I'm going to go with "NO" on the Hall of Fame. Granted he has the three world series titles and pitched in another for the Phillies in 1993, his career is riddled with inconsistency that you do not want to see in a Hall of Fame caliber player. He won 216 games, struck out over 3000 batters (3116 - 14th) and even showed flashes of brilliance. But his claims to fame are simply bloody sock, dominating the Yanks with Randy Johnson, and running his mouth. Had he shown more consistency across his career his win total would be in the area of a Mike Mussina (who could almost be said to have had a similar career). He suffered some injuries which could make his numbers look more impressive for the amount of time he actually played, and another good thing for him is that he really only had 3 seasons in which he saw substantial time and his ERA was over 4 with one of those years being the 1994 strike year. It's a close call, but I would vote NO.
Hall of Fame? Absolutely. He had the best career strikeout-to-walk ratio since four balls made a walk and the second best ever.
Schilling's ERA was 27% better than his league's average. That's incredible by itself, but he also has the lowest rate of unearned runs allowed of all-time. He would position his defense for every batter, preparing them for how the balls would come off the bat.
Schilling never did win a Cy Young Award, but he finished runner up to Randy Johnson in Cy Young voting twice and second to Johan Santana once. No shame in second place there.
Although he did lose time to injuries, he also had seasons in which he was an absolute workhorse. He led the league in IP twice and CG on four occasions. He was 3rd on the active CG list and 4th in IP when he retired. In an era when most pitchers were throwing fewer and fewer innings and leaving the game in the hands of the bullpen, Schilling was taking control himself.
There's the stuff you know: winning 60% of his games, being the best postseason starting pitcher of his era (and perhaps all-time), bloody sock, etc. But his real claim to fame should be how he took on so much responsibility for preventing runs. Other pitchers toss six innnings and let the bullpen take over, or allow a lot of balls to be put in play and put pressure on their defense, or don't bother to prepare and position their defense so that they are ready, or walk a bunch of batters and need a catcher with a good arm to prevent stolen bases. Schilling did it all himself and did it well. He'd have put up Hall of Fame numbers on any team in any era.
I'm going to go with "NO" on the Hall of Fame.
ReplyDeleteGranted he has the three world series titles and pitched in another for the Phillies in 1993, his career is riddled with inconsistency that you do not want to see in a Hall of Fame caliber player.
He won 216 games, struck out over 3000 batters (3116 - 14th) and even showed flashes of brilliance. But his claims to fame are simply bloody sock, dominating the Yanks with Randy Johnson, and running his mouth.
Had he shown more consistency across his career his win total would be in the area of a Mike Mussina (who could almost be said to have had a similar career).
He suffered some injuries which could make his numbers look more impressive for the amount of time he actually played, and another good thing for him is that he really only had 3 seasons in which he saw substantial time and his ERA was over 4 with one of those years being the 1994 strike year.
It's a close call, but I would vote NO.
Hall of Fame? Absolutely. He had the best career strikeout-to-walk ratio since four balls made a walk and the second best ever.
ReplyDeleteSchilling's ERA was 27% better than his league's average. That's incredible by itself, but he also has the lowest rate of unearned runs allowed of all-time. He would position his defense for every batter, preparing them for how the balls would come off the bat.
Schilling never did win a Cy Young Award, but he finished runner up to Randy Johnson in Cy Young voting twice and second to Johan Santana once. No shame in second place there.
Although he did lose time to injuries, he also had seasons in which he was an absolute workhorse. He led the league in IP twice and CG on four occasions. He was 3rd on the active CG list and 4th in IP when he retired. In an era when most pitchers were throwing fewer and fewer innings and leaving the game in the hands of the bullpen, Schilling was taking control himself.
There's the stuff you know: winning 60% of his games, being the best postseason starting pitcher of his era (and perhaps all-time), bloody sock, etc. But his real claim to fame should be how he took on so much responsibility for preventing runs. Other pitchers toss six innnings and let the bullpen take over, or allow a lot of balls to be put in play and put pressure on their defense, or don't bother to prepare and position their defense so that they are ready, or walk a bunch of batters and need a catcher with a good arm to prevent stolen bases. Schilling did it all himself and did it well. He'd have put up Hall of Fame numbers on any team in any era.