Light the Hot Stove fires

Nope. The most predictable HR in history was Paul O'Neill off of Mel Rojas.

 

Mussina has been wearing down the last few years. I think Moyer had one injury-interrupted year in the stretch you described. Rogers had one injury-interrupted year as well. Maybe Mussina finds the fountain of youth, but he seems increasingly brittle.

Most of all, he doesn't strike me as a guy who is going to hang on for 33 more wins (presuming he wins as many games the next two years, 28, as he did the last two years) at age 40. I don't see him pitching into his 40s.

If he does, he'll be the modern-day version of Don Sutton: A guy with HOF stats who was never a HOF pitcher.

And Johnson will be a modern-day Lefty Grove. He'll hang on by his fingernails to get 300.

 

Nope....Cal Ripken's All-Star game HR

 

Actually, pretty amazing seeing as how he's never won 20 in a season. I don't think he gets there, though. I give him maybe three more years and done.

 

Damn. Those are two spot-on comparisons. Good work.

 

Soriano 11 mill a year....?

I want some of what you are toking.

 

At the risk of being accused of homerism, I don't think Sutton was as good as Mussina before their peaks ended.

 

Here are Baseball-Reference.com's comparables through age 37:

1. Juan Marichal (915) *
2. Jack Morris (873)
3. Clark Griffith (869) *
4. Bob Welch (867)
5. Carl Hubbell (860) *
6. Curt Schilling (857)
7. Tom Glavine (857)
8. Jim Bunning (854) *
9. Bob Gibson (850) *
10. Kevin Brown (847)


*Hall of Famers

 

... and Glavine's a shoo-in for the Hall, while Morris should be.

Schilling is also on the bubble. That means 7-8 of Moose's top 10 comparables are HOF-caliber (although Griffith is not in as a pitcher, but as an executive.)

Moose is very borderline. He needs three more good years of 13-15 wins apiece to get a better shot. His winning percentage is already top-notch, he'll be very close to 3,000 K by then, and he'll have close to 275 wins or so. That probably puts him in.

 

Didn't Paul O'Neill once hit two home runs in one game?

 

I always though Mussina was most like David Wells except that Wells won 20 games in a season

 

...and personality (Wells has one) ...and Mussina doesn't look like he swallowed a very large beach ball...