Mike Mussina: HOF?

I'm borrowing much of what I'm going to say from Tom Verducci of cnnsi.com, who wrote about Mussina yesterday.

The entire prime of Mussina's career was spent pitching in the American League during the steroid era. AFAIK, Mussina's never been tied to steroids, so he likely pitched without aid of steroids against a bunch of guys that were doing steroids.

From 1994 through 2003, Mussina won more games and threw more innings than everybody except Greg Maddux.

Moose finished in the top five in ERA eight times, more than pitchers such as Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Juan Marichal, Whitey Ford and Bob Feller. Of the 34 pitchers to win 270 games, only seven pitchers had more top five ERA finishes than Mussina.

He finished among the top three winners in his league five times - more than Ford, Gibson, Ryan, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, and Don Sutton and just as many as Marichal, Jim Palmer and Tom Glavine.

Mussina was never as great as Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, or Roger Clemens, but that doesn't mean he isn't worthy of being in the Hall. I vote yes to Mussina in the Hall of Fame.

 

He was a good pitcher for a long time, never a great one. I say no...that great pitchers deserve the HOF. He was on some great teams with good run support that inflated his wins, too.

 

Is he definitely retiring? I think he is borderline, but I am inclined to put him in. I can see the merits of both for and against him.

 

Not until after Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, Dan Quisenberry, and Lee Smith as well as Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz are all safely ensconced in Cooperstown, does he belong.

One should consider that his ERA is higher than that of Kaat by 0.23; Blyleven by 0.37; Smith by 0.65; and the late Dan Quisenberry by 0.92; and "Oh yeah!" - the last three are all still playing.

[Edited to add: At least for one more weekend, as I have just seen that Greg Maddux will retire on Monday, and either Tom Glavine and/or John Smoltz might not return for another year or more, either.]

In addition, Kaat could actually swing the stick pretty fairly, and better than most pitchers.

Interestingly enough (and once again proving you can 'prove' anything with statistics and personal preferences), Jim Kaat and Mike Mussina, along with Greg Maddux and a couple more are generally considered to be three of the best fielding pitchers of all time, and this is to a degree evidenced by the number of Gold Gloves among them, while Bert Blyleven was never really named in the same sentence as any of them, in the aspect of fielding.

Yet Bert Blyleven actually had 7 'full' seasons where he had a 1.000 fielding percentage, including two back-to-back, yet won no Gold Gloves in his entire career.

Jim Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves, yet had exactly one 'full' season, where his FP was 1.000. Incidentally, that occurred the next year after his 16th and final Gold Glove.

And Mike Mussina, although he has won 7 Gold Gloves (to go along with 7 perfect fielding seasons) did not win the GG three times when his FP was 1.000 (and two of those times quite a bit higher than that of the winner - Can anyone spell "Politics", here?), yet won it three other years, including this year.

Just a bit of trivia, here, on this last.

Ed

 

Well, I agree with you on Blyleven, Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. But one thing on the ERA comparisons - you need to compare their ERA+ numbers, which give a more accruate barometer of how they compared to their respective eras. Career ERA+ numbers for the borderline starting pitchers (the higher the better):

Mussina = 123
Blyleven = 118
T. John = 110
Kaat = 107
J. Morris = 105

Thus, Mussina had a better ERA relative to his era.

 

I put together a little table showing the year, the rank of the team's offense in the AL for that year and Mussina's record.

Year Offense Rank Record
1991: 10th 4-5
1992: 8th 18-5
1993: 6th 14-6
1994: 7th 16-5
1995: 9th 19-9
1996: 3rd 19-11
1997: 6th 15-8
1998: 7th 13-10
1999: 9th 18-7
2000: 11th 11-15
2001: 5th 17-11
2002: 1st 18-10
2003: 3rd 17-8
2004: 2nd 12-9
2005: 2nd 13-8
2006: 1st 15-7
2007: 1st 11-10
2008: 7th 20-9

I don't see the evidence that shows that a better offense behind him has inflated his win totals. There may be good arguments against Mussina being in the Hall, but the run support argument isn't one of them.