Yesterday, you were quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that you think Mike Mussina belongs in the Hall of Fame. Do you really believe he’s the same caliber pitcher as the greats of my day, Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Steve Carlton and Jim Palmer? Or legends like Whitey Ford and Walter Johnson? It seems to me he doesn’t belong in that company.
Jim Bunning? Don Sutton? If either pitcher had played with Mike Mussina when all three were in their primes, neither Mr. Sutton nor Mr. Bunning would wear the title “ace.”
...Mussina has finished sixth or better in the balloting for the Cy Young Award in nine different seasons, as many as Seaver, one more than Palmer and three more than Steve Carlton and Bob Gibson and four more than Sutton. On Sunday I read a column by a New York baseball writer in which he put Mussina on a level with Jack Morris. It was an absurd comparison. Morris’s career e.r.a. (3.90) was barely average (4.08) for the period in which he pitched. He was competent workhorse of a pitcher, a bit better than average but not by much, who happened to play for teams who backed him with superior run support.
Now go back and study the names I’ve mentioned. Many writers I’ve read over the past few weeks seem to be placing Moose in that borderline Hall of Fame pack with Jim Bunning, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton and pitchers who aren’t in the Hall like Morris. But Mussina’s record suggests he was more than a cut above all of them, and he belongs somewhere in that tier just a step below the most dominant pitchers in baseball history. Had he pitched in an era when managers weren’t as quick to go to their bullpens, he easily would have won 300 games, and we wouldn\‘t be having this conversation. But 300 games or no, Moose compiled a more impressive record than half the pitchers already enshrined within the Hall. He belongs in there with them.
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He has a very high ratio of decisions to innings pitched, the ratio of starter decisions to IP tends to gravitate towards 1 dec per 9ip (really around 8.9) back in the let's let starters go longer days that pulls towards 9 was even stronger- you just really wouldn't have many SPs with as few IP per decision as Moose- I really don't think Moose would have many more decisions/wins if allowed to go longer in games. Some pitchers might have an argument on those grounds - but not Moose.
What, exactly, do you want sport writers to write about?
Piracy in the Gulf of Eden?
The results of Venezuela's provincial and municipal elections?
Until Bert Blyleven is granted his rightful status as a Hall Of Fame pitcher, we are all fringe candidates.
Not satisfied with knocking down Gibson, he has to go after Seaver, Palmer and Carlton by using whacked out parameters to make Mussina look comparable or better. Those three guys have 10 Cy Youngs among them. Seaver won three came in second another two times. Palmer won three times came in second two other times. Carlton won four times. Mussina never won a Cy Young. He came in second once, fourth twice, fifth three times and sixth three times. Baseball Reference Black Ink scores: 57 (21st highest), 41 (35th), 66 (15th) and 15 (141st), respectively. “I was the fourth or fifth best pitcher in the league for a long time” is not a very compelling argument for induction to the Hall of Fame.
You've posted similar rants in other threads on Mussina's HoF chances. Just to be clear, your opinion is that Mussina isn't deserving of the HoF because his career overlapped the careers of 4 of the top 10 or so pitchers ever?
And Mussina would have been just another pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA that year.
In his very best year, perhaps.
Amen--this has been a brutal offseason to find material about which to write.
Whenever I see a column with a really "out there" topic--I can empathize.
Best Regards
John
I'm not against Mussina getting in the Hall, but his advocates are going to have to come up with better arguments than comparing him to superior players. Right now there are five of his contemporaries with better cases for admission into the HoF. Add Rivera in and now Mussina is the 7th best candidate from this era for the Hall.
Is Mussina the 7th best? Do we normally elect the 7th best pitcher of an era? How good was Mussina's winning percentage relative to his team? Is his win percentage that relevant given that pitchers from prior eras were used differently? Did Mussina squeeze out more wins than expected given his run support? Are these current pitchers as historically great as they appear or are they being used in a way to maximize their effectiveness? Would these pitchers be as effective in early eras?
Mussina is not a slam dunk for the Hall. If he stuck around long enough to win 300 games, he would be, but he has better things to do. There's a lot of in depth analysis that needs to be done before we can make a case for his admittance.
Seaver clearly has him on peak I'll grant, Gibson does have that one big year, and Carlton's peak is a tad bigger (with an extended decline phase), but Palmer looks to be very comparable. Neither hung on forever like Carlton did, Mussina's control was much better, Palmer had the Oriole D to help him out. In identical stadiums with identical players behind him, Mussina would be the better pitcher.
And, outside those 4 (+ maybe Marichal), and the Big Four of our era, Mussina looks very good indeed compared to any HoF starter of the past 50 years. Moose fits in quite well with Sutton, Niekro, Ryan, Perry, Fergie, Catfish, Whitey, Drysdale and Bunning (and Bert too), and is arguably better than any. [petpeeve]If you want a Small Hall then please be up front about it.[/petpeeve] And Black/Grey ink/rants about 5th or 7th best of the era are pretty worthless when the leagues are half again as large as they were.
I second John DiFool2. If you want to talk about grey ink as top 10 in an eight team league, you really have to talk about top 20 in a 16 team league.
Well, if you consider an era to be about 20 years, then we have had slightly more than 5 eras since 1900, and there are about 60 pitchers in the Hall of Fame. So, yes, we roughly select (since I'm not sure how many of these were elected versus vets picks) 10-12 pitchers per era.
So, maybe you can list for us the 12 pitchers who were better than Mussina who had a career roughly during his era from 1990 to 2010.
Frankly, I don't understand the obsession with numbers like 300. It's got no magic power. Is he a slam dunk? No. Is his case a good one, once you get beyond myopic concern with magic numbers like 20 and 300? Yes, a very good one.
(10-12 shouldn't mean he needs 12, it should mean 9-11)
Maddux
Johnson
Martinez
Glavine
Clemens
Rivera
There's 6 undebatable.
Smoltz
Schilling
And then remember that that's 10-12 pitchers when all is said and done, looking back. So "in this generation" includes guys like Santana, Webb, Oswalt, etc. I doubt very much whether Mussina comes out as the 12th best pitcher from this generation, and there's no way he ends up top 10. That *is* a borderline candidate. Arguing Mussina is not a borderline candidate because he's "as good as the average HOFer" like the article and some here are doing is just as lunatic as arguing he should have no shot.
He what? No, he doesn't. It's not "Small Hall", that's just indefensible.
