Hall of Fame Poll: Mike Mussina

Melvin Mora would be next on our list but He was an ok player,  but not close to the Hall to me.

He played 13 seasons, hit .277/.350/.431 with 171 home runs. He has a 28.2 bWAR. He played 10 seasons with the Orioles, 2 with the Mets, and 1 each with the Rockies and Diamondbacks. He had  1 really good season, hitting .340/.419/.562 in 2004. Made 2 All-Star teams and got MVP votes once. He played mostly third base, and wasn't particularly good defensively.

Mike Mussina's case, for the Hall of Fame, is an interesting one to me, because there are a lot a parallels with Mark Buehrle.

Mussina was never the best pitcher baseball, but he was good for a long period of time. With 270 wins, he's 56 ahead of Buehrle. He didn't have 14 straight seasons of 200 innings, but he did have 9 straight. And he did have 11 seasons of 200 innings. He was thought of as a good defensive player, winning 7 Gold Gloves, Mark won 4.

Mussina had a very good 18 year career, getting double digit wins in every season except his rookie year, so that's 17 years of double digit wins. Buehrle had 15 years of double digit wins.

Mussina had a 82.7 career bWAR, Buehrle 59.2.

Mussina never won a Cy Young, he finished 2nd in voting once and finished 4th through 6th 8 times. Buehrle only received Cy Young votes once, finishing 4th. He was an All-Star 5 times, including the rather famous time that Cito didn't bring him into the game in Baltimore. Buehrle was an All-Star 5 times as well.

Mussina had no World Series rings but his teams made the playoffs 9 times. He did have the run in with Cito in the 1993 All-Star game. We talked about in depth back there.

It seems to me that Mussina has a stronger case for the Hall,  unless you give Marka lot of weight to the 15 straight seasons of 200 innings.

This is Mussina's 4th time  on the ballot, he received 43% of the vote last year, a big jump from 24.6 the year before.

You can check out his stats here.