If Delgado has 4-5 healthy and good years left in him after this one, I'd say that he should go in for sure, since that would get him, say 580 HR and 1900 RBI, which would be in the top 15-20 all time at that point (assuming a few other active players keep it up as well, and some don't).  I'm all for positional adjustments and era adjustments, but I've always been a sucker for career length and counting numbers for the HoF.  I don't think he'll manage 5 more good years though.  McGriff was very good at 37 and 38, decent at 39 in half a season, and done at 40, which is a pretty standard path - F. Robinson, Killebrew, Schmidt, among others, pretty much did the same thing.

I'd love to see Delgado get in, but it'll be close. My best guess is that he will end up in the 550 HR range which should be good enough. Mcgriff IMO, is, I think a HOFer anyway, but Delgado has more of the "Hall of Fame" feel that voters like.

I voted no, but at least he fielded a position. I think everyone will have to wait to see where he finishes up though and how other hitters finish their careers, too.

Wow, 7 votes for "doesn't deserve it anyway" and 13 for "needs to get close to 600"? People, Delgado has the 36th highest OPS all time, 33rd most HR, 58th most RBIs, and 31st in slugging. And how many guys have come "close to 600" other than the 6 already there? Only Robinson, McGwire, Killebrew, Palmeiro, and Jackson have 550+ and at least 2 of those were PED-induced. People throw around the 500 number like its nothing anymore. I say even 450 is good enough. Carlos Delgado is a top 50-75 hitter of all time. He just needs a couple hundred more hits, about 200 more RBI to put him top 25 all time, and a ring wouldn't hurt. He's in easily in my book.

My answer is "wait".  If Delgado's career peters out now, he will not and should not be a Hall of Famer.  It would not shock me however if the Mets bought out his 2009 option and he ended up in the AL as a DH, and he put a Winfield/Molitor type end of career.  He doesn't have the build, but the discipline is there...

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, Mussina should now be a clear case.  It would take a Santo/Dahlen/Blyleven/Grich type error for him to be excluded.

1 or 2 more good years and he should be in.  I always think of Thome as a comparable when I think of Carlos. 

Both should be in even with the position / type of hitter profile having many nominees.  I think these 2 are close to the cream of the crop for their era.

Mussina?  Nah.  Never won a Cy Young, never won 20 in a season (top 3 just once).  Will come up short of 300 total wins.  Never part of a World Series winner.  Black ink of 20 (avg HOF is at 40).

Does he deserve it?  That is a different question.  However, his lack of eye popping numbers will make it very hard without those 300 wins, plus going against Maddux/Glavine/Clemens/Johnson who all had amazing years plus high career numbers, Smoltz & Schilling with the playoff stuff, Pedro Martinez with the 'wow' peak, and an assortment of solid but not HOF quality guys (Pettitte, Wells, Moyer, Rogers) who had 20 win seasons but fewer overall wins will hurt his chances big time.

His case is a lot like Don Sutton's.  Long career, very good for most of it, never the best in the league.  At one point (after his age 38 season) Sutton was at 266-206 with a 110 ERA vs Mussina's current 263-150 122 ERA+.  Looks like Mussina is a clear winner, but to HOF voters Sutton was a no-hope at that point with his one 20 win season who then added 58 more wins to get to a hard to avoid total of 324.  Sutton had a career length arguement and without any 20 win seasons or Cy Youngs that is what Moose has to count on.  Now, if Mussina gets 20 this year (at 13 he has a shot) his odds jump drastically.  However, to HOF voters that 122 ERA+ just isn't enough.

Actually, double checking it Pettitte looks like a lock too.  2 times a 20 game winner, 212 overall wins, most as a Yankee.  Winning W-L record every single season of his career.  18-7 in the playoffs with 4 rings. 

Pettitte vs Mussina, while leaning towards Mussina on the raw talent (ERA+, total innings) has far more highlights for Pettitte and voters love highlight seasons.

Nah, Mussina needs a 20 win season, 300 wins, and/or a Cy Young to make it.  A bloody sock could do it too :) 

Ok maybe 1-2 years is pushing it.. likely 3-4 but mainly because his position is held to unfairly high standards in the modern era (I guess that's the trade off for the juice, even if you are clean). 

