Mussina thriving in steroid era has to count

[boomboom]

I remember 1998 when he was with the Padres, Brown was just amazing! That effort he put in 1998, if my memory serves me well...he led the team, kind of like how Johnson led the 95 Mariners.... 1998 version of Brown just off my memory was just awesome...without looking numbers...

[boomboom]

I don't know about top 5/6 for all 4 of them. There's a lot of other great pitchers from prior to the 60's to contend with...Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Mordecai Brown, etc.

True

[HoustonGM]

I remember 1998 when he was with the Padres, Brown was just amazing! That effort he put in 1998, if my memory serves me well...he led the team, kind of like how Johnson led the 95 Mariners.... 1998 version of Brown just off my memory was just awesome...without looking numbers...

Your memory serves you well.

257 innings, 257 strikeouts, just 49 walks, allowed just 9 home runs, 164 ERA+ (2.38 ERA).

Outside of Andy Ashby and him, the Padres staff was average or worse.

Of course, his 1996 was better, almost Pedro-ian levels in terms of run prevention, 1.89 ERA, 216 ERA+. If I had to pick off the top of my head, I'd say Brown 1996 is one of the most underrated and underappreciated seasons in recent memory, mostly because John Smoltz stole the Cy Young thanks to 24 wins.

[dps]

Onl
I just don't think that the Hall of Fame should be limited to the "mind-blowers" and the award winners. Like I said, the Hall has never operated the way you seem to advocate, and while I respect your opinion of a small hall, I just can't agree with it. Mussina, Smoltz, Schilling, and Brown do meet the level of excellence established by the Hall already.

I think that a good argument can be made for a more limited membership in the Hall, and if we were starting it up today, I'd say that it would probably be best if we designed the selection process so that not as many players are honored. (Though I don't think I'd like to see it go as far as some. Justanewguy's standards would probably halve the membership, and I've read ideas that would go even further.)

But since the Hall isn't being set up now, and the membership is what it is, it just isn't fair to apply stricter standards to today's players than was applied to players of the past.

[kenny1234]

But since the Hall isn't being set up now, and the membership is what it is, it just isn't fair to apply stricter standards to today's players than was applied to players of the past.

Who cares about fair? There is no rule that says the selection criteria of the past have to apply today. Maybe it takes more now to impress people, maybe free agency means that very good but not exceptional players form less of the 'story of baseball'. I think that is fine. And basing new entrants off of the weakest of former entrants will just continue to lower the bar.

[HoustonGM]

And basing new entrants off of the weakest of former entrants will just continue to lower the bar.

Agreed on this part, but, that's not what we're doing.

Mussina, Smoltz, Brown, and Schilling stack up well with the pitchers in middle-ground of the Hall of Fame, or slightly above. If we were using the weakest Hall of Famers to construct an argument, we'd be letting in literally hundreds of players.

[kenny1234]

Sorry, I just don't agree with the argument - player A is as good as player B - player A is in the HOF so player B should be. And I don't care if player A is the worst player in the hall, or the best. I tend to agree with the sentiment that I can't define a Hall of Famer, but I know it when I see it. And to me, none of the four players mentioned is above the bar that I set. I realize that is not objective - but I don't think that the HOF needs to be objective. I do look at statistics - but I do think that 'fame' is a key word in the title. There is more to the HOF than those players currently seen as the best.

[HoustonGM]

The Hall of Fame isn't meant to honor famous players (and if it was, I still think Smoltz and Schilling in particular fit that argument). It's meant to confer fame upon players that deserve it.

Again, I respect the opinion of those that believe all 4 of the players in question aren't Hall of Famers. It's consistent logic. I just can't get over the people that say two of the four, or one of the four, or whatever are deserving, while the other isn't. I don't think there's enough separation between the 4 to draw the line somewhere in between them. (Note: I understand that nobody here has expressed that opinion.)

Also, I wouldn't use the "Player A is as good as Player B" argument when it comes to using just two players. Using "Player A is as good as the established standard of the Hall" is a different argument because the established standard is an amalgamation of all the players in the Hall.

[Swampdog]

Based on past selections, Schilling, Mussina, and Smoltz will make the HOF with no problem, like it or not. Pettitte will probably make it. Brown seems unlikely to me, but its possible. Moyer and Rogers will not. Of course, Clemens, Maddux, Johnson and Martinez are absolute locks for the HOF, along with Rivera and Hoffman.

[kenny1234]

Also, I wouldn't use the "Player A is as good as Player B" argument when it comes to using just two players. Using "Player A is as good as the established standard of the Hall" is a different argument because the established standard is an amalgamation of all the players in the Hall.

Fine, I don't put much value in the 'established standard'. I don't think voters should feel any pressure on the basis of past decisions.

