.
I’d put Schilling in before Mussina, but both merit induction.
I thought about Felix but he looks cooked and is actually making his career numbers looks worse. ERA+ of 108, 106, 96 and 73 last 4 years. Negative BWAR last year. Is 3 great years with one Cy Young enough. Looking more like Guidry to me. Unless something changes, I do not see it.