Curt Schilling announced his retirement this week ending a solid career that included three World Series championships, six All Star games and 216 wins in 20 seasons.
All week he’s been hailed as a gritty leader and a big-game pitcher and that is evident in his 11-2 postseason record and the game he is most known for – willing the Boston Red Sox to a championship in 2004 through his bloody ankle injury. There’s also been a tremendous amount of debate about his worthiness as a candidate for the Hall of Fame.
Really?
I have great respect for Schilling. He’s outspoken and opinionated, but he keeps himself out of trouble and as the old cliche goes, when the bell rings he answers it. But his numbers don’t scream Hall of Fame. His 217 wins are 70 behind Bert Blyleven, another gamer who has been inexplicably denied entry to the Hall for several seasons now.
He also is behind guys like Jack Morris, Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina among guys that are retired (and Roidger Clemens, depending on whether he is offiically retired or not) and Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson among active players. Kenny Rogers – yes, Kenny Rogers – had more wins than Schilling. So did David Wells. Are Rogers and Wells mentioned as potential Hall of Famers? I don’t hear their names very often. John Smoltz only has 210 wins but he adds four years of dominance as a closer on his resume.
Don’t like wins? How about strikeouts? This is his best category. But Blyleven, Johnson, Clemens, Maddux, and Pedro Martinez are all guys who rank higher than Schilling. Shutouts? Complete games? Schilling doesn’t rank in the top 50 all-time in either category.
Schilling did have some dominant seasons. He won 21 or more games three times. But he also had a half-dozen seasons (discounting his first four, when he wasn’t a full-time major leaguer) where he didn’t even reach double-digit wins. But while he came close, he never won a Cy Young award. He was often among the best, but he was never recognized as THE best pitcher of his era.
And that is what the Hall of Fame is supposed to be about – recognizing the elite of the elite.
Now, some will argue that comparing Schilling to guys like Blyleven and Morris isn’t valid because they played during different eras. That’s a semi-legitimate point. Starters are only asked to go six or seven innings now where they tried to complete what they started through the 70s and 80s. To me that strengthens the argument for Blyleven’s inclusion in the Hall but it doesn’t do that much to Schilling’s.
Now, is there a possibility Schilling does get in someday? Sure. People will point at his postseason performances and deem him worthy. And maybe he deserves it – maybe I’m all wet.
Again, I mostly like Schilling. The outspokenness doesn’t bother me as long as he produces and he stays out of trouble, and Schilling, by and large, did both. But if he gets while guys like Blyleven and Morris, who was the ultimate postseason pitcher and threw one of the best games in World Series history in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series for the Minnesota Twins, are still sitting on the outside looking in then there’s something wrong with how these guys are selected.
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Great post Andy. I was looking at another Pitcher’s stat’s and Schilling came to mind right away. What I’ll say is if Schilling get into the HOF there will be a lot of buzz surrounding other great players with comparable stats.
I think recently Voters have become way to fixated on numbers like 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts.
What about a guy who at only 21 years old threw a no-hitter against a pretty decent Minnesota Twins team (sorry Andy) đŸ™‚ , won a Cy Young Award and also the MVP of the League? He’s a 6-time All-Star who played in 502 games with a career era of 3.27, 209 wins and 3-time 20 plus win seasons. Finally only Nolan Ryan threw the ball harder back in his time and he’s a proud owner of 3 World Series rings.
His only downfall compared to Schilling’s career is that his 1-5 playoff pitching record is disappointing. Being a youngster and making 4 appearances against something called a “Big Red Machine” likely didn’t help. But a along with his 143 complete games and 37 career shutouts should count for something in comparing pitchers.
After age 29 though, he was basically a .500 pitcher. Unfortunately the decline was due to being primarily being a blazing hard thrower, playing with bad teams and a drug addiction problem.
