This year's Hall of Fame ballot

[kenny1234]

Henderson - definitely. McGwire - probably, though I think walks are overvalued for middle-of-the-order type hitters such as him. Raines and Blyleven - I think so - that is about where I draw the line. I wouldn't be disappointed if neither was in.

Other than that - not interested. I prefer a small HOF - and moving the bar a little lower just lets in too many players.

[TheNamelessPoet]

Henderson - definitely. McGwire - probably, though I think walks are overvalued for middle-of-the-order type hitters such as him. Raines and Blyleven - I think so - that is about where I draw the line. I wouldn't be disappointed if neither was in.

Other than that - not interested. I prefer a small HOF - and moving the bar a little lower just lets in too many players.

agreed

[justanewguy]

He deserved anywhere from 1-3 Cy Young awards, but was victimized by playing on poor teams and thus having poor won-loss records. He's also sort of the Mike Mussina of his generation - near the top of the league for a very long team but rarely ever AT the top. And I think Mussina deserves to be in the HOF.

Though I don't agree, your arguments for both these players make sense to me. I could live with Blyleven as a HOFer because he was an outstanding pitcher with special numbers. Personally though, if I had a vote he wouldn't be on my ballot.

One problem I have with "near the top of the league for a long time but rarely at the top" is that it expands the boundaries and makes things muddier. If Mussina goes in, then what about David Wells, Jack Morris and Jamie Moyer? Certainly these are NOT Hall of Famers, but what separates them from Mussina?

I wouldn't mind drawing the line between Blyleven and Mussina.

[HoustonGM]

One problem I have with "near the top of the league for a long time but rarely at the top" is that it expands the boundaries and makes things muddier. If Mussina goes in, then what about David Wells, Jack Morris and Jamie Moyer? Certainly these are NOT Hall of Famers, but what separates them from Mussina?

The difference is that Wells, Morris, and Moyer weren't always near the top of the league. They were always solid pitchers that had a couple years at the top of the league sprinkled in.

ERA+:

105 (Morris)
106 (Moyer)
108 (Wells)
118 (Blyleven)
123 (Mussina)

It's a clear gap.

[rockiesfan4ever]

Yea there are definately worse players on there than Girardi.

As much as I love him Terry Shumpert was worse than Girardi

[justanewguy]

The difference is that Wells, Morris, and Moyer weren't always near the top of the league. They were always solid pitchers that had a couple years at the top of the league sprinkled in.

ERA+:

105 (Morris)
106 (Moyer)
108 (Wells)
118 (Blyleven)
123 (Mussina)

It's a clear gap.

I knew Mussina has a higher ERA+, but I'm just unsure where the line should be drawn. My question was more rhetorical than it was outright asking "Why him and not them?"

The difference, obviously, is that Mussina was on the bubble of being a top-5 pitcher in his LEAGUE for about half of his career, where the others didn't spend as much time near the top (although Wells and Morris were first/second tier starters for quite some time). But I'm big on the concept of HOFers needing to be at or near the very top of their class during the era in which they played (Randy Johnson), or at the very, very top for a stretch of seasons (Sandy Koufax). Even in Mussina's best season (by ERA+, '94), he was outpitched by Cone, Johnson, Maddux, Saberhagen and Drabek. The closest he came to winning a Cy Young ('99, second place) was right in the middle of Pedro Martinez pitching like a freak, and was actually an unspectacular season in HOF terms (134 ERA+ for the best [theoretically] league-comparative season of his career? Hmm...).

I'm not sure Mussina was a clear top-10 pitcher (both leagues) for more than maybe 2 or 3 or seasons. These weren't even consecutive seasons. It also doesn't help him that his peers were some of the greatest pitchers baseball has ever seen (Clemens, Maddux, Pedro).

It's simply a tough sell because of what was going on around him at the time. And the numbers don't really scream HOF to me anyway.

Mussina is the Jim Rice of pitchers.

[HeraldSports]

Bert Blyleven
Andre Dawson
Don Mattingly
Jim Rice
Lee Smith
Alan Trammell
Rickey Henderson

that's my ballot

[HoustonGM]

Mussina had the misfortune of pitching during a time in which we saw a near-unprecedented run of pitching talent with the likes of Maddux, Glavine, Johnson, Pedro, etc. I don't think that necessarily should keep him out of the Hall.

For me, a HOF pitcher can come in a variety of forms. You have the all-time greats like Maddux and Johnson that combine fantastic peaks with long careers. You have the guys that lack a long career but had fantastic peaks, like Pedro. You have the pitchers with great career value but no peak, like Nolan Ryan. Then you have the pitchers that were consistently well above-average but never at the very top of their league, like Mussina.

