Is there any legitimate reason for Mike Mussina to go into the HOF as a Yankee instead of an Oriole?

[BMann]

Look who won CY Young when he was pitching;

Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Martinez, Schilling and Glavine

He pitched 4 one-hitters

11 times, he threw 200+ innings.

57 career complete games

23 Shutouts

He is 15th overall with K vs Walk ratio.

7 Gold Gloves, 8 Seasons with not a single error

82.7 bWAR and is 24th in MLB among pitchers.

He has a 123+ ERA.

.638 winning percentage, better than 4 current HOFers.

I wouldn't suggest that it would be a travesty if MM gets in. He's seems borderline to me. If I had a vote, I definitely wouldn't vote for him in his first year of eligibility. I'd reserve my first-year votes for slam-dunk guys - do we at least agree that he's not in that category?

[Moose Milligan]

There are two arguments against Mussina I've always hated, though one is now moot.

1. He never won 20 games. Well, that's moot now, because he won 20 games in his final season. But it always was a dumb argument, when you consider how the game has changed. In 1971, there were 14 pitchers who won 20 games; the Orioles had four of them. There were only 12 in 2004-08 combined. Mussina's feat of winning at least 17 games eight times is roughly equivalent to Jim Palmer winning 20 games eight times in his career. That's how the game has changed.

2. He never won a World Series. Hey, it's a team game. Mariano Rivera blew one save in his World Series career -- it happened to be game 7 of a World Series while Mussina was on the team. You're going to pin that on Mussina? In my opinion, great World Series performances can elevate a career, but not winning one is not an argument against a player.

Back to the cap thing -- I just don't care. I loved Mussina when he was with us, and I've never begrudged his decision to leave. But that decision cost him the opportunity to rank with the Orioles who have their statues at OPACY, and no matter what cap is on his plaque, he'll always be the guy who decided to leave, no matter what you think about that decision.

But he also has at least two other problems:

3. He never won a Cy Young Award.

4. He was only an All-Star 5 times.

Add those to the first two and his resume looks a little flimsy.

But this is exactly the point. There’s nothing definitive about him that you can point to and say “Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer, and it’s obvious because…”

He won a lot of games and he lead the league in a couple things a couple of times. Even his ERA would be on the high side for a Hall of Fame pitcher. I just don’t really see the case for him. Even in the 2001 World Series where Rivera blew the save, he didn’t win a game or post an outstanding performance.

[Frobby]

.638 winning percentage, better than 4 current HOFers.

Surely you don't mean 4. On a quick count, I saw 51 Hall of Fame pitchers below him, and only 13 above him (including Babe Ruth, who's not really in as a pitcher).

[Frobby]

But this is exactly the point. There’s nothing definitive about him that you can point to and say “Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer, and it’s obvious because…”

He won a lot of games and he lead the league in a couple things a couple of times. Even his ERA would be on the high side for a Hall of Fame pitcher. I just don’t really see the case for him. Even in the 2001 World Series where Rivera blew the save, he didn’t win a game or post an outstanding performance.

"He won a lot of games" is a pretty important point. Not only that, he won a lot more than he lost. As to his ERA, you have to consider when he played. His 123 ERA+ would rank him right in the middle of Hall of Fame pitchers.

[DrungoHazewood]

But he also has at least two other problems:

3. He never won a Cy Young Award.

4. He was only an All-Star 5 times.

Add those to the first two and his resume looks a little flimsy.

The counter to that is that there are probably several dozen pitchers currently in the Hall of Fame who didn't do either of those things. Saying Mike Mussina has a flimsy HOF resume is holding him to standards that many or most actual HOF members don't meet. Even if you want to dismiss wins above replacement, there's basically no one outside of Roger Clemens with Mussina's W/L record and context-adjusted ERA who isn't in the Hall. And plenty with worse records.

[Redskins Rick]

Surely you don't mean 4. On a quick count, I saw 51 Hall of Fame pitchers below him, and only 13 above him (including Babe Ruth, who's not really in as a pitcher).

Sorry, you are right, that didnt come out like I wanted it too.

