MOOOOOOSE!
Let's see if he pulls a Roger and decides to join the Phillies in the middle of next year.
20-9, 3.37, 200.3 IP, 150 K
That's one heck of a last season.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Is Moose a Hall of Famer?
No he is not. Hard to say that if he would make it to 300 he wouldn't be. I just couldn't vote for him after realizing he just doesn't have it in him to get to 300.
Bert Blyleven and Jim Kaat deserve to be in over him. Match their stats up.
I'd take Mussina over Kaat, whom I'd put in Cooperstown. Blyleven I'd take over Mussina, but it's criminal Blyleven hasn't been inducted.Originally Posted by kheidg-
The whole 300 wins thing strikes me as bizarre. Exactly 23 guys have 300 wins. That's it. And seven of them pitched the bulk of their careers prior to the 20th century.
Guys with fewer wins than Moose - Jim Palmer, Bob Feller, Carl Hubbell, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal and Whitey Ford. In fact, most of the pitchers in the HOF have fewer wins than Mussina. Actually, the only pitchers not in the HOF with more than 250 wins are Blyleven, Kaat, Tommy John, Jack Morris, Roger Clemens, four active pitchers and four guys from the 1800s.
Reviewing his peers you've got Clemens (who may not get in thanks to his taste for the juice), Maddux, Glavine, Johnson and Pedro who look like sure-fire entries. Mussina, Smoltz and Schilling are the three guys on the fence. Yet that's only eight starting pitchers for an entire generation. Cooperstown has gone out of its way to induct almost everyone with a working arm from 1920-1950. Count me as being flat against keeping out guys from my own generation who'd have gotten in on acclaim had they played in the Golden Era.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Is Mussina one of the best pitchers of his generation? Top Ten, I mean.
That, to me, is a HOF.
Morris was, for sure. (The idea Jack Morris is not in the Hall of Fame rankles me a great deal, as he was the best pitcher in the American League-- along with Clemens-- for the better part of a decade.) After Morris, IMO, the torch was passed to Mussina (along with Clemens, of course).
The real question are guys like David Cone and, to a lesser extent, Brett Saberhagen.
Man, I was hoping he would return. GREAT career and he went out with a bang with 20 wins (first time in his career) and a 3.37 ERA. He should be a Hall of Famer, IMO.
I think he's a HOF any way you look at it. Rosenthal's article makes a pretty persuasive case, if you're skeptical. 270 wins with a .650+ winning percentage is darn good when you pitch in the AL East during the steroid era. Not to mention that all of his peripherals (the stuff that should really count but doesn't) match up well with the best of 'em.
“Every level he goes to, he is going to compete. They will know who he is at every level he goes to.” -- ED on EDLC
Hands down Mussina was top 10 in his generation. FWIW, I don't count Saberhagen and Cone in his generation. They were '80s-'90s pitchers, he was a '90s-'00s pitcher (plus, Mussina was better). I don't pay as much attention to birth date as I do to when a guy made his mark (because when he pitched is what sets up his peer group). For instance, Randy Johnson is older than Dwight Gooden, but Doc's heyday came a decade before the Unit's. The game itself had changed radically during that period too.
Pitchers who built most of their value in the '90s-'00s:
1. Greg Maddux
2. Randy Johnson
3. Pedro Martinez (lower career stats, but unreal domination at his peak)
4. Tom Glavine
5. John Smoltz
6. Curt Schilling
7. Mike Mussina
You can argue 5-7, but I listed Mussina at the bottom just to make it tough on him. I don't see another starter who makes that list in front of those guys. You can put Clemens there, but I'd stick him in the '80s-'90s group given the steroids revelations (he might not have had a '00s without them).
Rounding out the top 10, you've got three relievers - Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner.
And that's your Gen X top 10.
The '80s-'90s guys are an interesting list. That's essentially the back half of the Baby Boom and that's a problematic group.
In front of them were guys like Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage and Bert Blyleven. Dennis Eckersley sits on the fault line between the first and second wave of the Boom.
And in that second wave, the guys who built most of their value in '80s-'90s?
1. Roger Clemens
2. Jack Morris
3. Orel Hershiser
4. Dennis Martinez
5. David Cone
6. Brett Saberhagen
7. Chuck Finley
8. Dwight Gooden
9. Frank Viola
10. Jimmy Key
Feel free to argue whether Kevin Appier belongs on the list, but there was a real lull there. Lee Smith is the top reliever from that group with John Franco next in line.
In other words, maybe three Hall of Famers. I suspect that generation is so thin because of the upsurge in offense in the '90s. Studs from the '80s lost a little of their stuff, then they couldn't keep up when the bats went nuts. Younger pitchers had the stuff to keep up with the bigger offenses and learned how to adapt as they got older. That, and we just got to see a generation with some really excellent pitchers.
Last edited by M2; 11-19-2008 at 10:27 PM.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
I think the comparison between Schilling and Mussina is an interesting one. They are both definitely top-10 starters of their generation, but in very different ways. Moose was a model of consistency against top competition for his whole career, while Schilling really bolstered his reputation with some really top years after a long stretch of inconsistent dominance. Where you rank them really depends on which type of performance you value, but I think that Mussina probably has a stronger case for the Hall given overall career performance. They will probably both split voters.
“Every level he goes to, he is going to compete. They will know who he is at every level he goes to.” -- ED on EDLC
Moose was good but for the majority of his career he played on very good baseball teams. The O's were relevant when he was there and he played on stacked Yankee teams for the last 7-8 years of his career. Where would Schilling's career record be had he not played 8 of his better years in Philadelphia?
I had the impression that Schilling also got injured a lot during the early part of his career. But that might be an incorrect impression.
“Every level he goes to, he is going to compete. They will know who he is at every level he goes to.” -- ED on EDLC
Definitely a Hall of Famer his winning percentage dictates so. plus 280 wins now that's a great pitcher.
2006 Redzone mock Draftee's- 1(st) Daniel Bard(redsox), 1(st sup)( Jordan Walden (Angels), 2(nd) rd.- Zach Britton(Orioles), 3(rd) Blair Erickson(Cardinals), 3(rd) Tim Norton( Yankees),(cuz its a Tim Hortons thing
Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory... lasts forever.
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