Roger Clemens. Greg Maddux. Randy Johnson. Pedro Martinez. Mike Mussina. Only five pitchers have a higher fWAR than Curt Schilling since 1980.
Of course, this only accounts for his regular-season success and he would likely surpass some of those pitchers when you consider his postseasons. Trailing Schilling in the WAR category since 1980 are Hall of Fame pitchers John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Roy Halladay, who also had their entire careers span that period. Only four pitchers have struck out more than Schilling’s 3,116 batters and all of them, except for Roger Clemens, have been inducted.
Schilling, unlike Clemens, has never been credibly linked to PED use but it seems to be objections to his social views and bombastic comments are keeping him off certain bias voter’s ballots. You could discount his 216 career wins, but those victories are still greater than the totals of recent inductees John Smoltz and Roy Halladay.
The problem really seems to surround Schilling’s personality and that’s really an indictment on our divisive culture and nation as much as anything. While Schilling could have done what many people in the Hall of Fame have done and kept their wild opinions to themselves, he didn’t. It still doesn’t keep what he did as a player undeserving in a Hall that includes the greatest pitchers of every era of the game.
Schilling was one of the ten greatest pitchers of the past 30 years. He was better and more dominant in his prime that many that have been inducted in the past 20 years. If ranking WAR of all pitchers since 1960, the past sixty years, Schilling ranks 14th overall with all 13 in front of him (except for Clemens) inducted in the Hall of Fame. Additional Hall of Fame pitchers trailing him in WAR, many by a great distance, would include Sandy Koufax, Phil Niekro, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Jim Bunning, Jack Morris, Don Drysdale, and Catfish Hunter.
Schilling led three different franchises to the World Series and helped two of those ultimately earn championships. In 19 postseason starts across 12 series, Schilling was performance was remarkable as he completed his career 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA spanning 133 innings. Schilling never won a Cy Young award but finished second in three seasons, top ten in MVP twice, and lead both the AL and NL with multiple 20-plus win seasons. Schilling struck out 300 or more batters in three different seasons, leading the league in the category twice. Doing all this playing amid performance-enhanced hitters and ever-increasing, new hitter-friendly ballparks.
None of us should agree with all that Curt Schilling has spoken or shared, but baseball writers should not deny his Hall of Fame performance as a player in their annual voting. Schilling will need those who have clearly been judging his off-the-field comments to give him the increase in votes needed to give him the 75 percent required for induction. Hopefully, in this nation’s election year, enough writers will put their personal bias aside enough to give a deserving ballplayer his vote. Hats off to those writers who have done this and who are building a Hall of Fame that includes the greatest to have played the game.
