The 21st century is quickly bringing about a variety of changes that the baseball community desperately needed. We now have real consequences for performance-enhancing drug users, instant replay to ensure that “human error” doesn’t affect the most pivotal moments, and cooler stats than ever at our fingertips. Coming up next, MLB is trying to create a safer in-stadium experience and continuing to experiment with ways to improve the pace of play.
Unfortunately, there is no indication that innovation fever will carry over to the National Baseball Hall of Fame anytime soon. Frustrating inconsistencies continue to plague its induction process.
Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza will become Cooperstown’s newest additions this summer. Both of their careers featured extraordinary peaks and impressive longevity, with Griffey in particular passing every conceivable empirical and intangible test of excellence.
But for reasons that still haven’t been revealed, three participating BBWAA voters excluded him from their ballots. So continues the sport’s longest streak: 80 years of experienced scribes finding some fault in every player’s career (no unanimous inductees).
Of course, Griffey does not need your pity. He’s headed for enshrinement regardless. The true victims of the process?
- Stars of previous generations who were under-appreciated in times of weaker analysis
- Griffey contemporaries who, despite historic accomplishments, have been withheld from the Hall for perceived “character issues” (several based on pure speculation)
- Borderline candidates who fell off/will soon fall off the ballot because of arbitrary limits on years of eligibility and total selections allowed per voter.
There’s never going to be a consensus on how to fix this, and that’s not what this column is about, anyway. Instead, I invite you to escape from reality for the next few minutes as we imagine a Hall of Fame that would actually celebrate baseball’s most impactful players.
For this exercise, we will toss aside the narratives, accolades and personalities. The focus is solely on in-game value, as measured by Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement. What names would be affiliated with baseball immortality if crushing the competition of your era was all that mattered?
More precisely, let’s set the HoF threshold as three or more career seasons of ranking in the MLB top 10 in WAR (pitchers and position players ranked separately). This criterion prioritizes each generation’s peak performers while weeding out “compilers” and flash-in-the-pan successes. It also conveniently creates a community of similar size to the current Cooperstown population.
Finally, we will simulate an induction schedule for these stars beginning in 1936, the same year the actual Hall of Fame began naming names. The following rules attempt to keep pace with the 20th century expansion of MLB teams/roster sizes and minimize the number of “empty years” (those with zero inductees):
- Ten original members inducted in 1936
- A maximum of two new members inducted annually for the rest of the Pre-Integration Era (1937-1946)
- A maximum of three new members inducted annually throughout the Golden Era (1947-1972)
- A maximum of four new members inducted annually throughout the Expansion Era (1973-Present)
- Players become eligible for induction five years after their final MLB appearance
- All qualified players are inducted in order of descending career WAR (higher WAR totals enter first)
WHO DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT—PITCHERS
Even the most dominant relievers in the sport’s history didn’t stand much of a chance of qualifying for a club that’s based on raw value. Cooperstown closers like Dennis Eckersley (inducted 2004), Rollie Fingers (1992) and Goose Gossage (2005) were undeniably making an impact with their high-leverage heroics, but their season-by-season WAR doesn’t reflect that due to a lack of innings.
Same goes for the most recent generation of saves leaders—Mariano Rivera (eligible in 2019), Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, etc. Rarely working outside of the ninth inning kept them all far below the threshold for passing this Hall of Fame’s test.
You will also notice the absence of several revered “winners” from this fraternity. Although consistently very good, Tom Glavine (inducted 2014) and Andy Pettitte (eligible in 2019) only twice posted seasons that cracked the top 10 in MLB pitcher WAR.
It’s certainly worth noting that Glavine and Pettitte were productive in the postseason, and that goes unacknowledged by our basic selection process. (I never said this would be perfect!)
Other real-life inductees who were snubbed include Chief Bender, Jack Chesbro, Jesse Haines, Waite Hoyt, Catfish Hunter, Addie Joss, Rube Marquard, Eppa Rixey, Edd Roush, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, and Hoyt Wilhelm.
WHO DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT—POSITION PLAYERS
What does it take to be among the league’s most valuable position players? Usually, some semblance of all-around skills—positive defense and/or base running contributions to complement damage inflicted with the bat.
