Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Moose Has Left His Tracks - But They Shouldn't Lead to Cooperstown

Last week Mike Mussina announced his retirement. Good for him. He had a very good career and, with his renaissance last year, he ended it off on a good note (unlike many other pitchers, like John Franco and Al Leiter, who didn't know when to call it quits.) He doesn't need the money, having made well over 100 million dollars playing baseball. Now, of course, the Mussina-related discussion turns to whether or not he belongs in the Hall of Fame. I think not. Mike Mussina was quite good for quite a while, but is he really a great?

A natural place to turn in this discussion is awards. If a man has shown himself time and again to be the best pitcher in his league (such as Pedro Martinez) then he certainly qualifies as an all-time great. Mike Mussina has never won a Cy Young Award. Ron Guidry, Fernando Valenzuela and Doc Gooden all won Cy Young Awards and none of them is in the Hall of Fame. So did David Cone and Orel Hersheiser. Bret Saberhagen won two, and he isn't in it, either.

Not only was he never the best pitcher in the league, but he was never even particularly close. In 1999, Mussina was so much worse than Pedro Martinez, who got the Cy Young, that Mike did not even garner one first-place vote. His ERA was also well over a run higher than Pedro's.

Mike was almost always good, but never top quality. There was one year (1999) where he was maybe (I don't think so, but it's close -) in the top 5 pitchers of baseball.

Additionally, Mike did not do well in the postseason, and that will quite possibly count against him.

The question of whether Mike Mussina belongs in the Hall of Fame may boil down to this: Is a starting pitcher who received three first-place votes for the Cy Young in his entire career really Hall of Fame quality?

I think not.

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