Woo-hoo! This is even better than Kenny Singleton saying last night...that Mussina belongs in the HOF because his career ERA is a run better than league ERA (yes...Kay got confused and smershed go-pills into his system).
But the argument over Mussina’s candidacy based on his (in)ability to win 20 games in a season raises a bigger issue: Baseball’s media and fans (mostly the media) butcher the numbers in their attempts to evaluate a player’s accomplishments, or his overall worth. You can break down the most common misuses of numbers into five kinds of problems:
3. The Base 10 problem
Baseball writers constantly overstate the importance of multiples of 10, obsessing over 20 wins in a season, or 300 wins, 500 homers or 3,000 hits in a career—as if 19, 299, 499 or 2,999 are vastly inferior totals. Maybe it’s tough to blame them, considering that we all do this in our everyday lives. That’s why cars will sell for $19,999 and books for $19.99: It’s ridiculous to think that a buck less than $20,000 or a penny less than 20 bucks should make a difference to shoppers’ psychology, but it does.
Mussina won 19 games two years in a row, in 1995 and 1996. Yet somehow the impact of those seasons is diminished because he couldn’t get to a multiple of 10. It’s doubly ridiculous when you combine the Base 10 Problem with the Context Problem. On Sept. 28, 1996, Mussina threw eight terrific innings against the Blue Jays, allowing just four hits, two walks and one run, while striking out nine. Armando Benitez entered the game in the 9th and promptly squandered the Orioles’ one-run lead. Baltimore went on to win the game, 3-2, in 10 innings. But because of Benitez’s lousy performance, Mussina didn’t get the win—the one that would have been his 20th of the year.
Really? Mussina doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame because of Armando Benitez?
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Well, someone has to pay for Benitez.
Why not Mussina?
Don Sutton should also be kicked out to punish Steve Garvey.
The player I most associate with Benitez is a certain Yankee shortstop who hit a certain disputed home run in the 1996 playoffs.
I'm just saying...
1 pitch to Everett and one inning by Benitez are probably what makes Moose borderline in a lot of minds instead of a shoo-in. Pretty sad.
That's just silly. How about if he hadn't given up 9 runs on June 9th...5 runs on July 16...8 runs on July 26...6 runs on Sept. 12...3 runs (in only 2 innings) on Sept. 19? That's the same line of thinking that gives MVPs to closers and deems an infield single a "game winner", simply because it was the last thing to happen.
He also got a win on May 5th when he gave up 5 runs...May 19 when he gave up 7 runs...6 runs on June 4...it works both ways. If you're gonna blame the pen for losses you have to credit the offense for wins.
Pretty sad for Moose, but other than that, I don't see it as an injustice. Anyone who's really close but nonetheless on the wrong side of a line is often going to be there because of one or two small things that went wrong. I also don't think Mussina'd be a shoo-in if those two events had gone better for him. I think (if such were the case) we'd be saying he'd juuuuuust barely made it. We're also slicing the data arbitrarily when it comes to the Benitez fiasco--why not pin the blame on this self-inflicted horror?
20 wins isn't a big deal for me, nor is the inability to pitch a perfect game/no-hitter, and his inability to swing either isn't why I don't think Mussina is, yet, a HOFer. It's the general lack of real dominance, the very good but not great career ERA+, that he's a tick worse than two guys who are borderline, in my book: Schilling and Smoltz...
The failure to reach 20 wins isn't the failure to reach an arbitrary number, but rather one more symptom of a very fine--but not great, at least not HOF-great--career.
He's thrown 3500 innings (68th all time) with an ERA+ of 122 (85th all time). Of those ahead of him in ERA+, a significant number have hugely lower career totals in innings pitched, including a wide selection of career relievers, as well as active pitchers who have yet to encounter their decline phase. While he might not be inner circle, it's hard to see how his numbers should qualify as borderline - unless, of course, you're a small-hall believer.
Pretty much my view. Mussina was never great, he was very good on some good teams. But he'll get in, people seem perfectly willing to lump "was good for a long time" in with " truly great".
The combination of which makes our separate cases. I see the excellent longevity without a great peak as not quite enough, while you feel the combination of excellent longevity and real consistency as the mark of a HOFer. I don't think either of us is wrong in our contexts, and my context surely is a somewhat smaller Hall than yours. I take it you feel Smoltz and Schilling (and Brown) should go in?
If we don't put too much stock in 20 as a magic number, in a funny kind of way, Mussina is Bob Gibson without Gibson's 1968.
The three other borderline starters from Moose's generation that he often gets compared to (Smoltz, Schilling, Brown) were all better at their best than Mussina was, and the two that seem likely to make the Hall were also the two best post season pitchers of their era, and amongst the best ever. And that's the main reason they're getting a plaque while Brown isn't and Mussina may or may not. And that's fine with me; when we're talking about borderline players, you've got to draw the line somewhere, and this is as good of a way to do it as any.
I would put in Smoltz, and probably Schilling. Brown, I probably wouldn't, and that's based largely on the extra credit which I'm willing to give Smoltz and Schilling for their playoff work.
As a question, what sort of longevity would you require, given Mussina's current level of excellence, before you would consider him to be of hall of fame quality?
