Andy Pettitte’s Complicated Hall of Fame Case

On this year’s 2024 Hall of Fame ballot, the case of longtime starting pitcher Andy Pettitte is one of the most interesting and complex. On the “yes” side, you have a 256-game winner who contributed to 5 World Championships and 8 pennants. On the “no” side, you have a pitcher with a career ERA of 3.85 who never won a Cy Young Award, was only selected to 3 All-Star squads, and has an admitted link to Performance-enhancing Drugs (PEDs).

If fame was the only requirement for the Hall of Fame, Pettitte would have gotten in on his first time on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot. He was on our TV screens every October. Any baseball fan will remember the stare of the 6’5″ lefthander with his eyes barely peering above his upheld glove. Nobody has started more postseason games in the history of baseball than Pettitte.

Anyway, in the real world, fame isn’t everything. In his first appearance on the ballot (in 2019), on a slate chock full of quality starters (Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling), Pettitte got lost in the shuffle. He received just 9.9% of the vote on the BBWAA ballot.

The 2019 ballot was stacked, and Pettitte was only the fifth-best starting pitcher; it’s easy to understand why he was overlooked, considering that the writers are limited to 10 votes per ballot. The 2020 ballot, however, was not nearly as crowded, thanks to the inductions of Mussina, Halladay, Edgar Martinez, and Mariano Rivera in 2019. It didn’t matter for the tall lefty; his vote share barely inched up to 11.3%, putting him just the 15th best among the 16 players who got over 5% of the tallies.

In the years since Pettitte has gotten 13.7% (in 2021), 10.7% (in 2022), and 17.0% (in 2023) on what was the weakest ballot since 2012.

If Pettitte is ever to make the Hall of Fame, it’s going to take a long time.

This piece was originally posted in January 2019. It has been updated in advance of the 2024 Hall of Fame vote.

Cooperstown Cred: Andy Pettitte (SP)

6th year on the BBWAA ballot in 2024 (received 17.0% of the vote in 2023)

• Career: 256-153 (.636 WL%), 3.85 ERA
• Career: 117 ERA+, 60.7 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• Two-time 20-game winner
• 3-time All-Star
• 5 times in the top 6 of Cy Young Award voting
• Career postseason: 19-11, 3.81 ERA in 276.2 IP
• Won 5 World Championships with the New York Yankees

(cover photo: Newsday/Jim McIsaac)

This piece is a little long, so allow me to offer a brief roadmap to those who are looking for a shorter version. The first several sections contain a brief biography and chronology of Andy Pettitte’s career highlights.

Following the career highlights will be the basic case in favor of and the case against the Yankees/Astros lefty.

Next, because it’s such an important part of his history in the majors, I’ll go through Pettitte’s postseason performances on a year-by-year basis to establish the volume of his Hall-worthy deeds in October.

I’ll conclude by discussing the PED issue and draw some conclusions about whether a plaque in Cooperstown is in Pettitte’s future.

Andy Pettitte’s Career Highlights

Andrew Eugene Pettitte was born on June 15, 1972, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When Andy was 9 years old, the Pettittes moved to Deer Park, Texas, a suburb on the southeast side of Houston. After his senior year at Deer Park High School, Pettitte was selected by the New York Yankees in the 22nd round of the 1990 player draft.

Pettitte and his parents weren’t sure whether he should start his professional career or accept a scholarship offer at Louisiana State. Ultimately, they decided that he would spend a year at San Jacinto Junior College, after which he would either sign with the Yankees or go to LSU. The baseball coach at San Jacinto, Wayne Graham, called Pettitte a “left-handed Roger Clemens.” (Graham had coached Clemens at San Jac before the Rocket went to the University of Texas).

It was Graham who helped transform Pettitte into a top-flight pitching prospect. By putting the young left-hander on a diet and putting him on an exercise program, Pettitte’s fastball improved from 85 to 92 miles per hour in just a matter of months.

By the spring of 1991, the Yankees and Graham were convinced that Pettitte was ready for professional baseball; the Yanks signed the 18-year-old to an $80,000 bonus. Pettitte slowly progressed up the minor league chain one organizational rung at a time. In 3+ seasons of minor league ball, he went 42-20 with a 2.56 ERA.

First Year in the Bronx

Andy Pettitte, at the age of 22, made the Yankees as a middle reliever in the spring of 1995. After a brief demotion in May, he was recalled to the big club and inserted into the starting rotation by manager Buck Showalter. For a rookie, Pettitte had a respectable campaign, going 12-9 with a 4.17 ERA. He was especially effective down the stretch, going 6-1 in his final 7 starts with a 3.00 ERA.

Thanks in part to the young lefty’s stretch run, the Yankees made the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, earning the A.L. Wild Card spot by one game. Pettitte earned the nod in Game 2 of the first-ever A.L. Division Series. He gave up 4 runs in 7 innings to the red-hot Seattle Mariners, earning a no-decision in a Yankees victory. The series ultimately ended poorly for New York (Seattle famously won in 5 games).

1996-97: Yankees Ace

In 1996, with a new manager (Joe Torre), Andy Pettitte settled in as the Yankees’ #1 starter. At the All-Star break, he was 13-4 with a 3.81 ERA and made his first All-Star team. He finished the season with an A.L.-leading 21 wins (against 8 losses). Although his ERA (3.87) was a little high, the 21 wins were good enough to place him 2nd in the A.L. Cy Young voting to Toronto’s Pat Hentgen.

