Why Roy Halladay Deserved to be a First Ballot Hall of Famer

Roy Halladay, a two-time Cy Young Award winner for the Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays, was elected to the National Hall of Fame and Museum on Tuesday.  Halladay, who received 85.4% of the vote in an election requiring a minimum of 75%, will be the first player to be elected posthumously by the BBWAA since Rabbit Maranville in 1954. 

It was just a little over a year ago, on November 7, 2017, that the shocking news hit, that Halladay had passed away. He was killed in the crash of a plane he was piloting, just 1/4 mile off the coast of New Port Richey, Florida. At the age of 40, four years after his final pitch in the major leagues, with a beautiful family and a 9-figure fortune due to his excellence on the mound, Halladay’s life was snuffed out. 

Halladay, it turned out, had a mix of amphetamines, morphine and an insomnia drug in his system at the time of the crash. That knowledge adds to the tragedy in terms of the possibility that it might have been avoided. That is not certain of course and the circumstances surrounding the crash should not have any impact on how his Hall of Fame case is viewed. 

When I learned about the crash, as a longtime baseball fan who grew up in New York City, it was impossible for my mind not to wander to the name of Thurman Munson, the great Yankees catcher who died in a plane crash in a plane he was piloting in the middle of the 1979 season. It was also impossible not to think of Roberto Clemente, who was killed in the crash of a cargo plane delivering relief supplies to the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.

Halladay was a family man, father to two children. He was a humanitarian, a multiple nominee for the Clemente Award for his work with underprivileged children. And for ten years, from 2002 to 2011, he was the best pitcher in baseball. This piece will celebrate Halladay’s terrific career on the mound. 

In this piece, I’ll be focusing solely on Halladay’s exploits on the diamond. He had an unusual and remarkable career, one that I believe was worthy of his first-ballot induction into the Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown Cred: Roy Halladay

• Elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019 (85.4% of the vote)
• Toronto Blue Jays (1998-2009), Philadelphia Phillies (2010-13)
• Career: 203-105 (.659 WL%), 3.38 ERA
• Career: 131 ERA+ , 65.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 131 park-adjusted ERA+ is 7th best in last 100 years with 2,500 min IP
• Two-time Cy Young Award winner (Toronto in 2003, Philadelphia in 2010)
• 5 times in top 3 of Cy Young Award voting (7 times in top 5)
• 3-time 20-game winner (five times with 19 or more wins)
• Led his league in complete games 7 times
• Pitched perfect game in 2010 and no-hitter in Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS
• 8-time All-Star

(cover photo: Rene Johnston/CP)

Toronto Blue Jays (1998-2009)

Harry Leroy Halladay III was born on May 14, 1977 in Denver, Colorado. Roy and his two sisters were raised in Arvada, Colorado in a house with a big basement, one long enough to accommodate a 60 foot 6 inch distance. Young Roy was able to throw balls against mattresses hung from the walls during the winter months. In his three year high school career at Arvada West High School, Halladay went 26-2 with two no-hitters. 

Coming out of high school, Roy Halladay was the 17th overall pick in the 1995 amateur draft, selected by the Toronto Blue Jays, the team that had won the two previous World Series (in 1992 and ’93, with ’94 being the strike year in which the Fall Classic wasn’t played).

After a couple of seasons in the minor leagues, Halladay made his major league debut in September 1998. In his second big league start, he tossed a 1-hit, 1-run complete game against the Detroit Tigers, with no walks and 8 strikeouts. The one hit? A solo home run by Bobby Higginson with two outs in the 9th inning, ruining the potential shutout and no-hitter.

Halladay made the Blue Jays roster in the spring of 1999 and spent the season as a spot starter and long man out of the bullpen, finishing the season with a 3.92 ERA. In 2000, he looked like one of those young phenoms who was just a flash in the pan. In between two demotions to AAA Syracuse, Halladay posted an ugly 10.64 ERA in 67.2 innings with the Jays.

Halladay was sent all the way down to A ball in the spring of 2001, but slowly got promoted to AA, then AAA. Finally, thanks to working on his mental approach and with the help of pitching coach Mel Queen, he was back in the majors by the beginning of July. In a half season with the big club, he posted a 3.16 ERA in 105.1 innings.