Well drawing the lines around an "era" are always arbitrary, but if you are going to include Webb and Santana and use the "20 year" period for an era, then we are talking 1991 to 2023 for the start of Mussina's era and 20 years after the start of Webbs. So, during that time period, you should be looking at 20-24 pitchers, not 10-12.
I'd be surprised if Mussina is not solidly within that group. Constraining it to guys who are not basically a decade younger like Santana and Webb and Oswalt, I'm looking at the list: Pedro, RJ, Maddux, Schilling, Smoltz, Rivera, Lowe, Glavine, Clemens, Pettite, Brown, Mussina, who am I missing? I think you can argue about the order of these guys, and certainly Moose is not at the top. But, I think it's also pretty clear he's solidly in the middle of that group with Smoltz and Schilling and Brown, Lowe and Pettite, at least, below that group. Unless people are arguing for a VERY small class of pitchers from the 1990 to 2010 era, Moose is in. The debate is more realistic about Brown, Lowe, and Pettite, imo.
By the way...who's Oswalt's closest comp 4 of the last 5 years?
You're kidding, right? Here again is my list of the guys, outside of the 5 I think we can all agree are the best of the last 50 years (Seaver/Marichal/Lefty/Gibson/Palmer, already posted my quibbles with Palmer). Explain exactly how Mussina is clearly inferior to all these guys:
Sutton, Niekro, Ryan, Perry, Jenkins, Hunter, Ford, Drysdale, Bunning, & Blyleven (only one not in the Hall, threw him in because I believe he belongs too).
If Moose doesn't belong then virtually none of these guys do either. I'll be upfront that I believe, AOTBE, that a pitcher who averaged 275 innings in his prime, 15 complete games, in a lower-offensive era with less bullpen usage, is exactly equivalent to a guy who averages 220 innings, 5 CGs, in a higher-offensive era with greatly expanded bullpen usage. I'm sorry but a Hall which has 5 guys from the 60's-70's and 5 guys from the 90's-00's is a Small Hall, no matter which way you cut it.
Personally I have no real stake in this fight, being a Sox fan and rooting against Moose most of his career. But the guy deserves his due.
Wait, wait. You're parsing this out strangely. You're eliminating guys who debuted slightly over halfway through the 20 year period and anyone who debuted two years before it, you can't keep using that 20 year number of 10-12.
And no, it's not clear that he's solidly in the middle of that group. That's 12 guys, 6 are no question better. Of the other 5, Mussina is only no question better than 2, Pettitte and Lowe.
Unless people are arguing for a VERY small class of pitchers from the 1990 to 2010 era, Moose is in. The debate is more realistic about Brown, Lowe, and Pettite, imo.
Any debate about Derek Lowe for the Hall of Fame is not ####### realistic, it's an exercise in some sort of bizarre Red Sox/Dodgers fetish or something.
I think Blyleven has to go into the Hall before Mussina has a chance. Basically, Mussina is this generation's Blyleven - he's a career case without the 300 wins and without an obvious dominant peak (i.e., no Cy Young Awards). But I think Blyleven's probably going to make it within the next 2-3 years, which will be the precedent by which Mussina makes it.
Sutton, Niekro, Ryan, Perry, Jenkins, Hunter, Ford, Drysdale, Bunning, & Blyleven (only one not in the Hall, threw him in because I believe he belongs too).
First of all, the last 50 years goes back to 1958. So you're forgetting a Mr. Koufax. Second, if I have to tell you why Niekro, Perry, Ford, and Blyleven are clearly superior to Mussina, I don't know what to say.
I think this goes back to the question asked earlier, 'Does the 8th-best starting pitcher of his era deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?' - slotting Mussina behind Clemens, Maddux, RJ, Pedro, Glavine, Schilling, and Smoltz (I can see the case for Brown, but (a) I think Mussina's just a smidge better, and (b) Brown's not going to get any HOF support, for better or worse, so from the BBWAA's perspective, Mussina's the 8th-best starter of his generation).
Going back to the 1960s-70s generation, we have: Gibson, Perry, Seaver, Carlton, Palmer, Jenkins, Hunter, Niekro, Sutton. So, yes, the 8th-best of that generation made it (ignoring that Blyleven was better than Hunter and probably 2-3 others).
Go to, say, the 50s-60s generation: Spahn, Roberts, Ford, Wilhelm, Drysdale, Bunning, Koufax, Early Wynn.
Go back to the deadball era: Walter Johnson, Alexander, Mathewson, Joss, Cy Young, 3-Finger Brown, Eddie Plank, Ed Walsh, Joe McGinnity.
So, while you can't necessarily define a fixed 20-year period and say, "Absolutely, those were the 8 best pitchers of this period", the Hall of Fame has historically let in enough pitchers that being the 8th best pitcher of a 20-year period has generally been sufficient to make one a deserving Hall of Famer.
That list is 16 names long (it's a little weird because the quote is 50, but subsequent posts mention Ford [debuted in 1950] and don't mention Koufax [1955], so I've included Koufax and Wilhelm): Koufax, Ford, Marichal, Gibson, Drysdale, Wilhelm, Hunter, Palmer, Jenkins, Perry, Seaver, Carlton, Bunning, Niekro, Sutton, Ryan.
For some reason I'm supposed to remove five guys (ignoring Koufax as I don't know how he feels there.) Then agree that he's equal to the average of the rest. Mussina is not at the midpoint of Ford, Drysdale, Wilhelm, Hunter, Jenkins, Perry, Bunning, Niekro, Sutton, and Ryan. He's quite simply just not.
Expand the net around Mussina like you do in these cases, and you're going to find a hell of a lot more than 7 guys better than Mussina.
I was thinking more "1945-65". The point is - pick a 20ish-year period, how many Hall-of-Famers were in their prime in that period? Take out Wynn and Spahn, if you'd like, for example, and add in Gibson (debut 1959) and Marichal (debut 1960) and you're back to 8.
There are definite gaps - I don't think any Hall-of-Fame starting pitchers debuted between Blyleven (1970) and Clemens (1984), and Spahn and Wynn sort of stand alone in their generation (as you note, just before the guys I mentioned them with).
It's not hard and fast and certainly saying that "being the 8th best pitcher of a 20-year period has generally been sufficient to make one a deserving Hall of Famer" isn't meant to suggest that Mussina, as the 8th-best starter of the 1990s/early 2000s, is a slam-dunk no-doubt first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. Just that he meets the general standards for the Hall of Fame.
