Mussina is significantly better than Glavine

[Ohfan67]

Let's not forget here, Glavine was not a d-bag. Writers have always supported the more popular players. Mu$$ina sold his soul by going to the Yankees and I believe writers hold that against guys. Had Mu$$ina put those numbers up as an Oriole I bet he would have gotten in on the first ballot or at least gotten a lot more votes.

Mu$$ina was a good pitcher, but he's a guy who only finished higher than 5th in the Cy Young twice in his career. He was on loaded Yankee playoff teams and only won 20-games once.

Glavine hit those magic numbers like 300 wins and was a multiple Cy Young award winner and 5-time 20-game winner. That's what a lot of writers look for.

Totally disagree. Plenty of money grubbers in the hall and plenty of modern Yankees are and will be in the hall including free agent signings. . Mussina played for two teams. Just two. And NY was basically equidistant from his hometown. I know you don't like him, but there is no doubt that he signed a team friendly contract with the O's and then felt betrayed when they traded away good players for crap and cut the budget. He left the Sydney Thrift run O's for goodness sake.

[Frobby]

Totally disagree. Plenty of money grubbers in the hall and plenty of modern Yankees are and will be in the hall including free agent signings. . Mussina played for two teams. Just two. And NY was basically equidistant from his hometown. I know you don't like him, but there is no doubt that he signed a team friendly contract with the O's and then felt betrayed when they traded away good players for crap and cut the budget. He left the Sydney Thrift run O's for goodness sake.

Tony doesn't like Mussina personally, considers him a traitor and a mercenary, and has made that clear many times. The question is, do the members of the BBWAA feel that way, and will that influence their judgment in the voting? I doubt very many feel as strongly as Tony, and with each passing year, that will be less and less of a factor. By the way, from reading Living on the Black, it seems the NY media actually liked Mussina by the time he'd been there for a few years.

Bottom line is that Mussina has 14 more years to get elected, and in that entire time, the only eligible pitchers who will clearly get in ahead of him are Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera. There will be a lot of years in the next 14 where there's not a single new pitcher eligible who is anywhere near Mussina's level. Also, there are no active pitchers who have won 270 games, and only one (CC Sabathia) who is likely to do so any time in the next 8 years or so. So, Mussina's candidacy will get stronger over the years.

[OFFNY]

That streak ended 39 years ago. I bet the majority of the active posters on this board were born after 1975. The 0's are an afterthought to Yankee fans and you are dreaming if you believe otherwise.

Excuse me.

Corn commented on the past of the Orioles-Yankees rivalry, and I elaborated.

That isn't true. It certainly has been that way recently but during the hey day of the O's it was a real enough rivalry on both sides.

I'm not "dreaming" of anything.

[Frobby]

Excuse me, mister.

Corn commented on the past of the Orioles-Yankees rivalry, and I elaborated.

I'm not "dreaming" of anything.

There are rivalries and there are rivalries. In historical terms, the Red Sox have been the Yankees' main rival. I'm sure almost all Yankee fans, young or old, would say that. The O's were the best organization in baseball for about a 17 year period, so I'm sure the Yankee fans considered them a big rival in that period.

[Ohfan67]

Excuse me.

Corn commented on the past of the Orioles-Yankees rivalry, and I elaborated.

I'm not "dreaming" of anything.

I apologize for the snarky tone. I didn't mean it that way at all.

[Ohfan67]

Tony doesn't like Mussina personally, considers him a traitor and a mercenary, and has made that clear many times. The question is, do the members of the BBWAA feel that way, and will that influence their judgment in the voting? I doubt very many feel as strongly as Tony, and with each passing year, that will be less and less of a factor. By the way, from reading Living on the Black, it seems the NY media actually liked Mussina by the time he'd been there for a few years.

Bottom line is that Mussina has 14 more years to get elected, and in that entire time, the only eligible pitchers who will clearly get in ahead of him are Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera. There will be a lot of years in the next 14 where there's not a single new pitcher eligible who is anywhere near Mussina's level. Also, there are no active pitchers who have won 270 games, and only one (CC Sabathia) who is likely to do so any time in the next 8 years or so. So, Mussina's candidacy will get stronger over the years.

I also think Mussina will get into the hall. I think his interactions with the local and national media may have cost him a few votes, but I don't believe leaving the O's for New York cost him a vote.

[OFFNY]

I apologize for the snarky tone. I didn't mean it that way at all.

OK, thanks.

Have a greenie.

[ElToro75]

How many current HOF pitchers meet your criteria? Probably not much more than 50%, even when most of them played in 8-team leagues and only had to be better than most of the pitchers on seven other teams.

