Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Does Mike Mussina belong in the Hall? Lupica is certainly in his corner:

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/262082484/mike-mussina-baseball-hall-of-fame-case-mlb

No. Mussina was the Wade Boggs of pitching (worried about his stats). He always wanted to leave with a lead or tied and avoid getting losses on his record.

ScumbyJr wrote:No. Mussina was the Wade Boggs of pitching (worried about his stats). He always wanted to leave with a lead or tied and avoid getting losses on his record.

Um, isn't Wade Boggs in the Hall of Fame? And doesn't the manager decide when a pitcher leaves a game, not the pitcher himself?

I do think Mussina belongs in the Hall. Mussina had 270 win, 153 losses, a .638 W/L percentage, and an ERA+ of 123. Those are really good numbers.

Red Ruffing is in the Hall with 273-225, .548, 109.
Burleigh Grimes is in the Hall with 270-212, .560, 108.
Ted Lyons is in the Hal with 260-230, .531, 118.
Waite Hoyt is in with 237-182, .566, 112.
Catfish Hunter is in with 224-166, .574, 104.
Mussina again to compare: 270-153, .638, 123.

What about WAR? Mussina ranks 24th in pitching WAR with 82.9, way ahead of Ruffing (55.4), Grimes (46.9), Lyons (67.2), Hoyt (55.3) and Hunter (36.6).

Mussina's career record is as good or better than many, many pitchers who are in the HOF. The only real knock against him was that he won 20 games only once (in his final season). But a lot of that is a product of the times--He pitched in an era of five-man rotations when pitchers were rarely allowed by their managers to complete their games. Typical years for him were 18-5, 16-5, 19-9, 19-11, 18-7, 17-11, 18-10, 17-8, 20-9. Not too shabby.

Another way to put it is that he was never the most dominant pitcher in the league, but he was really, really good for a very long time.

Mike Mussina getting in will be good for Kevin Brown getting in since they are about the same pitcher and will help expand the Hall of Pretty Good Players who kept their jobs.

Mussina should get it. He was better than Smoltz. I don't care about comparison's to pitchers from the 50's. You can only compare him to his era and in the offensive 90's and 00's he was one of the top pitchers. If Mussina got his numbers with a 100 mph fastball or played for the Braves with Maddux and Glavine then we would not be having this conversation.

gkhd11a wrote:Mike Mussina getting in will be good for Kevin Brown getting in since they are about the same pitcher and will help expand the Hall of Pretty Good Players who kept their jobs.

Pretty much sums it up as far as I'm concerned.

gkhd11a wrote:Mike Mussina getting in will be good for Kevin Brown getting in since they are about the same pitcher and will help expand the Hall of Pretty Good Players who kept their jobs.

Yes, pretty good that's all.

I think there's a difference between Mussina and Kevin Brown--and it's a difference recognized by the BBWAA voters.

Brown got 2.1% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. That wasn't enough to keep him eligible, so he's out of the BBWAA voting for good. Brown's only chance is to get in through the Veteran's Committee. Mussina's performance with the writers won't help him.

Mussina got 20.3% of the vote in his first year (2014). That kept him eligible. The key question is, how has he done after that in his progress toward the required 75%? Well, as of 2017, he's risen to 51.8%. That means he's on a pretty good track to ultimate selection. An instructive comparison might be with Bert Blyleven. Bert started out with 17.5% of the vote in 1998 and finally got in with 79.7% in 2011—a thirteen year trek. So far, Mussina's progress has been faster. Bert didn't break 50% until his eighth year of eligibility. It took Mussina four years to break 50%. Once you break 50%, voters start to take you seriously as a candidate, and it's not unusual for candidates to steadily climb from that point on.

Based on where Mussina is now in the voting, I think that he has a very good chance of eventually making the Hall.

I would submit that the reason voters have shown a preference for Mussina over Brown is that his record is simply better. There's a real different between Mussina's 270-153, .638, WAR 82.7 and Brown's 211-144, .594, WAR 68.5. I think it was pretty harsh that HOF voters gave Brown only 2.1% of their vote, but there's a reason why Mussina has done better with the BBWAA and might eventually be enshrined.

Mussina's numbers clearly make him a Hall of Famer. 270 wins in the era that he played is quite significant, easily worth more than 300 wins compared to guys who played prior to 1980. His ERA is high by HOF standards, but his ERA+ is quite acceptable and a lot better than many pitchers already enshrined. His winning pct. is simply outstanding and his overall excellence is reflected by his strong performance in CY Young voting during the first 10 years of his career. Mussina's candidacy has probably been hampered due to the fact that at no point in his career was he the best pitcher in baseball, but he was durable and consistent for nearly two decades and better overall than numerous other pitchers who have been enshrined over the past fifty years.

Brown's numbers are also very good, if not quite as dominant overall. But Brown was almost certainly not voted for because of his known steroid use, not an issue for Mussina. So equating Brown to Mussina as "the same pitcher" to argue against Mussina's admission to the HOF is unsupportable given the anti-steroid bias voters have.

The Last Druid wrote:Mussina's numbers clearly make him a Hall of Famer. 270 wins in the era that he played is quite significant, easily worth more than 300 wins compared to guys who played prior to 1980. His ERA is high by HOF standards, but his ERA+ is quite acceptable and a lot better than many pitchers already enshrined. His winning pct. is simply outstanding and his overall excellence is reflected by his strong performance in CY Young voting during the first 10 years of his career. Mussina's candidacy has probably been hampered due to the fact that at no point in his career was he the best pitcher in baseball, but he was durable and consistent for nearly two decades and better overall than numerous other pitchers who have been enshrined over the past fifty years.

Brown's numbers are also very good, if not quite as dominant overall. But Brown was almost certainly not voted for because of his known steroid use, not an issue for Mussina. So equating Brown to Mussina as "the same pitcher" to argue against Mussina's admission to the HOF is unsupportable given the anti-steroid bias voters have.

This article make the exact argument. He is HOFer based on stats, but not domination. I would compare him to Tommy John though not Brown.
http://lastwordonsports.com/2015/01/16/ ... -of-famer/