The Football Fan Spot

After 16 MLB seasons and at the age of 38 (39 in June), longtime Yankees and Astros great Andy Pettitte has retired today. The case can be made for Andy Pettitte to make the Hall of Fame. He’s got 15 seasons of double digit wins, 200+ wins and 100 more wins than losses at 240-138, and the most all time postseason victories with 19. However, I argue that Pettitte does not belong in the Hall of Fame. He would be in a Hall of Consistently Good if there were such a thing, but he’s not a Hall of Famer.

His call to fame is his 19 postseason wins, but when you see that he also had 10 postseason losses, and a postseason ERA of 3.83, it’s not as impressive. The Yankees simply made the playoffs so much that his postseason wins are inflated. In the World Series, he’s 5-4 with a 4.06 ERA. So much for being a great big game pitcher.

I would say he was the beneficiary of being on a lot of good teams. In fact, how many years was he the best pitcher on his own team? He only led his team in wins 4 times in 16 seasons. He only topped 20 wins twice. He’s only been an All-Star 3 times. He had a sub 3 ERA twice. He’s never won a Cy Young. His career regular season ERA is 3.88. Being on a lot of good teams is the main reason why his regular season record looks so nice. He’s a number 2 starter on a good team and nothing else.  Hall of Consistently Good, but not Hall of Fame.

Nonetheless, the Yankees will miss him this year. Longevity is one thing that Pettitte had that was great. Last season, his 16th in the league, he won 11 games to only 3 losses with an ERA of 3.28, 4th lowest in his career. He got hurt and only made 21 starts, but when he started he was their 2nd best pitcher. 2nd best right until the end.

Now the Yankees go into 2011 with a rotation of CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, AJ Burnett and Phil Nova, Mark Prior, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia and Sergio Mitre battling for the 4th and 5th starter roles. Maybe Hughes finally breaks out (18 wins last year, but in his only two years as a starter, he’s had 4+ ERAs). Maybe AJ Burnett starts playing like he’s getting paid 17 million a year, but those are maybe. Sabathia is their only consistent starter. Let’s take a look at their projected rotation with 2010 stats.

Top 3

CC Sabathia 21-7 3.18 ERA

Phil Hughes 18-8 4.19 ERA

AJ Burnett 10-15 5.26 ERA

Potential Backends

Freddy Garcia 12-6 4.64 ERA

Ivan Nova 1-2 4.50 ERA

Sergio Mitre 3.33 ERA (bullpen)

Bartolo Colon (out of the league)

Mark Prior (out of the league)

Sox fans have to love the thought of our offense against their pitching staff. Yes, the Yankees did have the better offense last season, but they only had 41 more runs than the Red Sox, and the Red Sox had Jacoby Ellsbury miss 144 games, Kevin Youkilis miss 60 games, and Dustin Pedroia miss 87 games. The Red Sox also added Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez as upgrades over Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre. I think we might have the better offense and the better pitching staff. We just need to stay healthy and not blow leads (adding Dan Wheeler and Bobby Jenks, and hopefully bounce back years from Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima should help). If we do that, we’ve got this division in the bag.

There is no denying it. Barry Bonds took steroids. Tests and documents from Bonds' perjury case have confirmed what many have believed for years to be true. The all-time Homerun King took steroids and the record is tainted. However, Barry Bonds still belongs in Cooperstown. 

According to reports from the book "Game of Shadows," which have likely been confirmed by the tests that have surfaced over the past few days, Bonds took steroids starting after the 1998 season. Going into the 1999 season, Bonds had 411 homeruns, 1216 RBIs, 445 stolen bases, and 1927 hits. If you ignore every possible tainted stat, meaning everything he did after 1998, and just say he retired after 1998, he still is a Hall of Famer. 

I don't care if you put him into Cooperstown with those stats, saying he retired after 1998. If don't care if you put him into Cooperstown with an asterisk next to every single one of his stats saying that he took steroids. I don't care. But, he belongs in, based off of everything he did before the ‘roids. This is a guy with tremendous baseball talent. He messed up, likely feel into peer pressure trying to keep up with the McGwires and Sosas of the world who were overshadowing him at the time, but based off of his baseball ability and his pre-steroids production, which included 3 MVP awards, and 7 gold gloves, and 8 all-star appearances, he belongs in. 

I don't think you need to worry about Bonds being a convicted felon in Cooperstown, though I would still want him in even if he is convicted of perjury. Bonds said he never knowingly took steroids. It’s kind of obvious right now that he took them. However, how can anyone prove legally that he did know? He probably did know and he probably did lie, but legally that can not be proven unless someone finds a lost tape of him injecting himself with steroids saying, "these are steroids." 

Even with everything that I have said about Bonds deserving to be a Hall of Famer, as far as I am considered, Hank Aaron is still the all-time Homerun King.