Andy Pettitte's Hall of Fame Status Unclear

The biggest question about Andy Pettitte's future appears to be answered with Thursday's report that he's headed to New York for a retirement press conference on Friday morning.

That means we can now move onto the second question about his future: is Andy Pettitte a Hall of Famer?

We'll have to wait five years to begin finding out the answer, and that's probably a good thing in Pettitte's case. He's not a slam-dunk, first-ballot choice, nor is he a guy who is going to get four or five courtesy votes and then fall off the ballot. He's in that mushy middle where arguments will be made for or against him on an annual basis for what will likely be a long stay on the ballot and in the minds of voters and observers.

Right at the top, we have to look at the numbers, and that's a place where Pettitte falls short. His career ERA of 3.88 is unimpressive and none of his rate stats make an argument that he's more than a very good pitcher. While he benefits from being consistently very good, that kind of stability tends to be less impressive to voters than players with some peak years of greatness. Compared to contemporaries like Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina, Pettitte comes up short and it does him no favors that a similar pitcher statistically like Kevin Brown garnered no support in his first and only year on the ballot.

Ah, but that's where intangibles come in! Brown was a surly character who many remember as the man who started and lost the fateful Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. Pettitte is thought of very highly as a person and is going to get a lot of praise for his postseason efforts. Some of that praise is earned -- Game 5 of the 1996 World Series was a particular gem -- but taken as a whole, his 42 postseason starts wind up looking exactly like his career numbers. Even if you give him bonus points for the playoffs, they have to be weighed against the fact that other players did a lot to get him those opportunities. Similarly, attempts to give him extra credit for pitching in the AL East come up short when you realize the best year of his career came while he was a member of the Astros.

All of that said, Pettitte's case would still be pretty strong if he was just being judged on those credentials. Consistently good players on teams that go to eight World Series in 16 years are well-liked by voters in general. What's more, the great playoff starts will linger in memory a lot longer than the ordinary ones. You need only look at the support for Jack Morris to see how that goes.

Pettitte's case won't be made just by the way he pitched, however. Pettitte admitted using human growth hormone in the wake of the release of the Mitchell Report in 2007, something that tars him with the same scarlet letter that has kept Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Jeff Bagwell from Cooperstown. Unless there's a sea change in the way voters feel about the use of performance enhancing drugs, Pettitte can't expect to get votes from any of the guys who are currently leaving those three off their ballots. That's not to say there won't be some attempts by writers to have their cake and eat it too, but the majority will likely toe the same line.

All of it adds up to Pettitte likely being on the wrong side of the fence, but you can bet this issue will be revisited often in the years to come.

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Steve Phillips reflects on Andy Pettitte's career and what's next for the Yankees