After Curt Schilling retired in 2007 many assumed that he’d be a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame. 12-years later, Schilling still waits for his call to get in.
Take a look at the recently inducted Hall of Fame starter Roy Halladay and you’ll notice an eerily similar stat-sheet to another HOF eligible pitcher that’s been waiting for his call to Cooperstown for 7-years now. I’m talking about none other than Curt Schilling.
To illustrate this further, let’s delve into Schilling to Halladay’s stats.
Player | Record | IP | CG | ERA | FIP | WHIP | SO
Halladay | 203-105 | 2749.1 | 67 | 3.38 | 3.39 | 1.178 | 2117
Schilling | 216-146 | 3261 | 83 | 3.46 | 3.23 | 1.137 | 3116
You’ll notice that their career statistics are almost identical and in most cases, Schill exceeds Halladay’s performance. In fact, Schilling not only exceeds Halladay in most cases, in terms of wins above replacement Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs have Schill (79.5 bWAR/79.8 fWAR) above Doc (64.3 bWAR/65.6 bWAR).
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Not only that, in terms of one specific stat – strikeouts – Schilling far exceeds Halladay’s total and is one of 17 players ever to reach the 3000 strikeout mark in the history of MLB. Of those individuals, only Schilling, Roger Clemens, and CC Sabathia have not been inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.
In the case of Clemens, he was implicated in MLB’s PED controversy and joins a number of other players that have the stats necessary to get inducted, but not the votes. For Sabathia, he still plays for the New York Yankees.
This leaves Schilling as the sole member of supposed “clean” players to strike out at least 3000 hitters and not to be inducted.
Not only that, but Schilling played a major role in three World Series teams, while also providing fans with one of the most memorable games in the history of the game, the bloody sock game.
Sure, Schilling’s persona has taken a turn for the worst – or the better (depending on how you look at it – since leaving the game of baseball, but should that be taken into consideration when considering a player for the Hall of Fame?
I would suggest that the answer to that question is, no! Then why do voters take this stance in the case of Curt Schilling? This illustrates one of many issues with the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
It’s time to play fair, let Schilling in.