The ’96 Yankees went on to win their first World Championship since 1978, with Pettitte playing a key role. With the World Series tied at 2 games, Pettitte out-pitched N.L. Cy Young Award winner John Smoltz by tossing 8 innings of scoreless ball in a 1-0 Yankees victory.

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Pettitte upped his game in 1997, although he won three fewer of them. He went 18-7 with a 2.88 ERA, which translates to a 156 ERA+ (56% above league average). Young Pettitte was a craftsman on the mound, mixing a devastating cut fastball with a sinker and hard-breaking curve. His WAR in ’97 was a career-best 8.4. Despite the great ERA, Pettitte only finished 5th in the ’97 Cy Young vote. Roger Clemens, Pettitte’s boyhood idol, had the best year of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays and easily won the trophy.

Despite the superb regular season, Pettitte was bombed in two ALDS starts, losing both to the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe ultimately defeated the Yankees in 5 games.

Three Year Perspective

Going back 50 years (to 1948), only three starting pitchers (Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, and Teddy Higuera) had accumulated more WAR in their first three MLB seasons than the 16.9 posted by Andy Pettitte. Only the aforementioned trio plus Don Newcombe won more than Pettitte’s 51 games in their first three seasons going back 50 seasons.

In both 1996 and ’97, Pettitte had the highest WAR (Wins Above Replacement) on the New York Yankees. If you believe in WAR, that means that the tall left-hander with the menacing stare from behind the glove was the Yankees’ best player for both seasons.

Pettitte was evoking memories of another Yankees lefty from the Pelican State from two decades prior, Ron Guidry, known fondly as “Louisiana Lightning.” Guidry looked like a Hall of Famer in the making in his 20s but ultimately faded. Pettitte’s career would take a different path but he would rarely again be quite as good as he was in 1997.

1998-2003: From Star to Supporting Cast Member

For Andy Pettitte, 1998 was the first in several years of good but not spectacular pitching. From ’98 to 2003, the Yankees won an additional five pennants and three World Championships, but Pettitte was no longer the team’s star performer, posting a 4.14 ERA during those six seasons (for a respectable but not stellar 110 ERA+).

In ’98, by WAR, Pettitte was just the 14th-best player on the team. In ’99, WAR had him 9th best. It was in ’99 that Pettitte had the thrill of becoming teammates with Clemens, who signed a free-agent deal with the team. Pettitte rebounded a bit in 2000 and 2001; he was 5th best on the team each year, again by WAR. By the same metric, he was the team’s 10th-best player in 2002 and 9th-best in ’03.

Thanks to terrific run support, Pettitte won 19 games in 2000 and 21 games in 2003, which gave him 4th and 6th place finishes in the Cy Young voting. In 2000, the Bronx Bombers scored 6.8 runs in Pettitte’s 32 starts; in ’03, they scored 6.9 runs in his 33 starts.

Still a Postseason Star, Mostly

The Yankees were in the playoffs in each of these six seasons, and Pettitte authored his fair share of postseason gems but also delivered several clunkers. He was on the mound for Game 5 of the 2000 World Series against the New York Mets and gave up just 2 unearned runs in 7 innings (a game the Yankees would eventually win to clinch the title).

The next year, however, with a chance to close out the 2001 Fall Classic in Game 6 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Pettitte gave up 6 runs in 2 innings. The D’Backs would go on to win the Series in the 7th game.

In his final start with the Yankees (during his first tour of duty), Pettitte tossed 7 innings of 2-run ball in Game 6 of the 2003 World Series. Unfortunately, the Florida Marlins’ Josh Beckett pitched a shutout, leading the Marlins to the Championship.

2004-2006: Three Seasons in Houston

After the 2003 season, with a desire to return home, Andy Pettitte signed a three-year contract with his hometown Houston Astros.

The Astros had made the playoffs in four of the previous six seasons but were bounced in the NLDS every year. The signing of Pettitte gave Houston another high-pedigree hurler to go with ace Roy Oswalt.

As an added bonus, the Astros’ signing of Pettitte helped convince Roger Clemens to come out of his brief retirement and join his friend in Houston.

Pettitte’s first season in Houston was plagued by injuries to his elbow and forearm. He only managed 15 starts before season-ending surgery in August. In the meantime, Clemens won his 7th Cy Young Award (his first in the National League), leading the Astros back to the playoffs and within one game of the Fall Classic.

Pettitte rediscovered his early-career form in the 2005 season, his best since 1997. He went 17-9 with a career-best 2.39 ERA (177 ERA+). Clemens and Oswalt also had stellar campaigns, leading Houston to October baseball once again. Pettitte finished 5th in the Cy Young vote, behind Chris Carpenter, Dontrelle Willis, Oswalt, and Clemens.

The ’05 Astros finally made it to the World Series, only to be swept in 4 games by the Chicago White Sox. Pettitte went 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA in four October starts.

In 2006, Pettitte led the majors with 35 games started but regressed to his previous performance level, posting a 4.20 ERA to go with a 14-13 record.