Harmon Killebrew (inducted in 1984), Tony Perez (2000), Willie Stargell (1988), Edgar Martinez (currently eligible), Vladimir Guerrero (eligible in 2017) and Jim Thome (2018)—just to name a handful—fail to cross over into this Hall of Fame on the strength of their run production alone. Speedy singles specialist Lou Brock (eligible in 1985) fell short, too.
With few exceptions, catchers were heavily discriminated against. It boils down to how the physical demands of the job limit their total playing time (opportunities for WAR accumulation) relative to their peers. Missing from the list below: Yogi Berra (inducted in 1972), Roy Campanella (1969), Mickey Cochrane (1947), Bill Dickey (1954), Gabby Hartnett (1955) and Ivan Rodriguez (eligible in 2017).
Notable exclusions from the other positions include Luis Aparicio, Jake Beckley, Craig Biggio, Jim Bottomley, Roger Bresnahan, Max Carey, Orlando Cepeda, Fred Clarke, Earle Combs, Kiki Cuyler, Hugh Duffy, Buck Ewing, Rick Ferrell, Nellie Fox, Chick Hafey, Billy Herman, Harry Hooper, George Kell, George Kelly, Barry Larkin, Tony Lazzeri, Freddy Lindstrom, Heinie Manush, Rabbit Maranville, Bill Mazeroski, Tommy McCarthy, Eddie Murray, Kirby Puckett, Jim Rice, Phil Rizzuto, Ray Schalk, Red Shoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Joe Tinker, Pie Traynor, Lloyd Waner, Zack Wheat, Dave Winfield and Ross Youngs.
At last, we have arrived at baseball’s ultimate WAR-riors. There are 233 of them—105 pitchers, 128 position players.
Remember that the order of induction follows the rules stated earlier. And keep in mind, these players qualified based on their American League and/or National League production; the Hall of Fame recognizes earlier stars of the American Association/National Association/Union Association era as “Pioneer/Executive” inductees.
*Players who earn inductions during their first year of eligibility have been bolded
**Players who are not inducted in the actual Hall of Fame have been underlined
1936 Grover Cleveland Alexander, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Walter Johnson, Nap Lajoie, Christy Mathewson, Kid Nichols, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Cy Young
The BBWAA took awhile to adopt the “five years post-retirement” condition for eligibility and rushed Babe Ruth into the class of ’36. But we want uniformity and will make him wait.
These 10 all-timers still unite for a pretty stacked collection of talent.
1937 Tim Keefe, Eddie Plank
1938 John Clarkson, George Davis
1939 Cap Anson, Roger Connor
1940 Dan Brouthers, Pud Galvin
1941 Jim McCormick, Babe Ruth
Late 19th-century workhorse McCormick is the first Cooperstown outsider to make it in here. He STARTED 74 games for the Cleveland Blues back in 1880! Led the league in ERA+, WHIP and complete games at various times during his career.
1942 Sam Crawford, Bill Dahlen
1943 Rogers Hornsby, Charles Radbourn
1944 Frankie Frisch, Harry Heilmann
1945 Lou Gehrig, Bobby Wallace
1946 Ed Delahanty, Amos Rusie
1947 Red Faber, Goose Goslin, Lefty Grove
Induction class size expands post-integration and features Grove—by any measure, one of the best southpaws ever.
1948 Stan Coveleski, Charlie Gehringer, Vic Willis
1949 Carl Hubbell, Billy Hamilton, Mickey Welch
1950 Jesse Burkett, Al Simmons, Ed Walsh
1951 Joe Cronin, Jimmie Foxx, Paul Waner
1952 Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ted Lyons
Shoeless Joe would’ve been a shoo-in for the HoF if not for the Black Sox Scandal. His early-career contributions for the Cleveland Naps—averaged 8.8 WAR from 1911 to 1913—were most impressive.
