Well, I had him on my fake ballot, so, yes...and, yes, I think wins tells a narrative--though to fully get that narrative, it's helpful to understand the era those wins were created in.
That said, I like Jay Jaffe's basic take:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-th ... e-mussina/
If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's the baseline argument Jaffe makes in that article, which I find compelling:
Two hundred and seventy is not 300, but even so, Mussina ranks 33rd all-time in wins, tied with Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes and above Jim Palmer (268), Bob Feller (266), Bob Gibson (251), and 31 other enshrined starting pitchers, including Martinez (219) and Smoltz (213). Those last two are double the total of sub-300 win starters elected by the BBWAA from 1992 to 2014; Blyleven — elected in 2011, his 14th year of eligibility, with 287 wins — is the exception.
Moving beyond that — seriously, I’m done with the wins talk now — Mussina’s 2,813 strikeouts rank 20th all-time. Among pitchers with at least 3,000 innings, he’s 10th in strikeouts per nine (7.1) and eighth in strikeout percentage (19.3%). That’s in part a product of pitching in an era where strikeout rates were almost continually on the rise, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Even more impressive is that his 3.58 strikeout-to-walk ratio is second only to Schilling among pitchers with at least 3,000 innings since 1893, when the distance from the rubber to home plate was lengthened to 60’6″.
As for the postseason, Mussina may not have won a ring, but his 3.42 ERA in 139.2 innings is no small feat given the high-scoring era; it’s 0.26 lower than his regular-season ERA, which itself was 23% better than the park-adjusted league average and is tied for 23rd all-time. Aided by the three-tiered playoff format, his 145 postseason strikeouts rank sixth, his 9.3 strikeouts per nine fourth among the 27 pitchers with at least 100 postseason innings, behind Justin Verlander, Randy Johnson, and Clayton Kershaw. Sadly, Mussina’s teams only won nine of his 23 postseason starts because they supported him with just 3.1 runs per game; only four times did they even give him more than four runs. He had a few dud starts (three of less than five innings), but it’s tough to pin his failure to win a championship on him.
As for the advanced metrics, Mussina stands tall thanks to his combination of run prevention and strikeouts (for which he doesn’t have to share credit — and thus value — with his fielders). He ranked among the league’s top five in WAR seven times, and 11 times was among the top 10. His 83.0 career WAR is 23rd all-time, ahead of 42 of the 63 enshrined starting pitchers; he’s 14th among post-World War II pitchers. All of the top 25 are enshrined save for him and Clemens. That total is 2.2 wins above 2014 honoree Glavine, who has an almost identical career/peak/JAWS line, and 9.6 above the average for enshrined starters. Mussina’s more modest peak WAR of 44.6 is 66th all time, topping only 22 enshrined starters, 5.5 wins below the standard, but his 63.8 JAWS is 2.0 points above the standard, good for 29th all-time, two spots below Schilling (64.1) and two above Glavine (62.5). His score beats those of 38 enshrined starters. He’s good enough for Cooperstown.