240 career wins, 2251 career strikeouts, five World Series victories and the career leader in postseason victories are an impressive resume for any pitcher, nevertheless these numbers are simply not good enough to warrant giving Andy Pettitte a spot in the Hall of Fame. Despite the fact that five World Series championships are impressive, Pettitte was playing with one of the most talented and highest paid teams of all time, along with the fact that he was never actually the number one starter on any of these teams. His career ERA is 3.88. An ERA that high in combination with the amount of wins Pettitte has accumulated can only mean one thing. Incredible amounts of run support. In the late ‘90s and throughout the next decade, Pettitte played with some of the greatest hitting teams ever assembled. Pettitte played out the majority of his career with the likes of Jeter and Posada, along with A-Rod, Williams, Cano, Giambi, O’Neill, Soriano, Sheffield, Abreu, Damon, and Matsui. With offense like that it would be hard not to manage 20 wins a year, which he only achieved twice.
In addition to the offensive fire power Pettitte was blessed with, he also relied on the services of the greatest closer in the history of baseball. With only 25 career complete games, Pettitte was definitely taking full use of his dominant closer. How many wins do you think Pettitte was saved by having Rivera at his side almost his entire career? Even if he had any other very good closer, he would still have 10-20 fewer wins than he does now. Not to mention just the fear opposing hitters had of getting to Rivera that likely aided Pettitte throughout his career.
Pettitte has similar career numbers to another great Yankees lefty, Hall of Famer Whitey Ford. However, this comparison may be a bit kind to Pettitte. While Pettitte gets the slight edge on Whitey in wins and strikeouts, Ford has a better winning percentage, .690 to .635, and his ERA is a full point lower. In addition, Ford won a Cy Young award, has more World Series championships and appeared in far more All Star games. Ford was also the number one starter on all those great Yankee teams, something Pettitte has never had to deal with. Pettitte may have the most postseason wins of any pitcher in history, but he only has half as many World Series wins as Ford, five to ten. Not to mention the two years Ford lost to the Korean War.
Compared to Curt Schilling, who many consider a fringe Hall of Fame candidate himself, Pettitte has more wins, but he has a higher ERA and nowhere close to as many strikeouts. However, in terms of postseason performance, Schilling took his game to a new level, while Pettitte merely continued at his regular season pace. Schilling’s record, 11-2, and ERA, 2.23 are dramatic improvements over his regular season numbers, and are right up there with the greatest pitchers of all time. In order to make a case for the HOF with borderline regular season numbers, you really need to have dominated in the postseason, which Pettitte clearly has not.
It is shocking to think that a pitcher that could be considered for the HOF could only garner three All Star appearances. THREE ALL STAR SELECTIONS??? How is that possible? For hitters this may be a tougher feat considering the fans vote in the starters and might put some players in on reputation alone. But for pitchers, the fans have no influence. The manager selects the pitchers for his team. Andy Pettitte’s own manager was the one selecting the team seven times in his career. And he STILL only made three All Star games. If your own manager doesn’t even think you’re good enough to be one of the best pitchers in your own league, how can you even be close to being considered a dominant enough pitcher to bestow the honor of being inducted into the HOF? Seriously, this fact alone should make all Pettitte supporters jump ship.
Finally, we get to the HGH admission. Even without the admission, we’ve seen here that Pettitte’s numbers do not hold up to be considered to join the HOF. However, even with HGH, he STILL only has borderline HOF credentials at best. Just imagine what they would’ve been like without the use of HGH to get back on the field and pad his numbers.
Andy, if you really want to make it to the HOF, you better not just come back and pitch this season, you better think about coming back for the next three years to make a run at 300 wins, which would be the only way you could plausibly get in.