Now I’m not saying Vida Blue (thought I wouldn’t tell you đŸ™‚ ) definetly should be in the HOF but if Schilling gets in you have to ask the question why not Blue? I would hope the Writers would understand his battles with cocaine addiction and current alcohol problems are just real life difficulties he’s been unable to stay clear of. IMO voters need to separate his addiction from his baseball accomplishments as much as possible. I’m not sure what the voters stance is on personal problems?
There are plenty of players i.e. Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle that suffered from over indulgences and have stated that it affected their play but still were HOFers. I would hope their isn’t a double standard of some sort.
Others pretty good players with simliar careers will expect too be given strong HOF consideration (if possible,can’t remember rules) like: Luis Tiant, Bob Welch, Orel Hersheiser, Kevin Brown and Mickey Lolich,
In fact I could make a strong argument for Schilling’s HOF induction based on Don Drysdale and Catfish Hunter being in the HOF.
All I really know is that Bert Blyleven should be in and Jack Morris had the stuff of a big-time winner and is HOFer no matter what the idiots say. To hell with his era!
Off topic, does anyone out there agree with me that Yankee Pitcher Ron “Louisiana Lightning” Guidry should be in the HOF? I think quality should count. A career average of 17-9 a season is awesome. I don’t know why you have to have a ton of wins and play 20 years to be a HOFer. I think if a guy performs at a high level for 10 years in any sport that should be enough.
Along the quality line I’d sure like to know why the “We are Family” 3rd baseman Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock isn’t in the HOF. He was a 3-time All-Star (AS MVP) who played 15 years with over 2,000 hits, a lifetime .305 hitter and 4-time Batting Champion.
The same with another Pirate Al Oliver. They didn’t call the 70’s Pirates “The Lumber Company” (also Willie Stargell and Dave Parker) for nothing. Al Oliver played 18 seasons with 2,743 hits, a 7-time All-Star, a .303 lifetime batting average, rarely struck, WS winner in 1971, won a batting title and was a 3-time Silver Slugger Award Winner. No one can convince me he’s not a HOFer because of 257 hits short of 3,000 or his 219 homers (13 yrs with 10 plus homers) are sexy enough. The man could hit and play!
Same for another Pirates in Dave Parker. He played 19 years with 2,712 hits, 339 home runs, and a smooth .290 lifetime batting avg. He started for two different World Series winners,was a 7-time All-Star, 3-time Silver Slugger Award winner, 1978 League MVP,1979 AS MVP and two-time batting champion. Are you kidding me!! and know I’m not a Pirates fan but I remember lots of their great players throughout the 70’s. They had great battles with the Reds. So many runs scored!!
It’s obvious the writers can’t get the voting right. I think they need a special panel of older writers only, like in football and some experts to consult with. I doubt the younger people can have much appreciation for the older players. Nothing in my mind replaces growing up watching the players. They must be too hung up in numbers. It shouldn’t of been that hard to figure out Jim Rice was one of the best sluggers of his day or that Bert Blyleven had a HOF curveball to match or better Jim Palmer. He just happened to play for a worse team. Plus they pitched deeper into the games so they took more losses. Another example of a great Pitcher with many losses is Jim Kaat.
Agreed with Tony P.– this is a perceptive post from Andy.
Looking at similarity scores, Schilling seems at best like a marginal HoF-er and mostly like none at all. Here’s his top 10 most similar, with HoF-ers starred:
Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, Orel Hershiser, Freddie Fitzsimmons, John Smoltz, Milt Pappas, *Don Drysdale, *Dazzy Vance, Jim Perry, *Catfish Hunter.
Of the seven non-HoF-ers here, one occasionally hears HoF talk about Smoltz (though he’s equally marginal) and nothing about the rest. Of the three HoF-ers, all can be viewed as anywhere from marginal to mistake.
Am thinking if Schilling gets voted in the HoF, it will be a triumph of bloody-sock style over statistical substance. Which is to say he might get in anyway, especially if the intellectual equivalents of Corky Simpson and Bruce Jenkins have their way.