MASN: Kubatko: Jim Palmer on Moose

Which trumps Wade Boggs on Horse.

I just got off the phone with Jim Palmer, not realizing that he’s on the West Coast and I was catching him pretty early in the morning. Not that he seemed to mind. Anyway, put down Palmer as a “yes” vote for Mussina’s induction.

Palmer actually did a little research to aid his argument, placing a call to Elias and obtaining Mussina’s ERA differential vs. the rest of the league during the former Orioles’ career.

“He was 0.81. That’s significant,” Palmer said. “He was in the top five or six in his era. And he did pitch in the steroid era. He was pitching against cartoon characters. And he did pitch in a bandbox. Look what happened when Jamie Moyer got out of here. David Wells didn’t want to pitch here. Sterling Hitchcock said they should bomb the place.

“Now, (Mussina) did play on some good teams early on, but he wasn’t playing on great Oriole teams. Mike came up in ‘91 and he was a dominant pitcher of that era. He was the most consistent, along with maybe (Greg) Maddux. He pitched in the American League, which is arena baseball compared to the National League. Mike would have been even better if he had been over there.”

...An interesting side note: Palmer recently asked Mussina if he’s coming back next year. Mussina replied: “I don’t think so.”

“Of course, that could change,” Palmer said.