Curt Schilling

Curt Schilling has a very interesting blog called 38Pitches.

In his last Q&A session Schilling mentions two subjects I'd like to touch on.

First Schilling says that he doesn't consider himself a Hall of Fame Player. I've said before that if Schilling gets two a combined 30 wins over the next two seasons that he should get into the Hall of Fame. Schilling would be hard-pressed to finish his career in the top 50 in wins but he's already over 3,000 strikeouts (3,015 to be exact) and his post-season heroics for two championship teams teams (one from each coast) should help pave the way to Cooperstown.

However, if Schilling keeps coming out and saying that he's not a Hall of Fame player - then he gives the sportswriters who don't like him the perfect out for not voting for him. "Hey Curt Schilling himself said he doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame" will be the rallying mantra of those who don't like Curt.

Maybe more surprising (and troubling to me at least) was the fact that Schilling was asked to name the best players by position in baseball today and he was loyal to Jason Varitek and chose him as the catcher and he also picked David Ortiz as DH (no surprise there). But for left field Schilling choose Jason Bay of the Pirates over teammate Manny Ramirez. What does Schilling have against Manny who may be a distraction but whose bat has won many a game for the Red Sox and many for Schilling? (Remember it was Manny who was named MVP for the 2004 World Series - hitting .412 with a 1.088 OPS in the October classic.)

Baseball-Reference.com has Bay's 162 game averages as the following:

Bay - .292 BA / 33 HR / 105 RBI / .936 OPS

Baseball-Reference.com has Manny's 162 game averages as:

Manny - .314 BA / 42 HR / 135 RBI / 1.011 OPS

Manny is clearly the better hitter. In real production - the past three years Manny has out homered Bay (113 to 93) and has 83 more RBI in that span (as well as better BA, OBP, SLG and OPS numbers). Sure Bay is a better defender and base-runner but it just bothers me that Schilling skipped over the teammate whose bat is central to any success the Red Sox have had or will have.