This past Tuesday, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio became the largest class of inductees into the baseball Hall of Fame since 1955. Not among those players were names like Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
To summarize, the most feared hitter of all time, the greatest power hitting catcher of all time, a 300 win pitcher with the most Cy Young awards of all time, the bloody sock, and the two players who saved baseball from irrelevancy, all failed to make the cut.
However unfortunate it is for this list of players to have been passed up this particular go around, it’s not a surprise that they were. Each has been linked to steroids and has been black marked by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
So, the clean players got inducted and the cheaters didn’t. Simple as that, no harm no foul. Right?
Wrong.
The rules for the vote allow for a ballot to carry a maximum of only ten names. To be elected, a player must receive 75% of the vote. Meaning, these players are eating up space on the ballots in which they appear, and further hinder the chances of other players to get elected.
Players like Mike Mussina, for instance.
Mussina only earned 135 votes, good for 24.6% of the vote in his 2nd year on the ballot. Unfortunately for Mike, 2016 will likely be another rough year. Ken Griffey Jr., Trevor Hoffman, and Billy Wagner are scheduled to be added to the fray, and the steroid contingent will still be lingering.
Poor Mike.
With the restrictions in place his chances are slim to ever join the Hall. We are therefore left to wonder if he is a victim of tough luck and truly deserves to join the Hall, or not.
I for one believe he is a Hall of Fame caliber player and deserves to be elected. My colleague Greg Hogan feels the opposite way. Below is our argument For vs Against:
MICHAEL: The largest criticism Mussina is faced with seems to be that he is a guy who put up a lot of wins (270), played for forever (3,562.2 IP), but not much else. However, since accumulating wins is largely a byproduct of having played on good teams, Mussina’s strongest argument for the hall seems more like a silver medal.
Fair point. 300 game winners might disagree, but there is logic to this claim. Reaching career plateaus requires tremendous durability and consistency. In baseball, these milestones are hallowed ground. 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins. Each is a golden ticket into the hall, unless your name carries an asterisk.
I’d argue, however, that in context Mussina’s numbers are actually very good. Keep in mind he played through the heart of the steroid era, where ERA’s ballooned nearly as much as the players. His mid-3’s ERA was consistently among the league best. Unlike 2014, where 22 major league pitchers recorded an ERA under 3.00—the most since 1972—the steroid era was very different.
So how do we compare?
Enter WAR. WAR is a great stat that offers a contextual view of the results throughout his career, and it makes a very strong case for his candidacy.
Mussina’s career WAR of 82.7 is the highest number for any pitcher who is not in the hall of fame, except for Roger Clemens*. No doubt Hall of Famers like Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton, finished with 83.8 and 84.1 respectively. Mussina even has a few points on Bob Gibson, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz.
Considering this, Mr. Hogan, I ask you, how on earth can you leave Mussina off your next Hall of Fame ballot?
GREG: Alright, alright, Mike you’ve made your stance clear. Mike Mussina is a surefire Hall of Famer who is getting gipped by an unfair system.
Wrong.
Look I see the argument people like to make for Mussina and it has a lot of merit. Mussina was a really good pitcher for a long time, 18 years to be exact. But 18 years of being a really good pitcher isn’t the equivalent of a Hall of Fame pitcher. It’s the sum of a pitcher who will be remembered by those who watched him, but not one that merits an immortal, bronze plaque in Cooperstown.
I like the argument of Mussina’s WAR being the highest of any non-Hall of Fame pitcher, I really do. And I’ll be completely honest when I say that I had no idea his career WAR is higher than Gibson, Glavine, and Smoltz. But do you want to know the difference between Mussina and those guys? Gibson, Glavine, and Smoltz were all at one point dominant. They were all at one point the best pitcher in baseball.
I don’t just say that because each of Gibson, Glavine, and Smoltz won at least one Cy Young a piece in their careers (something Mussina never did), I say that because they truly can lay claim to being the best pitcher in the game at some time just based off the “eye-ball” test.
Now being the best pitcher in the game at one point isn’t the lone factor in determining who’s a Hall of Famer of course. But it is a requirement in my mind. Or at the very least, a Hall of Fame pitcher should be able to lay claim to being dominant for a certain stretch. Mussina was never dominant. At his very best, he was a great pitcher, but never the kind of guy who when he stepped out on the mound the opponent thought, “Oh crap, we’re done”.
Here are some nice statistics for you, Mussina’s 3.68 career ERA, would be the highest of any Hall of Fame pitcher. His ERA+ of 123 would be the highest of any player inducted into the Hall of Fame since Nolan Ryan in 1999, though I think it’s safe to say Mussina was not quite the pitcher Ryan was. And in Mussina’s entire career, the only statistic he ever led the league in besides wins was his 4 shutouts in 1995, and his 237.2 innings pitched in 2000. Neither of those categories make a Hall of Fame pitcher, especially in this day and age.
You’re right about one thing though, Mussina pitched through perhaps the most rugged era in baseball history for a pitcher, the “steroid” era. Granted his numbers may have been slightly inflated by this, consider that he still pales in comparison to other guys who pitched during nearly identical time frames as him. Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, Johnson, and Martinez have all already been inducted. While Schilling, Hoffman, and Wagner are likely to see the Hall in the future as well. With those guys already in the mix, I simply don’t see Mussina as being an elite pitcher from this era of pitching.
So again, while Mussina was a very good pitcher as you aptly pointed out, I’d need a lot more evidence to convince me he’s a Hall of Famer worthy of joining the ranks of even the 2014 pitcher class of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz.
MICHAEL: So there you have it. Does Mike Mussina’s longevity, consistency, and play in the steroid era merit an invitation to the hall? Or is he a silver medalist and future member of the not-so-coveted Hall of Very Good?
You decide.
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