His winning % was better than some big name HOF like:

Jim Palmer, Juan Marichal, Carl Hubbell, Bob Feller and Cy Young

[DrungoHazewood]

But this is exactly the point. There’s nothing definitive about him that you can point to and say “Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer, and it’s obvious because…”

You mean like Bert Blyleven? Or Don Sutton? Jim Bunning? Vic Willis? The "Hall of Fame things" that separate John Smoltz and Tom Glavine from Mussina are completely teammate- or writer-dependent. Or in Glavine's case, a willingness to tack on a few seasons of poor performance to get him over 300 wins. The Hall has never been defined by the absolute inner-circle guys you seem to want to be the standard, at least not after the first election or two in the 30s. By the mid-40s the writers had elected pitchers with half of Mussina's career value.

[Redskins Rick]

I wouldn't suggest that it would be a travesty if MM gets in. He's seems borderline to me. If I had a vote, I definitely wouldn't vote for him in his first year of eligibility. I'd reserve my first-year votes for slam-dunk guys - do we at least agree that he's not in that category?

I can't make the case that Mussina is a first round slam dunk, because he isn't.

On the other hand, he deserves to be in the HOF, in my opinion, and that opinion is very disputed here in OH, because of the hurt that some fans still harbor.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think this really comes down to a blanket dismissal of the de facto standards the Hall has set for induction. You have to be willing to admit that the Hall's standard is one thing, but you want it to be another much, much higher standard going forward. I can't get on board with telling players that for 80 years guys like Vic Willis and Tommy McCarthy and Lloyd Waner and Jim Rice were let in, but we don't like that any more, we're dramatically raising the standards. So Mike Mussina, sucks to be you.

[25 Nuggets]

I think Mike deserves to be in the HOF but writers didn't like him much so I'm sure they can come up with enough excuses note to vote him in.

See: Curt Schilling.

[25 Nuggets]

I think this really comes down to a blanket dismissal of the de facto standards the Hall has set for induction. You have to be willing to admit that the Hall's standard is one thing, but you want it to be another much, much higher standard going forward. I can't get on board with telling players that for 80 years guys like Vic Willis and Tommy McCarthy and Lloyd Waner and Jim Rice were let in, but we don't like that any more, we're dramatically raising the standards. So Mike Mussina, sucks to be you.

And Jim Rice was just recently elected by the BBWAA. And their reasoning was really odd. "Most feared hitter of his generation" over and over again. It's all just a political campaign. So that's the game the saber-heads have been playing too. Hey, it got Bert Blyleven in.

[Redskins Rick]

I think this really comes down to a blanket dismissal of the de facto standards the Hall has set for induction. You have to be willing to admit that the Hall's standard is one thing, but you want it to be another much, much higher standard going forward. I can't get on board with telling players that for 80 years guys like Vic Willis and Tommy McCarthy and Lloyd Waner and Jim Rice were let in, but we don't like that any more, we're dramatically raising the standards. So Mike Mussina, sucks to be you.

I never have liked the process, the baseball writers are full of themselves.

They can't even agree on the slam dunks.

how many 100% players have got into the HOF?

Even Willie Mays was only a 94% vote.

Some have argue that Willie might be the best player to ever play the game.

Of course, some don't agree, but it's pretty stupid to think he doesn't deserve to be in the HOF..

Ted Williams was only 93% and quite possible the best hitter to ever play the game.

[Aristotelian]

3. He never won a Cy Young Award.

He was never even in the running. Closest he got was #2 in 1994 (zero votes for 1st place), but Pedro had nearly half Mussina's ERA and double his K's. Other than that, a handful of #4 and #5, but never really a serious CY candidate.

[TonySoprano]

It's not the hall's choice. Frank chose Orioles despite just 6 years. Reggie Jackson only spent 5 years with the Yankees. It's up to the player.

No it's not. They changed the policy in 2001. At the time, it was rumored Wade "Margo" Boggs had an incentive in his deal to go into Cooperstown with TB.

[25 Nuggets]

I swear to God in front of everyone here that if somehow that YANKEE slips into the HOF by the skin of his teeth they can put all the statutes of him in YANKEE Stadium or Stanford or PA in his home town but if one goes into OPACY I swear I will never set foot in there again and strongly consider becoming strictly a Nats fan! However I cannot imagine anyone named Angelos would ever allow such a travesty!

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I think my heart changed when I read up on what the Orioles did to BJ Surhoff, getting rid of him after he pleaded to stay because his daughter needed treatment at John Hopkins Hospital. Mussina stormed out of Surhoff's tearful press conference saying something to the effect of "I'm never playing for the Orioles again". There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with those teams.