Roy Halladay retires as a Toronto Blue Jay

Roy Halladay retires as a Toronto Blue Jay

In 2010-2011 he was still arguably the best in the game, but his back and shoulder have gone on him and he has been less than a shadow of his old self (his ERA was 6.82 last year, which would be a pretty bad year even for Jose Lima, let alone Halladay).

Will he make the HOF? Dunno. He was great, but not for very long. OK, one might say the same about Koufax, and the two of them have very similar lifetime winning percentages, but Koufax led the league in ERA five times, wins thrice, W-L% twice, WHIP four times and K's four times. That's 18 important lines in bold print. He won three Cy Youngs and an MVP.

Halladay never led the league in ERA (I would not have guessed that) or strikeouts. He led once in WHIP, once in W-L% and twice in wins. That's not a lot of black ink.

Halladay did win two Cy Youngs plus two second-place finishes and had a sterling reputation among fans, writers and fellow players. Will that be enough? Maybe, but he's not a shoo-in. Baseball-Reference says: "Hall of Fame Standards - 45 points, Average HOFer - 50"