He’s the only one though.

2) Maddux was a lot better than that career 3.16 ERA mark during his postseason years. More than 90 percent of his postseason innings came from 1993-2003, and his regular-season ERA was 2.63 during those 11 years.

The whole convicted PED user, rat and misremberer thing will immediately void him of consideration from more than a few voters minds.

A lot of players have “what ifs” in their career. Carpenter’s is what if he was healthy those years. If had managed to average 15 wins a year (about what he averaged when healthy with the Cards), he’d be over 200 wins in his career.

Alas…

Mussina, in my view, clearly should be a Hall of Famer but might face an uphill road due to his lack of accolades and overall *Fame*.

Meanwhile, Andy really shouldn’t even be on the bubble but his (and the Yanks’) postseason success will give him an outside shot.

I get that the Hall of Fame is about more than just numbers, and guys should get a boost for what happens on the biggest stage, but fans/voters tend to get carried away with these things.

I guess Pettite is “in the conversation”, he’s probably actually under appreciated…but traditionally, HOF voters are VERY demanding of starting pitchers to get voted in (with a few very puzzling notable exceptions….I mean, there must be at least 50 pitchers that were better and more valuable to their teams than Jack Morris was to his that never even got a single vote).

Pettitte…a far better win % while pitching in with harsher offensive environment far better offenses behind him.

Fixed that.

Postseason baseball is an interesting beast in general, with small samples where things break a certain way and public perception is formed. Pettitte & Mussina are an interesting example of this…
 
Pettitte: 43 postseason starts, 6 and 1/3 IP per start, 3.80 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 5.9 K/9, 2.4 K/BB
Moose: 21 postseason starts, 6 and 1/3 IP per start, 3.42 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 4.4 K/BB
 
Pettitte has been consistent, with his postseason output nearly matching his regular season performance, which is a pretty impressive feat to handle the pressure & top competition of the postseason and keep on keepin’ on. But the overall team success, including numerous WS rings, really catapulted him to legendary status. He’s widely perceived as a postseason stalwart with ice in his veins, when he’s really just been regular ol’ Andy Pettitte.
 
Then there’s Mussina, who was brought over to NY just after they’d won their 4th ring in 5 seasons. He got there just in time for the Yanks’ mini-drought, and wound up retiring the year before they eventually won their next title. And fate would be especially cruel in Moose’s final year, as despite winning 20 games for the only time in his career it would be the only year the Yanks would miss the playoffs entirely in the past 18 seasons.
 
So that’s just the way it goes. Playoff baseball is exciting, unpredictable and wacky stuff can happen… that we usually put too much stock in when it comes to assessing a player’s overall career. For Pettitte, I don’t think he’ll end up being enshrined but his postseason accomplishments will give him an outside shot.

I’m not saying that to support Carpenter’s case. Carpenter doesn’t really have any case at the moment.

If he ends up with 170 wins or so, it’s going to be a tough thing for voters to overlook when it comes time to evaluate his career.

Whoa, slow down on the HoF train. Comparing two pitchers:

Pettitte – 3130IP, 245-142, .633 win %, 3.86 ERA, 117 ERA+
Carpenter – 2219IP, 144-94, .605 win %, 3.76 ERA, 116 ERA+

Pettitte has 100 more wins, 900 more IP, a far better win % while pitching in a harsher offensive environment, and no one thinks he’s a HoFer outside some homer journalists. What logical reason could there be for Carpenter if Pettitte isn’t viable?

Of the 10 pitchers with 10+ wins, the only two that don’t also rank among the top-10 in postseason starts (i.e. opportunities) are Carp and Boomer Wells.

Here’s a list of those 10 pitchers, with a breakdown of starts / wins:

Pettitte: 43 / 19
Smoltz: 27 / 15
Glavine: 35 / 14
Clemens: 34 / 12
Maddux: 30 / 11
Schilling: 19 / 11
Ford: 22 / 10
Stewart: 18 / 10
Wells: 17 / 10
Carpenter: 16 / 10

Pretty much falls in descending order in both columns, just as you’d expect… with the exception of Smoltz, who picked up a couple victories in relief, but even still his reputation as a big game pitcher was well earned.