1953 Jack Glasscock, Mel Ott, Dazzy Vance
1954 Joe McGinnity, Arky Vaughan, Rube Waddell
1955 Eddie Cicotte, Hank Greenberg, Clark Griffith
1956 Luke Appling, Joe Gordon, Jack Powell
1957 Joe DiMaggio, Joe Medwick, Red Ruffing
1958 Lou Boudreau, Mordecai Brown, George Sisler
1959 Willie Keeler, Johnny Mize, Bill Terry
1960 Jimmy Collins, Elmer Flick, Joe Sewell
1961 Tommy Bond, Stan Hack, Hal Newhouser
1962 Bob Feller, Bobo Newsom, Jackie Robinson
1963 Bobby Doerr, Silver King, Dutch Leonard
1964 Larry Doby, Joe Kelley, Pee Wee Reese
1965 Dave Bancroft, Burleigh Grimes, Ralph Kiner
1966 Earl Averill, Heinie Groh, Ted Williams
1967 Johnny Evers, Art Fletcher, Dizzy Trout
1968 Richie Ashburn, Noodles Hahn, Bob Shawkey
1969 John McGraw, Stan Musial, Early Wynn
1970 Frank Chance, Billy Pierce, Duke Snider
1971 King Kelly, Jim O’Rourke, Sam Thompson
1972 Chuck Klein, Al Orth, Herb Pennock
1973 Charlie Keller, Claude Passeau, Robin Roberts, Warren Spahn
Induction class size expands again to keep pace with league expansion.
1974 Rocky Colavito, Larry Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews
1975 Ken Boyer, Dizzy Dean, Don Drysdale, Hughie Jennings
1976 Frank Dwyer, George Gore, Paul Hines, Bill Nicholson
An example of how this selection process could be awkward…Three of these four inductees died too soon to attend their ceremony, pushed back decades by their lack of career WAR.
1977 Ernie Banks, Jim Bunning, Eddie Stanky, Roy Thomas
1978 Johnny Callison, Roberto Clemente, Camilo Pascual, Hack Wilson
1979 Fred Dunlap, Bob Lemon, Willie Mays, Preacher Roe
1980 Dean Chance, Al Kaline, Ron Santo, Deacon White
1981 Bob Gibson, Jim Maloney Juan Marichal, Vada Pinson
1982 Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, John Ward, Billy Williams
1983 Dick Allen, Brooks Robinson, Al Rosen, Chris Short
1984 Larry Corcoran, Tex Hughson, Frank Sullivan, Wilbur Wood
1985 Dick Radatz
Finally, the backlog of qualified candidates loosens enough so that one player gets the stage to himself.
Not much of a treat for the fans, though. Radatz was dead last among our 233 members with only 16.1 WAR. Excluding his first three seasons in the majors, the right-handed reliever was worse than replacement level!
1986 Willie McCovey
1987 none
1988 Luis Tiant
1989 Johnny Bench, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, Carl Yastrzemski
1990 Jim Kaat, Jon Matlack, Joe Morgan, Jim Palmer
1991 Rod Carew
1992 Cesar Cedeno, Bobby Grich, Pete Rose, Tom Seaver
1993 Vida Blue, Reggie Jackson, Phil Niekro
1994 Steve Carlton, Ron Guidry
1995 Tommy John, Mike Schmidt
1996 none
1997 Rick Reuschel
1998 Bert Blyleven, Gary Carter
1999 George Brett, Carlton Fisk, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount
2000 Teddy Higuera, Frank Tanana
2001 none
2002 Andre Dawson, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, Frank Viola
Trammell just fell off the BBWAA ballot after 15 years of middling support, but he would have been granted immortality immediately by these rules.
2003 Ryne Sandberg, Fernando Valenzuela
2004 Jimmy Key, Dennis Martinez, Dave Stieb
2005 Wade Boggs, Tom Candiotti, Mark Langston
2006 Albert Belle, Orel Hershiser
2007 Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., Brett Saberhagen
2008 Chuck Finley, Chuck Knoblauch, Tim Raines, Jose Rijo
Raines is still waiting his turn in real life, which is absurd. We are running out of patience.
2009 David Cone, Rickey Henderson
2010 Roberto Alomar, Kevin Appier
2011 Jeff Bagwell, Kevin Brown, Larry Walker
2012 Brad Radke
2013 Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Kenny Lofton, Curt Schilling
Love ’em or hate ’em on a personal level, this kind of mega class if WAY more interesting than The Brad Radke Experience.