2007-2013: Back in the Bronx

Although only 34 years old, Andy Pettitte contemplated retirement after the 2006 season but was coaxed back to New York with a one-year contract offer. He delivered another workmanlike season, going 15-9 with a 4.05 ERA. He returned to the Yankees in 2008 for the first year of the Joe Girardi regime but had a mediocre campaign, going 14-14 with a 4.54 ERA. The Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

Missing the playoffs is something that just doesn’t happen in New York so CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett were signed as free agents, with Pettitte returning as a #3 starter in a contract laden with incentives. He rebounded slightly (going 14-8, 4.16 ERA) and then enjoyed a historic postseason. The 37-year-old veteran was the winning pitcher in the clinching games of the ALDS (against Minnesota), the ALCS (against the L.A. Angels), and the World Series (against Philadelphia). Pettitte, along with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, had his fifth World Championship ring in pinstripes.

In 2010, Pettitte made his third All-Star team and pitched really well, going 11-3 with a 3.28 ERA. A groin injury, however, limited him to just 21 starts.

Pettitte sat out the 2011 campaign but returned in 2012 only to be limited to 12 starts thanks to a fractured left fibula on a hard-hit ground ball. He returned in 2013 for his final season. In 30 starts, he went 11-11 with a 3.74 ERA.

In the final start of his career, on the road in Houston, Pettitte threw a complete game, giving up just 1 run on 5 hits. It was Pettitte’s first complete game in 7 years.

The Hall of Fame Case For Andy Pettitte

Andy Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case is fairly simple. He won 256 games. There are only five pitchers since 1901 with more than 250 wins who are not in the Hall of Fame. Clemens, with 354 wins, is missing because of his alleged PED use. The others are Tommy John, Jamie Moyer, Pettitte, and CC Sabathia, who retired at the end of the 2019 campaign and was Pettitte’s teammate for his last four seasons in the Bronx.

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On this list, after the Rocket, Pettitte looks really good. Moyer and John pitched forever, Moyer until he was 49, John until he was 46. Pettitte was 42 when he finally called it quits. From this quartet, Pettitte has the best park-and-pitching-era adjusted ERA+ and the most strikeouts, despite vastly fewer innings. Regarding Sabathia, for reasons I’ve outlined in this piece, I think Sabathia’s Hall of Fame case is stronger than Pettitte’s, but the two have remarkably similar statistics (CC is #1 on Pettitte’s Similarity Scores list).

The second plank of Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case is his postseason record. His 19 wins give him a total of 275 when you add the regular season. Pettitte, at 19-11 with a 3.81 ERA, was a significant contributing member to 5 World Championship teams and 3 others that won their league championships. He owns the all-time postseason records in starts (44), innings (276.2), wins (19), and quality starts (28).

Andy Pettitte’s Place in the Pantheon of Yankees Greats

As a starting pitcher who spent most of his career with the New York Yankees, Pettitte fits very nicely in the group of great starters in the storied history of the franchise.

Using advanced metrics, Pettitte’s career WAR (60.7) is a bit on the low side for all Hall of Fame starters, but it’s still better than 22 enshrined hurlers, including several Yankees of yesteryear who also contributed to multiple World Series titles.

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Note: the WAR shown above is for pitching only. Red Ruffing had an overall WAR of 68.9, thanks to a great batting record for a pitcher (.269 BA, 36 HR, 273 RBI). 

Anyway, Pettitte’s career WAR for pitching is also nearly as good as the marks posted by Juan Marichal (61.8) and Don Drysdale (61.3).

Also, although Pettitte’s career ERA (3.85) would be the second-highest to Jack Morris’ 3.90 because he pitched in the PED era, his adjusted ERA+ (117) is respectable for a Cooperstown starter, better than the ERA+ of Steve Carlton, Fergie Jenkins, Robin Roberts, Nolan Ryan, and Don Sutton.

For the “fame” quotient of a Hall of Fame case, Pettitte has it, having been a part of so much postseason history. He’s also part of a historic tandem with Rivera. The two hurlers own the MLB record of 72 games in which he earned the win and Rivera the save. No other starter-closer combo hooked up more often.

Quick Tangent: Was Andy Pettitte Better than Whitey Ford?

Before getting to the “case against,” I need to pause for a minute and ask if you, the reader, were surprised to see Pettitte’s WAR to be significantly higher than the late Whitey Ford’s.

Now, it’s true that Ford was given a light workload early in his career by manager Casey Stengel, which limited his career innings. Also, the Chairman of the Board only managed 117 innings after his 36th birthday, thanks to circulatory problems in his golden left arm.

Still, Ford’s 3,170.1 career innings are only 145.2 fewer than Pettitte’s 3,316, so the WAR disparity can’t be explained based on workload. Pettitte’s ERA was over a run higher, and Ford’s ERA+ was significantly better (135 to 117), so how do we explain the WAR differential?

There are two explanations, one of which requires a big leap of faith. The first is easy. Pettitte had a superior strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.37 to Ford’s 1.80).

The second explanation (the leap of faith one) is that the team defensive metrics that go into the Baseball-Reference version of WAR give Pettitte’s WAR a boost while putting a drag on Ford’s.

Ford pitched in front of defensive stalwarts such as Clete Boyer, Tony Kubek, Gil McDougald, Hank Bauer, and Elston Howard. Pettitte pitched in front of Derek Jeter, Alfonso Soriano, Chuck Knoblauch, Bernie Williams, and Jorge Posada, who rate poorly on defensive metrics. Having nothing to do with errors, a superior defensive team helps a pitcher’s ERA because of extra plays made, while an inferior one will raise the hurler’s ERA because of plays not made.