During his time in the minors, Halladay reinvented himself as a pitcher. By lowering his arm angle, he transformed himself from a fastball/curveball pitcher into a nasty sinker/cutter hurler. 

The 2001 season was the last of Roy Halladay the prospect. He emerged as an ace in 2002, making his first All-Star team while going 19-7 with a 2.93 ERA. He also earned the nickname “Doc” from Toronto’s radio play-by-play man Tom Cheek, a nod to the famous Wild West figure from the 19th century, John Henry “Doc” Holliday. At 6 feet 6 inches and 225 pounds, the hard-throwing righty wore the nickname very well.

The following season, Doc Halladay won his first Cy Young Award, going 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA while leading the majors with 266 innings pitched and 9 complete games. Halladay missed parts of the 2004 and 2005 seasons with injuries but came back strong in 2006, the beginning of a six-year run in which he averaged 236 innings pitched with a 2.86 ERA.

In those six seasons, Halladay never finished outside the top 5 of his league’s Cy Young voting. In 2008, Halladay won 20 games for the second time (going 20-11 with a 2.78 ERA) and finished second in the Cy Young balloting to Cleveland’s Cliff Lee (a deserving winner, going 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA).

Philadelphia Philles (2010-2013)

After the 2009 season, with free agency looming 12 months later, Roy Halladay was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, a powerhouse team that had won the last two N.L. pennants. The Phils were on the top of Doc’s list of potential trade destinations. Although he loved his time in Toronto (taking out a full-page newspaper ad to thank the fans), Halladay was yearning to perform in the post-season. The Jays has been shut out from the playoffs during his entire 12-year run.

Halladay adapted very well to his new league. In 2010, he went 21-10 with a 2.44 ERA, a MLB-leading 250.2 innings, 9 complete games, and 4 shutouts. For his efforts, Doc earned his second Cy Young Award trophy. There are only five other pitchers who have won the Cy Young Award in both leagues. Their names are Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens and Max Scherzer. Nice company, eh?

Did I forget to mention that Halladay’s 2010 campaign included a perfect game during the regular season and a no-hitter in Game 1 of the NLDS against Cincinnati? The Phillies, who had won 97 games in the regular season, were favored to make their third World Series in a row but they fell to the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS.

Doc had another magnificent campaign in 2011, going 19-6 with a 2.35 ERA (finishing 2nd in the Cy Young balloting to a young Dodger left-hander named Clayton Kershaw). The 2011 Phillies won a major league best 102 games and were heavy favorites in their N.L. Division Series matchup against the Wild Card St. Louis Cardinals.

Behind an 11-run offensive outburst and 8 innings of 3-run ball by their ace Halladay, the Phillies won Game 1 of the NLDS. The Redbirds took two of the next three games, leading to a winner-take-all Game 5 in Philadelphia.

Game 5 was a classic pitching duel, matching up Halladay and Chris Carpenter. It was a bout between two of the best starters in the National League and two players who were great friends; they were teammates at AAA Syracuse in 1997 and with the Blue Jays from 1998-2002. Carpenter never amounted to much in Toronto but flourished in St. Louis, winning the 2005 N.L. Cy Young Award; in 2009, he finished second in the voting to Halladay.

In this matchup of those long-time friends, Halladay tossed 8 innings of one-run ball. Unfortunately for Doc and the Phillies, Carpenter did just a bit better, tossing a complete game 3-hit shutout to hand St. Louis a 1-0 victory. The win led the Cardinals to the NLCS and ultimately a World Series title.

2011 was the final season for Roy Halladay as a Cooperstown-caliber pitcher. Shoulder woes limited him to 25 starts in 2012 and just 13 the next year. He retired after the 2013 season.

The Hall of Fame Case for Roy Halladay

The positive case is pretty simple. Roy Halladay won 2 Cy Young Awards (one in each league). He was a 3-time 20-game winner. He was an 8-time All-Star. His career winning percentage was .659 (winning 203 games with 105 losses). For all pitchers tossing at least 2,500 innings, that’s the fifth best winning percentage since 1900. The only pitchers better are Whitey Ford, Pedro Martinez, Lefty Grove and Christy Mathewson, Hall of Famers all.

