Cicotte had a couple of guady years in his career, but the main problem with considering his enshrinement is all of the players not enshrined who were his equal if not better... ...and they didn't try to lose a World Series. Players like Vida Blue, Carl Mays, Orel Hersheiser, Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, Billy Pierce, Adam Wainwright and a host of others in that low 200 win category with a decent ERA and winning percentage.Bob39 wrote: ↑14 May 2025 07:37 am Regarding Cicotte, his baseball reference page is interesting. 59 career WAR and 209 wins. Most of his stats seem just short of the HoF, but Hall of Fame Monitor has him at 111 where the average Hall of Famer is at 100. If you look at his similarity scores, the most similar guys (Stanley Coveleski, Chief Bender, Jack Chesboro) are all in the Hall of Fame. Dick Allen, Three Finger Brown, Rube Wadell, Willie Stargell, and George Sisler are among the Hall of Famers with a lower career WAR than Cicotte.
About the only thing Cicotte has going for him is he is said to the first major pitcher to successfully master the knuckleball and make a nice career of it. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Eddie-Cicotte/
That's why his best years were from the age of 33-36 when it ended with his bannishment. It's reasonable to expect that despite the jump in his ERA in 1920, his last season when the dead ball era ended, his mastery of the knuckleball would have kept him in the game with more good seasons. Knuckleballers can pitch a long time.
If his career had ended because he had to serve in a war or it was truncated by miltary service or he died tragically, he might already be in the HOF as a pioneering knuckleballer. But his career ended because he intentionally tried to lose the most important games he pitched. Fans of those players on the outside looking in would not find his enshrinment quite fair.