By your standard Sandy Koufax is out - he was only a dominant pitcher for about five seasons. Addie Joss, well he didn't even play 10 years, so he's out. There's a long list of HOF pitchers you'd eject, like Chief Bender, Herb Pennock, Jack Chesbro, Vic Willis, Catfish Hunter, Bob Lemon... Whitey Ford was no more dominant or durable than Mussina despite playing in a smaller league on a dynasty. Joe McGinnity only appeared in 10 MLB seasons, including one with an ERA+ of 78, so he's out. Jim Bunning is Mike Mussina with 50 fewer wins. Burleigh Grimes led the league in losses (1x) almost as often as wins (2x) and he was allowed to throw the spitter, so he's out. Dizzy Dean and his six years as a regular starter... out. Don Drysdale led the league in wins the same number of times as Mussina, pitched fewer innings, had a higher park-adjusted ERA. After his first four seasons Old Hoss Radbourne was a league-average starter, so he's no HOFer. Red Ruffing led the league in losses and earned runs allowed more than anything else. Eppa Rixey was clearly not as dominant as Mussina, with more seasons leading in losses than wins.

If you're going to make the HOF critera "best of the best for 10+ years" you're going to have to throw 30, 40, 50% of current HOFers including a fair number considered inner circle guys out on the street.

Maybe I was misunderstood, or didn't clarify (sorry)... When I said "at least 10" I was inferring that to be on the HOF ballot, you need 10 years of service in MLB. I didn't mean that you had to dominate for those 10 years, but the more dominating you are in your years in the league the better obviously.

So do Duke Snider and Richie Ashburn get bumped from the Hall because they were peers of Mantle and Mays? Clearly Snider and Ashburn were 2nd tier.

As I mentioned in my last post there are many, many HOFers who don't meet the criteria of being the best of the best for a decade or more.

1) All eras don't have equal talent distribution, so the best pitcher of one era may not have been the 10th best in another.

2) Somehow you need to reconcile your "lowering the bar" statement with the facts. The Hall has no defined standard except that of who has already been inducted, and there are a large number of players in the Hall defining that de facto standard who weren't as dominant as Mussina. To keep a player like Mussina out you have to accept that the standards of today and the future will be dramatically higher than the standards for induction in the past.

I realize all eras don't have equal talent distribution, that's what I meant when I said "you can't equally compare players from different generations/eras"

The selection process has evolved over the years as well, initially any player was eligible whether active or retired, changes to the waiting period from 0 to 1 to 5, adding the Veterans Committee and sub-committees to it, etc. Bill Mazeroski never got more than 45% of the vote, but the Veterans Committee voted him in (I believe right after that selection is when the tweaked the Veteran Committee rules again). So now the standard for selection for 2B is Bill Mazeroski? Better make room because a lot of second basemen meet that criteria. That's what I mean by not lowering the bar.

Mussina may be better than a few current HOF in this stat or that, but in my opinion the BBWAA should consider where you rank among your competition first before starting to compare against specific HOF'ers, not the other way around.

[DrungoHazewood]

The selection process has evolved over the years as well, initially any player was eligible whether active or retired, changes to the waiting period from 0 to 1 to 5, adding the Veterans Committee and sub-committees to it, etc. Bill Mazeroski never got more than 45% of the vote, but the Veterans Committee voted him in (I believe right after that selection is when the tweaked the Veteran Committee rules again). So now the standard for selection for 2B is Bill Mazeroski? Better make room because a lot of second basemen meet that criteria. That's what I mean by not lowering the bar.

I could easily come up with a list of a dozen or more eligible-but-passed-over players who would make the HOF standards for their position higher, not lower. The problem I have is not that everyone better than Bill Mazeroski should be in and isn't. My problem is that guys like Grich and Whitaker have never even gotten serious consideration despite having careers roughly twice as valuable as Maz. I have a huge problem telling guys who run circles around current HOFers that they're not even going to be seriously considered until some future version of the Vet's Committee that might vote when they're 85 years old.

The Hall has no problem putting in long-dead umpires while basically denying the existence of Bobby Grich.

Mussina may be better than a few current HOF in this stat or that, but in my opinion the BBWAA should consider where you rank among your competition first before starting to compare against specific HOF'ers, not the other way around.

Yea, a trivial stat like "career value" or "best X years". Are you familiar with JAWS? That's just a simple averaging of a player's career rWAR with their rWAR in their best seven seasons. A straightforward way to balance career and peak contributions. Mussina ranks 28th among all starters in history. Schilling 29th, by the way. There are about 60 Hall of Fame starting pitchers. Both Mussina and Schilling are better than an average HOF starter. Electing them would increase the Hall's standards. In fact, both Mussina and Schilling are over a 60.0 JAWS score, and no starting pitcher since 1900 has failed to go to the Hall with a score that high - unless you think Clemens, Pedro, Randy Johnson will be kept out. Once Johnson, Clemens, and Pedro go in Mussina will have the highest WAR total for any non-enshrined starting pitcher ever, including some obscure 19th century players who were able to throw 500-600 innings a year.

