Does ex-Red Sox Rick Porcello have a case for the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Right-hander Rick Porcello who won an American League Cy Young Award and the World Series with the Boston Red Sox is one of major leaguers making their debut on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot this year Electoral contest will be an uphill battle for Porcello who spent years in the majors with the Detroit Tigers Red Sox and New York Mets between his debut and the COVID-shortened season but retired after his age- season Drafted out of New Jersey s Seton Hall Prep in the first round th overall of the June Amateur Draft Porcello briskly became a reliable back-end starter in Dave Dombrowski s Detroit rebuild era He cracked the Tigers Opening Day roster less than four months after his th birthday and made starts and finished third in AL Rookie of the Year voting that season Dombrowski traded Porcello to the Red Sox in December but they were reunited the following August when Dombrowski accepted the club s president of baseball operations job In Boston the two ex-Tigers were able to achieve what had eluded them in Detroit winning it all After back-to-back AL East titles and first-round exits in and the Red Sox won a franchise record regular-season games and bulldozed the competition in the postseason Porcello pitched to a career-best ERA and won an MLB-leading games in to become the fourth Red Sox Cy Young-winner joining Jim Lonborg Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez but the conquest was not without conflict He became the first AL pitcher third overall to win without receiving the majority first-place votes he received eight while runner-up and former Tigers rotation-mate Justin Verlander received Left off two ballots altogether Verlander finished with points to Porcello s the second-closest point differential of any BBWAA electoral contest since The pendulum swung from great to bad in when Porcello led the majors with losses and for the second time in his career gave up the majority hits in the AL Porcello rebounded in He pitched to a ERA nearly points better than the year before and for the third consecutive year made exactly starts That October he made three starts and two relief appearances The th and ultimately final postseason performance of his career came in what turned out to be the longest battle in World Series history Porcello allowed one earned run over the first innings of a Competition that went to the bottom of the th before the Dodgers won - In this era of near-constant pitching injuries Porcello s career numbers tell the tale of a pitcher whose best attribute was availability Over career regular-season games starts totaling innings he pitched to a ERA ERA FIP and WHIP Between his rookie and penultimate seasons he averaged games and innings per year But there is little to no Hall of Fame precedent for a pitcher with Porcello s r sum He retired with exactly career wins Among Hall of Fame starters with a minimum of career innings only six had wins or fewer on their r sum the first was Babe Ruth who retired in but spent the majority of his prodigious career as a hitter The greater part latest was Dizzy Dean who also won and whose final big-league season was Not a single Hall of Fame starter or reliever min innings was elected with a career ERA as high as Porcello s or even remotely close The worst mark by any Hall of Fame pitcher with quadruple-digit innings belongs to Jack Morris who posted a over seasons Porcello was never an All-Star either There are MLB starters in the Hall of Fame with a minimum of career games who can say the same according to Stathead None however pitched after The inaugural All-Star Championship was in Every other first-time candidate has a higher career bWAR Baseball Reference s Wins Above Replacement than Porcello s In fact only one pitcher with at least career MLB games was elected with a lower bWAR and he only fits the criteria in a skewed stringent way Satchel Paige accumulated bWAR over parts of six years in the majors between - his age - seasons after he racked up bWAR during his years in the Negro Leagues from - Porcello joins returning Red Sox candidates Manny Ramirez in his tenth and final chance and Dustin Pedroia who garnered as a first-timer last year Players get up to years on the ballot but must get at least five percent of the vote each year to remain eligible None of the newcomers are expected to gain electoral process on their first ballot which requires Fellow first-time candidate Matt Kemp has a lesser-known indirect tie to the Red Sox When the Dodgers traded him to the Reds in December the three-player return included infield prospect Jeter Downs Barely a year later Los Angeles flipped Downs to Boston in the infamous Mookie Betts commerce Hall of Fame voting results will be broadcasted live on MLB Structure on Jan