An excellent, unpleasantly tough question. Without looking anything up, I'd say two more years of Moose's career/current ERA+. I do realize that puts him up around 4000 IP...
<< goes looks up some stuff in BB Ref >>
Ok. I'm a little concerned that Bert Blyleven's career ERA+ was exactly what I remembered it to be (118), and extremely concerned that Jim Plamer's nickname is "Cakes". As for finding a comp who pitched around 3900 innings with an ERA+ around 122 (since it seems like longevity is meaningful to both of us), there doesn't seem to be one. The guys around 3900 innings who made it into the Hall (Vet picks omitted) are all measurably better than Moose: Feller, Gibson, Lefty Grove, Jim Palmer, Randy Johnson (presumably).... There's no one in that neighborhood that Moose can quite run with. So if I'm suggesting that if Mussina gets two more Mussina seasons he ought to go in, even though he won't quite match up with the rest of the guys in the 3900 IP neighborhood--so be it. If that's lowering the bar, I can live with it.
I see you aren't familiar with Mariano Rivera(0.77 ERA, 0.75 WHIP in 117.1 IP.) Best post season pitcher of all time by any reasonable standard.
I think Armando Benitiez can be deployed as a legitimate argument for denying the cause of many Hall of Fame careers, beginning with that of Armando Benitez's.
Well, I can't say that I agree with your conclusion, but I'm willing to bet that's at least partially because I'm more of a "career" than "peak" guy, and it sounds like you're more of the latter. Regardless, thank you for the response.
I think Met fans paid for Benitez, many many times.
That year, there was a brawl w/ Seattle. Messy, involved Chris Bosio. Moose was hurt in it.
Depends on how you define great but I'd say he was great in '92, '94, '95, '97 and '01 at least.
...and '69, '70 and '72, though you might fall on the side of the argument that higher innings totals in previous decades shouldn't be credited towards the pitchers all that much.
I think I'm missing your point, Sam. If we take away Gibson's 1968, Gibby and Moose are within 80 or so career innings of each other, and Gibson's career ERA+ of 127 then falls awfully close to Moose's career ERA+ of 122. What did you have in mind?
You can't say Mussina is a HOFer and then says Schilling "probably" deserves to get in only because of extra credit for playoff performances. If Mussina's in, Schilling's a lock, without considering the playoffs at all.
Player IP ERA+
Schilling 3261 127
Mussina 3521 122
Give Schilling a 160 more innings at an ERA+ of 100 and his career ERA+ is still two points higher than Moose's. And ERA+ misleadingly makes them appear closer in performance than they really are. Moose was very good at preventing un-earned runs, he only gave up 101 in his career. But Schilling was amazing at it, he only gave up 65!
In an era where I'd guess average pitcher was giving up around .4 unearned runs per 9 innings, Mussina only gave up .26, and Schilling only gave up .18. An "Adjusted ERA+" that factored in unearned runs would probably have Schilling around 135 and Mussina about 127.
Mussina was more valuable that ERA+ recognizes, that should be part of your argument. He wasn't as good as Schilling was in the regular season, before giving "extra credit" for his playoff record, the bloody sock or helping break an 86 year jinx, so that shouldn't be part of it.
First off, why the hell can't I? (EDIT: This sounds more jackassy and less jokey than intended) Mussina is likely to continue piling up stats for another couple of years, whereas Schilling is likely done. As I noted above, I'm more of a "career" than "peak" voter (pretending, of course, that I actually have a vote). By the time he retires, Mussina is likely to have about 700 innings on Schilling, which is not an insignificant total - it'll represent an additional 20% over Schilling's career.
Second, I also more strongly value the consistency of Mussina over Schilling. While Schilling did have the higher peak, his career has also been punctuated by numerous injuries. Mussina, on the other hand, has been much more reliable in his ability to take the mound every fifth day, which has a fair amount of additional value to his team.
Third, I can't stand him, and I find his personality (based on his own words, which is admittedly a limited subset of the whole) to be incredibly annoying - including his "Everyone else in baseball is doing steroids - I've seen it" rant, followed up by his "Uh, I've never actually seen anyone doing steroids" testimony. While this is separate from his on-field performance, it does colour my perception of him.
'62 and '66 have to be in there, too, if you're arguing peak (I would think). I'm not averse to your argument--it's an insufficiently great peak that does Moose in (even without regard to Gibson), and which requires him, imo if not Ryan's, to get up around 4000 innings before I'd open the gate. And it's not so much that I don't credit earlier pitchers for high per season innings totals, but rather that I don't dock contemporary starters from pitching "only" (say) 220 innings per season.
You can look at 94 as well, the Orioles only played 112 games that year and Mussina won 16. The strike may have cost him 10 starts that year; once again you never know but I would have liked his odds of winning 4 of them.
I also think its funny he almost won 20 in 96, because by ERA+ that was one of his poorer seasons. He had a 103 ERA+ that year and threw 240 IP. That isn't a bad season by any stretch but it would have been funny to me if he won 20 that season and that was a key factor in him making the HOF.
This American hero laughs at an 0.77 postseason ERA.
20 innings does not a greatest post-season pitcher candidate make.
Stop tinkling on the magic! Just count the zeroezzz.
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