Moose vs. Maddux: Coming in 2014
Greg Maddux will announce his retirement from professional baseball on Monday. This means he’ll be on the same ballot as Mussina in 2014. This is another way of saying Mussina’s chances of being a first ballot guy, which were small anyway, just got a whole lot smaller.
Voters don’t like to vote for more then two or three guys at a time. And rarely do you see more then two players elected in the same year. In fact it’s usually just 1 at a time, as seen the past year with Bruce Sutter.
But well done to Maddux. He richly deserves a spot in Cooperstown and should tally one of the highest voting totals in Hall of Fame history.
Last 5 posts by Rorschach
- Mussina: The WAR-rior - May 27th, 2010
- Bill James Projects Mussina (sans retirement) - September 23rd, 2009
- Three Quick Things About the Moose - June 21st, 2009
- The Class of 2014 - May 8th, 2009
- Henderson and Rice Elected to HOF - January 13th, 2009
December 9th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Bruce Sutter was a very weak candidate. So that explains the only 1 that time. There was not a single overwhelming HOF candidate, but they wanted to pick someone. If there are 2 or more strong HOFers, 2 or more can go in. But yeah, Moose is marginal. Plus there are a handful of other SURE HOFers who are not currently signed and either on the wrong side of 40 or coming off a terrible season ( or more). A couple more may get the Rickey Henderson treatment and not choose to retire but be forced to retire when no one signs them.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Maddox’s lifetime era is 3,16, Mussina’s 3.68. Now flip the leagues they pitched in and tell me what their respective era’s would have been. Note that Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown, one a first ballot hall of famer the second borderline, pitched a similar number of innings in boththe NL and the AL. Johnson’s NL only (including the mess of his last few years) is 290, his AL 3.60, Brown’s NL 2.60, his AL 3.93. The point being Mussina is every bit Maddox’s equal in terms of era, probably slightly better. It’s worth noting that Brown’s NL numbers are better than Maddox’s.