Ford had a career BAbip (Batting Average Against on Balls in play) of .264, which was .012 better than the MLB average. Pettitte’s was .312, .014 worse than the league average. However, if you take a look at the 13 Yankees’ pitchers between 1995-2013 with a minimum of 500 innings pitched, Pettitte’s .314 BABip is the worst. That tells me that he shoulders as much “blame” for the high BABip as his sometimes porous defense.

Bottom line: with no disrespect meant, there is no way that I would consider Andy Pettitte to be the same caliber of a pitcher as Whitey Ford, no matter what WAR says.

The Hall of Fame Case Against Andy Pettitte

Now, with the Ford-Pettitte tangent complete, we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming. You don’t have to believe that Andy Pettitte was better than Whitey Ford to make him a Hall of Famer. Nor do you have to believe that he was better than Clemens or Schilling.

The question is, of the retired pitchers who pitched in the 1990s and 2000s, is he the best or nearly the best of the rest?

First, two of Pettitte’s contemporaries who were on the 2022 ballot: Mark Buehrle and Tim Hudson. Hudson got below 5% of the vote in 2022 and won’t be on the 2024 ballot but Buehrle remains a candidate.

Anyway, how do these three hurlers stack up against each other?

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When you look at the numbers, Buehrle and Hudson look pretty good in comparison, with Pettitte’s biggest edge being in wins and strikeouts. Obviously, Pettitte also has a big edge in his postseason statistics, but that’s based more on opportunity than pitching excellence.

Pettitte’s 256 career wins are a lot in the modern game, but considering that every team he ever pitched for had a winning record, it’s fair to suggest that the total is inflated due to being a Yankee for so long and an Astro before the re-build.

So, how do the won-loss records of Pettitte, Hudson, and Buehrle compare to the teams on which they played? This chart shows the aforementioned pitchers’ W-L records compared to the overall team W-L records for the years in which they pitched.

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Needless to say, wins and losses can be highly misleading in a given season but, over the course of a pitcher’s career, have more relevance. What the chart just shown reveals is that Hudson and Buehrle outperformed their teams at levels superior to Pettitte. As an aside, Schilling’s WL% outdistanced his teams by a full +.100.

Anyway, Pettitte also had other advantages over Hudson and Buehrle. His career run support (5.1 runs per 9 innings) was 0.6 runs per 9 innings above the league average. Hudson and Buehrle each received 4.6 runs per 9 IP, a full half-run less per game. Baseball Reference also tracks statistics such as “cheap wins” (wins in non-quality starts) and “wins lost” (games in which a pitcher’s bullpen blew a potential W).

Pettitte had 50 “cheap wins” and only missed out on 36 potential wins thanks to bullpen failures (most of these “wins lost” were not due to Rivera). Hudson, meanwhile, had only 28 “cheap” wins and had 50 “wins lost.”

It’s clear to me that if you judge solely by regular-season records, putting Andy Pettitte in the Hall of Fame means that you have to admit Hudson and Buehrle as well.

Andy Pettitte’s League Ranks Year by Year

The next item in the case against a Cooperstown plaque for Andy Pettitte might blow your mind unless you paid close attention to his career highlights earlier in this piece.

Only once in the final 15 years of his career was Andy Pettitte one of the 10 best pitchers in the league in which he was pitching. I am making that claim in spite of the verifiable fact that he had three top 6 Cy Young finishes during those 15 years. In this graphic, I am going to show how Pettitte ranked among his league’s ERA leaders and among his league’s WAR leaders for every individual season of his career.

I have chosen these two categories as a tip of the cap both to those who prefer old-school statistics and those who prefer advanced metrics.

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Ouch, this is pretty terrible. It’s not just that Pettitte was only in the top 10 of ERA or WAR three times in his entire career; he was only in the top 14 of his league in either category three times. By the way, if you use ERA+ (to adjust for ballparks), it’s the same. Three top-10 appearances in his entire career.

So, let me ask the next question. Is this unusual? Pettitte still finished with a 3.85 ERA (solid during the PED era) and a 60.7 WAR. Is it normal for a second-tier Hall of Fame pitcher to have a few great seasons and merely be average in all the rest?

To partially answer this question, I looked at all of the top-name pitchers for a 40-year period (dating back to 1984, Clemens’ rookie year) to see how many times each of these pitchers finished in the top 10 of their league’s ERA titles.

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Yikes!! Read through the names of the pitchers who have been Top 10 in their league just three times. The only names that even come close to evoking the words “Hall of Fame” are active hurlers who still have time to build upon their resumes. Besides Pettitte, none of the others are likely to get a single BBWAA writer vote.

Also, did you notice Tim Hudson’s name on the list of pitchers with seven different top-10 finishes in his league’s ERA? Interesting.

Are there any Hall of Fame Pitchers with only 3 Top 10 ERA seasons?

There’s good news and bad news here for Andy Pettitte. The answer is “yes,” there are Hall of Fame starting pitchers (four, in fact) who had only three Top 10 seasons on their league’s ERA charts. The names are Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, Jesse Haines, and Babe Ruth. Yes, the Bambino was in the top 10 of the American League’s ERA list from 1916-18, his years with the Boston Red Sox before he became a full-time position player.

