Curt Schilling

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Curt Schilling

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Curt Schilling

Five facts about Curt Schilling:

Curt Schilling was named to six All-Star teams. He was the starting pitcher for the National League in the 1999 and 2000 All-Star games.

Schilling finished second in Cy Young voting three times in four seasons: 2001, 2002, and 2004.

In 2001, Curt Schilling pitched a major-league leading 256.2 regular-season innings. He then pitched 48.1 innings in six postseason starts, giving Schilling a total of 305 innings pitched in meaningful baseball games. Schilling is the last pitcher to have pitched 300 combined regular-season and postseason innings within a single season.

Schilling is the only pitcher in major-league history to earn a pitching win in the World Series for three different franchises: the Phillies (1993), Diamondbacks (2001), and the Red Sox (2004 and 2007). Schilling had an overall career postseason record of 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 133.1 innings across 19 games (all starts).

Given Schilling's career postseason success, it is fitting, then, that Curt Schilling's final major-league appearance was Game 2 of the 2007 World Series. Schilling started the game, pitched 5.1 innings, allowing 1 run on 4 hits, earning the traditional pitcher win in the game. Curt Schilling is the only pitcher in major-league history whose final appearance was a World Series game in which he started and won the game.

The first two tables below present Curt Schilling's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1988	BAL	21	4	0.9	2.0	-0.8	-1.0
1989	BAL	22	5	0.3	0.7	-0.3	-0.4
1990	BAL	23	35	1.6	2.0	-0.1	-0.4
1991	HOU	24	56	3.7	4.0	0.2	-0.5
1992	PHI	25	42	12.7	11.1	3.9	2.4
1993	PHI	26	34	14.2	12.8	4.0	2.3
1994	PHI	27	13	4.4	5.9	-0.5	-1.2
1995	PHI	28	17	6.2	6.2	1.2	0.4
1996	PHI	29	28	11.5	11.1	2.8	1.4
1997	PHI	30	35	17.0	14.6	5.5	3.5
1998	PHI	31	35	17.5	14.5	6.3	4.3
1999	PHI	32	24	12.6	10.3	4.4	2.9
+– 2000		33	29	13.7	11.9	4.4	2.8
	ARI		13	6.7	5.4	2.5	1.8
	PHI		16	7.0	6.5	1.9	1.0
2001	ARI	34	35	19.2	12.4	10.0	8.0
2002	ARI	35	36	18.1	13.1	8.4	6.4
2003	ARI	36	24	10.8	8.3	4.6	3.4
2004	BOS	37	32	14.7	9.0	7.6	6.0
2005	BOS	38	32	5.7	5.6	0.9	0.0
2006	BOS	39	31	12.1	9.3	4.4	3.0
2007	BOS	40	24	8.9	8.0	2.2	1.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			571	205.8	172.8	69.2	44.5
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			19	9.3	5.5	5.2	4.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			590	215.1	178.3	74.4	48.7

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1988	BAL	21	4	0.9	2.0	-0.9	-1.1
1989	BAL	22	5	0.4	0.6	-0.1	-0.1
1990	BAL	23	35	2.0	1.6	0.6	0.3
1991	HOU	24	56	3.9	3.8	0.8	0.1
1992	PHI	25	42	13.0	10.9	4.5	2.9
1993	PHI	26	34	13.5	13.5	2.8	1.1
1994	PHI	27	13	4.8	5.5	0.3	-0.4
1995	PHI	28	17	6.7	5.7	2.3	1.5
1996	PHI	29	28	12.2	10.4	4.0	2.6
1997	PHI	30	35	17.1	14.4	6.0	4.0
1998	PHI	31	35	17.8	14.3	6.7	4.7
1999	PHI	32	24	11.5	11.4	2.5	1.0
+– 2000		33	29	14.1	11.5	5.2	3.6
	ARI		13	7.1	5.0	3.4	2.6
	PHI		16	7.0	6.5	1.8	0.9
2001	ARI	34	35	17.2	14.4	6.4	4.4
2002	ARI	35	36	18.0	13.1	8.2	6.2
2003	ARI	36	24	10.8	8.3	4.6	3.4
2004	BOS	37	32	14.2	9.4	6.7	5.1
2005	BOS	38	32	5.8	5.5	1.2	0.3
2006	BOS	39	31	11.8	9.6	3.9	2.4
2007	BOS	40	24	8.8	8.1	2.1	0.9
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			571	204.5	174.1	67.6	42.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			19	8.5	6.3	3.7	2.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			590	213.0	180.3	71.2	45.6

This is Curt Schilling's ninth year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Curt Schilling has been on the BBWAA ballot. Here is what I wrote about him last year.