Given the weight of the evidence I don't see any way Mussina doesn't eventually go in. Either the writers do it on their own, or he becomes the new Blyleven and we'll have to beat them over the head with facts until they relent.

[TonySoprano]

JAWS?

That's expecting way too much from the writers. Mention JAWS to 569 BBWAA voters, maybe 2 will think of the statistic (here's 1 of the 2)and 567 will think of this, probably humming the theme song

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZvCI-gNK_y4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2I91DJZKRxs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DrungoHazewood]

JAWS?

That's expecting way too much from the writers. Mention JAWS to 569 BBWAA voters, maybe 2 will think of the statistic (here's 1 of the 2)and 567 will think of this, probably humming the theme song

Maybe more than two. But that's for now. Eventually the oldtimers have to die, and all that will be left is the fact that Mussina has more wins above replacement than any 20th or 21st century pitcher who doesn't have a place in Cooperstown. And more than 60% of HOFers.

In any case, they don't need to know that. There are simpler ways to figure stuff out. Although JAWS is pretty damned simple, since it's just "average of career and peak value".

[crawjo]

Tony doesn't like Mussina personally, considers him a traitor and a mercenary, and has made that clear many times. The question is, do the members of the BBWAA feel that way, and will that influence their judgment in the voting? I doubt very many feel as strongly as Tony, and with each passing year, that will be less and less of a factor. By the way, from reading Living on the Black, it seems the NY media actually liked Mussina by the time he'd been there for a few years.

Bottom line is that Mussina has 14 more years to get elected, and in that entire time, the only eligible pitchers who will clearly get in ahead of him are Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera. There will be a lot of years in the next 14 where there's not a single new pitcher eligible who is anywhere near Mussina's level. Also, there are no active pitchers who have won 270 games, and only one (CC Sabathia) who is likely to do so any time in the next 8 years or so. So, Mussina's candidacy will get stronger over the years.

Does ANYBODY outside of Baltimore view Mussina as a mercenary or find his decision to sign with the Yankees strange at all?

[crawjo]

Worked pretty good for Tony Gwynn.

Wait, you think the reason Tony Gwynn is a Hall of Famer is because he played only for the Padres? Not the 3,141 hits, eight batting titles, or lifetime .338 batting average?

[Can_of_corn]

Wait, you think the reason Tony Gwynn is a Hall of Famer is because he played only for the Padres? Not the 3,141 hits, eight batting titles, or lifetime .338 batting average?

Where did I say that?

I didn't say that.

I said that I thought his case was helped by playing for one team his entire career.

I certainly think he is a Hall of Famer, however if he hadn't played his whole career with one team I don't think he would have been at 97.61% on the first ballot.

[ElToro75]

I could easily come up with a list of a dozen or more eligible-but-passed-over players who would make the HOF standards for their position higher, not lower. The problem I have is not that everyone better than Bill Mazeroski should be in and isn't. My problem is that guys like Grich and Whitaker have never even gotten serious consideration despite having careers roughly twice as valuable as Maz. I have a huge problem telling guys who run circles around current HOFers that they're not even going to be seriously considered until some future version of the Vet's Committee that might vote when they're 85 years old.

The Hall has no problem putting in long-dead umpires while basically denying the existence of Bobby Grich.

Yea, a trivial stat like "career value" or "best X years". Are you familiar with JAWS? That's just a simple averaging of a player's career rWAR with their rWAR in their best seven seasons. A straightforward way to balance career and peak contributions. Mussina ranks 28th among all starters in history. Schilling 29th, by the way. There are about 60 Hall of Fame starting pitchers. Both Mussina and Schilling are better than an average HOF starter. Electing them would increase the Hall's standards. In fact, both Mussina and Schilling are over a 60.0 JAWS score, and no starting pitcher since 1900 has failed to go to the Hall with a score that high - unless you think Clemens, Pedro, Randy Johnson will be kept out. Once Johnson, Clemens, and Pedro go in Mussina will have the highest WAR total for any non-enshrined starting pitcher ever, including some obscure 19th century players who were able to throw 500-600 innings a year.

Given the weight of the evidence I don't see any way Mussina doesn't eventually go in. Either the writers do it on their own, or he becomes the new Blyleven and we'll have to beat them over the head with facts until they relent.

I am not familiar with JAWS (aside from the movies...), and to be honest I'm only just starting to look at some of the non-traditional and more modern stats. Your argument is starting to turn my opinion around on Mussina as well.