Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown (Part 1)

An article in the Chicago Sports Review, (H/T) Baseball Think Factory, got me to thinking about Curt’s Hall of Fame case. Looking at Schilling’s Baseball Reference page, the site lists two direct contemporaries, Kevin Brown and Mike Mussina, as close similarity matches.

Whenever it comes to the Hall of Fame, there’s always two questions: who ought to be in the Hall of Fame and who is actually going to wind up making it. There’s always arguments that can be made in favor of guys like Rick Reuschel or Paul Derringer, but argue all you want, they ain’t getting in. Nevertheless trying to predict how the writers are going to break on an issue is difficult and has been attempted by people smarter than I am.

So let’s stick with an analysis of quality. For the first part, we’re going to take a look at the basic numbers and see if there’s anything that leaps out at you to separate the three. I didn’t take the time to add Schilling and Mussina’s 2007 numbers (but they’ll make little difference) because I am lazy. So this analysis is through the 2006 season.

Mussina is king of the Won/Loss record, Schilling is the strikeout king and Brown is by far the best at preventing home runs. Big deal. Here’s some more interesting data courtesy of the always entertaining hits per balls in play stat:

Pitcher      HBIP lgHBIP tmHBIP
Schilling   0.292  0.291  0.291
Brown       0.290  0.291  0.288
Mussina     0.288  0.295  0.292

If you never understood DIPS and wanted a quick intro, there it is. Not only are the three pitchers virtually indistinguishable from one another on hits per balls in play, they are virtually indistinguishable from the league averages (column three) and averages of their teams (column four) throughout their careers. If these three are great pitchers (they’re at least close), being good at hits per balls in play has nothing to do with it. Their effectiveness, like those of the vast majority of pitchers, is based on their ability to strikeout hitters, and prevent walks and home runs.

Here are some relevant career numbers to stew on, and I’ll crunch them a bit more seriously in part II.

Pitcher       IP     H     R    ER   HR   BB    SO   ERA lgERA
Schilling   3110  2833  1250  1188  326  688  3015  3.44  4.25
Brown       3256  3079  1357  1185  208  901  2397  3.28  4.30
Mussina     3210  3058  1384  1296  345  719  2572  3.63  4.58