Schilling’s Retirement and HOF Chances

As you most likely heard by now, Curt Schilling decided to retire today and the sports world instantly began judging his Hall of Fame worthiness. Let’s take a look at the résumé of Mr. Schilling and I’ll give my thoughts as to why he may or may not get the phone call from Cooperstown.

The Case for Schilling
Schilling has proved time and time again that he is a big game pitcher. You just have to look up his postseason numbers to show how big he came up. Over his career he made 19 starts in the playoffs going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and striking out 120 over 133.1 innings. He also has 3 World Series rings and a World Series MVP to his name. And of course he’s shown his ability to pitch through pain with infamous “bloody sock” performance in the 2004 playoffs. Away from the playoffs, Schilling has still accrued 216 wins, which puts him tied for 80th all-time. This is still a great feat because as Peter Gammons has mentioned on ESPN all day is that Schilling pitched his career in the era of a five-man rotation so he lost a lot of chances at earning more victories. He also pitched during the steroid era which will heighten his career. Schilling also has over 3,000 strikeouts which is a huge milestone to reach. So to sum it up, Schilling is a big-game pitcher, a 3,000+ strikeout pitcher, a 3-time World Series winner and a World Series MVP, and has performed well throughout his career given the atmosphere he pitched in.

The Case Against Schilling
The main problem that could hold Schilling out of the Hall of Fame is that he is a very polarizing figure. He is a very opinionated person who isn’t afraid of voicing his disagreement when someone or something rubs him the wrong way. The reason this might hold him out is that it is already hard enough to get into the Hall of Fame on just talent but if you give the voters a reason to keep you out, they’ll gladly take it, because they view the Hall of Fame as an elite club. The other problem that might keep Schilling out is while he has 216 wins during the five-man rotation era, he still only has 216 wins. There are many other pitchers who are not in Cooperstown and they have more wins then Schilling does. Bert Blyleven is a good example, he finished his career with 287 wins and still hasn't heard from the Hall of Fame. To go along with that Schilling has never won a Cy Young Award or an MVP award, he doesn’t have a stat like John Smoltz does where he has 200 wins and 200 saves. His achievements, while remarkable, just might not be Hall of Fame material.

I think Schilling will eventually get into the Hall of Fame, but I don’t think it will happen any time soon. He could even have to wait till the veterans’ committee votes for him to get his call. I just think the current voters will not look at Schilling’s body of work and instead just look at his numbers and go based off of Schilling’s personality.