The 600 homer number being some kind of pre-requisite is also a bit ridiculous in my mind.  All star appearances and MVP's, while important, should not be a deciding factor against a candidate playing for a weaker team or lesser market. 

Strange. I don't think Moose will get in either, but probably should -- of his 10 "Most Similar" pitchers through age 38 (and that doesn't even include the excellent season he is having now!), four are in the HOF (Griffith, Hubbell, Bunning and B. Gibson), one definitely will be (Glavine), it's a joke that one isn't already (J. Morris), two more might be (Schilling and K. Brown) and one you can make a case for (D. Martinez) ... the only guy on the list who isn't and didn't strike me as a good-case-if-not-already-in is Freddie Fitzsimmons, who I confess I know very little about (217 wins, 1926-45, only won 20 once). Maybe Magpie has 17,500 words somewhere on Freddie?

I think his Yankee-ness will help, though like Mattingly, the lack of a Yankee ring will diminish that somewhat. Despite the lack of Big Numbers, I think you can make a good case that Moose, for a solid 7-10 years, was one of the top five or six SP in the game. I think that absolutely screams HOF.

it's a joke that one isn't already (J. Morris)

Reasonable people will disagree, but I don't think the case for Morris is particularly compelling - he was pretty good for a number of years, but never particularly great.

 On the whole he pitched for a long time and was slightly better than average, which to my mind does not equate with being immortalized as one of the greatest players ever.

Anders, FWIW, I knew as I wrote that sentence that my feeling was in the minority on that point. (Living 45 minutes from Detroit in the 1980s will do that for you.) And it's a statistically worthless point, but he spent time on four teams and won rings with three of them and the fourth (the'94 Indians) was his last season and might have been the best team in baseball but thanks to the strike, we'll never know.

Interesting that a poll about Delgado turns into a discussion about Mussina and Morris, two arguably borderline guys -- I guess that reflects Delgado's situation, though!

Weird, the reply to a comment isn't working for me.

Morris and Delgado (and McGriff for that matter) are peas in a pod when it comes to HOF voting.  20 years ago all 3 would've been locks with their career numbers but thanks to an assortment of factors they now are viewed as marginal or no hope.  Morris was viewed (rightly or wrongly) as the top pitcher of the 80's which should've made him a lock (we know now that he was more the luckiest one of the 80's thanks to a solid offense and good health).  McGriff and Delgado both are high career HR (near 500), solid RBI first basemen which once was viewed as a lock as well.

All 3 might get in someday, but I suspect the writers won't put any in.  In fact, McGriff will probably be knocked off the ballot due to the glut coming in 5 years (Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire, plus non-drug rumoured players in Biggio and Schilling on the same ballot most likely and most voters not putting 10 names on a ballot).

The 'Reply to This' link does not work because there is a # in the poll question. The links put the title of the story as a value of 'title' in the link and the # screws up the link because the server reads that mark as the end of the URL. Taking the # out of the link allows it to work, as evidenced by this post. I deleted the #.

Having the title value isn't really necessary to reply to a comment anyhow, so a fix is either to remove the title value from reply links, filter out characters that will break URLs like #, or make sure you don't use them in titles or poll questions.

Even if you didn't really want to know why, there it is.

The part I don't get is that Jack Morris gets all that support because he won games.  Morris went 254-186; Mussina has gone 263-150. 

For fun, here are Roy Halladay's age 30 comps. As you can see, Mussina is a pretty good comp but a little better.  If Halladay ages well and is still performing well at age 39, he'll probably have about 250 wins and an ERA+ of 120 or so. 

Mike, interesting comparison. Maybe that underscores the point others have made here ... Morris has the Big Shiny Things (two 20-win seasons, three rchampionship rings, a World Series MVP) that Mussina doesn't have.

Of course, that would suggest tha Morris should be in the HOF, which of course he isn't. As I said earlier, I don't think Moose gets in (though he should) and Morris is actually exhibit A toward that point.

