It is generally agreed among baseball aficionados that Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is a borderline hall-of-famer. Schilling has accomplished several impressive feats during his career. He reached 300 strikeouts three times. He is also a 3-time 20 game winner. He has eclipsed 3,000 total strikeouts in his career, and he currently ranks 14th all-time in this category. He has even been the MVP or co-MVP of a postseason series twice. In light of his recent near no-hitter, I wanted to more closely examine his Hall of Fame potential (despite his last two wretched outings).
Schilling has three major black marks working against him. First is that he presently has 213 career wins. 300 wins means a nearly guaranteed place in the Hall of Fame for pitchers. Many have been inducted whose career totals are lower, but his 213 rank him somewhere in the 80's all-time. Bert Blyleven, a pitcher with 287 wins and 3701 strikeouts (5th all-time) has not been inducted into the Hall. Schilling has also never won a Cy Young award, given to the top pitcher in each league each year. Further limiting Schilling's chances is his career earned run average of 3.46, which would be high for a Hall of Famer.
Still, just as Pedro Martinez's career statistics compare favorably with Sandy Koufax's, Schilling's lifetime numbers match up well against a Hall of Famer that he is frequently compared to: Don Drysdale. For the sake of this comparison, I'll look at Schilling career numbers through the end of the 2006 season only.
Drysdale: IP: 3432; H: 3084; BB: 855; K: 2486; W: 209; L: 166; ERA: 2.94.
Schilling: IP: 3110; H: 2833; BB: 688; K: 3015; W: 207; L: 138; ERA: 3.43.
IP=innings pitched, H=hits allowed, BB=walks, K=strikeouts, W=wins, L=losses, ERA=earned run average.
By the numbers, Schilling looks to be about as good as Drysdale. Let's factor in three more modern statistics: Strikeout-to-walk ratio, strikeouts per nine innings, and walks plus hits per inning pitched.
Drysdale: K/BB: 2.91; K/9: 6.52; WHIP: 1.15
Schilling: K/BB: 4.38; K/9: 8.73; WHIP: 1.13
The first two measurements strongly favor Schilling, and display his proficiency as a strikeout pitcher. The two pirchers are very similar in the third statistic. Schilling led the major leagues in strikeouts in 1997, setting a single-season record for most strikeouts in the National League by a right-handed pitcher. He followed that with exactly 300 K's the next year, and in 2002 came within 3 K's of his own record. Schilling twice led the majors in wins and won a career high 23 games in a year he didn't. Both Schilling and Drysdale twice led the majors in innings pitched. Drysdale led all major-leaguers in strikeouts three times, but in wins only once. Drysdale had two 20-plus win seasons, with a career best 25 wins in 1962. Drysdale did win the Cy Young award in 1962.
Still, these figures show that Curt Schilling's resume is very comparable to Don Drysdale's. Of course, Schilling will need to be compared to the other great pitchers of his era, but he certainly will deserve consideration when he becomes eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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Schill (and the post) definitely deserve at least one comment!
I first became aware of him when he was the Phillies' ace, (thanks to a Phillies fan I had to share a television with at Drexel). But I just missed the 1997 and 1998 seasons, and got the idea that we was a reliable, strike-out throwing no. 1 pitcher.
(This same Phillies fan was debating a tentative case for Schilling's Hall credentials even then. So we can't blame the water out West for this).
As Red Sox fan it is hard to be fair to Schilling. He deserves as much credit as anyone for winning the 2004 World Series, and his postseason success is one of the semi-intangibles that help his case. Since then, we have had to live with the "horse/horse's ass" factor-with the problem being that the horse in question can only be wearing out.
pros: strikeouts, (your bunch of modern stats including K/9, K:BB and WHIP, all reflecting high strikes, low walks and hits: which are great for a fantasy player, but are of less proven value to get into the Hall of Fame), and postseason success.
cons: high E.R.A. for Hall, low win total for Hall, no Cy Young.
Also: bad luck for pitching at the same time as Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Glavine, Smoltz, and Martinez, all likely to be eligible at the same time as Schilling, making it more difficult for borderline pitchers to get in.
I am pretty sure that he just doesn't have the old fashioned statistics to get in, if someone like Blyleven hasn't yet. Drysdale must have been lucky.
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