Pettitte is NOT a Hall of Famer

Jayson Stark gets this one right. Andy Pettitte is NOT a Hall of Famer.

The biggies that Stark notes on the sabermetric scale:

• Pettitte finishes his career with a WHIP of 1.36.
• Pettitte gave up 1.04 hits per inning. Now it's true there are nine Hall of Famers who served up more hits than they pitched innings. Unfortunately, none of them has appeared in a box score in 65 years (since Ted Lyons in 1946).

Beyond that, Stark notes that he had only two "big" years, 1997 and 2005. Those were two of the only three years he was below 1.25 in WHIP.

And, to me, that's the career breakoff for WHIP and HOF admittance, unless a pitcher has some other great stats. And, while Pettitte's 117 ERA+ beats my minimum of 110, it's not eye-opening.

So, who is Pettitte? Baseball-Reference lists Jack Morris as second-most similar through age 38. Hard to argue with that, and, that should be the final note on how close to the HOF Pettitte is.

Stark has the last word:

(C)ome 2015, our job as voters won't be merely to look back just at those epic nights in October. It will be to judge the entirety of Pettitte's career.And when that time comes, I expect the words at the top of this column will still be swirling in my brain:
The greatest No. 3 starter of his generation.

That sums it up.