The Class of 2012

Morris Buttermaker once said that a tie was like kissing your sister. That’s pretty much how I feel about yesterday’s hall of fame voting. In this case Jack Morris is my sister.

Allow me to explain.

Jack Morris received 66.7% of the vote yesterday. This was a substantial jump from his 53.5% in 2011. Every player who has received more than 63% at some point during their candidacy, has eventually been elected to the hall fame. There is a very strong possibility Jack Morris will be in the hall of fame next year or the year after.

Unfortunately, Jack Morris has no business being in the Baseball Hall of Fame. According to baseball-reference he is 134th in career pitching WAR. That’s right ahead of Brad Radke, who appeared on the ballot for the first time this year. Radke received two votes.

Jack Morris made 14 straight opening day starts. This might be the lamest argument ever made for Hall of Fame worthiness. (Photo courtesy of MLB)

The case against Morris has been well established by writers much smarter and talented than myself.  David Schoenfield, Greg Spira, Colin Wyers, Craig Calcaterra and particularly Dan Szymborski have all clearly articulated, that while being a very good pitcher, Jack Morris is by no measure a hall of fame player.

And yet if Morris is elected to the Hall of Fame it can only help Mike Mussina. Mussina is vastly superior to Morris in nearly every statistical category. The apparent tipping point for Morris’ HOF case is his stellar post season history. Mussina has him beat there too. Moose has a lower career postseason ERA, walk rate and hit rate. He had a higher strikeout rate and a K to BB rate more than twice that of Morris.

A Hall of Fame with Jack Morris makes it much easier to have a Hall of Fame with Mike Mussina. We’re willing to go ahead and kiss that sister if it helps the Moose.

Quick thoughts on the rest of the voting:

• It’s great to see Alan Trammell making up some ground. This is probably a function of a weak ballot with very few worthy entries this year, but perhaps it can spur Trammell’s candidacy going forward. Trammell’s career WAR is only two less than 2012 inductee Barry Larkin.
• It’s still a travesty that Lou Whitaker (who had a better career WAR than Larkin) dropped off the ballot after one year. The writers need to come out and apologize for this.
• It appears that Bagwell and Raines might be getting their due. Both players increased their vote percentage by more than 10%. They should both be elected some day and both richly deserve it.
• Juan Gonzalez dropped off the ballot after failing to receive more than 5% of the vote. Has any two-time league MVP in any sport ever received less Hall of Fame discussion?

Here’s Moose throwing out the first pitch on a Yankee game last year. Check out Mussina’s sick goatee.

Site Update

Hi folks,
Today I was setting up a new blog at wordpress and decided I should finally post an update to this site.

Right now there’s not a lot to discuss about Mussina. He’s not in the public realm any more and people aren’t talking about him. This makes it very difficult to motivate ourselves to promote his chances for the Hall.

The site is not going away. However, as you can see I moved it to from its old home, to this temporary wordpress.com site. This was a cost saving move. It simply wasn’t worth paying for server space for a site we don’t update.

We are almost exactly half way (two and half years) to when Mussina will become eligible for the Hall of Fame.

Mussina will be eligible in January 2014. The debate around that year’s class will start after the class of 2013 is announced, sometime in January 2013. It will intensify after the end of the 2013 season.

Hopefully by late 2012 we can start writing more. Other players entering the ballot in 2011, 2012 and 2013 will impact Mussina’s chances. We might drop by with some posts then.

I came across the below post, which was started in October of 2008. Obviously, it was written before Mussina’s retirement. It languished away all this time in the “draft” section of site. I thought I would post it for the sure fun and “what if” aspect of it (and “Samsonite! I was way off!”).

Mussina and the 2009 Yankees: Are They a Fit?

Given the Yankees outstanding struggles in their starting rotation this year, I have to think Mussina is coming back. He’s been by far their best and most consistent pitcher. Andy Pettitte had an awful stretch run. Like Mussina he is also a free agent. The problem here is that the free agent market is loaded with pitching. And we all know how the Yankees love to go out and overpay for starting pitchers who they think can get the job done. Among the prize free agents are C.C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Roy Oswalt, Ryan Dempster, A.J. Burnett (can opt out of his contract), Randy Johnson, Jon Lackey (club has 09 option), Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland, Kyle Loshe, Brandon Looper, Derek Lowe, Greg Maddux, Jamie Moyer, Mark Mulder (club option for 09), Brad Penny (club option for 09), Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, Randy Wolf, Oliver Perez and yes, Carl Pavano.

Wang is the only guaranteed starter for the Yankees in 2009. No one really know if the Yankees are going to continue to wait, or rush, or trade Ian Kennedy and Philip Hughes. After finishing out of the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the Yankees might be primed for the spending spree of all spending sprees. Then again free agents have shown a reluctance recently to take the unfair and relentless pressure of being a Yankee.

