Mussina is biggest HOF snub

All the votes have been counted and the results are in for the 2014 Hall of Fame Class, but unfortunately not all the players who are deserving of being nominated will be inducted into Cooperstown this year.

Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas all received enough support to be elected on their first time around, but Mike Mussina was not as lucky.

During Mussina’s 18-year career he was the most under appreciated pitcher in the game, and his career continues to be overlooked as he only received 20.3 percent of the vote.

Mussina spent his entire career pitching in the difficult American League East when offense was at an all-time high as he compiled 270 wins, 3.68 ERA and 2,813 strikeouts in 3,562.2 innings pitched.

His career numbers compare very nicely to 2014 HOF inductee, Tom Glavine. In fact you could make an argument that he was even a better pitcher than Glavine. Although Glavine did win 305 games, he did this in 22-years while having only a slightly lower ERA, 3.54, in the National League East.

He also has a huge advantage in innings (4,413.1), but Mussina was able to record 206 more strikeouts and 715 fewer walks in about 850 less innings pitched. Glavine does though have two Cy Young Awards on his resume, compared to Mussina who never was able to win one in his career.

The highest Mussina ever finished in the Cy Young voting was second when Pedro Martinez beat him out in 1999. However he did finish in the top-six nine different times.

It is to bad that Mussina did not get in, as he is only one of six pitchers to have had as many wins as he did while having at least a .638 career winning percentage. The other five are Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Roger Clemens, Lefty Grove and Randy Johnson.

He retired when he was on top of the game, and if he would have stayed around for another couple of seasons he would have surpassed the 300-win plateau, guaranteeing his spot in Cooperstown.

Now because he won 270 games it will be a little harder for him to get elected and will take some time, but there is still no excuse why he did not get elected this year. He was one of the top pitchers throughout his time in baseball, and he deserved to be part of the 2014 Hall of Fame Class.

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