Crystal Lake Hoffy wrote:
I think its okay to look at stats across eras. I like looking across eras for key stats, like WAR. Should it be the deciding factor to get in the Hall? Maybe, maybe not. Thinking about it, even looking within the same era, the NL and AL are two totally different leagues. The stats for a hall of fame caliber pitcher in the AL, of the same era, might be totally different than the stats for a hall of fame caliber pitcher in the NL in that same era. For example, we know the AL has a lot more hitting. Would Maddux have won as many games in the AL during that same era? Who knows.
I'm more focused on the criteria across eras to get into the Hall. Correct me if I am wrong, but wins are still a major deciding factor for starting pitching, even though I don't believe it should be as important as it is. Its like a power hitter. If a power hitter doesn't hit 500 home runs, you bring in doubt. If a pitcher didn't get 300 wins, you bring doubt. Was Schilling a Hall of Fame pitcher? He might be, but I'm sure he wouldn't get considered by some voters simply because he only won 216 games.
If there has ever been a pitcher who was deserving of the Hall of Fame and didn't make it due to playing on bad teams, I don't know who he is. Teams are good because of their starting pitchers. Glavine and Maddux didn't win 300 games because they were on good teams. The Braves won 14 division titles because they had Galvine and Maddux.
We can have all the arguments we want about "run support", but if we have to look at the "run support" a guy got to figure out if he was any good, he wasn't. One of the great and unique things about baseball is that you are a different team and you play a different team everyday depending on the starting pitcher. The Cubs are one of the best teams in baseball when Arrieta is pitching. On the other four days they are usually terrible.
Pedro has 219 wins and he's a no-brainer on the first ballot. Schilling has 216 and he's questionable. He may make it in because of the co-MVP with Arizona and the phony bloody sock in Boston. Like Chilli said, there has to be an adjustment of expectation on some of the numbers or there will never be another starting pitcher in the Hall. The style of the game in the era must be considered. But my fear would be that when you take a deserving guy from an era, like Roy Halladay who has about 200 wins, that opens the door for someone to say, "why isn't Sal Maglie or Bret Saberhagen in there?" Those guys have less than 200 wins but a lot of other strong numbers.