There's Eckersley, who's in the HoF as part starter, part reliever, as well as the full relievers Gossage and Sutter. The Hall of Merit also picked up Dave Stieb and Bret Saberhagen. (And Eckersley and Gossage, but not Sutter. Fingers debuted before Blyleven.)
and Spahn and Wynn sort of stand alone in their generation (as you note, just before the guys I mentioned them with).
You're forgetting Robin Roberts. And Hal Newhouser and Bob Feller overlap a signifcant early portion of the careers of Spahn and Wynn, as also Bunning and Ford overlap a significant later portion. (to which the Hall of Merit would add Billy Pierce).
There are ups and downs, but there aren't so many complete gaps.
Yeah Bert should go first certainly, but read on...
Nobody has addressed my main thesis: I ignore differences in innings, complete games, and shutouts between eras, and instead examine relative rankings in those metrics with peers. This is mainly a philosophical position, in that I prefer to examine the talent that a pitcher has at any given moment, not so much the value, and ignore factors over which he essentially had no control. Elsewise nobody, not Clemens, not Maddux, not Pedro, nor Grove, can possibly ever surpass Walter Johnson, who existed in precisely the right time and place to maximize both, unless and until CGs come back in vogue, and someone does a Pedro throwing 350 innings a year. I know some here only consider value (defined as absolutes in terms of performance and innings, not relative rankings with era adjustments), in which case there's not much else I can say to you.
For the rest of you, it isn't Mussina's fault that pitching has evolved like it has, with LOOGIES coming out of the walls and complete games pretty much extinct, making it impossible to equal the counting stats accomplishments of the men who were so fortunate as to pitch when throwing 275 innings year was commonplace and didn't necessarily make your arm immediately wither. What people are basically arguing here is that the top 10 of 40 years ago surpasses the top 10 of this era (with its terrific top 5 or so and then apparently a huge dropoff from there to the dregs of Moose, Brown, and Schill). OF COURSE if you completely ignore any and all such adjustments the 10th best back then (we'll call him Niekro) will greatly surpass the 10th best here (say Smoltz). Niekro in about 3 seasons would get as many CGs as Smoltz has in his entire career.
IF we don't unfairly give the 60's gang extra credit for all those innings, yes Mussina fits right in perfectly with them, and arguably surpasses quite a few. Nobody has actually put forth much in the way of pure statistical arguments-I mainly see "You have got to be kidding" responses, as if the very idea that Mussina can even be mentioned in the same breath as 2nd-tier HoF starters (ignoring relievers) is an insult to the latter, nothing more needs to be said it's so obvious. Is it? Quick and dirty look, using both ERA+ for best 5 full seasons and rank in innings per each of those seasons (220 innings was a rough estimate for Moose's peak, not entire career). Keep in mind the fact that most of these guys pitched in smaller leagues hence any adjustment for the innings ranks would be favorable to Moose.
Name
ERA+
Rank in innings/season (xxx not in top 10)
-----------------------------------
Mussina:
163/157/145/142/137
5th/8th/2nd/7th/8th
Niekro:
179/159/142/142/125
xxx/1st/10th/1st/10th
Niekro of course pitched a crapload of innings in many of his peak seasons, even considering his era. ERA+ peak very comparable. Slight/moderate edge Niekro.
Whitey Ford:
176/170/156/143/130
xxx/8th/xxx/2nd/4th
Ford, for whatever reason (Stengel's shenanigans?), was limited in his innings early in his career. Better ERA+ peak, innings not quite as good as Moose. Slight edge Ford.
Drysdale:
154/149/139/128/127
10th/1st/5th/xxx/1st
Drysdale was a horse during his peak, but best seasons don't quite measure up to Moose's, and Drysdale pitched on good teams but had a much worse W-L (just tossing that out there). Moderate edge to Moose.
Catfish:
144/144/134/114/114
4th/1st/5th/6th/xxx
Catfish was durable (until that fateful 30 CG season), but Moose blows him away otherwise. Significant edge Moose.
Fergie:
142/131/127/126/124
1st/2nd/3rd/2nd/xxx
Classic innings vs. performance matchup. I'll go with a slight edge for Moose, tho I am impressed with Fergie's ability to do this in Wrigley year after year, with the D he had behind him.
Perry:
170/144/142/130/128
2nd/3rd/1st/xxx/2nd
Another horse, ERA+ more favorable than Fergie's. Slight edge to the Vaseline Man.
Bunning:
149/148/143/143/134
1st/2nd/1st/5th/6th
About even with Perry, hence slight edge the Senator.
Sutton:
161/160/144/127/126
5th/xxx/9th/xxx/7th
Sutton's peak is better than I remembered. Very comparable except for longevity, slight edge Moose.
Ryan:
194/142/139/128/124
xxx/9th/xxx/6th/8th
The Express had that low ERA in the strike year '81, otherwise Mussina's peak is significantly better. Moderate edge Moose.
I wanted to do Palmer, so here we go:
169/156/154/150/143
2nd/9th/xxx/8th/1st
Also finished first in innings in 3 other years. Depends ultimately on how much help he had from his D: K/W ratio was less than 2:1, vs. about 3.5:1 for Moose. I'll give a moderate edge to Palmer.
Blyleven:
158/151/144/142/140
4th/xxx/xxx/xxx/7th
A little unfair to Bert, as 3 times in his best seasons by ERA+ he failed to get in the top ten in innings, even tho his finished top 10 11 times (Moose 8, Bert averaged about 250 innings in those 3 seasons). I'll call this one dead even, tho Bert gets first dibs on a plaque.
So there you have it. I count Mussina as being ahead of 5, with 5 ahead of him, and one tie, but really they are all pretty close, very close except for a few at the bottom. You may decry the elections of Catfish, Bunning, and Drysdale as bogus-that is your right. But while Mussina is certainly not inner circle he would fit in just fine in the middle tier, and comfortably above the lower tier. The only real argument against him is that he was such a wimp that he dared not throw 280 innings a year, and thus all the 60's guys must therefore rank ahead of him. Like I said I disagree, because if current trends hold, the number of deserving HoF starters will continue to dwindle as average innings by the top hurlers of a given era keeps dropping, and I don't buy that at all. Hence if you think Mussina is not deserving, then you are taking a Small Hall position, simple as that.
And he has an additional very good argument-his winning percentage, which puts Drysdale, Perry, and Niekro to shame. It's almost 2 am and I want to go to bed, so someone else can figure this: I'd bet that Moose was 15-30 games better than the teams he pitched for (using BJ's old formula of taking the pitcher's W-L out of his team's totals, and prorating the resulting winning % over the pitcher's decisions that year), which for a pitcher who spent most of his career on good/great teams is Jim Palmer/Lefty Grove territory.
