Posted by nyk4ever:

I love Moose, but not he doesn't make the HOF. He has never won a championship or a Cy Young and with a 3.69 career ERA you really gotta have a Cy Young to your name to get some consideration for the HOF.

Moose is/was a very consistent pitcher, but he never dominated his era and that is usually what you need to do to get voted in.

Posted by Bonn1997:

How many career games was Blylevyn over .500?

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by Bonn1997:

How many career games was Blylevyn over .500?

What does that matter, he's not in the HOF, nor should he be.

Posted by nyk4ever:

I mean to me, it's pretty hard to digest that in 04, 05 and 07 Moose had ERAs of 4.50 (12 wins), 4.41 (13 wins) and 5.15 (11 wins) respectively. Those are 3 pretty bad seasons and out of those 36 wins, I bet he earned maybe half because of his poor pitching, the other half came because he played on a high-powered offensive team. So really to me, him getting near 300 right now is more a product of the team he's on than anything else aka not his great effectiveness.

I hate to do this because I love Moose, he's always been a gamer and I'm happy he got his 20th this year, but he's honestly not a HOFer.

[Edited by - nyk4ever on 09-28-2008 8:57 PM]

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by Bonn1997:

It points to how much more successful Moose has been than Blylevyn and thus indicates that Blylevyn's absence from the HOF is irrelevant to evaluating Mussina.

Actually no, I think you're absolutely wrong. I think baseball is the one sport where you cant compare players in their performance from one era to another, the game has changed tremendously, even from the 80's to today. Comparing Mussina to a guy who was successful in the 70s and 80s means nothing to me.

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by nyk4ever:

I mean to me, it's pretty hard to digest that in 04, 05 and 07 Moose had ERAs of 4.50 (12 wins), 4.41 (13 wins) and 5.15 (11 wins) respectively. Those are 3 pretty bad seasons and out of those 36 wins, I bet he earned maybe half because of his poor pitching, the other half came because he played on a high-powered offensive team. So really to me, him getting near 300 right now is more a product of the team he's on than anything else aka not his great effectiveness.

I hate to do this because I love Moose, he's always been a gamer and I'm happy he got his 20th this year, but he's honestly not a HOFer.

[Edited by - nyk4ever on 09-28-2008 8:57 PM]

4.50 and 4.41 are average to slightly better than average AL ERAs. Why is it so surprising that someone with average/slightly better than average AL ERAs would have a 13 and a 12 win season? Look here at the win totals of starting AL starting pitchers with ERAs between 4.38 and 4.90: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching?league=al
They are 13, 14, 14, 11, 12, 14, 11, 14
Now those are not hand-selected pitchers. Those are ALL of the AL starting pitchers with ERAs in that range and with enough total innings pitched to qualify to be listed as ERA leaders.

In 04 05 and 07 respectively the American league ERA for those years was 4.59 (Moose 4.50) 4.23 (Moose 4.41) 4.47 (Moose 5.15.) Each year Moose was either right at the league ERA or worse, sometimes by a wide margin, how is that HOF worthy? This isn't to say no HOF pitcher has ever done the same (look at Pedro this year and last), but for guys like that, they cemented their spots in Cooperstown already. Moose was always pretty good, never great, which is why he won't get in the HOF, nor should he.

Posted by nyk4ever:

Bonn it's obvious you're a huge Mussina fan so it might not really be worth debating this topic with you.