Undervalued Mussina may get due recognition
At No. 4 in USA TODAY’s countdown of the top 10 candidates on the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot is Mike Mussina.
He weathered 18 seasons pitching in the American League East and famously finished with a flourish: winning the final start of his career for his first, and only, 20-win season.
Now, Mussina is poised for a similar finishing kick in his drive for Cooperstown. A massive leap in his third year on the ballot, from 24.6 percent to 43, jolted life into a flagging candidacy; clearing the 63 percent mark in 2018 makes Mussina a virtual shoo-in for election.
With every passing year, his credentials only look stronger.
❚ The case for: Mussina has 270 wins, five All-Star appearances and a sturdy 83 Wins Above Replacement (greater than Nolan Ryan and Tom Glavine) to his credit, but the fixation always seems to be what he doesn’t have. No Cy Young awards. No World Series championships, even though he hitched a ride on the three-time defending champion Yankees’ train as a free agent.
That first season with the Yankees, however, speaks volumes about why Mussina is viewed far more favorably through a modern lens. For six years and nearly $89 million, Mussina signed up for a World Series run knowing he might not have to do the heavy lifting.
The Cy Young voting that 2001 season reflected that: The Yankees’ Roger Clemens ran away with the award on the strength of a 20-3 record. Mussina finished fifth, his 17 wins fewer than those of Clemens, Mark Mulder and Seattle teammates Freddy Garcia and Jamie Moyer.
Yet Mussina would likely win in a runaway were that election today. Earnedrun average should have been a good enough tip-off: Mussina 3.15, Clemens 3.51. Yet Mussina also led the AL in Fielding Independent Pitching, his 2.92 mark easily bettering No. 3 Clemens’ 3.29. Mussina also had the superior WHIP (1.06) of the quintet. Finally, his adjusted ERA of 143 blew away Clemens (128) and everyone else. Through the 2018 lens, it’s Mussina by a lot.
While that’s one isolated season, his overall body of work shines brighter.
Mussina’s career FIP, a stat that isolates outcomes a pitcher has the most control over, of 3.57 shaves just a bit off his career ERA of 3.68. Yet there are several seasons when his FIP is around 8 to 10 percent lower than his ERA, and the statistic also helps contextualize Mussina’s skills while pitching through the teeth of the so-called steroid era.
Only Randy Johnson (37.6), Pedro Martinez (33.9) and Curt Schilling (24.4) amassed more WAR among pitchers than Mussina’s 23.9 in those final four seasons before MLB instituted drug testing.
His ERA-plus in that span was 126, and his career mark of 133 ties him for 87th all time, on even footing as Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and Bob Feller.
❚ The case against: We touched on much of it above, most notably the lack of a signature season or team accomplishment. Mussina certainly did plenty to merit a championship ring in 2001, followed by a postseason where he quietly contributed to significant Yankees’ lore. Trailing 2-0 to Oakland in the AL Division Series, Mussina helped stave off elimination by pitching seven scoreless innings in Game 3, known as the Derek Jeter “flip” game. He also beat the Mari- ners in that AL Championship Series before Arizona beat him in Game 1 of the World Series. In Game 5, Mussina gave up two runs over eight innings before Scott Brosius erased a 2-0 deficit with his stunning tying home run off Byung-hyun Kim; the Yankees would win in 11 innings to take a 3-2 series lead. Had slam-dunk 2019 Hall inductee Mariano Rivera not blown a Game 7 save, Mussina would have his ring.
❚ X factors: Overall, Mussina was a solid playoff performer, posting a 3.42 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP and striking out 145 batters in 1392⁄ innings. His durability 3 was remarkable: 11 seasons of at least 200 innings pitched, including 200 on the nose in his final season, at 39.
❚ Consensus: Mussina has waited his turn. The greatest pitchers of his era — Greg Maddux, Glavine, Martinez and Johnson — have had their day in Cooperstown. Now, it is just Mussina and Schilling, who presents a similarly compelling resume but also has hurt his case with intolerant social media behavior. Mussina has garnered 82 percent of publicly revealed ballots, according to Ryan Thibodaux’s ballot tracker, and is projected to earn induction this year. It will be close, however: Private ballots are always less generous, and Mussina should land right around the 75 percent required. Mussina will get in, likely this year alongside Rivera, or next year alongside Jeter. So while he might play second fiddle yet again to more notorious Yankees, Mussina will not be denied his Cooperstown moment.