What? Why? You're not making a size of league dilution argument; I can think of a couple of reasons why you might say this, but I'd like to hear it rather than assume.
Name
ERA+
Rank in innings/season (xxx not in top 10)
-----------------------------------
Mussina:
163/157/145/142/137
5th/8th/2nd/7th/8th
Stieb:
172/145/142/140/138
3rd/1st/2nd/xxx (16 IP behind 10th)/1st
Cone:
170/159/146/138/137
8th/xxx/xxx/5th/xxx (another 5th and 1st in respectively a better than good and excellent season)
Saberhagen:
180/152/145/136/135
1st/3rd/xxx/9th/xxx (145 was 15 IP behind 10th)
Jimmy Key:
164/142/141/139/138
8th/xxx/xxx/9th/xxx
That's just four guys from the late 80s. Stieb has an obvious argument, and the other three are all eminently comparable in your definition of "talent".
Like I said earlier, I think that Mussina would be a not-bad HOFer. It wouldn't break me up if he didn't get in, either. He probably deserves to, but it's no crime if he's left outside, especially considering the freak nature of the era he was in.
----
As to your overall argument, I'll grant that yes, if you exclude the thousands of extra innings those guys pitched at very near, equal, or superior to Mussina, then he fits in the middle. I disagree that that proves the damnedest thing, though.
He was 43 games over, actually. But 21 of that is in his first 4 years, when the O's were 8 games above .500, 4 games above, 6 games above, 2 games below. 12 more came in two more years, 1999 and last year, when his team was 3 games under, 6 games over.
He didn't outpitch his good/great teams. In his entire Yankee career before last year, he was +2 in 8 years. The average WP% of his teams when he wasn't pitching in the 6 years he totaled 33 of that 43 was .486.
There's 6 undebatable.
I'll debate it. Rivera is a relief pitcher. Mussina is an excellent starter.
Sheesh, only 2 games better on the downside of his career on a team that's averaged almost 100 wins during that time period. Fuggedaboutit, Moose.
Talk about irrelevant criteria.
In other words, when his team's stunk he made them much better. And when they were among the best teams of all time, he STILL made them better.
Talk about irrelevant criteria.
In other words, when his team's stunk he made them much better. And when they were among the best teams of all time, he STILL made them better.
1) I'd say second half of his career rather than "downside". He was 32 when he joined the Yankees, not 36. He threw basically the same number of innings with the Yankees as with the Orioles.
2) 96 win average since 2001 inclusive, not 100 or close enough to "almost" away the difference, which is the difference between a very good team and a great team.
3) I didn't bring the criteria up, I just provided the numbers.
4) He didn't make "among the best teams of all time" better. He fit right into some very good teams. He didn't hurt them. And I would say that, given the context we're talking about, being at the average of all non-inner circle HOF pitchers, "making bad to average teams much better and not hurting very good teams" is an admission standard, not something to crow about.
Still, nobody has taken issue with my main thesis. Are we to greatly value the guys who were fortunate enough to pitch from c. 1962-1972 (little Dead Ball Era in the early 70's-offense improved from '68 but not as strongly as people think it did) just because the conditions of the time allowed them to put up huge inning totals? And anyone who doesn't even subsequently come close to those totals already has one big strike against them? Moose in terms of ERA+ is perfectly comparable to the guys I listed, and threw a completely reasonable amount of innings/season during his peak as compared to his peers.
And Junior. And possibly Edmonds. But your point is made.
I didn't intend for the argument to be: Mussina is the 8th-best starter of the past 20 years; therefore, Mussina should be in the Hall of Fame. It was more intended as a counter to the argument that Mussina should NOT be in the Hall of Fame because he's only the 8th-best starter of the past 20 years.
Historically, there have been plenty of pitchers inducted into the Hall of Fame who rank similarly to Mussina relative to their peers - you can quibble with the particulars, but guys the caliber of, say, Niekro or Sutton or Drysdale or Plank or McGinnity from my #32 above, rank similarly relative to their peers as Mussina. Some of them may well have better cases (there are 3 300-game winners there) and maybe you don't think Drysdale or McGinnity belong in the Hall of Fame, but Mussina meets the general standards of the Hall of Fame. He's not a slam-dunk, no-doubt, first-balloter, but he's not Jack Morris or Jesse Haines, either.
Kaline wasn't a centerfielder. He was a rightfielder.
2834 total
2625 defensively
1745 RF
477 CF
146 DH
135 1B
12 LF
2 3B
http://www.baseball-reference.com/k/kalinal01.shtml
Never would have guessed that Kaline DHed 146 times.
For the knuckleheads that whine about Blylevin, let's do something new and different, like compare facts. Blylevin pitched for team's with a 50.85 winning percentage, Blylevin's wp was 53.4, a 2.55% differential. Mussina pitched for teams with a 55.08 wp, Mussina's wp is 63.8%, a differential of 8.7%, the 10th best differential in history for pitchers with 200 or more wins and the 6th best in history overall for pitchers with 250 or more wins. There is no comparison between Mussina and Blylevin, Mussina is head and shoulders the better pitcher.
Mussina's numbers are almost identical in wp (actually Mussina's is nominally better) and their adjusted era's are essentially equal. Palmer was elected with 92% first ballot, Mussina should do the same.
Mussina's numbers are almost identical in wp (actually Mussina's is nominally better) and their adjusted era's are essentially equal. Palmer was elected with 92% first ballot, Mussina should do the same.
In terms of value provided to one's team, Clemens, Pedro, Johnson, and Maddux are all heads and shoulders above Mussina.
Excuse me? That's just asinine.
Ah, so you're so provincial you're stupid.
1991 - So, the 2nd place Tigers, 2 games over .500, and two teams with 67 wins or less, that's the best division in baseball? Not say, the AL West, where every team finished .500 or above? And lest you forget in your "zeal", this is still a balanced schedule.
1992 - AL East and West are basically the same. If I had to give the slightest edge, it'd go to the East.
1993 - I'm sure we're all fascinated to remember that the last great race, the NL West, wasn't the best division in baseball. Two 100 win teams and four teams over .500 is somehow trumped by a 95 win team, an 88 win team, and two teams 1.5 games over? No.
1994 - NL East and AL Central both better
1995 - NL Central basically equal, very slight edge to AL East.
1996 - NL West, NL East equal to AL East.