What about the others? Jesse Haines is a bad comparison. The longtime hurler for the St. Louis Cardinals was 210-158 in his career with a 3.64 ERA and a 35.6 WAR. He’s widely considered one of the worst Veterans Committee selections ever made.

Jenkins is a legitimate Hall of Famer, a third-ballot inductee by the BBWAA in 1991. However, Jenkins has several advantages that Pettitte doesn’t have:

• Won 20 games 7 times (compared to 2 times for Pettitte)
• Top 10 in his league’s WAR for pitchers 8 times (Pettitte did this 3 times)
• Top 10 in his league’s ERA+ 6 times (only 3 times for Pettitte)

Jenkins appears in the top 10 of his league’s ERA+ rankings 6 times (but only 3 times for “normal” ERA) because he spent 10 years calling Wrigley Field his home ballpark while the rest of the N.L. was playing in cavernous cookie-cutter stadiums.

Finally, there’s Catfish Hunter. With a 224-166 record, 3.26 ERA, 104 ERA+, and a 36.3 WAR, it’s clear that Pettitte was the better pitcher. The rationale for Hunter’s Hall of Fame case rests significantly on his five championships, as does Pettitte’s.

Other Points in Favor

OK, if we’ve established that Andy Pettitte was only once a top 10 pitcher in his league in the regular season for the final 15 years of his career, is there any way to salvage his Hall of Fame case? The answer is “yes,” in three different ways.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching)

The first hearkens back to the Yankees’ defense problem. There is an advanced metric called FIP (“Fielding Independent Pitching”), which measures a pitcher’s performance based on the four batter-pitcher outcomes in which he has the most control: strikeouts, walks, hit batsmen, and home runs allowed. Using FIP, which renders balls in play irrelevant, Pettitte finished in the top 10 seven different times.

In addition, Fan Graphs, which has a FIP-based calculation for WAR, puts Pettitte’s career WAR total at 68.2, ahead of dozens of Hall of Famers, including Tom Glavine, Roy Halladay, Jim Bunning, Bob Feller, Juan Marichal, Don Drysdale, Jim Palmer, and Whitey Ford.

Rarely Great but Always Good

The second point in favor is that, although Pettitte was only “great” for 3 of his 18 MLB seasons, he was “solid” to “really good” in almost all of the others. There is value in being a dependable contributor to your team’s success, even if you were rarely the best player on the team.

Going back to the beginning of the LCS era (1969), this is a list of pitchers with the most seasons in which they posted a WAR of 2.0 or greater and an above-average ERA+ of 100 or better:

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This is a much better list for Pettitte. It’s filled with Hall of Famers only. The fact that the Louisiana-born lefty made positive (if not spectacular) contributions in 15 of 18 seasons leads us to the final point in favor.

Andy Pettitte’s Postseason Records: Year by Year

Aaaah, here it is. Andy Pettitte’s Hall of Fame trump card. If you accept that Pettitte only had three Cooperstown-caliber regular seasons, the question is whether what he did in each particular postseason rendered the totality of some of his other campaigns a success. Was Pettitte’s role on 8 pennant-winning or 5 World Series championship teams indispensable to those outcomes?

Put another way, using a phrase I’ve coined earlier, how many “Rings Above Replacement” was Pettitte worth?

1995: Yankees lose the ALDS to Seattle

Pettitte’s rookie year was in 1995. As we saw earlier, he went 6-1 in his final 7 starts with a 3.00 ERA. The Yankees were the A.L. Wild Card by a mere one game over the California Angels.

The Bronx Bombers went 22-6 in September/October to make the playoffs, and all five starters (Pettitte, David Cone, Jack McDowell, Sterling Hitchcock, and Scott Kamieniecki) pitched well to make it happen. If any of them had bombed in the final month of the season, the Yankees would not have made the playoffs.

1996: Yankees win the World Series over Atlanta

This was one of Pettitte’s top regular-season campaigns, in which he won 21 games and posted a 5.6 WAR, the best on the team.

He was the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the ALCS (8 IP, 2 ER) and Game 5 of the World Series (8.1 IP, 0 ER). (He was also shelled in Game 1 of the Fall Classic (2.1 IP, 7 ER)).

His overall October ERA in 1996 was 4.78 (net negative overall) but, by out-pitching Smoltz in the most important contest, earned his rep as a big game hurler.

1997: Yankees lose the ALDS to Cleveland

1997 was Pettitte’s best season in pinstripes (2.88 ERA, 8.4 WAR) but his worst in October. In two ALDS starts, he gave up 11 runs in 11.2 innings, losing both Games 2 and 5.

1998: Yankees win the World Series over San Diego

The Yankees won 114 games in 1998 despite an average season from Pettitte (16-11, 4.24 ERA). He pitched well in 2 of his 3 postseason starts (Game 2 of the ALDS against Texas and Game 4 of the World Series against San Diego).

Still, given that the Yankees swept both of those series, it’s safe to say that any Tom, Dick, or Hideki could have pitched those games, and the Yanks would have been World Champs anyway.

