Hall of Fame voters debate starting pitcher standards

PHOENIX – When Tim Kurkjian talks about starting pitching, he doesn’t begin with numbers and analytics. The longtime ESPN baseball writer starts with the games he watched as a kid.

He remembers Jim Palmer facing Sandy Koufax in the 1966 World Series and Bob Gibson taking on Denny McLain two years later. Back then, the game’s biggest moments belonged to the men on the mound.

“Those were the kinds of games baseball was built on, two starting pitchers who went out there thinking they were going to finish the game,” Kurkjian said. “Those days barely exist anymore.”

For generations, identifying a Hall of Fame starting pitcher was simple: Win 300 games. Strike out 3,000 batters. Take the ball every fifth day and stay on the mound long enough for the numbers to take care of the rest.

That formula no longer works.

Pitchers throw harder than ever, but they pitch fewer innings, make fewer starts and rarely finish games. Pitch counts, specialized bullpens and an increased emphasis on load management and injury prevention have reshaped the position.

“There’s no doubt that everything involving starting pitching has changed,” Kurkjian said. “We’ve lost some of the value we once placed on the starting pitcher.”

Today’s game, Kurkjian said, is built around bullpen depth rather than workhorse starters.

“Bullpens are filled with six, seven, eight guys who all have spectacular stuff,” he said. “So when a starter gets tired after 100 pitches, you bring in a fresh arm throwing 100 miles an hour.”

This change in pitching philosophy hasn’t just affected the game itself, but it has altered what modern careers look like. In the 1950s through the 1970s, starters often threw more than 250 innings a season. Today, very few reach 200.

In 2025, only three pitchers surpassed that 200-inning mark. The lack of innings pitched has affected other milestones. Since 2016, only 10 pitchers have become 20-game winners. By comparison, from 1960 to 1962 there were 15.

These numbers make it clear that expecting modern pitchers to hit traditional milestones is becoming increasingly unrealistic. This raises the question: Should Hall of Fame voters adjust their criteria to fairly judge pitchers in today’s game, and if so, how?

Jayson Stark, a longtime national writer, Hall of Fame voter and currently a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, believes it’s simple.

“The game changes and the sport evolves,” he said. “As voters, we have to evolve with it.”

Out with the old

For Stark, the first step in that evolution is understanding that some statistics previously valued highly can no longer hold as much weight as they did before.

Case in point: the win.

“We haven’t had a starting pitcher make the Hall of Fame under 200 wins since Sandy Koufax,” Stark said. “Today, the win no longer carries the meaning that it always has had in the history of the sport.”

Stark believes that voters have been heading in this direction for a while.

“Felix Hernandez is becoming the test case for the win’s value and what it means for Hall of Fame voting,” Stark said. “He was once the test case for Cy Young voting as well.

“When he won the Cy Young with 13 wins in 2010, that to me changed everything.”

That shift, Stark argued, reflects a broader change in how voters are already assessing modern careers.

“The fact that Felix, a guy I didn’t even vote for in his first year, in his second year on the ballot has roared to getting over 40% of the vote, to me says that voters are ready to adjust,” Stark said.

That sentiment is not shared by all, however.

Barry Bloom, a Hall of Fame voter since 1992 who currently writes for Forbes, still believes that the win is a major aspect to what makes a Hall of Fame starting pitcher.

“No one will ever reach 300 wins again, and I understand that,” Bloom said. “But we just can’t let guys in with less than 200 wins.”

Bloom believes only a handful of current or recently retired starting pitchers will make the Hall of Fame in the next few decades.

“As of now it’s Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw, that’s it,” Bloom said. “These are probably the last guys to reach 200 wins, let alone 300.”

Kurkjian sees the same reality but draws a slightly different conclusion about what it means for future ballots.

“We’ve essentially replaced 300 wins with a new benchmark, maybe 200 or 250 wins,” Kurkjian said. “But even then, you’d better have a low ERA, a strong strikeout total of 2,500 to 3,000 or it won’t be enough.”

Kurkjian sees the way the trends are going and believes that pitchers with less than 200 wins will eventually start making the Hall of Fame.

“We’re going to see it because we have to recognize the environment pitchers are operating in,” Kurkjian said. “It’s not their fault they aren’t winning 200 games anymore. They aren’t being allowed to pitch enough innings or make enough starts.”

Kurkjian points to Jacob deGrom as an example of why traditional win totals don’t indicate a player’s true dominance.

“deGrom is a great example,” Kurkjian said. “If he retired today, it would be hard to vote for him based on wins alone. However, his ERA after 250 starts is behind only Kershaw and Tom Seaver in the live-ball era.

“Stuff like that matters.”

While the profiles of elite starters are changing, he notes that this isn’t uncharted territory for Hall of Fame voters.

“We’ve seen it before with Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax,” Kurkjian said. “So I’m certain we’ll see it again.”

Redefining greatness

With the win no longer carrying the weight it once did, a natural question arises: What should voters look at now to determine whether a pitcher is truly worthy of the Hall of Fame?

For Stark, it’s all about defining greatness, which he notes has changed over time.

“We’re defining greatness in different ways than we ever have,” Stark said. “For me, the best gauges of greatness are strikeout rates, WHIP, and ERA. You also have to look at the pitcher’s workload and how long he was doing it effectively.”

That shift, he says, isn’t optional; it’s necessary.

