Quote:
Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
Schilling's 34-37 years include 3 of his top 4 seasons according to WAR (including two 8+ WAR seasons) and the one that was as high as the others was due to injury. He was good 30 and 31 (6+ WAR years), but then started to decline... until he hit 34 and hit a career best year.
I think in that era it's only natural to ask questions about that.
Interesting enough Randy Johnson, as you mentioned, also had something similar... and both Johnson and Schilling hit this late 30s career highs while playing for Arizona.
Which raises the question - did they have a SP whisper for the ages, or was that a PED factory club?
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Pitching WAR is pretty useless IMO. His 97/98/01/02/04 seasons were great, and he was hurt during 99/00/03. It was before I started paying attention to him, but the 95 & 97 seasons were when he made big jumps in K/9, and he put up that career high (and absurd) 11.3 K/9 in 97 at age 30, so I feel confident listing that as the start of when he became a different pitcher. I'll let people who paid attention to the Orioles, Astros and Phillies in the 90's try to explain what happened at that time - he certainly wasn't the only future HoF starter who looks like he was being misused as a reliever, but he was also a lot wilder.
The age thing seems rather specious. Roy Halladay was better 31-34 than 27-30. Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman pitched without much if any dropoff until they were 42/43. John Smoltz turned back into a starter and had 3 of his best starting seasons at 38-40. Justin Verlander is back as a Cy Young candidate in his mid-30's after falling off in his early 30's. Bartolo Colon isn't a Hall of Famer, but he's another weird case who was out of baseball and showed back up to have his best season at age 40. Going back further through Hall of Fame starters you can find other big pitchers who got better in their 30's as their control improved like Nolan Ryan or Steve Carlton. Glavine, Maddux and Pedro are the only 3 recent HoF pitchers who followed a "normal" aging curve. (Btw unless I'm missing someone who'll get in from the veterans committee it's pretty weird no pitcher who retired between 1998-2008 will make it.)