Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Hall of Fame worth???

Yesterday one of the best clutch pitchers of my generation retired. Curt Schilling most recently of the Boston Red Sox called it a career after battling many injuries the past year or two. The current debate is whether his career is hall of fame worthy or not.
First to determine whether or not he belongs in the hall you need to determine what credentials one must have. So lets look at Curt's career. After bouncing around between Balitmore and Houstons majors and farm systems for a few years he joined the Philadelphia Phillies in 1992. He was by no means expected to have a great career but was expected to be OK. He went and pitched 16 seasons with the Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Boston Redsoxs. He finished his career with 216 wins, 3116 strickouts, 3 20+winning seasons, 3 300k seasons, and all doing this with 7 seasons of under 100 innings pitched because of countless injuries. The telling stats are his postseason numbers. He made it to 4 world series. One with the Philles and Diamondbacks and 2 with the RedSoxs. He had an 11-2 record, 120 strikeouts in 133.1 innings pitched, had a 2.23 ERA, and had a under .215 opponenants batting average. His record is the best all time among pitchers starting at least 10 postseason games.
Now to break those stats down... He was dominant when healthy. When people say he didnt win 300 games and that is the goal for HofF pitchers one should think what he was on pace to win without injuries. He also reached the magical 3000k's mark even being hurt so often. Then you look at how he carried so many teams through the playoffs. With out him the Diamondbacks probably would not have won their wrold series title. He was mister clutch performer coming in with great pitching performances in the most important times. Taking out the drama of the bloody sock night and he still went out injured and threw 6 shutout innings in a must win game for the RedSox.
So take him out of the equation for his teams and do they win... one wouldnt know but my best guess is no. He was so important in performance and also as a club house guy that his presence was very important. Does he deserve the Hall nod??? I say yes yes yes because stats are important and he has them but also importance should play just as important of a role with the voters. And he was one of the most important figures in baseball for so many years.

4 comments:

  1. There's no doubt in my mind this guy deserves a place in the Hall of Fame. Great pitcher, worked his tail off, the stats speak for themselves.

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  2. Well there are alot of people on ESPN and other sports outlets that do not believe he is worthy.

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  3. Sure, his numbers might be "low," but it's not like he went out and pitched one or two great seasons and then left the game. He was a great pitcher for many years for many different teams and he managed to do it despite both nagging and bad injuries.

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  4. Trust me Im with you I believe his stats arent low at all considering everything and also think about how he has done all this presumably clean from roids like his counterparts all have been using

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