Borderline?

The rumor broke late yesterday and hit the sports airwaves this morning: Mike Mussina is retiring. Mike and Mike called him a "borderline hall-of-famer" on ESPN Radio this morning, and Joel Sherman said the same in the New York Post.

I'd like to hear one compelling reason why Mussina does not belong in the Hall of Fame. The numbers say he belongs.

His 270 wins over 18 seasons is an average of 15 per year - and a scan of Mussina's year-by-year stats show he was remarkably consistent. He won 16 games in a strike-shortened 1994 and 19 in a strike-shortened 1995. He pitched in a hitter's park during a hitter's era.

And he has the historic street cred. His stats compare very favorably to Juan Marichal, who had 27 fewer wins and 500 fewer strikeouts in two fewer seasons. Marichal's career ERA was 2.89 while the league had a 3.55 ERA over the span of his career; Mussina posted 3.68 while the league put up 4.51. (If you do the math, the ratios are almost identical.) He has more wins than Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, and Mordecai "What happened to your hand" Brown, all Hall of Famers.

Mussina wasn't a loudmouth who talked above his talent. He's not a moody superstar. But he was, quietly, one of the most consistently good pitchers of the past thirty years. Hopefully he'll get his spot in Cooperstown.