The one statistic that stands out for me, however, is Halladay’s 67 complete games. That total puts him in an 8-way tie for 636th on the all-time list. OK, that doesn’t sound as impressive as having the fifth best winning percentage, does it?

Well, as we all know, every pitching era is different. Halladay’s 67 complete games are the most in all of MLB since 1998 (his first season). That’s 13 more than Randy Johnson‘s 54.

During Halladay’s ten-year peak (2002-2011), he had 63 complete games. The second best was 33, for CC Sabathia. Unless the dynamics of the game change significantly, Halladay’s 65 complete games in the 21st century is a total unlikely to be matched in the next 82 years. Halladay was the 2000’s version of what Jack Morris was in the 1980’s, the workhorse who pitched deeper into games than anyone else.

While wins and losses for pitchers are rightfully become more and more devalued as measurements of pitching greatness, with Halladay they matter. During these ten years, Halladay went 7 or more innings in 73% of his starts. 

Here’s how the big right-hander dominated his peers in multiple statistical categories from 2002-11. 

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Johan Santana was the second best pitcher during this ten-year period but his peak was even shorter than Halladay’s. Santana posted an eight-year run (from 2003-2010) in which he went 122-60 with a 2.89 ERA (park-adjusted for a 150 ERA+, which is 50% better than average).

For those extra two years (2002 and 2011) on the front and back ends of Santana’s peak, Halladay authored a 38-13 record with a 2.64 ERA in 473 innings. Fair or not, those two years make the difference between a first ballot Hall of Famer and a first ballot casualty. 

It’s not fair, by the way. Santana had a Cooperstown case to make based on the value of his eight-year peak. You can read more about it in my piece A Case in Peak Value. Unfortunately, the writers were not inspired by Santana’s 139 career wins. He received just 2.4% of the vote last January and is now off the ballot. 

The Last 100 Years

Besides his dominant peak as the best pitcher in baseball for ten years, Roy Halladay also sits near the top of some impressive statistical lists when you look at all pitchers in baseball since 1919 (the end of the dead-ball era). 

Here is how Doc ranks among all pitchers with at least 2,500 innings thrown since 1919:

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There’s no doubt that Roy Halladay’s ability to prevent runs (ERA+) is historically impressive. Likewise is his ability to get strikeouts while limiting walks (SO/BB). 

Again,in today’s sabermetric era, wins and losses are becoming increasingly devalued. However, it’s amazing that Halladay has the 4th best winning percentage in the last 100 years. What makes Halladay’s WL% so impressive is that he spent so many years pitching with a mediocre Blue Jays team. From 2002-2009, Doc went 130-59 (.688) on a team that played .496 baseball overall. 

So, what is WPA?

You might have noticed a category that is unfamiliar at the bottom of the chart above. It’s WPA (Win Probability Added). The Glossary can give you the full lowdown about what WPA is but allow me to give you the short version. 

Every play in baseball changes the likelihood that a team will win or lose. A rate stat like ERA (or it’s era-and-park-adjusted version ERA+) simply measures run prevention. WPA puts context into the runs prevented or allowed. If you give up a hit (or a walk or a run), the consequences are dependent on the game situation.

So, if you give up a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 9th inning of a 12-0 game, the impact on the win probability for your team is negligible. If, however, you give up that same home run when you’re just up 4-2, you’ve just turned a potential victory into a defeat. WPA measures this. 

Anyway, Roy Halladay has the 13th best WPA among all starting pitchers since 1925 (the first year Baseball Reference has enough play-by-play data to measure this). 

This is particularly important in explaining why Halladay was far and away the most dominant pitcher during his 10-year peak. From 2002-2011, Doc’s WPA was 38.4, which is 16% better than the man in second place (Mariano Rivera). 

Remember that we saw earlier that Doc had vastly more complete games and shutouts than his peers from 2002-11. His high WPA shows that his managers left him in to act as his own closer, taking on the high leverage 8th and 9th innings when other managers were going to the bullpen. 

In his career, Halladay posted a 2.49 ERA in the 9th inning, the best mark of any inning in his games pitched. 

Despite throwing only 2,749.1 career innings, Halladay’s career WPA (38.03) is higher than 40 Hall of Fame pitchers and lower than only 10. 

