Written by Johnny Maffei
On the 10th day of Christmas the sports gods gave to me: Curt Schilling in the Hall of Fame.
This shouldn't even be a debate, yet at the same time it's controversial. I'm going to stick to baseball though, like the voters are supposed to.
For starters, in 133.1 IP in the postseason he has a 2.23 ERA and a .968 WHIP. Oh yeah, and 3 rings. His World Series ERA is 2.06 with 43 K and just 10 BB over 48 IP.
If you don't want to count playoffs toward a case for Cooperstown, I disagree with you. October contains best and hottest teams each season.
But if you will not be open minded and consider considering the postseason, then here's the regular season numbers he has:
- 2 T-10 MVP finishes
- 4 T-4 Cy Young finishes (3x runner-up, 2 of which were to Randy Johnson)
- 80.5 WAR -26th all-time
- 127 ERA+ -better than plenty who have a plaque in Cooperstown
- 64.1 JAWS -better than even more than the ERA+ category
- 4.3826 K/BB ratio which is better than ALL OF COOPERSTOWN (min 2,000IP)
- Active players ahead of Schilling include, in order: Sale, Kluber, deGrom, Tanaka, Tomlin, Strasburg
Most career games with at least a dozen strikeouts and no walks allowed:
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) June 6, 2019
Randy Johnson - 15
Roger Clemens - 12
Pedro Martinez - 11
Chris Sale - 11
Curt Schilling - 10
Clayton Kershaw - 9
Sandy Koufax - 6
Pitchers with at least 3,000 strikeouts and more strikeouts than hits allowed:
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) November 28, 2018
Nolan Ryan*
Randy Johnson*
Roger Clemens+
Pedro Martinez*
Curt Schilling
John Smoltz*
*Hall of Famer
+Seven-time Cy Young Award Winner
I could do this all day.
Curt Schilling should've been a 1st ballot Hall of Famer.
Stay tuned for our 11th wish of the Ridin' Pine #12DaysofChristmas series tomorrow!
Statistics credit to: Baseball Reference