If you are talking about predicting who will get in, then fine, use the voting record. But then it doesn't make much sense to worry about what a somewhat different set of voters did 20 years ago. My prediction, Smoltz will probably get in, and I think Mussina and Schilling have a decent shot. And Kevin Brown won't get in. But that has nothing to do with whether they should - in my opinion.

[HoustonGM]

My prediction, Smoltz will probably get in, and I think Mussina and Schilling have a decent shot. And Kevin Brown won't get in.

I think Smoltz, Mussina, and Schilling will all definitely get in. If Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux all retire this year, there's no doubt in my mind that all 3 will go in on their first ballot, as that's too good of a story for the writers to pass up. I think Mussina and Schilling will have to wait a few years but will both eventually get in. I agree that Brown has no shot.

But that has nothing to do with whether they should - in my opinion.

Agreed, but that's not why I think all four should.

[dps]

Fine, I don't put much value in the 'established standard'. I don't think voters should feel any pressure on the basis of past decisions.

If you are talking about predicting who will get in, then fine, use the voting record. But then it doesn't make much sense to worry about what a somewhat different set of voters did 20 years ago. My prediction, Smoltz will probably get in, and I think Mussina and Schilling have a decent shot. And Kevin Brown won't get in. But that has nothing to do with whether they should - in my opinion.

If you don't put any value on an established standard, that leaves the voters with just as much room to loosen the standards as to tighten them. So instead of deciding that Smoltz won't get in, the voters might instead decide that not only do Smoltz and the other pitchers we've discussed should get in, but so does, say, Trinidad Hubbard.

Plus, I don't see how you can even start to evaluate whether or not a player belongs without comparing his record to that of current inductees. If you have a center fielder who had a 12-year career in which he hit .297 with 324 homers and stole 462 bases, how do you judge his worthiness without looking at that in context of the records of the current inductees?

[kenny1234]

If you don't put any value on an established standard, that leaves the voters with just as much room to loosen the standards as to tighten them. So instead of deciding that Smoltz won't get in, the voters might instead decide that not only do Smoltz and the other pitchers we've discussed should get in, but so does, say, Trinidad Hubbard.

Plus, I don't see how you can even start to evaluate whether or not a player belongs without comparing his record to that of current inductees. If you have a center fielder who had a 12-year career in which he hit .297 with 324 homers and stole 462 bases, how do you judge his worthiness without looking at that in context of the records of the current inductees?

I think you evaluate players in terms of their peers. Was this player one of the best to play the game when they were playing? As someone said before, are they an integral part of the story of baseball? And yes, if you happen to play at a time when 4 of the best to ever play the game were active, then you lose a little by comparison. The last few years, 1 or 2 players have been inducted each year. That seems about right to me. And if the bar is set that high going forward - none of the 4 pitchers under discussion makes the HOF.

[justanewguy]

I finally have some time to respond to this...

I think that's a special case considering he wasn't allowed to play in the majors during what really would've been his peak years. I'd give credit for that, and put him in the Hall based solely on his MLB work, regardless of whether or not he was the one to break the color barrier. He was a Hall of Fame talent.

There's no doubt Jackie Robinson was a HOF talent and a HOFer for reasons well beyond what he did on the field (he could have been average and made the Hall). But if there had been one or two black players in there before him, and if they league had a few better 2Bs at the time, his HOF case wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as it is. I was just trying to make the point that players can do what they do but be greatly affected by the other players in the game of baseball when it comes to what historic status they have.

And this is the point I'm trying to make about could-have-beens like Van Poppel and Gooden. Gooden was unquestionably of HOF talent, but he ruined his own career. Just like I believe players can be "penalized" if they were overwhelmed by the talent surrounding them (John Smoltz is overwhelmed by a wealth of pitching talent during his career), players can also benefit from a lack of overwhelming talent. It's not the strongest or best argument because it's taking theoretical and hypothetical situations into account.

If Clemens/Maddux/Pedro/Johnson didn't have so many Cy Youngs, these guys you're arguing for would each have more, and it'd be much harder to argue against them. That's basically it.

But at any rate, I think narrowing it down to specific player cases loses track of the overall point. The top pitchers nowadays throw 230 or so innings. That's just the way it is. The top pitchers in the 1970s threw upwards of 300 innings, yes. I don't think that because a pitcher today throws less innings than a pitcher of the 1970s means that today's pitchers have to be above and beyond those pitchers in terms of pure non-playing time performance. Pitchers have to be judged within the context of their times.

If in some hypothetical future, pitchers are used in an entirely different fashion and medical improvements allow for more wear and tear on the arm and the top pitchers throw 400 innings of work, a mediocre 400-inning pitcher of that day shouldn't have a better HOF case than a very good 230-inning pitcher of today's times.