2014 Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas
2015 Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Kenny Rogers, John Smoltz
2016 Jim Edmonds, Nomar Garciaparra, Ken Griffey Jr., Brandon Webb
And looking forward, this is how the next few induction classes would shake out…
2017 none
2018 Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen, Carlos Zambrano
2019 Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Roy Oswalt
Aggregated from Baseball-Reference.com, this spreadsheet of annual WAR leaders is fun for reflecting on some of the outlier seasons that this crazy sport produces: Year-by-Year bWAR Leaders
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, or address them directly to me on Twitter @MrElyminator.
Neat project. The problem I see is that there are WAY too many 19th century and early-20th century players on this list for my taste, but it’s a fun list overall. You want to complain about some of the weak links in this chain (Brandon Webb? Dick Radatz? REALLY?)… but they’re all better than the weakest of players in Cooperstown, so that makes you think twice.
Very cool piece overall, although I wish you could’ve included just the top part of the article on the main page so there wasn’t SO much to scroll through to get to the older posts. But nice work on your first non-World-Series-preview!
Yep, I forgot to ask Ely to put a jump in all his posts. He can go back in and do that in the editor.
Appreciate the kind words!
Annoyed me during the research to see those kind of not-so-special players meet the standard, but there’s always going to be a few tiers of quality.
Also, just made the fix on the main page. Scrolling all the way through that really does wear out your mouse haha.
I’m not sure I understand how this works, and an example includes two of my favorite players–I’m a huge Hack Wilson fan–but how does he get in with 38.8 WAR and Graig Nettles isn’t in, with 68 WAR?
Nettles led the league twice in WAR and had four other top ten finishes (position players only). Wilson led zero times and had five top ten seasons.
I’m not sure I understand the system. Is it a matter of timing?
Yes, it’s a matter of who the players with the highest WAR are that are otherwise eligible and not already in the HOF. Nettles became eligible at a time when there were lots of good candidates, and then never ranked high enough to get in thereafter.
Okay, so look at my Cedeno example–he gets in because he retired two years before Nettles. Nettles gets penalized because a club decided they wanted him to play a couple more years.
Yes, I think your understanding of what happened there is correct. It’s somewhat similar to the actual HOF voting, of course. Older guys on the ballot (like Trammell) lose votes because of newer guys who aren’t necessarily even better but are more in the front of voters’ minds.
Still, the mechanism you point out may be correctable. I am hoping Ely will take this model forward with some adjustments–although perhaps it will end up just becoming Adam’s Hall of Stats (which is already so good and there is no reason to compete or replicate.)
Cedeno would be an example of a Nettles contemporary–52.7 WAR and five top ten finishes–but never led the league, and he’s in.
This is confusing to me. Cedeno’s last year was 86. Nettles’ was 88. If Nettles had retired after 1986, would he have been in instead of Cedeno?
Yeah, I initially just gave it a cursory glance, and it looked interesting. But now I have some questions, too. Like, why would Brandon Webb get in, but not Tom Glavine? Both led in WAR once. Webb finished in the top-10 5 times, Glavine 6. Webb gets in with 33 WAR, but Glavine stays out with 74? Why?
I think we all need a little more explanation of the methodology. Do you get to linger on the “ballot” indefinitely? Noodles Hahn takes about 55 years to get in; why wouldn’t Graig Nettles get in IMMEDIATELY in 1993, when his five years were up and there was an open space? Like I said, I just did a very quick look, and it seemed like a neat way to sort things; I still think it probably IS. But I’m not sure I understand what’s going on.
If I’m getting the methodology correct, it looks like Nettles doesn’t make it because he was only Top 10 in the MLB in position player WAR twice, not three times. He was 2nd in 1971 and 3rd in 1976. But he was 11th in 1978, missing out on the Top 10 by .1 WAR. Since WAR simply isn’t that granular, it does seem silly to keep him out. But I suppose part of this exercise was to see what the list looks like with no statistical massaging done – without making any adjustments for league strength and without considering career totals, you come up with the 234 players mentioned. Obviously some of them are a bit silly (Tex Hughson? Frank Sullivan? Frank Dwyer?), but it’s a fun list.
Baseball reference WAR, Nettles is top 10 WAR six times. Whose WAR are we using?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nettlgr01.shtml
We’re using BB-Ref WAR, but the Top 10 criterion is for all of baseball, not just one league. So while Nettles has six top 10 WAR finishes in the AL, he only has two among the MLB leaders. It’s tougher to find because you have to check it manually – for every year he was Top 10 in the AL, you have to check the MLB leaders for that season and see if he made it. As I posted above, he’s literally missing this list because of 1/10th of a point of WAR in 1978. 1/10th of a point of WAR over a career is pretty much meaningless, so yeah, it’s silly to exclude Nettles because of that. But as Andy posted below, this isn’t anything close to a finished product, so we should expect a few kinks.