Halladay has the Sy Young Awards and some other Big Shiny Things (20-win seasons, etc.)  and though not universally, is at least arguably viewed as The Best Pitcher in Baseball. I don't think that was ever the case with either off the M&M  boys we're discussing here, at least not at the level Doc receives that accolade ... that's another point in his favor.

Honestly, I could see him retiring with fewer than 200 career wins -- five more 15-win seasons are required to put him on the cusp of that -- and still getting serious consideration from Cooperstown. That would be blazing a new trail for the 21st century pitcher!

Delgado will be just fine, he will be productive for another five or six years, and at that point there will be no debate. Here's why. Like all the rest of us, he's finished with Shea Stadium after this season. He's probably volunteering to lay the dynamite himself. That ballpark has absolutely killed him.

In road games since joining the Mets:

2006: .304/390/.608
2007: .288/.351/.519
2008: .289/.348/.512

But then he comes home:

2006: .226/.331/.487
2007:  .225/.313/.368
2008:  .229/.345/.434

The rumours of his demise were obviously just a little exaggerated. But he really needs to get the hell out of Queens.

Good stuff Magpie; I never bothered looking at his H/R splits. He OPSs a career .758 at Shea and around .900 everywhere else. You know which home park would be perfect for him to play his last big contract in? The Skydome, where he OPSs a career .984. Instead of paying Manny 17-20 million per year, we can get Delgado for half of that. We need a DH badly next year and we get a future HOFer back in Toronto to finish his career. It almost makes too much sense.

Morris is the anti-Mussina.  Ask virtually any baseball writer about the two and who should be in the HOF and I bet they'd say 'Morris should be, not sure on Mussina' or 'Maybe Morris, not Mussina'.

Mussina has more wins, fewer loses, an ERA+ of 122 vs Morris' 105.  Morris' best ERA+ was 133. Mussina did better than that 7 times.

Morris has 'the most wins in the 80's', 3 20 win seasons, twice in the top 3 of Cy voting (Mussina just once).  Both made the AS team 5 times but Morris started it 3 times vs 0 for Mussina and twice Mussina didn't pitch (including his cry baby one in '93).  Morris has 3 rings and one famous game in the WS, Mussina's teams lost both times he made it there and Mussina has a losing playoff record overall (7-8) vs Morris at 7-4.

Morris has the highlights, Mussina has not.  Without the magic 300 figure I just don't see it happening for Mussina, especially if Morris isn't in by then.

The whole Morris thing... the argument against him was always that he gave up too many runs. Which is a pretty big deal, him being a pitcher and all. The counter-argument is "Yeah, so what? Preventing runs from scoring isn't his job. Helping his team win is his job"

Which is exactly right, of course (preventing the other team from scoring is a pretty big part of that job, him being a pitcher and all, but it isn't the job itself and it's certainly not the entire job.) Morris' backers, and Morris himself, have always claimed that he pitched to the score - if he was handed a big lead, he took his foot off the pedal and challenged everybody, in the interest of going as deep into the game as he could, finishing it whenever possible, and not caring if he gave up a few extra runs along the way. In the 1980-1990 period, Morris' ERA was 4.55 when his team gave him 7 or more runs (87 starts), and 3.51 the rest of the time (281 starts).

The other view, of course, is that he simply got lucky with his run support.

I've found some slight indications in the records that may actually support Morris' position, but it would take a far more detailed review of his Game Logs than I've done to confirm it, and to measure the impact.

Morris is the anti-Mussina.  Ask virtually any baseball writer about the two and who should be in the HOF and I bet they'd say 'Morris should be, not sure on Mussina' or 'Maybe Morris, not Mussina'.

Mussina has more wins, fewer loses, an ERA+ of 122 vs Morris' 105.  Morris' best ERA+ was 133. Mussina did better than that 7 times.

I figure that this is a pretty good litmus test on one's understanding of the larger aspects of the game.  If you cannot figure out that Mussina was a better pitcher than Morris by a long shot, you ought not to be voting. The information that is easily accessible now makes a mistake of this kind incomprehensible.

Just for the sake of argument...

One crude measure of how much a pitcher helped his team win is Win Probability Added.

