Mooooose

As you may have heard or seen, it looks like Mike Mussina is calling it a career after 18 years in the bigs. Mussina was a solid pitcher for his entire tenure with New York and Baltimore, but is probably the definition of a borderline Hall of Famer. He made 5 All-Star teams, never won a Cy Young and didn't pitch on any World Champion teams. Still, the numbers compare solidly to some of the guys already in the hall, so it's anybody's guess as to whether he'll make it.

The best analysis of his retirement and HOF candidacy that I've seen comes from Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball, who perfectly captured the idiotic guidelines many BBWAA voters use to determine hall of fame credentials:

As I wrote at the end of the season, it's probably a good political move for him to hang it up, because whereas never having won 20 could have been an irrational liability for his Hall of Fame chances, winning 20 in his last season may be an irrational asset. Now, instead of knocking him for not having attained a rather arbitrary milestone, the writers will credit Mussina for having achieved an arbitrary milestone, all because Xavier Nady hit a three run homer off of Matsuzaka in the fourth inning of a meaningless game on the last day of the season.