Fangraphs shows shows 3 top ten seasons for Nettles. In 1978 he is rated as 5th best.
Okay–thanks for clarifying. I understand the system now.
Seems it’s not career WAR, which produces some interesting results.
“More precisely, let’s set the HoF threshold as three or more career seasons of ranking in the MLB top 10 in WAR (pitchers and position players ranked separately). This criterion prioritizes each generation’s peak performers while weeding out “compilers” and flash-in-the-pan successes.”
Can you talk a little bit about that? I’m not sure Tex Hughson comes to mind as a Hall of Famer to anyone (traditional or sabermetric), so I’m curious about using only three years.
I tend to agree. Ely, what happens if you run this same analysis without the 3-year leader criterion, or if you change it to, say, 5? I presume you have at least an idea of how it changes things.
I didn’t count, but it also seems like this would skew a bit heavily towards pitchers (more of a 50-50 split rather than a 2-to-1 ratio of everyday players to pitchers).
I noted that below as well – this list is 45% pitchers (106 of 234). The actual HoF is something like 31% pitchers – a tiny bit more than a 2 to 1 ratio.
In hindsight, it seems the 3+ years threshold did an effective job of identifying impactful position players, but yeah, it lowered the bar too much for pitchers. Not-so-special ones like Hughson, Brad Radke and Brandon Webb (plus a few dozen others) slipped in at the minimum.
Raising the pitcher requirement to 4+ years would more accurately group together the greats, so that’s a revision I had in mind.
Did I miss something, I didn’t see how long a player stays on the ballot if not selected in their first year.
It does seem that the process leads to a lot of really questionable selections, especially from the mid-70’s to the mid-80’s.
I’m a little confused as to why guys were going in 4 at a time during that stretch when in the 15 or so years following that only happened when there was an plethora of at least reasonably well qualified candidates.
I have to say I’m not sure this is an improvement over the process that has been in place and considering how messed up that has been it’s failed to clear a pretty low bar.
Well, the way I constructed it, the 70s and early 80s feature the largest share of good-not-great players. They are largely late 19th/early 20th century guys who were pushed down the induction list because of their low career WARs. There were a few particular years in that stretch without any qualified 1st ballot players to strengthen those classes, so I see what you mean.
My other option was inducting more of those players ASAP in the opening Hall of Fame years.
This is definitely not a perfect method, but all in all, it welcomes in much more of MLB’s record-holders/most legendary talents than the Hall actually has. In that sense, I feel it more completely represents the history of the game.
Seems like the bar is pretty low with 3 or more seasons ranking in the top 10 in WAR. That’s a short and potentially not very high peak.
A good example is Dick Radatz. He had only 7 seasons in the majors. 3 were brilliant and 4 were below average. He should not be a HOFer.
But then again raising the bar to 4 or more years will create a community smaller in size than the current Cooperstown population.
This is why a 10-years-in-the-majors requirement should be enforced (as in real life) for players who began their career in 1901 or later.
It would be interesting to run this again with requirements of 4, 5, and 6 years in top 10 WAR. I bet it would change quite a bit.
This is looking more and more like the Hall of Peak Value.
http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/02/the-hall-of-peak-value/
Yeah Joseph, my original plan was to set the requirement at 4 years…and it gets really exclusive, really fast. 234 players passed the 3-year test; less than half of them had 4 or more.
Including Griffey and Piazza, Cooperstown now has 217 Hall of Famers that they’ve inducted as players. So I wanted to settle on a method that produced a similar total.
Based on average talent level, my 234 guys would probably kick their 217 asses haha.
I got 218 when I counted below. I’m not including Irvin or Paige in my count; perhaps there’s someone I counted as a player that’s really a pioneer.
If we cancel out the players in both Halls of Fame, your team doesn’t have a catcher, which could be problematic. And the real Hall team has a much stronger bullpen, though you can always use starters in the pen.