My prediction for the 2009 starting staff:

Chien-Ming Wang
Ben Sheets – will be lucky to make 20 starts a season
A.J. Burnett – is going to walk close to a hitter an inning in NY
Mike Mussina
Philip Hughes/Ian Kennedy/Darrell Rasner/Whoknows

Mussina: The WAR-rior

Thank God for advanced statistics. One of our first articles concerned Mussina’s rightful claim to the 2001 AL Cy Young Award.  The stats now prove it. WAR–or Wins Above Replacement–calculates how many more wins a player was worth compared to the same replacement-level player.

Mussina’s 2001 season produced the highest pitching WAR in the AL by more than 15%.  Mussina finished 5th in the Cy Young voting which went to Roger Clemens.

For Mike Mussina‘s career he ranks 24th all-time in pitching WAR.  He is right behind Pedro Martinez and ahead of current or future hall of famers Don Sutton (26th), Tom Glavine (27th), Bob Feller (31st), Juan Marichal (37th), Jim Palmer (39th) and Whitey Ford (55th).  If this isn’t the best arguement for Mussina’s hall of fame induction I’m not sure what is.

Mussina also produced the 5th highest pitching WAR in a pitcher’s final season and the best since 1968.

But, the thing that most interests me is how Mussina’s WAR reflected his results in Cy Young voting. As we’ve pointed out, the lack of Cy wins/votes has been one of the more common arguments against Mussina.

*Note, for purposes of this piece, we’re only looking at the WAR of pitchers who got Cy Young Votes that season. If a guy was left totally off the ballot, odds are his WAR wasn’t that great.

1992:

Actual finish: 4th

WAR finish: 2nd

Net: Gained 2 spots

Patrick’s notes: Not only did Mussina’s 7.4 WAR put him second on the list, he was over a win and a half better than his next-closest competitor. Actual winner Dennis Eckersley was ranked 6th in WAR.

1994:

Actual finish: 4th

WAR finish: T-2nd

Net: Gained 3.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: Mussina jumps over Jimmy Key and pulls even with Randy Johnson. The voters got this one right, handing the award to David Cone. Fun fact: Every pitcher who got a Cy vote that year played for the Yankees at some point.

1995:

Actual finish: 5th

WAR finish: 3rd

Net: Gained 5.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: Mussina jumps Tim Wakefield and Jose Mesa.

1996:

Actual finish: 5th

WAR finish: 8th

Net: Gained 2.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: Not suprising. Mussina’s ERA was terrible that year and his lofty win total was bolstered by the Orioles offense.

1997:

Actual finish: 6th

WAR finish: 4th

Net: Gained 4.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: Mussina jumps ahead of Brad Radke and Randy Myers. Myers is the third different reliever to go ahead of Mussina. Don’t you people know closers are overrated?

1999:

Actual finish: 2nd

WAR finish: T-5th

Net: Gained 2 spots

Patrick’s notes: Again helped by a gaudy win total, it appears Mussina might not be getting a lot of WAR help at all career-wise

2000:

Actual finish: T-6

WAR finish: 2nd

Net: Gained 5.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: If you want proof that single-season win totals are meaningless, here you go. Despite an 11-15 record, Mussina’s WAR is better than two 20-game winners who finished ahead of him, David Wells and Tim Hudson. Mussina also jumps Andy Pettitte, Clemens, and Todd Jones

2001:

Actual finish: 5th

WAR Finish: 1st

Net gain: 9.5 spots

Patrick’s notes: We have a winner! No seriously guys, we told you all along: Mussina was screwed in 2001. Mussina passes Clemens, Mark Mulder, Freddy Garcia and Jamie Moyer.

2008:

Actual finish: T-6th

WAR finish: 5th

Net gain: 10 spots

Patrick’s notes: Mussina jumps Rivera and Francisco Rodriguez, the 5th and 6th relievers to go ahead of him.

Final thoughts: Overall, Mussina was ranked 10 spots lower over the course of his career than he should have been based on WAR. But more significant is what those spots did for him. Instead of having zero career wins and one career second-place finish, Mussina should have had one win and three second-place finishes. Many voters are unlikely to note the difference between a 6th place finish and a 4th-place finish, but 5th to first? 6th to 2nd? People will notice that

Bill James Projects Mussina (sans retirement)

I stumbled across a fun tool on espn.com today.  It’s called Career Assessments and allows you to project the rest of a player’s career.  Now this is obviously meaningless because Mussina retired.  But if you are very bored, as I was, you can project Mussina’s career had he chosen to make a run at 300 wins.  James system allows you to find these things out.  From espn.com:

Bill James invented Career Assessments as a projection method to predict final career totals for players. The formula presumes that a player has (42 – age)/2 seasons remaining, but not less than 1.5 seasons, and it is determined using the player’s age on June 30 of the previous year. If the player is a catcher, his remaining seasons are multiplied by 0.7. Using the established norms and years remaining, the final total is projected, and the chance to reach that total can be derived. No player can have more than a 97-percent chance to reach any goal.