1999: Yankees win the World Series over Atlanta

This was Pettitte’s worst regular season to date (14-11, 4.70 ERA) in a season in which the 98-win Bronx Bombers again made the postseason party easily. He pitched well in Game 2 of the ALDS against Texas (7.1 IP, 1 ER) and Game 4 of the ALCS against Boston (7.1 IP, 2 ER) before getting bombed in Game 3 of the World Series (3.2 IP, 5 ER).

Considering that the Yankees swept the Rangers again, beat the Red Sox in 5 games, and swept the Braves in the Fall Classic, it’s pretty clear to me (again) that the Yankees could have easily won this World Series without their tall lefty.

2000: Yankees win the World Series over the New York Mets

The 2000 Yankees only won 87 regular-season games, winning the A.L. East by just 2 1/2 games. Pettitte went 19-9 with a 4.35 ERA (3.5 WAR) so it’s safe to say that his contributions were likely essential to New York’s appearance in the playoffs. In Game 2 of the ALDS, Pettitte tossed 7.2 innings of shutout ball against the Oakland A’s. In the pivotal Game 5, the Yankees prevailed despite a poor outing from Pettitte (3.2 IP, 5 ER).

In the ALCS, Pettitte was the starting and winning pitcher in Game 3 (the Yankees won in 6 games). In the Subway Series, he pitched well but had no-decisions in both Games 1 and 5 against the New York Mets, both of which the Bombers won in late innings.

On balance, with 19 regular-season wins and a 2.84 ERA in 31.2 postseason innings, it’s fair to say that Pettitte was a crucial part of the 2000 championship.

2001: Yankees lose the World Series to Arizona

Andy Pettitte went 15-10 (3.99 ERA) in 2001 as the Yankees won the A.L. East by 13 games, rendering any one individual’s performance theoretically disposable. In Game 2 of the ALDS (against the Oakland A’s), Tim Hudson out-dueled Pettitte in the A’s 2-0 victory. Pettitte’s teammates won the final 3 games to clinch a return to the ALCS.

Pettitte was superb in Game 1 of that ALCS (8 IP, 1 ER) against the heavily favored Seattle Mariners, who had won 116 regular-season games. In Game 5 (the clincher), Pettitte went 6.1 innings while giving up 3 runs in the Yankees’ blowout 12-3 win.

In the World Series against Arizona, he lost both Games 2 and 6 (giving up 10 runs in 9 innings) while the Yankee bats were stymied by Randy Johnson. The Diamondbacks ultimately won the series in 7 games.

In toto, Pettitte deserves credit for helping the Yankees make it back to the Fall Classic but shoulders a significant part of the blame for the failure to win the Series.

2002: Yankees lose the ALDS to Anaheim

In Pettitte’s productive but injury-shortened campaign (22 starts, 13-5, 3.27 ERA), the Yankees won 103 games, easily winning the East. He gave up 4 runs in 3 innings in Game 2 of the ALDS, which the Anaheim Angels won in 4 games en route to their first-ever World Championship.

2003: Yankees lose the World Series to Florida

This was Pettitte’s final season in his first period of time in the Bronx. He went 21-8 with a 4.02 ERA in the Yankees’ 101-win regular season. Despite leading the team in wins, Pettitte’s 3.1 WAR was the fourth-best among the team’s starters (behind Mussina, David Wells, and Clemens).

Pettitte was great in Game 2 of the ALDS (7 IP, 1 ER, 10 K), a series the Yankees would win in 4 games. In the classic ALCS against Boston, he was the starter and winner (6.2 IP, 2 ER) in Game 2. In Game 6, he had a no-decision but did not pitch well (5 IP, 4 ER). The Yankees famously won in Game 7 on Aaron Boone’s 11th-inning walk-off home run.

Pettitte pitched very well in the World Series. He was the starter and winner of Game 2 (8.2 IP, 1 run, 0 ER). In Game 6, he gave up just 2 runs (1 earned) in 7 innings but lost thanks to Josh Beckett’s complete-game shutout.

On balance, it seems to me that the Yankees would have made it to the Fall Classic with a different pitcher but, with 21 wins in the regular season and 3 more in October, it’s a campaign that helps build Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case.

2005: Astros lose the World Series to the Chicago White Sox

As we saw earlier, Andy Pettitte wasn’t able to finish his first season (2004) with the Houston Astros. In his first healthy season in his hometown, the pride of Deer Park was brilliant, going 17-9 with a 2.39 ERA. Considering that the Astros made the playoffs by just one game, it’s safe to call Pettitte’s role indispensable.

In the postseason, Pettitte was less than brilliant, posting a 4.26 ERA in 4 starts. The Astros only won one of those 4 starts, Game 2 of the NLDS (7 IP, 3 ER). In the NLCS (against St. Louis), Houston lost both Games 1 and 5 (started by Pettitte), but his teammates led the team to its first-ever pennant. Pettitte pitched 6 innings of 2-run ball in Game 2 of the World Series. The Astros lost that game (and the others in the Chisox 4-game sweep), but Pettitte got a no-decision.

In 2006, the Astros did not make the playoffs.

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2007: Yankees lose the ALDS to Cleveland

The ’07 Yankees won 94 games, comfortably earning the Wild Card by 6 games. Pettitte went 15-9 with a 4.05 ERA with a 3.8 WAR. In Game 2 of the ALDS in Cleveland, Pettitte pitched well, giving up no runs in 6.1 innings. The Indians won the game (and the series) in a contest defined by the swarm of midges that distracted reliever Joba Chamberlain in the bottom of the 8th inning.

