Mussina’s Yankee Legacy
These are somewhat happy days for Mike Mussina and his fans, in Yankeeland. So, what better time to look back at Moose’s career as a Yankee, to date? What’s his pinstripe legacy? Where does he rank, if his career ended right now, in terms of the all-time list of Yankees starting pitching?
At this moment, Mussina has started 221 games for the Yankees. (This is compared to the 288 games he started for the Orioles.) So, let’s use 200 Games Started for the Yankees as our cut-off point. (Note: All the stats that follow are via the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.)
There are only 16 pitchers in Yankees history to make 200+ career starts for the team. Since 1973, there are only 4 pitchers with 200+ starts: Ron Guidry (323), Andy Pettitte (316), Mike Mussina (221) and Tommy John (203). So, already, Moose is in select company there.
In terms of Runs Saved Above Average (RSAA), Mike Mussina ranks 12th among those with 200+ Yankees starts:
Pitcher RSAA GS 1 Whitey Ford 321 438 2 Lefty Gomez 242 319 3 Red Ruffing 239 391 4 Ron Guidry 166 323 5 Bob Shawkey 157 274 6 Andy Pettitte 147 316 7 Waite Hoyt 141 275 8 Ed Lopat 118 202 9 Herb Pennock 115 268 10 Allie Reynolds 99 209 11 Mel Stottlemyre 97 356 12 Mike Mussina 72 221 13 Vic Raschi 70 207 14 Tommy John 59 203 15 Jack Chesbro 52 227 16 Fritz Peterson 29 265
Neutral Wins (NW) is a projection for how many wins a pitcher would have if he was given average run support, considering the amount of his actual decisions (W+L). Among the 200+ GS group for New York, Mussina ranks 14th here:
Pitcher NW GS 1 Whitey Ford 214 438 2 Red Ruffing 208 391 3 Lefty Gomez 175 319 4 Bob Shawkey 174 274 5 Mel Stottlemyre 165 356 6 Ron Guidry 153 323 7 Andy Pettitte 147 316 8 Waite Hoyt 146 275 9 Herb Pennock 143 268 10 Jack Chesbro 123 227 11 Fritz Peterson 112 265 12 Allie Reynolds 108 209 13 Ed Lopat 102 202 14 Mike Mussina 96 221 15 Vic Raschi 95 207 16 Tommy John 84 203
Lastly, how about these 16 in terms of ERA versus the league average ERA? Here, Mike places 12th:
Pitcher DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE GS 1 Lefty Gomez 1.17 3.34 4.51 319 2 Whitey Ford 1.10 2.74 3.84 438 3 Red Ruffing 0.96 3.47 4.44 391 4 Ed Lopat 0.93 3.19 4.11 202 5 Ron Guidry 0.77 3.29 4.05 323 6 Allie Reynolds 0.74 3.30 4.05 209 7 Andy Pettitte 0.72 3.95 4.67 316 8 Waite Hoyt 0.68 3.48 4.16 275 9 Herb Pennock 0.67 3.56 4.23 268 10 Vic Raschi 0.65 3.47 4.12 207 11 Bob Shawkey 0.56 3.12 3.67 274 12 Mike Mussina 0.54 3.96 4.50 221 13 Tommy John 0.51 3.59 4.10 203 14 Mel Stottlemyre 0.48 2.97 3.44 356 15 Fritz Peterson 0.32 3.10 3.43 265 16 Jack Chesbro 0.06 2.58 2.64 227
Looking at all this, and assuming that Mussina does not completely implode this season, it’s not a reach to offer that Mike Mussina is (was?) around the 13th best starting pitcher in Yankees history.
In terms of names, you could say (without much concern for being incorrect) that, in terms of all-time Yankees starting pitcher rankings, Mike Mussina’s career ranks close to that of Vic Raschi.
Further, as a Yankee, Moose was not as good as Mel Stottlemyre or Allie Reynolds – but, he was better than Tommy John.
Again, this is just based on the stats. People may feel differently about his Yankees legacy, but, the root cause for that would be ignoring the numbers.
This is definitely interesting because I think the Yankees were hoping for Mussina to be closer to having an Andy Petitte like career with the Yankees.
Of course the last few years kind of hurt him but I wonder what it would look like if you looked at these same pitchers and took the RSAA by year and the NW by year, to see how Mussina’s first 3 seasons with the Yanks compare among these guys.
Mussina’s RSAA in his first three Yankees years: 34, 7, 23. And, NWs were 18, 15, 15. Outside of 2006, his “walk-year,” he never came close to those numbers again. So, yeah, that should be part of his Yankees legacy too.
When you look at where Pettitte sits on these lists and you think about all the big games he’s pitched, you figure that his #46 will be retired as well.
If he had not gone to the Astros, we’d be talking about #46, for sure, already. Now? He probably needs at least 2 more really good seasons in NY.
[...] Two Teams, One Season to Remember.” And, I have to confess, I’m starting to see a side of Mussina that I can appreciate…in terms of him as a person. I’ll wait until I finish the book [...]
[...] was around the 13th best starting pitcher in Yankees history. And, that ain’t too shabby. November 19, 2008 | Filed Under Off The Field [...]