1997-1999 AL East pretty much the best division in baseball
Since 2000, there have been two atrocious teams (until last year for one) in a 5 team division. For every game in the unbalanced schedule against the one other very good team, there were 2 against complete cellar dwellers. Saying the AL East has been "far and away the best division in baseball" since 1991 is criminally ignorant.
Just to go back to the fallacy that JPWF13 nailed in #1, because it's one I'm tired of reading :)
A) There have been plenty of pitchers to win 200 and indeed 300 games since the 7-inning-starter / set-up man / closer era began. Mussina is not quite as good as the ones who won 300, that's all.
B) Bullpens rarely vulture a win away from starters anymore. Set-up men and closers come in when the starter is winning anyway, and they don't cough up ballgames very often – certainly you can't argue that a good bullpen coughs up any more wins than a tiring starter would have coughed up all by himself. In fact, there's something of a case to be made that Bert Blyleven might have won 300 had he had a competent closing unit going for him and had blown fewer of his own wins in the late innings. And how many games does a contemporary closer win per year, anymore?
C) Lefty Grove does have 300 wins because he would pitch fairly often in relief, coming into tied or close games and vulturing the win. Pre-1970s bullpen use was harder on starters' opportunities for wins than post-1970s.
C) For all that, it's obviously harder to get to 300 wins as quickly as people used to when they were making 40 starts a year instead of the 33 they tend to make nowadays. But not all that many guys used to start 40 games a year, at least in the lively-ball era; only a few years in the 1960s and 70s saw the ascendancy of the 40-start pitcher. At that, Bob Gibson's career high in starts was 36 – the same as Mussina's. Early Wynn's was 37. Warren Spahn never started 40 games in a season.
No ####, I didn't think anyone here was stupid enough to make that claim. Division records the past ten years.
Maybe for the first half of his career he can say that he played against the toughest competition in baseball, but since 2001 the non-Yankees portion of the AL East has a collective record of 2488 - 2690 for a fearsome winning percentage of .480.
And does this include their games against the Yankees?
No, Mussina chose to retire rather than hang around and pad his stats, that's all.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you on Mussina's worthiness of membership in the Hall of Fame, but doesn't the worthiness of the fourth or fifth best starter also depend on the talent distribution of the years in question? As an oft repeated example, Gil Hodges is considered to be about the best first baseman during his career, but that hasn't helped him into the Hall, and there aren't a lot of serious people arguing that he should be (based solely on the merits of his playing career). Similarly, in terms of pitchers whose careers are centered across the 1980s, the fourth or fifth best pitcher would probably not be considered worthy of the Hall. Hell, for the 1980s, probably the two best whose careers are centered on (and most strongly associated with) those decades are Stieb and Morris - Stieb has already been rejected, and Morris seems unlikely to make it to 75%.
(Rivera is silly; he was more dominant than Mussina in his role, but, then, so was Barry Bonds. It was an entirely different role. And while we can say which of Rivera or Mussina was "more valuable," we can do the same for Bonds vs. Mussina; that doesn't mean it makes sense to discuss him in the context of where Mussina ranks in his era. Moreover, if we did open up the competition to relievers so we could count Rivera, that would make the pool of competition that much bigger; rather than saying that there are twice as many pitchers as in the past, there are actually many times more. 3x as many just counting closers. So being 10th best would be even more impressive, relatively speaking.)
Look, all the criticism of Mussina depend on the notion that the Hall of Fame is for peak performance. But it isn't, and never has been, limited to peak selections.
Also, the eras we're talking about, when we say Mussina was the 8th best of his era, are longer than "the 1980s," so more pitchers fit into them.
Ryan:
194/142/139/128/124
xxx/9th/xxx/6th/8th
The Express had that low ERA in the strike year '81, otherwise Mussina's peak is significantly better. Moderate edge Moose.
That's not correct.
Ryan:
194/142/141/139/128
xxx (11th, 2 innings behind 10th)/9th/3rd/xxx/6th
Ryan also has another season of 124 (10th in Adj. ERA+), as you mention, when he was 8th in IP. And a 122 (6th in ERA+) while 3rd in IP. In fact, near as I can tell, Ryan looks a whole lot better if you did ranks in both categories instead of just one. Why do it that way, by the way?
This is not to say that I don't heartily agree that Ryan is incredibly overrated, but you do him a disservice here.
I'll have you know that I'm rated exactly where I should be.
Quiet, Lesser Primate.
That assumes that there is a linear correlation between the size of the league, and the number of top-end talent* players.
Simply put, the relevant question is: how many post-expansion HOFers wouldn't have made the league pre-expansion? You can make a case that it is greater than zero. But if you try and claim that it is anywhere close to half, you are delusional.
*Seen as you are going to squabble with that, you can read it as a combination of talent and longevity, or whatever you want. Personally, I would say that if a player is capable of performing well for longer than somebody else, that is a part of his talent. But it really isn't the point of the discussion.
And nobody really uses no-hitters as a criteria for the HOF. Ryan is the only pitcher people frequently cite when talking about no-hitters, because he threw so many of them, but he would have been voted into the HOF had he never thrown one. People only cite the lack of them in Mussina's case because they're using that as a club to beat Mussina over the head with, because it furthers this silly "just missed" line of reasoning.
Rather than look at what he _did_, they obsess over what he didn't do.
I take Mussina's career over Koufax's. Koufax's peak was higher, but Mussina threw 1200 more innings.
Koufax had 6 seasons that fit nicely -- some very nicely -- into a HOF career. Mussina had 11.
Koufax had 6 seasons that fit nicely -- some very nicely -- into a HOF career.
Uh, all 6 of those fit very nicely into a HOF career. When the worst one is 141 ERA+ in 186 innings, they're all above the line for "very nicely".
And Moose's peak is pretty good anyway.
Sorry for missing the 141 season-was not intentional. [Recall it was late at night and I spent almost 2 hours getting it all together]
For the question you asked, there's no one correct way, and didn't I point out it was quick and dirty? Of course career value matters, as do other things. Bill James rated players on their peaks at least 3 different ways in the NBJHA; if I went that route I'd have been up 'til 8 am, even if it was a holiday. Value is based on both rate stats as well as opportunities (outs aka innings/3) as compared to peers (other greats at the time as well as the average and/or replacement level). Mussina, while not nearly as durable season to season as some of the guys I was comparing him to, certainly was no slouch when it came to accumulating innings as compared to contemporaries-did I not note that he finished in the top 10/league in innings 8 times (1 #1 finish)? (for Ryan BTW it was 9 times, also 1 #1 finish).
