Mike Mussina and the Hall of Fame

Mike Mussina is in the Hall of Fame.  Sabremetricians everywhere are cheering, because finally, at last, someone with a largely mediocre career was inducted into the Hall thanks to his WAR and not because he ever accomplished anything on a baseball diamond.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those crotchety old men who spend their lives railing against those “analytics” guys and long for the good old days when RBIs meant something.  I did my masters’ thesis on baseball statistics, including WAR.  I have a degree in economics and am perfectly comfortable using math more complicated than multiplying and dividing.  I am glad to admit that RBIs are a context-based statistic that does not truly measure a batter’s value to his team.

But while I believe WAR is a valuable method of evaluating players in trades or forecasting team results, I don’t believe that admission to the Hall of Fame should be based on someone having a WAR over 70.  Sabremetrics are useful evaluative techniques, but abstract mathematics should not be a substitute for evaluating what actually happens in ball games.  It is the Hall of FAME, not Hall of Quantfiably Good.  Which is why I am on record opposing Mussina's Hall candidacy.

Some people seem to want to convert the MVP race to a battle to see who has the highest WAR.  However, if a player plays in a hitter friendly park, his WAR will be downgraded because he wouldn’t have hit so many homers and doubles in a “neutral” ballpark.  Fine, but the fact is that, while he may have been aided by a ballpark’s cozy dimensions or prevailing breeze to right field, a ballplayer DID hit those homers and doubles, driving in runs and helping to win real ball games.  Abstract math is nice, but reality matters.

But back to Mike Mussina.  He is probably a nice guy; for all I know he pays his taxes, reads to his kids at bedtime, and contributes to charitable causes.  He also played major league baseball for 17 years, and in that time he never won 20 games (well, he won 19 in 1995) and he never won a Cy Young Award.  He never led the league in any major statistical category (unless you count “walks per 9 innings” as significant).  He never won Game Seven of a World Series; his career post-season record is 7-8 with a 3.40 ERA.  His career ERA is 3.68, which is the third highest of the pitchers in the Hall (one of the two higher ERAs belongs to Jack Morris, another marginal Hall candidate I’d have voted against).  In 17 seasons he made 5 All-Star teams, meaning that he didn’t make 12 All-Star teams. He won 7 Gold Gloves, but Jim Kaat won 16 (plus 13 more games) and he isn’t in the Hall.

Bill James, the Godfather of Sabremetrics, once wrote a book called “What Ever Happened to the Hall of Fame?”  (the original title, “The Politics of Glory” must have been deemed too grandiose).  In the book he proposed a number of alternate ways of determining Hall membership.  The one I gravitated to was, “Could you write a history of baseball during the player’s career and NOT mention them by name?”  For example, Raphael Palmeiro, once considered a lock for the Hall before failing a steroids test, got 3,000 hits and slugged 500 home runs, but never got any MVP support, only made it to the first round of the playoffs a couple of times, and once managed to lead the league in runs scored but nothing else.  He never led his team to the postseason, and he never produced a season worthy of note.  He had a nice long injury-free career during a high-offense era, but he doesn’t belong in the history books or the Hall. 

There would be no need of mentioning Mike Mussina if you wrote about baseball from 1992-2008.  The word used twice to describe Mussina in his Wikipedia entry is “consistency.”  Consistency is nice, but the Hall of Fame is about excellence.  Mussina was a very good pitcher, but he never stood out in a crowd.

Be that as it may, he is now in, along with Harold Baines.  I really do feel like an old curmudgeon droning on about how pitchers used to throw complete games and good batters used to strike out less than 200 times a season.  I appreciate a god Hall of Fame debate, but with Harold Baines and Mike Mussina in the Hall the wrong side seems to be winning more often.