Mussina gets in for me on the back of great career value. He's clearly far below the level of Maddux and the like, but he's above the established standard of pitchers in the Hall.

Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus developed the "JAWS" system to measure HOF candidacy, based on Wins Above Replacement. It takes a player's career WARP score and mixes it with his peak WARP score (best 5 or 7 seasons, I forget) to get his JAWS score. He then compares it to that of the average HOF pitcher.

Here's a look at a bunch of the modern pitchers:

Pitcher         Career   Peak    JAWS
Roger Clemens    199.6   83.9   141.8
Greg Maddux      180.3   86.0   133.2
Randy Johnson    147.0   77.3   112.2
Tom Glavine      137.4   63.7   100.6
Pedro Martinez   118.0   68.8    93.4
Mike Mussina     117.8   64.3    91.1
John Smoltz      122.8   58.5    90.7
Curt Schilling   110.3   65.9    88.1
Avg HoF SP       106.0   67.2    86.6

Mussina is below the peak threshhold, but solidly above the career threshhold, which jives with what I said about him being consistently well above average for a long time, but never incredibly great.

I'd personally vote for each of those pitchers (not solely because of this), and I don't consider myself a "large hall" type of guy. But, considering the size of the league now with 30 teams, I don't think 8 Hall of Fame pitchers from one generation is all that out of whack.

[filihok]

But, considering the size of the league now with 30 teams, I don't think 8 Hall of Fame pitchers from one generation is all that out of whack.

Don't you have to figure that in...the dilution of batting talent?

[HoustonGM]

Don't you have to figure that in...the dilution of batting talent?

Talent is "diluted" after any expansion year, but tends to even out. Not sure what exactly you're trying to say here.

[justanewguy]

Here's a look at a bunch of the modern pitchers:

Pitcher         Career   Peak    JAWS
Roger Clemens    199.6   83.9   141.8
Greg Maddux      180.3   86.0   133.2
Randy Johnson    147.0   77.3   112.2
Tom Glavine      137.4   63.7   100.6
Pedro Martinez   118.0   68.8    93.4
Mike Mussina     117.8   64.3    91.1
John Smoltz      122.8   58.5    90.7
Curt Schilling   110.3   65.9    88.1
Avg HoF SP       106.0   67.2    86.6

Thanks for this. It's an interesting list. I also find it interesting that the top 5 on this list are the only 5 starters from the 90s that I'd vote into the HOF if I had a ballot. Mussina, Smoltz and Schilling are all close-but-no-cigar as far as I'm concerned.

I'm curious how this guy defines a "peak," because Pedro's looks a little low, and the idea of Pedro being only a slight notch above Mussina seems kind of... ridiculous.

Anyway, you do make a strong case, and it's swayed me to be a little less anti-Mussina as a HOFer and more accepting of the idea, but I still wouldn't vote for him. And the idea of "well above average" as a HOF description doesn't really do it for me.

And I'm not sure I'd go with you on the size of the league thing, because theoretically, the cream should rise to the top the same way, no matter how many teams there are. And more teams/players doesn't mean there can/should be more HOFers, in my opinion.

[filihok]

Talent is "diluted" after any expansion year, but tends to even out. Not sure what exactly you're trying to say here.

That there are more teams now, hence more players, than ever before. More players are in baseball that wouldn't have been in baseball when there were less teams. More easy(er) outs.

[HoustonGM]

I'm curious how this guy defines "peak value," because Pedro's looks a little low, and the idea of Pedro being only a slight notch above Mussina seems kind of... ridiculous.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Career WARP is the player's total WARP3 for his career. Peak WARP is the total WARP of the player's 7 best seasons (according to WARP, obviously).

But, looking it over, there has to be an error in the numbers he posted, as I'm getting Pedro's best 7 seasons to total up to 76.4. Mussina now gets a slight bump due to this past season and comes out at 66.4 (I'm getting 65.6 prior to this year, slightly off from the numbers he posted).

I also should mention that WARP3 is "adjusted for all-time", so the calculation will change slightly from year to year, although one year shouldn't be enough for the 8 point change in Pedro's 7 best seasons.

Here are their current best 7 seasons (including 2008), Pedro on top, Mussina below:

14.1, 13.2, 10.9, 10.6, 9.8, 9.6, 8.2
10.5, 9.6, 9.6, 9.6, 9.3, 8.9, 8.9

[RedsoxRockies]

What about Baines and Raines and Parker? They each deserve to be in the HOF

[HoustonGM]

What about Baines and Raines and Parker? They all should be in....

I agree with Raines, not on Baines and Parker.