For Stieb et al., well none of the guys you mentioned even reached 200 wins, nor were their peaks as long as Moose's (thus if I had chosen 10 year peaks he'd likely look a lot better, not only vs. the 80's bunch, but also the 60's crowd (11 times top 10 ERA+, which in a big league is pretty effin' good). IOW don't get too attached to the method I used, because I certainly ain't. Consult Bill James or whoever if you want something more comprehensive. The point is any way you study his career fairly Moose will end up looking pretty deserving.
Missed some upthread comments which must have come in when I was otherwise distracted by holiday activities:
Well, that is precisely where we disagree, right? My contention is that Moose likely would have had no problem throwing as many innings as they did if he was fortunate enough to throw in eras where it was much easier to pile them up. Unfortunately we have no way of going back in a time machine, grabbing Moose at the age he was drafted, hauling him back to the 60's, and seeing if he can sink or swim. But it works both ways: I very much doubt any of the 60's hurlers could put up workloads like that in the era just completed (if the 93-200X lively ball period is now indeed over); could they even survive, much less thrive in such conditions? Maybe: Maddux & Clemens et al. pulled it off, and Unit managed to average 255 or so innings for 5 straight years (and then was in and out of the rotation with injuries, FWIW).
The problem I have with your argument is that, as starting pitchers continue to throw fewer and fewer innings (assuming that downward trend stays constant), the number of deserving HoF starters, according to you, will continue to dwindle, until even the top peak candidates have trouble throwing much over 6 innings/game, at and that point forget anyone who isn't at or near the top or didn't manage to last long enough to reach 300 wins. Santana is at 6.8 for the past 5 years: Moose averaged 6.9 during his peak (92-03), someone like CC 6.5.
So we'll get 5 deserving guys from this just-completed batch (after a 15 year drought only interrupted by Eck and hopefully Bert), maybe 3 from the generation of which Johan and Sabathia are a part of, 2 if we're lucky for 2020-2040, and eventually, in the era of 5 inning starters mid-century, nobody, according to you, will be deserving at all, and the HoF starter will have then become extinct. Please correct me if this doesn't jibe with your position, because my intent is not to construct a straw man so much as to take your initial assumption to the final conclusion (which I find to be a bit absurd BTW).
Bill James, in terms of Win Shares at least, went with non-adjusted opportunities because of the initial assumptions he made when designing his system. When you base everything on wins, of course this is the logical outcome, and for the things he was studying it worked pretty well. It doesn't work very well for cross-era comparisons, which is why he went with Grove as the #1 starter all time in the 1st edition, but switched to Johnson in the 2nd (with notes in Seaver's and Clemens' comments that they may have an argument if he had done it differently), precisely because of all the innings the Train piled up in the dead-ball era. Once you make that assumption, well nobody's ever going to surpass Walter Johnson throwing 60% of the innings he did, argument over time to go to bed. My evaluation of a player hinges on just how much did he stand out above his peers, in terms of rates as well as innings/outs/PAs etc., but I ignore (to a point) differences in opportunities which were mostly due to era effects.
This is also why I have no problem with the Hall electing relievers (hopefully the right ones tho). Lee Smith (not wanting to open another can of worms) has been jobbed a bit, because he hit his peak right when the innings/season for relief aces dropped from 120 to 90 (and now, 70). These guys were (rightfully) seen as just as big a collection of stars as were their starting and hitting peers, and to keep them out of the Hall just because they didn't hit some magical innings mark which no longer was realistically in reach, well that shouldn't stop them. I'm sure someone will bring up the Manny Mota countercounterargument (why can't late-inning pinch hitters get in too?), but that's where I subjectively draw the line. It's a philosophical decision more than anything else, in that I am a big believer in fairness and someone shouldn't be punished in the eyes of history just because they played at the wrong time, while someone else is in because they played at the right time.
I started out as a skeptic of Moose's worthiness actually; it was after a fair evaluation of his record that I've come across to his side. Like I said I rooted against him most of his career, and some of the suckitude of his last few seasons perhaps negatively colored my perception of him, but he belongs.
Oh, didn't think it was, my apologies if you got the implication otherwise.
For Stieb et al., well none of the guys you mentioned even reached 200 wins, nor were their peaks as long as Moose's (thus if I had chosen 10 year peaks he'd likely look a lot better,
I was just wanting to figure out exactly what your position was, and a good way to do that is to grab other candidates that match under one system but not in another. It sounds like you're a "sustained peak" kind of guy.
My contention is that Moose likely would have had no problem throwing as many innings as they did if he was fortunate enough to throw in eras where it was much easier to pile them up.
Mm, that's fine, and I"m not even saying I disagree, but your contention is not an argument. What are we supposed to do when discussing that contention? We don't have a time machine (well, I don't, and if you do and yet you're posting here, realign your priorities) and outside of that, how can we possibly do anything but say "I say this" and "I disagree"?
The problem I have with your argument is that, as starting pitchers continue to throw fewer and fewer innings (assuming that downward trend stays constant), the number of deserving HoF starters, according to you, will continue to dwindle, until even the top peak candidates have trouble throwing much over 6 innings/game,
Whoa, whoa, now. I didn't bring up IP, you did. Or someone else did, but it wasn't me. Well, I mentioned it in one post wrt Stieb and Cone, but you're ascribing to me a position I don't hold.
The entirety of the argument that I've made on this point (basically when discussing it with you, MissAgnes, and Kiko) is that I don't think Mussina is in the top 10 of his era, assuming you don't define his era really narrowly, more narrowly than you (Kiko, actually) are defining all the other eras. If you use the same span of years, I think he probably falls somewhere at 11, 12, or 13. I think he would be a perfectly fine addition, I don't think it would be bordering insanity to not have him there (I basically feel the same about Blyleven, part of the problem is that I very much heart the Museum part of the HOF Musem, the enshrinement part doesn't really matter a ton to me.)
Once you make that assumption, well nobody's ever going to surpass Walter Johnson throwing 60% of the innings he did, argument over time to go to bed.
Nope, probably not. So? I'd much rather have the argument be "over" (until baseball changes again and guys throw 400 innings a year) than to have to say "Well, I think this guy and that guy could have done the same as Walter in his era, but maybe not this guy, so the third guy doesn't get into the Hall." Johnson did that. Grove did that. Mussina did not do that. Period. I'm of the mind that the best players of a generation get into the Hall, but that doesn't mean that you have to argue that they're the equal of the guy from 100 years ago. Just like we don't let Vern Stephens in because "he'd have hit .300 with 40 HRs in today's environment."
