I realize that Curt Schilling will not be eligible for the Hall of Fame until 2013, if I have done my math correctly. I don’t feel it is too early to discuss his probability of making it to Cooperstown without a ticket.
I have heard some announcers call him (while he was still pitching) a future Hall of Famer. That irks me to no end. It did then and it does now.
Some people are locks for enshrinement. Randy Johnson is one and Tom Glavine is another. Curt Schilling is not.
Am I saying he won’t get in? No, but I don’t think he should. I don’t see him jumping over the bar in any particular category.
I can see all of you young guns snarling and getting ready to rebut me with a volley of SABRmetrics. Save it, I am old school and I don’t subscribe to much of that. If I wanted to learn more math I would have stayed in school longer.
Look at his career for a moment if you will. What did he do?
Okay, he was a 20-game winner three times. That is impressive, but so did Tommy John and it didn’t do him any good. Not even with 288 wins and 46 shutouts.
Schilling won 216 games with only 20 shutouts. That is hardly impressive, I don’t care who you are.
Milt Pappas pitched 43 shutouts. Jim Kaat pitched 31 of them and won 283, he still has to buy a ticket if he wants in.
His 3.46 ERA is mediocre at best. Kaat beat him there as well, albeit by only one-hundredth of a point.
Billy Pierce also had numbers which are compatible with Schilling’s. He won 211 games and tossed 38 shutouts with a decent ERA of 3.27.
How about awards, did Schilling win any Cy Young Awards? No, the best he ever did was finish runner-up. John did that as well, twice.
How about All-Star squads? Schilling was on six AS squads in a 15-year career while Pierce was on seven.
Schilling was very good in ringing batters up. He had over 300 K’s three different seasons, and led the league in two of them. I certainly hope that is not what supposedly separates him from the riffraff.
His WHIP ranks 46th on the all time list, giving him honor where it is due.
How about World Series experience? Not playoffs, did you say playoffs? I am not talking about playoffs; playoffs didn’t exist until the late sixties. Let’s talk World Series.
He is 4-1 with a 2.06 ERA, very good indeed. Pierce was 1-1 with a 1.89 Earnie.
A pitcher can get away with fewer than 250 wins, only if he is Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Schilling was never the dominant pitcher either Koufax or Gibson was.
Schilling, in my view should be relegated to the Hall of Very Good with Tommy John, Billy Pierce and Jim Kaat.
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