“The way we used to vote and the standards we used just don’t work anymore,” Stark said. “We need to find other ways to measure dominance.”

One of the most valuable tools in that effort is context-based metrics.

“ERA+ is a great measure of dominance because it’s a pitcher’s ERA adjusted to compare him to others in his era,” Stark said.

He points to deGrom to prove how those metrics can better capture modern greatness.

“Jacob deGrom has two Cy Youngs and years of dominance, but he still doesn’t have a high win total,” Stark said. “But we know he’s one of the most dominant pitchers of his era because of his strikeout rate, WHIP and ERA+. Those stats tell you how dominant he has been compared to everyone around him.”

Kurkjian also highlights the importance of winning Cy Young awards.

“The Cy Young has always carried weight when it comes to Hall of Fame voting, but even more so now because wins aren’t what they used to be,” Kurkjian said. “So, if a pitcher has multiple Cy Youngs, that matters a lot.”

Kurkjian believes that while advanced metrics are useful, voters need to be cautious when relying on them.

“WAR in particular is complicated. It’s useful, but it varies depending on who calculates it because places like Baseball Reference and Fangraphs all differ slightly,” Kurkjian said. “So I do use it as part of the evaluation, but not as the deciding factor.”

A different future

If redefining greatness is the present challenge for Hall of Fame voters, projecting it into the future may be even more difficult. The changes shaping today’s game are not temporary, they are structural.

For Stark, that reality raises a larger concern about what the position itself is becoming.

“The sport has effectively divided the position,” Stark said. “Because of that, I don’t think we’ll ever again see starting pitchers used in the same way or be as central to the game as they once were.

“They used to be the most important players on the field, but now they’re just not.”

If starting pitchers are no longer asked to carry the same workload or dominate games in the same way, their Hall of Fame cases will inevitably look different and, in some cases, weaker by traditional standards.

That’s where the uncertainty begins.

“So the question becomes:’What does a Hall of Fame starting pitcher’s career look like 30 years from now?’” Stark asked.

It’s a question without a clear answer, but one that voters know is coming quickly.

“The voters of the future – the fans, the writers, the committees of 2056 – will be the ones making those calls,” Stark said. “And they’ll be doing it in a completely different game than the one we know now.”

That disconnect between past and future is already creating tension in how voters evaluate players whose careers fall in between eras.

Stark points to the possibility of an entire generation of pitchers whose dominance may never fully translate through traditional metrics.

“We’re already ending up with a generation of elite starters, like deGrom, who dominate in every possible way but don’t accumulate the traditional numbers,” Stark said.

“If that happens, do we open the door for an entirely different group of pitchers from the same era, guys like Zack Wheeler, who may end up with 130 or 140 wins under very different usage patterns?”

Those questions don’t just affect future candidates, they may even reshape how past players are remembered.

“What happens then?” Stark said. “Do those new standards push out the last generation of workhorse starters we’ve already seen – guys like Johan Santana?”

The statistical foundation that once defined Hall of Fame starters is disappearing, and there is no clear consensus on what replaces it. At the same time, this may create opportunity elsewhere, particularly in the bullpen.

Kurkjian believes the evolution of pitching roles will inevitably shift Hall of Fame recognition toward relievers.

“The way bullpens are used today has completely changed the game,” Kurkjian said. “We now have specialized relievers everywhere, and that will impact Hall of Fame voting.”

He points to Billy Wagner as a turning point.

“Billy Wagner got in with under 1,000 innings pitched. That changes the baseline,” Kurkjian said. “When you start electing relievers like that, it opens the door for others who dominate for 15 or 20 years in high-leverage roles.

“Deep bullpens win championships now. That’s the modern game, and it will lead to more relievers being recognized.”

While the back end of the pitching staff gains value, the front end continues to evolve into something new. Kurkjian believes the next generation of Hall of Fame starters will look nothing like the ones who came before.

“He’ll look very different,” Kurkjian said. “He’ll likely have fewer innings and fewer wins than past generations, maybe getting 150 to 175 wins.”

But the trade-off comes in dominance instead of volume.

“He’ll have elite strikeout numbers, maybe 10 strikeouts per nine innings, a WHIP around 1.00 or lower, and dominant ERA metrics,” Kurkjian said. “That’s where the game is headed.”

What was once rare has now become the norm.

“The strikeout rates today are already far beyond what used to be normal,” Kurkjian said. “What once was rare, like Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson level, is now common.”

As long as the sport continues to prioritize velocity and power, those trends will only continue.

“As long as pitchers are being asked to throw as hard as possible on every pitch, and as long as the game prioritizes velocity and strikeouts, we’ll continue to see fewer innings and fewer wins, but more dominance in power statistics,” Kurkjian said.

That reality reinforces what may be the most important takeaway for voters: Adaptation is no longer a philosophical debate, it’s a necessity.

“We’re going to have to adapt,” Kurkjian said. “Take a pitcher like Paul Skenes. If he pitches 10 years for a struggling team and averages 12 or 13 wins a season but posts a 2.00 ERA and 10 strikeouts per nine innings, people are going to vote for him because voters will understand it’s not his fault, it’s the industry’s fault.”

In other words, the numbers may change, the roles may evolve, the standards may shift but the responsibility remains the same.

To recognize greatness, even when it no longer looks the way it used to look.