I don’t really like calling attention to dumb things that are written by sports writers because there are just so many of them and usually it’s just a mild annoyance. But every once in a while something so stupid is published that my mind is really blown and I can’t let it pass by. I present to you, John Harper’s incredibly stupid reasoning about why Mike Mussina is definitely not a Hall of Fame Caliber pitcher. Here are some choice quotes:
His overall numbers stack up well against some notable Hall of Famers, including Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal, Catfish Hunter and even Bob Gibson. Actually, he has a better winning percentage (.638) than any of them, and indeed at 270-153, he would have the best percentage of any player not in the Hall.
The problem goes back to his answer regarding memorable moments. You look at Mussina’s career and it’s hard to find the wow factor that usually defines the very best players of an era.
Oh I see, memorable moments are what define whether a player should be in the Hall of Fame. How about a game where Mike Mussina came in relief, after Roger Clemens completely fell apart with men on first and third with no outs after he was promised a clean inning since he had never come in relief before and he allowed no runs to score and the Yankees went on to win the game in extra innings? You know, the 2003 ALCS, Game 7 maybe?
He didn’t win a Cy Young Award, finished second once, and had a few other fourths and fifths. He didn’t win a championship, and though Mussina pitched well in some big postseason games, he never had a brilliant postseason that demanded attention in the manner of John Smoltz, Jack Morris, Curt Schilling, or even Josh Beckett or Cole Hamels.
Jack Morris pitched one fantastic game in the World Series. One. In the 1991 ALCS he racked up a 4.01ERA but his team won both games he played so I guess it’s okay to ignore that. Additionally I suppose we ought to just induct Beckett and Hamels right now before they finish up their careers because postseason!!!
How about the 1992 World Series where Jack Morris put together a simply awful postseason and his team won it all despite him? I’m sick of hearing about Jack Morris being a great pitcher when he was clearly not because of one game (probably the only game he pitched that they remember) herds of sports writers think he is some kind of Gold Standard.
Never mind Gibson, who won 251 games in his career, or 19 fewer than Mussina, but had two Cy Youngs, one MVP, and won World Series for the Cardinals in 1964 and ’67 practically singlehandedly.
Oh really? Bob Gibson practically won the 1964 World Series for the Cardinals singlehandedly? Just because he was World Series MVP doesn’t mean he did it all by himself. First off, he got one of those “losses” people talk about in Game 2. He also gave up 5 runs in Game 7, not exactly a brilliant pitching performance by any measure.
It takes five minutes to look at the box scores and find this information. But I guess that’s too much time for John Harper.
Consider Marichal, for example. His record of 243-142 with a 2.89 ERA is no more Hall-worthy than Mussina’s, especially if you factor in higher ERAs for pitchers across the board over the last 15-20 years during the offense/steroids era.
But Bob Gibson’s 2.91 ERA makes him a no brainer even though he pitched in the same era as Marichal. Got it.
However, Marichal set himself apart as a superstar with an eight-year run in which he posted seasons of 18-11, 25-8, 21-8, 22-13, 25-6, 14-10, 26-9, and 21-11. That pretty much defines dominance. On the other hand, Mussina never went 6-16, as Marichal did once – nor did he ever hit anyone over the head with a bat, as Marichal did to John Roseboro, but that’s another story
Since we’re using Win Loss records here, 8 years of Mike Mussina, starting in 1992: 18-5, 14-6, 16-5 (strike shortened season), 19-9, 19-11, 15-8, 13-10, 18-7. Oh hey that’s pretty impressive. However since none of those have twenty wins (because twenty is some arbitrary number that was decided to be pivotal at some point) I guess they don’t count for anything.
The bottom line is Hall of Famers usually identify themselves with periods of brilliance. You can make the case that Mussina was more consistent over his 18 years than Tom Glavine, but Glavine has two Cy Young awards, five 20-win seasons and a world championship, in addition to 305 wins, all of which make him practically automatic.
Well at least one of those Cy Youngs he won should have gone to Greg Maddux who was clearly a better pitcher than Tom Glavine in every way except of course, wins. Kevin Brown was too, for that matter. Here are their lines from that year, minus a W-L record:
Glavine 229IP, 2.47ERA, 1.20WHIP, 157K, 74BB Maddux 251IP, 2.22ERA, 0.98WHIP, 204K, 45BB Brown 257IP, 2.38ERA, 1.07WHIP, 257K, 49BB
He was worse in pretty much every category you look at to judge pitchers, yet he won the Cy Young because he won twenty games and the others didn’t. And since we’re using Cy Young wins to determine Hall of Fame candidacy here, you can see that it is pretty flawed.
Here’s another example: In 2001, Roger Clemens won the Cy Young because he had a record of 20-3, he also had rather lackluster stats outside of that. Mussina pitched a brilliant season, went 17-11 and finished 5th in the voting. He pitched three complete game shutouts, he started nine games where he allowed no earned runs, but no he just didn’t have the wins that show you the true chops of a pitcher.
Also, Harper’s complete and utter failure to negotiate the difference between playing for the Orioles in the AL East and playing for the perennial 100 game winning Braves teams thinking maybe–just maybe–that might have something to do with TWENTY WIN SEASONS is amazing to me.
I am not knocking any of the actual Hall of Fame pitchers such as Gibson and Marichal here, I think they are definitely worthy and don’t have any issues with their induction. But the fact of the matter is, that means that Mussina is also worthy by the same standards Harper is holding up except 20 win seasons and that is just so fabulously stupid I can’t stand it.