I agree with some of this and disagree with some of this. The thing about pitching is, it's changed so much in the way the personnel is used when compared to the way use of position players has changed. 100+ years ago, you might end up starting 1/3 of your team's games during a season. 50 years ago, you were starting 1/4 of your team's games. Today, you're starting 1/5 of them. The reasoning behind this can be explored further, and gets into tangents about pitchers throwing harder now (like the Walter Johnson in 2008 debate from a few months back).

But it remains the same that a pitcher back then had a much larger part of his team's success or failure than a pitcher does today. And for whatever reason, pitchers in the 70s (even the ones that threw hard) were far more durable. As much as I hate to say this (and honestly, I'm still in the process of forming a rock-solid opinion about this myself), I tend to WANT to respect 2008's average SP less than I respect 1973's average SP. In a similar way of arguing for more SPs and less RPs in an All Star Game, for example.

While Mike Mussina is an absolute standout pitcher, and definitely a top 10 pitcher of his time, in my mind his HOF case becomes shaky because I'm thinking about him being in there with guys who put up similarly "worthy" career numbers but were a bigger part of their team each and every season. Guys like Hunter and Marichal, who are already somewhat questionable for the HOF in my mind.

I do favor a smaller HOF, and again, that's the key thing to this disagreement. I could probably go through the entire HOF and want to make a case for at least 1/3 of the players being taken out. I think the HOF should be saved for players who hold the distinction of legendary superlatives. Like Babe Ruth, the greatest player ever. Lou Gehrig, the greatest ever hitter not named Babe Ruth. Sandy Koufax, the most dominant pitcher baseball had ever seen over a short stretch of seasons in its entire history. Jackie Robinson, the first black player and possibly the most exciting player MLB had ever seen at the time. Hank Aaron, the most durable and consistently good player ever. Roger Clemens, possibly the greatest pitcher of all time. Cy Young, the pitcher with the most wins, losses and decisions ever. And so on. Of course there is room for players who lack superlatives but had remarkable careers. But what could be said for Mike Mussina? "He was never the best pitcher, and only came close a couple of times, but he was really good for a long time."

Since pitching is more of a TEAM effort now, I do think it makes the burden of proving worthiness more difficult. Is it fair? No. But for me, the Hall isn't a matter of fairness.

The player should be compared to the other player's of his position in his era, and then the way he compares to his era should be compared to the way past players compared to their era. Generally speaking, if a pitcher today is 20% better than the pitchers of his time, and the average pitcher in the Hall of Fame is 20% better than the pitchers of their time, that player meets the standard of the average Hall of Famer, and I think that merits induction. I hope that made sense.

It makes total sense. And I do agree. But even when I consider all the best arguments for Mussina, I still look at the bottom line and say "I can't tell if this guy should be in the HOF, therefore he doesn't belong in the HOF in my mind." If I have any doubt about a player being a HOFer, I tend to lean towards "no." I want all HOFers to be totally clearcut choices.

I don't see how I'm doing that. Maddux/Pedro/Clemens/Johnson are clearly the top 4 of their era, and clearly above and beyond most pitchers in all of history. The Hall of Fame hasn't only honored the top 4/5 pitchers of his era. Generally, the Hall has honored those guys, plus a handful of other pitchers that weren't quite at the top of their era all the time, but were still outstanding pitchers. I don't think a different standard should be applied to this era, just because the top pitchers of this era were better than the usual top pitchers.

That's not quite what I'm saying, though it may sound like that. It's more a matter of, the guys at the very top of the 90s-ish era were very clearcut choices, and those below them are not. Glavine is where things get interesting. While I don't think Glavine has a career superlative (other than being the most consistently great LHP of his time), I feel Glavine easily meets the total-career-value standard, but I don't feel that Mussina does. I don't have an exact "line" drawn between them (and it's not the 300 wins), but it's how it looks to me.

That, and, the big 4 from the 90s were so good that they left little room for the Mussinas and Browns of the world to look like HOFers because they were always lagging. If all the players that we're discussing make it to the Hall, I'd be willing to bet that in 50 years, the average fan will know all about Clemens and Maddux and Pedro, but won't have much of a clue about Mussina. The big 4 pitchers of the 90s OWNED the 90s so thoroughly, in an age where pitching tended towards less starts and less innings per start.

Billy Wagner's thrown 818 innings, 180 ERA+. Dan Quissenberry threw 1,003.1 innings, 146 ERA+. John Franco threw 1,245.2 innings, 137 ERA+. Jeff Montgomery threw 868.2 innings, 134 ERA+. The only thing that separates Hoffman from that group of guys is the saves, and I, personally, don't base any evaluation of players on the save.