I input Mussina’s numbers in the projection machine, waited for it spin up and it spit out some interesting information. 

Based on his age, your player can be expected to play for 1.5 more years, at an average of 14.5 per year. At that rate, he will finish at 291 for his career. He has a 22 percent chance to reach 300.

If Mussina had chose to stay and pursue 300 victories, his chances stood at an unencouraging 1 in 4.  But then again what are the chances of a 39 year old pitcher winning 20 games? 

You can see that projection here or check out his chances for 3,000 strikeouts.  Try not to get sucked into the projection machine’s vortex trying to figure out Joba’s chances at 300 wins or Jeter’s chances at 4000 hits.

"There, but for the grace of God, go I"

We spent a lot of time on this site analyzing Mike Mussina‘s career, and if he’d done enough to make Cooperstown. Through it all, while we believe he’s worthy of the honor now, we knew that the voters might have needed another year or two; another twenty wins; another 200 strikeouts.

We wondered if Mussina made the right decision to retire.

And after watching the Yankees pound the Red Sox and John Smoltz Thursday night, here’s what I can say: I’m glad that wasn’t Mike Mussina.

This is not about bashing John Smoltz. I happen to think he’s a Hall of Famer, and he, like all athletes, has a right to end his career when he chooses. And Smoltz was coming off of shoulder surgery.

But that doesn’t change the reality of the results. Smoltz has been awful for the Red Sox. He’s got an 8.23 ERA and left-handed hitters are hitting nearly .450 against him.

Simply put, he held on one year too long.

As a Yankees fan, I never got to see much of Smoltz except in the World Series in 1996 and 1999. But he was a phenominal pitcher. And, even though I wanted the Yankees to win Thursday, I couldn’t help but think that a guy like Smoltz deserved better. He deserved to go out pitching well. Not getting battered around in the third inning. It’s possible that, for his final confrontation on the mound, John Smoltz had to issue an intentional walk to load the bases after giving up five hits in the inning. It’s simply not how he should be remembered.

Mike Mussina ended his career with 16 straight scoreless innings. The final batter he faced was the eventual MVP of the American League, Dustin Pedroia. Mussina got a double play ground out.

While we may always wonder what might have been had Mussina hung on for another two or three seasons–especially if he doesn’t make the Hall–part of me is glad his career ended the way it did. With smiles and handshakes. With a celebration.

That same part of me wishes John Smoltz could get one final return to the mound, to finish his career in a manner more fitting a player of his stature. I don’t know if he’ll get that chance, but we can always hope.

As for Mike Mussina? Maybe, once again, he proved he knows more than we do.

Old-Timers day getting a little…young?

Call me a hater if you must, but when I saw that Mike Mussina was at Old-Timers day at Yankee Stadium, I was a little disappointed.

I know that OTD is supposed to be a celebration of Yankees from the past, and that’s  the problem. Mike Mussina‘s not from the “past”. He’s a guy who could probably pitch for the Yankees tomorrow if things went haywire. Rigt now, he’d probably be the third best starter on the team.

I’m not trying to be a fly in the ointment. I know that on some level, this is what happens, because the further we get from the glory years, the fewer options there are to bring back players who had an impact on the franchise. Many of them are gone.

I’m not blaming Mussina for this. If I were a player and I were asked back, I’d go. I just wish they hadn’t asked.

To have Mussina there seems odd. We’ve pointed out he was the last Yankee to win a World Series game. But do you realize that he was the last Yankee pitcher to beat the Red Sox? I can’t tell if that’s funny or depressing.

And now he’s an Old-Timer? I don’t like it.

This doesn’t have anything to do with talent. Not every player who comes back is a Hall of Famer. I’ve seen Kevin Maas at a recent game. But part of the fun off bringing a guy like Maas back is that when you see him, you think “Man, Kevin Maas. Those first 30 games in 1990 were something! What’s he been up to?” In a sense, his obscurity is the reason he’s back. He’s the answer to a trivia question, a quirky piece of nostalgia in an otherwise dark era. Think Shane Spencer, sans the rings. If you were a Yankees fan in the early 90′s, for a few weeks, you loved Maas, and having him back there is an excuse to think back to when he was the next big thing.

The problem is, we haven’t been given a chance to appreciate Mussina in that way. Nine months ago, we weren’t even sure he was retired. Now we’re supposed to look back with fondness? It’s like the saying goes “How can I miss you if you don’t go away?”