In 2008, Joe Girardi’s first season in the Bronx and Mussina’s last, the Yankees did not make the playoffs.

2009: Yankees win the World Series over Philadelphia

Andy Pettitte was the Yankees’ #3 starter in 2009, behind free agent acquisitions CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. The Yankees won the A.L. East easily (with 103 wins); Pettitte’s 14-8, 4.16 ERA campaign could be best described as a “supporting cast” effort.

The veteran lefty was highly effective, however, in the postseason, going 4-0 with a 3.52 in 5 starts. As previously noted, he became the second pitcher ever to be the winning pitcher in the series-clinching games of the ALDS, ALCS, and World Series.

From a Hall of Fame resume-building standpoint, that unique feat alone certainly should count as a positive accomplishment.

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2010: Yankees lose the ALCS to Texas

Pettitte pitched very well (11-3, 3.28 ERA) in an injury-shortened campaign (21 starts), good enough for second in WAR among Yankees pitchers. Pettitte was his vintage self in the ALDS against Minnesota (7 IP, 2 ER in a Game 2 win). In Game 3 of the ALCS, he tossed 7 innings of 2 run ball but was outpointed by the Rangers’ Cliff Lee, who pitched 8 innings of shutout ball with 13 strikeouts and just 2 hits allowed.

Despite some positives, considering that the Yankees made the playoffs by 6 games and did not advance to the World Series, it’s hard to see 2010 as a Cooperstown building block for Andy Pettitte.

2012: Yankees lose the ALCS to Detroit

After taking a year off, Pettitte was back in 2012 but only made 12 starts (5-4, 2.87 ERA) due to injury. New York managed a 3-2 ALDS victory over Baltimore despite a Game 2 loss by Pettitte (7 IP, 3 ER). The 40-year-old lefty pitched well in his final postseason start (6.2 IP, 2 ER in Game 2 of the ALCS) but received a no-decision in the team’s 6-4 loss.

In 2013, Pettitte’s final MLB season, the Yankees failed to make the playoffs.

Summarizing: Tallying up the Championship Contributions

The Yankees and Astros made the playoffs 14 times in Andy Pettitte’s 18 MLB seasons. Those appearances included 10 LCS appearances, 8 World Series appearances, and 5 titles.

Starting with the 5 championships, Pettitte played a crucial role in 1996, 2000, and 2009. He was a supporting cast member in 1998 and ’99. That’s a theoretical 3 “Rings Above Replacement,” a significant credential for his Hall of Fame candidacy.

For the 3 pennants that ended in World Series losses, Pettitte helped the Yankees make the ’01 Fall Classic, but that was a big reason they lost it. He played a significant role in helping the team make it back in 2003. As we’ve seen, he was indispensable to the Astros’ postseason run in 2005.

As for the other postseasons, Pettitte was crucial to the 1995 and ’97 playoff appearances but was the reason the team didn’t advance past the LDS in ’97. Statistically, he was a useful but not irreplaceable member of the teams that made the playoffs in 2002, 2007, 2011, and 2012.

Remember where this thread started, with the record of only three Hall of Fame-worthy regular seasons (1996, 1997, and 2005). Now, having gone through this exercise, we can also credit Pettitte with Cooperstown-worthy deeds in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2009.

That’s seven seasons in which Andy Pettitte was responsible for Hall-worthy work. Is that enough for you? How much credit do you want to give him for all of the solid but not spectacular seasons?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

What about Andy Pettitte’s Links to PEDs?

There is an elephant in the room that I have not addressed yet, and that is Pettite’s links to Performance-enhancing Drugs. In December 2007, Pettitte was cited in the Mitchell Report on Steroids. Two days after the report’s release, he admitted using human growth hormone (which was not banned until 2005) to help recover from an elbow injury in 2002. In the Mitchell Report itself, Pettitte was named in conjunction with Roger Clemens and their mutual relationship with trainer Brian McNamee.

A few months later, in a deposition to Congress in which he pointed a finger at Clemens, Pettitte also admitted to using HGH in 2004, another year in which he was injured.

These admissions by Pettitte occurred over a year after an L.A. Times report in which former pitcher Jason Grimsley alleged that both Clemens and Pettitte had used PEDs.

I tend to be a bit more lenient than others when it comes to PED use and the Hall of Fame. I ask myself this basic question: are the player’s career qualifications for the Hall of Fame authentic or a product of chemical enhancement?

When it comes to Pettitte, I don’t believe that his career was unduly influenced or enhanced by his use of PEDs. His fairly quick admissions to the times he used (compared to many others) are also in his favor.

Conclusion: is Andy Pettitte a Hall of Famer or Not?

After over 5,000 words, you, the reader, are probably looking for some closure. Is Andy Pettitte a Hall of Famer or not? When I started researching this, I was on the fence. Once I discovered his troubling lack of Top 10 finishes in ERA and WAR, I was leaning against him. The postseason part of his career, however, makes me lean in favor.

In some precincts, among his detractors, Pettitte’s postseason performance is dismissed as merely the product of opportunity that other pitchers never had. While there’s an obvious truth to that, it doesn’t change the fact that he delivered a quality outing far more frequently than he laid an egg.

