Greatest Phillies not in the Hall of Fame – Curt Schilling

By: Matt Alberston, Historical Columnist

On January 18, 2017, the National Baseball Hall of Fame will announce which BBWAA ballot candidates have earned induction into the Hall of Fame fraternity. Former Phillie Curt Schilling is one of the names on the BBWAA ballot who has received a lot of attention, for both his body of work as a starting pitcher and as a lightning rod of controversy for comments he's made over the past few years. His comments will have no bearing upon our evaluation of his Hall of Fame chances explained below.

 Curt Schilling, SP, (1992-2000)

What's Keeping Him Out?

Schilling compiled a 216-146 record during a 20 year major league career and was a six-time all-star. Schilling is considered to be one of baseball's best postseason pitchers of all-time, compiling an 11-2 record in 19 career post season appearances and sporting a minuscule 2.23 ERA. Although he won over 200 major league games, his winning percentage was .597. Schilling's greatest accomplishments came during the post season, he never won a Cy Young Award, and was a 20 game winner in only three of his 17 seasons. Additionally, his name has appeared on BBWAA ballots with pitchers who compiled more complete statistical bodies of work during their careers; Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz all have earned Hall of Fame honors while Schilling has been on the ballot.

The Case:

Schilling was known as one of the best big game pitchers of all-time. Against the best competition when the stakes were high, Schilling consistently performed at unbelievably high level in the post season. In 19 career post season games, Schilling won 11 games, including four World Series games, and recorded an 8.1 SO9 ratio while his HR9 and BB9 were 0.8 and 1.7 respectively.  He was also the 1993 NLCS and 2001 World Series MVP. And although his winning percentage was only .597 during the regular season, Schilling still won over 200 games in an era where relief pitching became a crucial element to team makeup (there are three closers – Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, and Lee Smith – present on the 2017 BBWAA ballot alone).

The Hall of Fame register is littered with pitchers who have win-loss totals similar to Schilling's. The fact that Schilling was 216-146 should not be the determining factor to his not being elected to the Hall of Fame. By the numbers, Schilling is a likely Hall of Fame inductee and his heroics during several postseason games/series should raise the caliber of his candidacy.

Chances of Induction: 7/10

I give Schilling a good chance of earning baseball immortality for the reasons listed above. The statistics and his postseason efforts are a Hall of Fame resume. What has really kept Schilling out is the appearance of pitchers who were clearly better candidates. His first year on the ballot was 2013 and he has appeared on every subsequent ballot. He earned 38.3% of the vote in 2013, 29.2% in 2014, 39.2% in 2015, and last year ballooned to 52.3%. This last percentage suggests that by and large, BBWAA voters have not considered Schilling's questionable comments against him on the ballot. The writers, hopefully, are mindful that the Hall of Fame already includes members with questionable moral character – namely Cap Anson, who refused to take the field one day because the opposing team employed a black player, and Ty Cobb, whose antics were well chronicled by sports writers (especially Al Stump) who portrayed Cobb as a bastard (for lack of a better term).

Given the lack of dominating pitchers on the 2017 BBWAA ballot (Mike Mussina and Roger Clemens being the other starting pitchers worth note on the ballot), I think Schilling has a shot at induction in 2018 or 2019.