What to make of Curt Schilling?

Yesterday, Schilling announced to the world that he will be filing for free agency at the end of the season, because the Red Sox will not be negotiating a new contract with him until after the World Series. This makes good for the Sox, as Schilling is 40 years old. They would like to see how he does this year before agreeing to pay him tens of millions of dollars. Just as surely, making a big announcement that he’ll be putting himself on the open market makes sense for Schilling, as it puts some pressure on management to sign the enormously popular pitcher to an expensive extension.

This is just the latest in a series of announcements of non-news news Schilling has made in the past few weeks. First there was his announcement that he would not be running for John Kerry’s Senate seat next year, a tragedy insofar as harnessing the wind those debates would have generated could have allowed New England to shut down every one of its power plants for at least a year. Then there was his announcement that he would not, after all, be retiring after this year, as he had previously claimed he would. Expect an announcement on the number of ice cubes in Schilling ‘s refrigerator, or his thoughts on the upcoming Chamillionaire release, by next week at the latest.

The reason people care about any of this is that Schilling is still a great pitcher. Old man or no, last year he threw 204 innings with a 3.97 ERA and a 183/28 K/BB ratio. Given that he was pitching in Fenway in the age of the unbalanced schedule, that performance ranked him one of the 15 or so best pitchers in the game. Because of that and Schilling’s well-earned reputation as one of the better clutch pitchers in baseball history, his next contract is going to pay him an exorbitant sum as long as he doesn’t succumb to a career-threatening injury this season. Every team with money and pennant hopes — and of course both New York teams qualify — will be interested in putting Schilling atop their rotation with the hope he can deliver in October yet again.

As recently seen with Randy Johnson, though, investing great hopes and 10-figure salaries in pitchers older than 40 is, at best, a dodgy thing to do. There aren’t even two dozen starters who have done significant things after age 40, and a disproportionate number of them have been either knuckleballers and crafty junkballers who rely on their mastery of reading hitters, changing speeds, holding runners on base, and other subtle aspects of the game. Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Nolan Ryan are the only pitchers who have lasted at all into their 40s as dominant strikeout artists, and they are all physical freaks. The odds are against Schilling joining them, which is why the Red Sox would like to see how he does this year before forking over $40 million.

Just because the odds are long, though, doesn’t mean that Schilling doesn’t have a chance of pitching at an elite level for another few years; in fact, he might be uniquely qualified to do so.

Two of the things most of the few pitchers who have aged well have in common are that they join rotations late, and they have some gaps in their career. Johnson, for instance, didn’t pitch 200 innings for the first time until he was 26, and he missed playing time here and there through the years because of injury as well as having his innings held down in 1994 and 1995 by the strike. Much the same is true of Jamie Moyer and David Wells; Clemens benefited from the strike and from missing most of his age-22 season. Ryan missed time to military service early in his career, didn’t take a full workload until he was 25 (the same as Jerry Koosman), and got a bit of a breather from the 1981 strike. Warren Spahn served in World War II and didn’t really get his career going until he was 26. Really, the only pitcher who came up to the majors, joined a rotation, and just kept pitching well into his 40s was Don Sutton.

It would be unwise to go too far in extrapolating any general tendencies from such a small group, but it seems as if exceptionally long-lasting pitchers have this same career pattern, and it’s one Schilling shares. He didn’t join a rotation until he was 25; the strike and injuries kept him from establishing himself as a workhorse before he was 30, and his famous ankle injury gave his arm a rest in 2005, when he pitched 93.1 innings. Between that, his recent excellent performance, his big frame, his tremendous fastball and control, and his famed study of the nuances of the game — his reliance on setting up hitters, changing speeds, and exploiting weaknesses gleaned through scouting gives him something in common with the crafty veterans and knuckleballers who have survived into their infirmity through sheer guile — he seems able to tick off every box that would make one think he’s qualified to last a few years longer, save throwing a knuckleball. Assuming he pitches well this year (and there’s no reason to think he won’t), he actually looks to me like one of the better bets on the free agent market — because of his age he’d only require a shortterm commitment, and savings could be obtained by releasing unnecessary public relations men.

Everyone outside Boston might be tired of Curt Schilling flapping his gums, but I do fear we’ll be hearing them flap for a few years yet.

tmarchman@nysun.com