Besides leading all postseason pitchers in starts and quality starts, Pettitte pitched into the 7th inning while giving up 2 runs or fewer in 22 of those starts (half). That’s five more than the number of times Tom Glavine went 6.1+ IP with 2 ER or less.

Still, Pettitte gave up 4 earned runs or more in 15 of his 44 starts. That’s by far the most in postseason history. Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander have each done it 12 times.

That’s the thing about Pettitte. He had his moments, but even with 14 opportunities, he never took ownership of an entire postseason. He never had a run like Hershiser in 1988, Morris in 1991, Schilling and Johnson in 2001, Hamels in 2008, Sabathia in 2009, Bumgarner in 2014, or Strasburg in 2019.

What do the Writers Say?

Before wrapping up, let’s take a look at what some of the writers have to say. First, a couple of votes in favor:

“I like real wins, especially real important wins… As for those career wins, the active pitcher who is closest to Pettitte is Justin Verlander at No. 56 with 244 wins and he’s a Hall of Famer – and Pettitte has done better than Verlander in the postseason. Enough said.”

— Kevin Kerman, BallNine (Dec. 27, 2022)

“I added Pettitte this year. While I know it’s not a slam dunk case, from his career ERA to his admitted HGH use, I felt his overall body of work and 256 wins were put over the top by his postseason accolades. He was a big-game, money pitcher on five World Series-winning teams.”

— Joe Smith, The Athletic (Jan. 7, 2023)

“Since 2000, the BBWAA has elected 31 position players, 5 closers, and 8 starting pitchers — a ridiculous squeeze of starters, who are held to almost impossible-to-achieve standards that have never properly adjusted to reflect drastically changing roles across eras… career numbers are strikingly similar to those of CC Sabathia (251-161, 3.74 ERA, 116 ERA+), who is considered a shoo-in for the Hall based on a superior peak. But Pettitte ran the same — or at least a similar — marathon, and did so with incredible distinction.”

— Alex Speier, Boston Globe (Jan. 10, 2023)

And now, a couple of “nay” votes:

“Based upon both traditional and advanced metrics, Pettitte would represent a rather weak choice for the Hall of Fame — and I say that as somebody who had a considerable emotional investment in his career as a fan and would like nothing more than to find a rationale for electing him. Alas, I don’t see one, and that’s after granting him a sizable boost for his postseason contributions, and consigning his Mitchell Report-related transgressions to the “Wild West” era of the game’s drug problems, where if MLB couldn’t punish him, I don’t think voters should do so either.”

— Jay Jaffe, FanGraphs (Dec. 12, 2022)

“Pettitte was Mr. Reliable for the Yankees and Astros… Reliability is a wonderful characteristic in a starting pitcher. On the other hand, he had a bWAR of 3.8 or above in just four of those 16 seasons. That isn’t great… The line between (Mark) Buehrle and Pettitte is thin. Both had similar long, productive careers. Pettitte had bigger postseason numbers and more career Ws, but those were both so heavily impacted by the loaded Yankees teams he played with most of his career. Buehrle — who had 10 seasons with a bWAR of 3.8 or higher, compared with Pettitte’s four — sneaks over the line, Pettitte just falls below it.”

— Ryan Fagan, The Sporting News (Jan. 3, 2023)

My Take: Two Simple Questions

When it comes to a borderline Hall of Famer, I sometimes ask these two simple questions:

1. Does the player have career statistics that are legitimate for a Hall of Famer?
2. Was the player an important part of baseball history?

On the first count, for Andy Pettitte, the answer is a conditional “yes.” Whether you use wins, WAR, or ERA+, he’s a second-tier Hall of Famer but above a solid 20 pitchers who already have plaques in Cooperstown. He may have gotten to those numbers by being unspectacular and steady, but he still got there. That doesn’t mean that I would induct him based on his regular season’s accomplishments alone. I wouldn’t. His regular-season performance, as we’ve seen, is barely distinguishable from Tim Hudson’s or Mark Buehrle’s.

As for the second question, the exhaustive recap of Pettitte’s postseason games makes the answer an obvious “yes.” He helped his teams win in October far more than he caused them to lose.

Most people don’t agree with this, but I’m a very strong believer in giving an oversized amount of credit to a player for their postseason work. Would Andy Pettitte be a Hall of Fame candidate if he spent his entire career pitching for the Kansas City Royals? No, he would not be, not even close. He would be viewed likely as a cut below Hudson or Buehrle.

I know that it’s not always fair to players on lesser teams. I’m sorry, but the Hall of Fame doesn’t have to be fair. If you want a plaque in Cooperstown while pitching for a team that never won the World Series, pitch like Roy Halladay or Mike Mussina.

For me, if you have a regular-season career that makes you a borderline or “just below” the borderline Hall of Famer, you need to have multiple big postseason moments and be responsible for multiple championships. Pettitte had both.

Therefore, as a borderline Hall of Fame candidate, I’m slightly in favor of Andy Pettitte for getting a plaque in Cooperstown.

Will he make it? That’s a different story. Based on getting no more than 17.0% of the vote in five turns on the ballot, the odds of him making it via the BBWAA seem remote. He likely will need some intense lobbying from former teammates on a future Eras Committee vote to get a plaque in the Hall.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on X @cooperstowncred.com.

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