As for fair, you overstate things a tad to my mind, but I'm there with you. I don't think Mussina is done a disservice by his era. And if he is, it's by the fact that he's an exact contemporary of three all-time greats, all of them 7 years behind another.
I think it is very difficult to find out where an era begins or ends, so it's not a very useful question. That said, there's still time for other guys to add to their own legacies. Mussina at 35-36 looked like he was all but finished, with two below-average seasons, both short on innings.
There are several pitchers over 30 that have a shot of looking better than Mussina five years from now, guys like Oswalt, Halliday and Hudson, guys with a pretty fair amount of overlap with Mussina's career. Lowe is less ridiculous than some people suggest, with a career ERA+ of 122 and a lot less wear on his arm than the average 35-year old, and moving away from his earlier inability to strike guys out. Although it's looking grim now, I might even put Carpenter on the radar.
The Keltner list has its problems, but there's one question that I have a lot of trouble getting past: "If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?"
You could make an argument that this happened in 2001, although it was probably the second-best season of his career, and not a "typical" Mussina season.
While it's a tad unfair to demand that a player be considered the best in baseball at his position, I wonder if there was any period of time in which Mussina was considered even the 5th best pitcher in baseball. I'm not talking about a guy having a single season where his performance was in the top 5, but where people expected him to have one of the top 5 pitching performances going into a season, where there were less than 5 pitchers that an overwhelming majority of people would not consider clearly better than him.
That's pretty damning, in my opinion. Perhaps not enough to keep him out, but certainly enough for me to object to anyone suggesting he's a no-brainer.
Derek Lowe's age 36 season is next year, and:
1) 126 wins, one 20 win season, hasn't won more than 16 games since 2003 (and it's not like he had a long career before then)
2) Even if he's working on it, which he is, dude has still never struck out 150 guys in a single season. That's it right there. Done. End. Fin. You cannot be a starting pitcher (even one with a couple of seasons in relief), not have a single 150 K season to your resume, and even insincerely hope to be a HOF candidate. Well, you could, but the guy who could do it is not pitching in the majors right now. If Blyleven has to buy a ticket, Lowe should have to donate a wing.
3) Given all the shortcomings, a 122 ERA+ is in no way impressive in this context.
4) Lowe would have to average something like 20 wins and a 135 ERA+ (with a couple of big seasons) for the next four years to even have a shot.
I wonder if there was any period of time in which Mussina was considered even the 5th best pitcher in baseball.
This is where he suffers from his era. There aren't a lot of pitchers in history who could rank 5th in baseball if they were pitching as contemporaries of Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Pedro, and Glavine.
Yet over the course of his career Mussina isn't even in the top 8, imo. On top of that, Moose was obviously at his best in the 90s, so in addition to the eight, above, in the early 90s there was also Jack McDowell, Jimmy Key, and David Cone.
Setting that aside, if I listed the regular season stats of Brown, Mussina, Schilling, and Smoltz, you wouldn't be able to tell which years belonged to which (except for Smoltz's years as a closer, obviously). The claim that any of them are a tiny bit better than Mussina is plausible; the claim that any are "meaningfully" better than Mussina is not.Am I missing some sort of inside joke? There is no metric by which Mussina wasn't far better than McDowell, Key, or Cone, in quantity and quality.
I'd give you McDowell and Key, but Cone was a better pitcher in the early-/mid-90's than Moose.
ERA+
Year Mus Cone
1992 157 128
1993 100 138
1994 163 170
1995 145 137
1996 103 174
1997 137 159
Obviously Cone didn't have the same longevity over his Career, but I'd be surprised if you would have found many that would have taken Moose over Cone at the time...
You should note that that 174 ERA+ in 1996 was an injury-shortened 72 innings for Cone.
But this is kind of like saying 10 years ago that Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa were all in line to break Aaron's home run record. And, yet, none of them ended up doing it (while someone else who wasn't really on radar did).
You're projecting too far out into the future. Oswalt, Halladay, and Hudson have better career ERA+s right now, but they're _huge_ numbers of innings behind Mussina, and, of course, they'll be trying to make up those innings in their 30s.
If Lowe had a great (not merely good) five years, he'd be in the discussion, but you could say that about scores of players; indeed, a great five years can be a valid HOF argument, on peak, in and of itself (e.g., Koufax). But Lowe is just too far behind on quantity at this point to be a serious HOF candidate.
EDIT: As David suggests, a _good_ eight more years (1600 innings) for Lowe would get it done -- but that, too, seems pretty far fetched.
True, I should have.
Bit unfair to compare year by year, as Cone was in his prime right then (29 in 1992) while Mussina was 22 and pitching his first year in the majors. And that 174 was in 92 innings, which is why I didn't use it comparing top 5 in comment 39.
Yes, but the point was that Cone was considered the superior pitcher in the early-/mid-90's, which is true. Nobody is trying to compare total career value or anything like that. For this purpose it is th right comparison.
It goes back to DMN (I think) claiming that Moose was considered the 5th best pitcher for most of his career. The point being made is that at any given point, there were far more pitchers, which were considered to be btter than Moose, than just Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, and Pedro. Cone is just anothe example of a pitcher, who was better than Moose, for a significant period of time.
Am I missing some sort of inside joke? There is no metric by which Mussina wasn't far better than McDowell, Key, or Cone, in quantity and quality.
was not restricted to the early 90s, though it was in response to a statement that said "early 90s". Sure there were a bunch of guys who were considered better pitchers in 1993 than Mussina, but that doesn't tell us much. I said way upthread I'd probably rather have Cone with both in their primes, but it's still unfair to compare Cone at his prime with Mussina in his 2nd year.
It goes back to DMN (I think) claiming that Moose was considered the 5th best pitcher for most of his career. The point being made is that at any given point, there were far more pitchers, which were considered to be btter than Moose, than just Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, and Pedro.
Take out the word "far" and I of course agree, being the one that started the argument. :) I just don't like this particular example, and as I've been using this thread to avoid work all weekend, I'm quibbling.
Am I missing some sort of inside joke? There is no metric by which Mussina wasn't far better than McDowell, Key, or Cone, in quantity and quality.
was not restricted to the early 90s, though it was in response to a statement that said "early 90s".
Oh, sorry. I was giving DMN the benefit of the doubt, of not shifting goalposts. I know he always hares it when other people do that. The op Yet over the course of his career Mussina isn't even in the top 8, imo. On top of that, Moose was obviously at his best in the 90s, so in addition to the eight, above, in the early 90s there was also Jack McDowell, Jimmy Key, and David Cone. is pretty damn clear.