Of course, having Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Larry Walker, Mike Mussina, and all of the other modern guys is a pretty big boost. That alone probably pushes this group in front. But if we’re just going pre-PED backlog, I think it would be pretty close. If this is a full season exercise and both teams have to use all of their guys (to fully get the impact of the worst guys on the list, instead of just using the best), I’ve gotta think I’d usually count on Eppa Rixey, Chuck Bender and Rube Marquard to win a mid-season game more often than Tex Hughson, Chris Short and Frank Sullivan.
It’s interesting how many of the PED guys miss this list, even though this exercise is completely blind to PED use. Sosa doesn’t clear the bar – neither does McGwire. Nor do Palmeiro or Manny Ramirez. I believe that Giambi, however, would make it in 2020.
For starters, I don’t think you’re correct about the status of American Association players. It’s true that the National Association isn’t recognized as a Major League, so NA players have to make it as pioneers. But the American Association, Federal League, Player’s League and even the lowly Union Association are considered Major Leagues, and a player is judged on his entire playing record in the Major Leagues. The writers have simply considered the AA to be the inferior league, so most of the AA’s stars (Pete Browning, Harry Stovey, Tony Mullane, Bob Caruthers) are on the outside looking in. But Harry Stovey was on the VC ballot this past year, and it certainly wasn’t because of his stats in the NL. He was a decent player in the NL, but he was a superstar in the AA. Look at, for instance, the HoF plaques of Eddie Plank and Three-Finger Brown. Both mention their stints in the Federal League. That’s not true of, say, Lefty Grove and his outstanding years with the Baltimore Orioles in the International League. Tim Keefe’s plaque actually has the wrong number of wins (it gives him 346; he had 342), but it mentions that he played for the Mets (which would be the New York Metropolitans of the AA), and he’s not getting anywhere near the 340’s without his 78 wins in the American Association. Besides, it seems some of these ‘inductees’ are getting the benefit of their AA stats. There’s no way Sadie McMahon is making it without his league-leading numbers in the 1890 and 1891 AA.
Secondly, this definitely needs some adjustments if it’s going to be anything but a curiosity. Certainly a league strength adjustment is in order. “Swish” Nicholson makes it because he was Top 10 in WAR in a depleted league during WW2. Larry Corcoran makes it because he had a year where he was the 4th best pitcher in a league where only 16 guys threw over 100 IP. Tom Glavine misses even though he once led all MLB pitchers in WAR in a season where 79 guys qualified for the ERA title.
It also might help to weight placement in the Top 10. Finishing 1st, 2nd and 4th in three different seasons is a lot more impressive than finishing 3rd, 7th and 9th, but both are “Top 10.”
And I’d agree with others that three seasons in the Top 10 is a very low bar to clear for HoF status.
I will say, I’m always amazed that after years of studying this game, there are still players I’ve never heard of. Art Fletcher is one of them. No one had anything to say about him during the 1885 CoG ballot. dWAR pegs him as an all-world defensive player – his career total is up there with Omar Vizquel and Pee Wee Reese. In the NBJHBBA, Bill James ranks him 41st among SS, behind Travis Jackson and ahead of Garry Templeton. JAWS has him quite a bit better, at 26th all-time among SS. He probably wouldn’t be the worst SS in the Hall, but I’ve never seen him listed as a notable omission, probably because Trammell and Dahlen get most of the attention among SS snubs.
I’ll admit, my understanding is a bit fuzzy when it comes to the legitimacy of the non-AL/NL leagues. Noticed that Candy Cummings, Al Spalding, etc. were owning the 1870s leaderboards, and that the Hall of Fame labeled them as pioneers instead of players. But you’re right–both were stars in the NA.
It was also somewhat of a personal decision to exclude production from the earlier leagues because there was such a HUGE variation in talent between teams. Conditions were ideal for top players to inflate their stats to absurd levels.
Stat comparisons across the more modern eras are not perfectly apples to apples either, but I treated this as a simple exercise, and didn’t agonize for it. Weighting would certainly be needed to reflect the different competitive environments. That’s a revision I might make this summer as the induction ceremony approaches. I’m sure we would see new names make the cut.
And thanks for pointing out Sadie McMahon. I had mistakenly added his ’91 stats to ’93 and ’94 (when his team joined the NL) to make him eligible. He’s now been removed from this.