Career WPA totals:

Morris: 14.08 in 527 starts + 22 relief appearances, career leverage index of 1.00
Mussina: 39.06 in 523 starts + 1 relief appearance, career leverage index of 0.89

Excluding Morris' last two seasons, which were very bad, and his first two seasons, when he was a swingman, his career WPA is 17.59. That's still a difference of 21.49 WPA points, which is like turning 43 unplayed games into wins in WPA land.  Or 21.49 losses into wins.

Obviously there is a small mountain of caveats. WPA does not take into account any benefit derived from saving the bullpen by eating innings. It completely ignores defense - errors made on a pitcher's watch count as negative WPA against the pitcher, so a pitcher whose defense is not only bad but also error-prone is mildly screwed. Mussina pitched in five-man rotations his whole career. And so on.

But, WPA adores pitchers who consistently pitch well in close games, and doesn't substantially punish pitchers who ease off the gas pedal with 7-0 leads. If Morris' reputation for pitching to the score is real, then I'm surprised the gap is as big as it is.

PS. When I said 21.49 I meant 21.47 and maybe I will stop overrating my mental math faculties at some point but no promises.

Mussina, in his prime, was always thought of as one of the best starters in the AL but not the very best. I think Morris actually was looked upon as the best pitcher in the AL, until Roger Clemens burst onto the scene in 1986.

It wasn't true - Dave Stieb was better - but I think Morris was generally regarded as the best pitcher in the league, and certainly the most dependable from one year to the next.

Mussina has definitely played for more good teams - I'm sure if you add it up, his teams have a better record than Morris' - but I don't know that he had a better defense behind him.

Morris did work very, very deep into games - there's a period lasting several years where he finished more than half  of his starts. That has real value, but I don't think anyone has any really good ideas as to how to weigh it. Morris always said - then and now - that his own numbers and his own ERA didn't matter, they weren't what the game was about. And he didn't think much of pitchers who came out of after 6 innings with a Nice Quality Start, and handed the responsibility of closing out the win to someone else. But I think you'd have to go deep into the Game Logs to try to find if there's really anything to it.

Morris is remembered as a borderline hall of famer because the 1980's, when he was at his best, were a pretty dead time for starting pitching. It happens, eras come and go like that, and guys get in or don't just because of their relative competition. Delgado happened to peak in this era when there are several players who will be inducted purely for outstanding hitting at the low end defensive positions who are clearly better than he (Thomas, Bagwell, Thome, Ramirez, Bonds, maybe Giambi, Sheffield...he's behind 15 active players in OPS+). This hurts him now, but in 20 years, when people look back on his numbers, they might wonder why he got so little HoF support.

Delgado at least maintains a high level when compared to all of history - he's in the top 100 OPS+ of all time, and working well into the top 50 in the "glamour" stats of Hr and RBI. Jack Morris ranks in a tie for 460th in ERA+ among pitchers with a thousand innings. That's no disgrace, but it's not all-time great. Given that relievers usually have better ERAs than starters, especially those entering late in games, is it really a great thing that Morris pitched so deep into games? Innings are mostly useful when they are better than you can get from a decent bullpen guy. As for having been thought of as the best pitcher in his time, if that's true, why did he never sniff a Cy young award? He's 66th in Cy Young award shares, behind Mussina, Rivera, Pettitte, Key, Dave Stewart (just listing some guys who didn't actually win a Cy Young), compiling only 6 first place votes. Relievers won the Cy Young 3 times during his peak years (including 1992), and haven't won since, because voters usually find almost any reason to give it to a starter (Riveira has never won despite being the greatest reliever of all time closing for the Yankees). Toronto and Detroit fans probably remember him as much as anyone during those years, we're a little biased.

Given that relievers usually have better ERAs than starters

Usually. But Detroit in the 1980s... not so much. Early on, there was Aurelio Lopez, if he happened to be having a good year. In which case, a Morris start would be Aurelio's day of rest. Later on Willie Hernandez and Mike Henneman improved the situation somewhat, but even then it wasn't exactly good. In 1985, Morris' ERA was better than everyone in the bullpen, except Hernandez; in 1986, his ERA was better than everyone in the pen. And ERA was never Morris' calling card.