The problem is, this is wrong. I was the fourth or fifth best pitcher in the league is a very very very very compelling argument for induction to the Hall of Fame.
Sorry, but if you are going to base your arguments on this type of logic*, you can't simply toss out players who's career partially overlaps with Moose's. If you don't like that this inevitably results in one players prime being compared to somebody else's non-prime seasons, then sorry, tough luck. Construct an argument that holds up to some scrutiny. That type of comparison is the only one relevant in this case.
You might not think this is particularly fair, but neither is choosing Moose's career as endpoints for the discussion, without acknowledging players, who are only in part contemporarys.
*I know ir wasn't you the original claim, but it's what this part of the discussion is about (until DMN decides he is loosing and needs to shift the goalposts again)
Don't be silly. It wasn't his original claim; he was just pointing out that that would be a strong argument, not a weak one. He's said repeatedly that Mussina falls in the class after Clemens/Maddux/Johnson/Pedro///Glavine.
Mussina's argument, in a nutshell, is that his combination of quality and quantity (a 123 ERA+ in 3562 innings) qualifies him for the HOF under the standards it has established. He had very good peak seasons of (ERA+) 163, 157, 145, 142, 137, and 134, but his main argument is the one above. Cone, Key, and Jack Freaking McDowell (??) are not obstacles to Mussina's candidacy; to the contrary, they provide another necessary argument FOR him: that he was better than the best class of pitchers who are not in. And he was clearly better than them over the course of his career, in terms of quantity and quality. So I don't really understand why you think they're "gotchas."
He was *not* clearly better than Cone and Key over the course of his career, in terms of quantity and quality. Quantity yes, quality no.
Except you're doing the same thing. If you want to look at the time period from 1992-97 where you compare Moose to Cone, for example, then you need to recognize that Pedro Martinez didn't become PEDRO!! until 1997. Through 1996, Pedro threw 671 IP at a 124 ERA+. From 1992-97, Mussina beats that. Randy Johnson also is a slam-dunk first-ballot one-of-the-10-greatest pitchers ever because of what he did from 1999 - 2002. Through 1998, RJ had pitched 1,978.1 IP at a 129 ERA+. Through 2001, Mussina had pitched 2,238.1 IP at a 130 ERA+. The only way RJ blows Moose away is because of what he did in his late 30s. If you're going to give Johnson that credit, it's only fair to recognize that Mussina blows away guys like Cone and Key in the exact same way - by pitching an extra 700-1,000 IP over what would otherwise be comparable careers. If you want to argue that Mussina was never one of the 4-5 best starting pitchers in baseball over any 3-5 year period, then go through every 3-5 year period and identify the pitchers who were better IN THOSE SEASONS.
You're holding his quantity against him. Cone pitched 2,898 IP at a 120 ERA+; Key had 2,591 IP at a 122 ERA+. Through age 34, Mussina had pitched a comparable number of innings - 2,668, at a career ERA+ of 128, which is not hugely but <u>clearly</u> better than 122 or 120.
Mike Mussina had a better career than David Cone. That's inarguable. If you want to compare the "quality" of their careers in some way that abstracts from the "quantity" of their careers, then you have to normalize the "quantity". If you do that, Mussina wins the "quality" comparison, plus he wins the "quantity" argument because of the leftover quantity that we took out of the "quality" comparison. Mussina doesn't NEED the extra innings to beat Cone or Key; they're just icing on the cake.
It was important to Kiko's earlier point that Mussina was very arguably in the top eight of his generation, and that running eighth helped any pitcher's claim to the Hall. If (a big if) that's true, it's important to note that during a stretch of his career when he was at his best Mussina might not have even been in the top ten. One counter might be that while McDowell, Key, and Cone might have been better than Mussina in the early 1990s, Pedro, for instance, wasn't yet Pedro!
Speaking of which, how come Pedro never had a nickname?
edit: good stuff by others. I really had not read posts 87 on before responding to David, and people essentially bring up the points I wanted to make in reply. Kiko's probably right, btw, giving Pedro!! the extra exclamation mark.
But as I said above, over the period of time where Cone has an argument for being better than Mussina (an argument that I don't buy, by the way), they were both better than Pedro, probably better than Randy Johnson. They were both also better than Curt Schilling during this time period, probably better than Tom Glavine, and maybe even better than Roger Clemens depending on the exact time period being considered.
The only way to make the argument that Pedro Martinez was a better pitcher of the early 1990s than Mike Mussina is to point to the entirety of their careers, including the part outside the early 1990s. When you do that, David Cone, Jimmy Key, and Jack McDowell all fall well behind Mike Mussina, and you're back to the original argument of Mussina being the 8th-best starting pitcher of his "generation".
Here's the thing, though. Let's say we agreed on a metric, and that metric told us that, on average, by year, Mussina was the 10.2th best pitcher. Even though, for career, we might agree Moose is the 8th best pitcher of his generation, how should we consider it if, after throwing out Randy Johnson for, say, 1992, we have to bring in McDowell and Bob Tewksbury? And after tossing, say, Glavine from 1994, we have to bring in Coney.
What I'm doing with this is rethinking the value of the whole "he's the eighth best of his generation" argument, since a guy could be the eighth best of his generation but never be a top ten pitcher in any one season, or might on average not be a top ten guy--that would have to undermine his claim to the Hall, wouldn't it?
But nobody has pointed to a single season of Mike Mussina's career and identified 9 starting pitchers who were clearly better in that season using a consistent methodology, much less done so for all 18 years of his career. If you agree with me that adding Cone means we can throw out Pedro, RJ, Schilling, and Glavine, who are the other 4 pitchers (if I grant you Cone, Smoltz, Clemens, Maddux, and Kevin Brown) that would drop Mussina down to 10th? And that's giving you guys that I probably don't think really have a case for being better than Mussina over the time period in question.
I mean, the idea that Bob Tewksbury matching Mussina's ERA+ (157) in 8 fewer IP in what was a fluke career season for Tewks vs. Mussina's age-23 season, somehow weakens Mussina's Hall-of-Fame case seems bizarre to me.
In fact, I think Mussina's argument is more likely to be just the opposite of the one you posit. That is, I suspect it's more likely to be the case that Mussina was consistently the 4th-6th best starter through the course of his career, but behind different top 3's all of whom end up passing him in overall career value (Clemens, Maddux early; Pedro, RJ, Schilling late).
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