Mike Mussina is potentially closing in on a call to the Hall

Will the sixth time be the charm for former Orioles and Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina? Is his call to the Hall of Fame coming on Tuesday?

He's already an Orioles Hall of Famer, inducted in August 2012, and now it seems the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., may be calling. Finally.

Without throwing a pitch, Mussina has become more popular with the voters - much more popular - in recent years.

In his first year of eligibility in 2014, he got just 20.3 percent of the vote. But that has gone up to 24.6 in 2015, to 43.0 in 2016, 51.8 percent in 2017 and 63.5 last year. Mussina is getting about 82 percent of votes for this year, and that is from Ryan Thibodaux's Hall of Fame tracker, which counts actual ballots that are made public.

To some long-time Orioles fans, when I say I believe Mike Mussina is almost the pitching equivalent of Jim Palmer, you get some major pushback. I get it. Palmer is the greatest Orioles pitcher ever and a well deserved Hall of Famer. We hold him, rightly so, in the very, very highest regard. I just think Mussina is in the conversation.

* Palmer: 268-152 with 2.86 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 5.0 strikeouts/nine innings pitched, 125 ERA+
* Mussina: 270-153 with 3.68 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 7.1 strikeouts/nine innings pitched, 123 ERA+

ERA+ adjusts for ballpark and era when the pitcher played, and Mussina is very close to Palmer in that one stat. At 123, he's the equal of Juan Marichal, elected to the Hall in 1983. His 123 ERA+ tops several Hall of Famers, a list that includes Nolan Ryan, Don Drysdale, Bob Feller, Bert Blyleven, Gaylord Perry, Tom Glavine and Warren Spahn. So he's keeping good company.

No, Mussina never won a Cy Young Award. He was never voted top pitcher in his league. Palmer won three Cy Young Awards and was an eight-time 20-game winner. But Mussina was often among the best in the game. He finished in the top six for the Cy Young nine times in his career. That is something Palmer did eight times. And Mussina thrived over a long career spent entirely in the American League East, making well over half his starts in either Camden Yards, Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium.

Mussina would not be the first pitcher elected without a Cy Young Award on his resume. This list already includes Ryan, Marichal, Don Sutton and Phil Niekro, to name a few.

Orioles fans often ask which cap will be on Mussina's plaque if he gets the call to the Hall, Orioles or Yankees? While Mussina should have input into that, in an interview a few years back on this topic, Brad Horne of the Hall of Fame told me the Hall will make that call.

"Our role, as a historical institution, is to preserve the integrity of the team that is most representative from an individual's career. If someone's career is split between two or three franchises, numbers alone do not necessarily tell the story of where the greatest impact was made," Horne said. "The process is, once an individual is elected, and only at that time, does the Hall of Fame begin the process of which team is represented on the plaque. The individual is elected in January, but not inducted until July."

Mussina pitched better over his 10 seasons as an Oriole than he did in his eight seasons in New York. His time in Baltimore produced a lower ERA (3.53 to 3.88), lower WHIP (1.175 to 1.212) and better ERA+ (130 to 114). He also had many more complete games (45 to 12) and shutouts (15 to 8) as an Oriole. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he averaged 4.76 WAR per season as an Oriole and 4.38 as a Yankee. Of course, Mussina was older when he pitched in the Bronx, starting there with his age-32 season.

Mussina was an Oriole between 1991 and 2000. In that time. the team won at a .510 rate to rank 13th in the majors over that stretch, but Mussina's personal won-loss percentage was .645. He was a Yankee from 2001-2008, a period when New York's win percentage of .599 was the best in the major leagues. Mussina's won-loss percentage was .631 in New York. He pitched in the playoffs in seven seasons in the Bronx and two in Baltimore, making just six of his 21 post-season starts for Baltimore.

I think Mussina will be a Hall of Famer on Tuesday. Then will we see an Orioles-Yankees battle for the cap? Will that be something that will be important to you, the fans?