The Negatives in Roy Halladay’s Hall of Fame Case

So let’s look at Doc’s negatives. Roy Halladay had a relatively short career, not as short as Johan Santana’s, but short. Doc finished with 2,749.1 innings pitched. Only five Hall of Fame starting pitchers in MLB history have tossed fewer. Sandy Koufax is the only one of those five who has pitched in the last 70 years. 

Next, Halladay’s total of 203 career wins is a little low. I was concerned that it might be a problem for some of the writers who vote for the Hall of Fame candidates. Only ten Hall of Fame starters have less than 203 wins. Again, Koufax is the only one of those ten who toed the rubber in the last 70 MLB seasons.

If you think that pitcher wins don’t matter anymore, consider that there are two superb pitchers from the 1990’s and 2000’s who spent years on the Hall of Fame ballot without getting elected, Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling. Mussina, perhaps in part because of Halladay’s coattails, was also elected this year as a member of the Class of 2019. After 7 years on the ballot, Schilling is still on the outside looking in, although that is in part because of his social media profile which many find offensive. 

Anyway, here is how the three right-handers stack up statistically with each other. 

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If you just look at the numbers, it should be pretty clear that Halladay should be third on the list. Mussina has 67 more wins. Schilling has just 13 more wins but a significantly superior WHIP and strikeout/walk ratio. One of Doc’s chief calling cards (his 67 complete games), is 16 shy of Schilling’s 83 (remembering that Schilling started his career 10 years earlier, before finishing what you started went out of style).

Why Should Halladay be a First-Ballot Hall of Famer?

Anyway, looking at the numbers, if Mussina needed six years to get his Hall call and Schilling is still missing from Cooperstown after seven years on the ballot, why have I asserted that Roy Halladay deserved to a first-ballot Hall of Famer? There are three reasons why he deserved it and a fourth why I always felt certain he would be granted that honor:

1. Halladay won two Cy Young Awards. Neither Mussina and Schilling were able to win one (they can both thank Randy Johnson for that).
2. His peak was focused. He was the best pitcher in the game over a 10-year period of time. Because Moose and Schill were contemporaries of Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux, they were never the best in the game.
3. Doc’s comparative metrics (WAR/JAWS) put him easily in the top 10 on this year’s ballot (see below).
4. Sadly, Halladay’s untimely death may very well have resulted in a quicker entry into the Hall of Fame.

Let me dwell on #4 for a moment. Think about this. The members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (the BBWAA) are notorious for torturing 2nd-tier Hall of Fame candidates for years. Compared to the Big Unit, Pedro and Maddux, the three hurlers we’re talking about are second-level.

I can’t get in the mind of each of the hundreds of BBWAA voters but I suspect something like the following will be going through their respective brains:

“I’m going to vote for Halladay eventually so I might as well vote for him now. How would I feel if he fell a few percentage points short? His family suffered a terrible loss. We should give them some joy with a celebration of his life in baseball and we should do it as soon as possible. Other players can wait.”

If you want to take sentiment out of it, let’s go back to #2 and #3. Halladay’s statistics warrant a first-ballot selection. His WAR is 9th best of the 35 players on the 2019 ballot (voters are limited to 10 selections). If you look at his best 7 seasons (WAR7), he ranks 3rd (behind only Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens). Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system (which combines WAR and WAR7) put Halladay 6th.

Either way, advanced metrics easily validate Halladay’s selection. Remember that WAR is a “counting” statistic so Halladay’s low innings (2,749.1) are a disadvantage. In spite of that disadvantage, Doc still makes the cut. 

Conclusion

Clearly, a super-majority of the BBWAA writers (85.4% in total) felt that Doc Halladay deserved first-ballot treatment for Cooperstown. He’ll be a member of the Hall’s second consecutive six-member class. Joining Halladay in the Class of 2019 will be Mussina, Mariano Rivera (the first ever unanimous pick), Edgar Martinez, Lee Smith and Harold Baines.

When the ceremony occurs this summer in Cooperstown, it will be a glorious and yet somber day. His family (wife Brandy, sons Braden and Ryan) will no doubt be there to bask in the glory of his induction. They will be proud of Doc’s ultimate accomplishment but sad that he is no longer here to see the ultimate validation of his greatness. 

Thanks for reading.

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