Some Pitcher Hall of Fame Thoughts
I previously wrote an article about hitters who were possibly snubbed by Hall of Fame voters. Today I would like to cover some of the pitcher who may deserve more credit than they are getting from voters.
Trevor Hoffman was the second best reliever of his time and is deserving of his spot in the hall, but the fact that he got in so easily and Billy Wagner got only 11% of the vote is a shame. Wagner didn't have the save totals that Hoffman had but he was nearly as valuable. Wagner's 2.31 ERA is far ahead of Hoffman's 2.87 and his 24.1 fWAR trails Hoffman's 26.1 mainly due to Hoffman pitching an extra 186 innings. Hoffman deserves credit for his longevity, but Wagner deserves credit for being truly dominant. He is the only person who has pitched in the past 100 years with a career WHIP under 1. Wagner put up strikeout totals that were unheard of. His 14.4 k/9 in 1997 set a new MLB record and he then broke his own record each of the next 2 seasons. Anybody who sets a new standard in baseball deserves Hall of Fame consideration, especially with career numbers so similar to the newly elected Hoffman.
Mike Mussina never won a Cy Young, but he did finish top 6 in voting an impressive 9 times. He lea the AL in fWAR in 2001, but that was before the sabermetric revolution had fully taken off. Despite never being considered the top pitcher in his league, he was always considered one of the best, and maintained that high level of performance for nearly two decades. His career fWAR of 82.2 ranks 17th all-time among pitchers. Mussina was considered one of the best fielding pitchers of his time and took home 7 Gold Gloves. If Mike Mussina had taken home baseball's top pitching honor, even once, he may be in the Hall already. He seems to be suffering due to the fact that he played at the same time as Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens. Don Sutton and Phil Niekro are a couple of examples from recent decades that made the Hall despite never being the very best in their league. They got in due to very long careers of being among the best, year in, year out. Mussina's career 123 ERA+ easily tops both Sutton's and Niekro's, so he was better at preventing runs when compared to his peers. Mussina would be a pitcher that would have a lot of people calling it the Hall of Very Good if he were ever elected, but he was better than very good, he was elite.
Curt Schilling received just over 50% of the vote this year. Like Mussina, he's no slam dunk Hall of Fame candidate, but he definitely deserves strong consideration. Schilling was runner-up for the Cy Young 3 times. He led the league in wins twice, innings twice, strikeouts twice and complete games four times. He was a major part of 3 World Series teams. His career fWAR ranks 20th among pitchers all-time. Curt Schilling is one of only 16 pitchers to record 3000+ strikeouts in their career and the only members of that club not in the Hall of Fame are Schilling and Roger Clemens. Schilling compares favorably to a lot of pitchers currently in the Hall. His inclusion would not be watering down the quality of the Hall. That's for Jack Morris to do.
Johan Santana's career fizzled out too quickly to be considered a Hall of Fame pitcher. He certainly deserves more than one year on the ballot though. On a per inning basis, Santana is a no doubt Hall of Fame talent. His career 136 ERA+ ties him with Christy Mathewson. He ranks 6th in ERA+ among starting pitchers since the expansion era. He won 2 Cy Young awards and probably deserved the 2005 honor as well. We only got 7 full seasons of Santana as a full-time starter but he led the league in ERA 3 times in those years and led in strikeouts another 3 times. He was the league leader in WHIP every year from 2004 to 2007. It's a shame Santana fell off the ballot so quickly. If he had stuck around the ballot for future seasons it would give us an excuse once a year for the next decade to reminisce about how dominant he was. His time on the ballot was too short, kind of like his career.