I don't base evaluation on saves either, but I think that career record plus the outstanding consistency and durability (in a role which sees players crash and burn so often) are HOF-worthy. In an era where closers are "so important" and teams pay through the nose for them and groom players specifically for that one-inning role, the save is important to this era of the game, whether or not it's the correct way to operate a baseball team.

I don't agree. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. WARP, as a counting stat, takes playing time into account. However, WARP compares players to their contemporaries....so (and this is just an extreme generalization) if the average starting pitcher in 1970 threw 300 innings at 100 ERA+, and the average starting pitcher in 2000 threw 200 innings at 100 ERA+, those players would have the same WARP assuming all other aspects of their performance were identical (at least as far as I understand WARP, I could be wrong).

I don't understand WARP that well. I mean, I definitely understand its function, but I'm unclear about its derivation. So I can't make much of a judgment based on it.

Because I'm not ashamed. lol

Haha... well, actually, I was meaning that I was trying to, but there isn't a smilie for it. The embarrassment smilie isn't blushy enough. Just a corny little joke.

[justanewguy]

You can make of that what you will.

Mussina looks good here. I wonder why Pedro is so low.

Note, for this ranking i used both VORP and my own slight adjustment in multiple cases (which is why in one case, 2000, 6 of the guys I have listed as top 5, as I felt there was no meaningful difference between two of them, although I forget which off the top of my head). Mussina looks a tiny bit worse as compared to my prior assessment, but according to VORP, he should've won two Cy Youngs - 1992 and 1994. Schilling looks a lot worse this time. Brown looks the same. Smoltz looks slightly worse.

At any rate, this "study" made me appreciate Gibson, Seaver and Palmer more than I had. Below is a table of the players and their Top 5 and Top 10 finishes. Top 10 includes the top 5 finishes as well (sorted by top 10):

Yeah, Tom Seaver was something else. He's always been one of my historical favorites. This chart is not favorable at all to Schilling or Smoltz, which only reaffirms my feelings about them. Brown and Mussina look very solid, but only 6 years in the top 10? That doesn't make me think HOFer. By this, don't you think Dale Murphy should be in the HOF? He was the best player in all of baseball for 2 straight seasons, and a top 10/15 guy for at least 5 or 6 seasons.

And just as I thought would happen, you see the lesser of the 70s pitchers at the very bottom. But Niekro and Sutton get the total career value argument in their favor, where for me, Schilling and Smoltz do not have that. Catfish Hunter, I don't think should be a HOFer anyway.

This sort of study isn't very favorable to Glavine, who I think is a lot like Mussina, just with more career value.

Exactly, and the career value puts him over the top for me. As I said earlier, I'd want to draw the line somewhere between them, probably right next to Mussina.

At any rate, it still appears to me that the Mussina/Smoltz/Schilling/Brown group fit squarely in with the Hall of Famers from the 1960s/1970s era. The 90s guys fit perfectly in with the non-elite (Gibson, Palmer, Seaver) 70s guys both in terms of times in the top 5 and in times in the top 10. For me, this strengthens my belief in all 4 as Hall of Famers. They're certainly not out of place at all among the current Hall of Famers.

I think it depends how you look at it. Again, the guys at the top are unquestionable. The 70s guys that are mixed in at the bottom, most of them are HOF-worthy (both to me and to the Hall) based on their career totals, and the amount of games they pitched and completed and the amount of innings they threw.

Anyway, this was cool to see. I appreciate the effort. You've actually sold me quite a bit on Mussina. Though I'd leave him off my ballot, I wouldn't be outraged, or even unhappy about him being in the Hall. He does fit (but as I said, much earlier in this post, I already think many of the current HOFers shouldn't be there).

As far as Brown, I have to say absolutely not. And I'd want to bring up the Hershiser argument again. Though Brown had a better career, Hershiser comes with some interesting perks (legendary playoff performance in '88, and carrying his team into those playoffs with one of the most remarkable runs any player has ever seen) that would put him at Brown's level for me. And I don't think either are HOFers. If Brown fits, then he fits in at the level of Catfish Hunter, and at that point he sets a precedent and helps make a case for pitchers like David Cone and Orel Hershiser.

Smoltz wasn't an elite pitcher for long enough. 5 years in the top 10 according to you, with none in the top 5, and a "fluke" Cy Young award. I'd have to go no with him. And I don't think he fits the Hall.

For Schilling, the argument would have to lie with his playoff performances for the Red Sox and Diamondbacks. Like Brown, I think he'd come in around the Catfish Hunter level and again, be expanding the HOF picture to possibly include a David Cone type of pitcher.

Good discussion. You've made a lot of great points, and proved that these players have great HOF arguments.

I just like a smaller Hall.