I posted this yesterday in my dynasty thread after I noticed Jonny Toner retired, but for this one time I am looking for some broader feedback. The first thought I had was sadness, the second was "but what about the Hall of Fame"?
In traditional sense, he likely won't get in. Not even 200 wins! What a weakling.
However, that does not tell half the story. He was Pitcher of the Year four times in a frankly insane 8-year peak during which he was hands down the best pitcher in either subleague. He was the ultimate excitement. He would sneeze mid-windup and the batter would still strike out. Nobody had a whiff on the strikeout crown… unless arm woes curtailed his season. He won two triple crowns, and he could have won more if the mid-2010s Raccoons hadn't been… consistently able to put a winning package together thanks to some braindead GM making a few numb moves *despite* having, at first, Toner paired with then-rapidly-aging future Hall of Famer Nick Brown atop the rotation, then later a trio of aces in the rotation for a number of years (and none of them aged well).
And then at 30 he literally came apart. Defense had a hand in that 3.51 ERA, but even then the writing was on the wall. He would come even close to a qualifying amount of innings only once more in his career. It was always more injuries and even more injuries after that.
That year after he became a free agent I was close to resigning him but ultimately bailed on the price tag because he would spend half the season on the DL and the Raccoons were continuously cash-strapped. The Crusaders had cash coming out of every body opening, and they didn't mind. They got 60 superficially decent innings with lots of red flags. From there, Toner tingled through all the terrible teams that would take a flyer on him. That was already sad to see…
And now he is retired and will be on the ballot in a few years, and I come back to the original question:
Hall of Fame or nah?
I tend towards nodding him in because his peak was so blindingly stellar. But maybe my view is distorted because I did some 2k fist pumps whenever he rung up another sucker daring to try to breath the same air as Jonny. But... best pitcher of the decade, hands down! You would not hold the injuries against him, would you?
Well, would you?
