Will This Comeback Story End In 300 Wins and the Hall of Fame?

Jump to Comments

In a totally unexpected development, Mike Mussina has been the Yankees’ best pitcher this year. Moose looked done last year after continuing his streak of mediocre pitching seasons in his late 30s. At his lowest point, he was bumped from the starting rotation. Many (myself included) figured Mussina was never coming back.

We were very, very wrong. Currently, Mussina stands at 11-6 with a respectable 3.64 ERA.  At 39, Mussina is up to 261 career wins. Will he get to 300 and does he need to in order to clinch the Hall of Fame?

As we did yesterday with Randy Johnson, let’s compare Mike Mussina to two recent members of the all exclusive 300 victory club Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux as well as Johnson.

 

But first, let’s figure out what Mussina has to do to get to pitching’s most glorious career milestone. So far this year, he’s racked up 11 wins and is more than half way to his first ever 20 win season. Since this is my blog, you are gonna have to trust me when I say that Mussina won’t get 20 this year. I put the over/under on him at 15 wins.

Baseball is a funny game and it has a way of catching up to people. Mussina, given his recent pitching history, has pitched way too well this year. Don’t give me that stuff about him finding a different way to pitch this year. The man is 39. He is what he is. Either injury of bad luck will keep his second half from being as good as his first half. I know. The baseball gods have spoken to me. (PS-they say hello)

So, let’s say me and the baseball gods are a little off and Mussina wins 17 games this season. That would put him at 267.  Mike Mussina would be just 33 wins away from immortality.  Shockingly and tantalizingly close, but next year, Mussina will be pitching at age 40…

Here’s how Clemens and company did post 40.  Roger Clemens won 17 games at 40, then 18 at 41 and finally 13 at 42 before going into permanent part time service.  Interestingly, Clemens ERA went down each of those years before setting in at under 2.00 for his 13 win campaign.  Maddux in his two full seasons as a forty year old so far won 14 and 15 games with ERAs around 4.20.  Not horrible, but not vintage Maddux.  As for Johnson, the big lefty won between 16-17 games for each of his first three season in his forties until he was able to make only 10 starts last year as a 43 year old.

As good as all three future Hall of Famers have been, the reality is that all of them slowed down in their 40s whether due to age, injury or choice.  Mussina began his slowing down process in his 30s.  Don’t believe me?  Here are Mussina’s numbers for the last four seasons prior to this one:

• Age 35: 12-9, 4.59
• Age 36: 13-8, 4.41
• Age 37: 15-7, 3.51
• Age 38: 11-10, 5.15

 Verdict # 1: Mike Mussina will not make it to 300 wins.

Give him credit though, he’s a lot closer than anyone would have imaged last year.  That said, in order to get to 300, he’ll have to go another three years with 10-15 wins each season.  If he was Maddux or Clemens or Johnson, I’d bet the house on him.  Mussina has never been in those guys’ class and so I’m betting against him to join their exclusive club.

So if Mussina doesn’t win 300, is he a Hall of Famer?

In my opinion, there are two kinds of Hall of Famers and both have legitimate paths to Cooperstown.  The first is the no brainer.  Guys who were so talented and so dominant that there’s no argument whether their career spanned many decades (Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron) or was cut short  (think Lou Gherig or Roberto Clemente or Sandy Koufax as the extreme case of a short but breathtakingly brilliant career).

Then, the second legitimate path to the Hall of Fame are the compilers.  Baseball is one heck of a tough sport.  Hitting its magic numbers like 300 wins, 3,000 hits or 500 home runs are amazing feats of talent and consistency.  Some of the guys who surpassed those milestones where never confused with being the absolute best at their position, but they deserve a great deal of credit for getting there nonetheless and have a rightful place in the Hall.

Back to Mike Mussina.  Is Mike Mussina a “no brainer” candidate?  Let me give you the “no brainer” answer – NO!

So, in order for Mussina to get in he’s going to have go the compiler route.  In these days of relief specialists, pitch counts and relief specialists, it’s tough enough to win 15 never mind 20 games in a season.  In order to win 300 in a career a player has to average 15 wins for 20 seasons (two decades worth).  Mussina may get as close to 300 as anyone other than Randy Johnson may get for a long time.  All of that said…

Verdict #2 – Mike Mussina just won’t get into Cooperstown without 300 wins

The challenge will be that Hall of Fame voters haven’t adjusted their thinking.  In their minds it’s not the all impressive 250 win club.  It’s still 300 or bust.  Absent any Cy Youngs, missing a twenty win season (or two or three) and with an ERA that was very rarely below 3.00,  Mussina simply won’t get in as a no brainer or a compiler.

And you know what?  I’m OK with that.

Mike Mussina has been a very good major league pitcher for a long time, but he’s never been the game’s top ace or even his league’s or his division’s and sometimes not even his team’s #1.  Mike Mussina deserves an awful lot of respect but until Jack Morris, Curt Schilling and maybe even Bert Blyleven get busts in Cooperstown, I won’t be making many arguments on his behalf.

4 Comments

Filed under sports

Tags: 300 Win Club, 300 Wins, Baseball, Bert Blyleven, Cooperstown, Curt Schiling, Greg Maddux, Hall of Fame, Hank Aaron, Jack Morris, Lou Gherig, Mike Mussina, mlb, Randy Johnson, Roberto Clemente, Roger Clemens, Sandy Koufax, sports, Ted Williams, Willie Mays