Vote Prediction

Curt Schilling's Hall-of-Fame path has been more circuitous than some. He debuted at 38.8% on an extremely strong ballot in 2013. The ballot was even stronger in 2014 (nobody having been elected in 2013) and Schilling's vote percentage dipped to 29.2%. It rebounded to 39.2% in 2015 and 52.3% in 2016 - a gain of 23.1% in two years - and Schilling seemed well on his way to election. He then took a hit in 2018 based, I think, largely on some tasteless comments he posted on Twitter. He seems to have regained his momentum, though, with gains of 6.2% in 2018, 9.7% in 2019, and 9.1% in 2020 up to 70.0%, 5% short of election.

I think there is some residual dislike of Schilling going back to the 2018 incident which probably caps his potential vote total. But I suspect that cap is nevertheless above the 75% needed for election. I suspect that Schilling will see a smaller gain in vote total than might be expected of a player so close to election with a fairly uncrowded ballot. But I think it'll be just enough to get him elected: maybe something like the 6.2% gain he saw in 2018 which would put him at 76.2%.

Player Won-Lost Records and Curt Schilling

In the 2016 Hall-of-Fame election, Curt Schilling got over 50% of the vote for the first time (52.3% to be precise). That was the highest vote total for a starting pitcher that year ahead of Roger Clemens's 45.2% and Mike Mussina's 43.0%.

In 2017, Clemens and Mussina each gained about 8% of the vote - to 54.1% and 51.8%, respectively - while Schilling saw his vote total drop by 7%, to 45.0%. In effect, he and Mussina traded places.

From there, Mussina stayed ahead of Schilling even as Schilling saw his vote totals grow. Mussina beat Schilling 63.5% - 51.2% in 2018 and 76.7% - 60.9% in 2019, Mussina's last year on the ballot (because he was elected to the Hall of Fame). Schilling basically went from being a year ahead of Mussina (who debuted one year after Schilling) to being two years behind Mussina (who was elected to the Hall of Fame two years ago).

So, for this article, I thought I'd compare Schilling to Mussina, as measured by Player won-lost records. The numbers below include each pitcher's postseason record, since that's a large part of the statistical case for Schilling.

Age	Games	Wins	Losses	WOPA	WORL	Games	Wins	Losses	WOPA	WORL
	Curt Schilling					Mike Mussina
1988	4	0.9	2.0	-1.0	-0.8
1989	5	0.3	0.7	-0.4	-0.3
1990	35	1.6	2.0	-0.4	-0.1
1991	56	3.7	4.0	-0.5	0.2	12	4.5	4.8	-0.3	0.4
1992	42	12.7	11.1	2.4	3.9	32	13.9	9.2	4.9	6.5
1993	38	16.4	14.2	3.1	5.0	25	10.2	8.1	2.1	3.4
1994	13	4.4	5.9	-1.2	-0.5	24	12.1	7.5	4.7	6.1
1995	17	6.2	6.2	0.4	1.2	32	15.9	10.4	5.8	7.6
1996	28	11.5	11.1	1.4	2.8	38	16.0	13.6	2.6	4.7
1997	35	17.0	14.6	3.5	5.5	37	14.8	10.6	4.4	6.1
1998	35	17.5	14.5	4.3	6.3	29	12.7	10.2	2.7	4.3
1999	24	12.6	10.3	2.9	4.4	31	13.5	8.3	5.4	6.8
2000	29	13.7	11.9	2.8	4.4	34	14.3	12.2	2.4	4.2
2001	41	22.7	13.9	10.3	12.6	38	17.0	12.3	5.0	7.0
2002	37	18.4	13.4	6.5	8.5	34	13.3	11.1	2.4	4.2
2003	24	10.8	8.3	3.4	4.6	36	15.8	12.2	3.9	5.9
2004	36	16.4	10.0	6.7	8.5	30	11.7	9.8	2.2	3.6
2005	32	5.7	5.6	0.0	0.9	32	11.7	11.0	0.8	2.4
2006	31	12.1	9.3	3.0	4.4	33	11.1	8.9	2.3	3.7
2007	28	10.5	9.2	1.4	2.8	29	8.7	9.6	-0.7	0.6
2008						34	13.6	11.1	2.8	4.5
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	590	215.1	178.3	48.7	74.4	560	230.6	181.0	53.4	81.8
CAREER RECORDS (common rows)	546	212.2	173.7	50.5	75.6	526	217.0	169.9	50.6	77.3

They're not all that great a pairing. Schilling's case is peak/prime/postseason while Mussina's is sustained excellence over a longer period of time. But they nevertheless end up with similar career value.

Article last updated: December 3, 2020

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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