The depth of your baseball knowledge is obvious. Truly appreciate you taking the time to bundle it up into some constructive feedback.
Thank you for the kind words. And I think this is a very interesting exercise which will get better as it is tweaked further. Indeed, it’s really interesting that the number of guys with 3 Top 10 finishes in overall WAR matches so closely with the numbers of players inducted into the HoF – I’d never have imagined those numbers were close.
As for the depth of my knowledge, I think I can speak for most of us here when I say that what I know is still utterly dwarfed by what I have yet to learn. This list alone had 4 or 5 guys I’d never heard of, and 5 or 6 more 19th century players that I only had an extremely vague idea of from reading some histories of the early days of baseball. I love that about baseball, though – I still learn something new about the game every single day of my life.
I’d say one thing that surprises me is the guys that still make it under this rubric. I mean, certain guys are going to get knocked off by any stat-based framework; Lloyd Waner and Tommy McCarthy and Highpockets Kelly and so forth. There’s no way to account for those guys in a purely statistical measure without putting a finger on the scale. But 2/3’rds of Tinker to Evers to Chance are still here, with no credit for Chance’s managing or their poetry-related fame. Bob Lemon and Early Wynn still make it, even though those two are often seen as borderline picks. Larry Doby makes it, with no credit for breaking the AL color line.
Okay, I think I understand a little better now. I thought there were other factors being accounted for, but this is literally just every single player that had 3 or more Top 10 finishes in MLB in either position player or pitcher bWAR. So what Richard said above is true – setting the cut-off at 4 Top 10 seasons would give us a list of players smaller than the current number of Cooperstown members that were inducted primarily for their playing years in the MLB, whereas this exercise gives us a list slightly larger than that number.
That being said, one thing that might be a problem for this particular methodology – pitcher/position player balance. I don’t know the exact number of HoF pitchers that were inducted for their MLB service time (IOW, excluding pioneers and executives and managers and Negro League players), but I think it’s around 68 or so. That’s around 31%, I believe – the number of players inducted to the HoF for their MLB service time as of the 2016 election is something like 218. That number goes up a little bit depending on how many of the split career Negro League guys you include (Satchel Paige and Monte Irvin would be the big ones). This exercise gets you 106 pitchers out of 234 inductees – that’s 45%. Intuitively, it seems much easier to finish in the Top 10 for pitching WAR than it is for position player WAR. In 2015, 142 guys qualified for the batting title – only 78 qualified for the ERA title. And it seems like most of the truly questionable guys on this list are pitchers who squeaked in because they have 3 good years and very little else to offer – that’s certainly true of Hughson and Radatz and Sullivan, and pretty much true of Chris Short as well.
I actually just realized that you had to finish in the top ten in MLB, not in your league. That makes some of the omissions make sense (Nettles, Berra, Cochrane, Glavine, Biggio, etc., etc.).
I’ve had to look at this a few times to get it fully, but now I think I do.
Also explains the seeming bias towards 19th century players – for long stretches of time, the NL was the only league, so Top 10 in your league and Top 10 in MLB were synonymous. Even when there were other leagues, you get a couple seasons where the Top 10 in MLB WAR are like 9 NL guys and 1 AA guy (1882 is like that, with only Pete Browning representing the AA among the Top 10). In fact, in 1883, not a single AA guy makes the MLB Top 10 – Ed Swartwood and Harry Stovey finish in 11th and 12th by fractions.
That’s right. Felt pretty confident about it initially, but on its own, it obviously elevated some candidates that don’t fit in.
Expecting to put out a revision with different criteria that produces a more satisfying roster of talent.
I wonder if something like (just spitballing here) “5 years in league top-10” would produce a similar number, with a higher overall caliber of player. That’s just a guess, though. You’d probably have to fiddle with the number – maybe 6 years would be better. But that’s my initial idea.
Light bulb goes on. Thank you for pointing this out.
One thing for everybody to keep in mind:
This post was originally my idea, and I asked Ely to run with it (which he did very nicely.) It was never my intent, and I presume not Ely’s, to present this as the “correct” Hall of Fame, but rather the beginnings of a framework to see how the HoF might look if we tried to vote in the most deserving players.
I think what we see is that this initial model needs some further tweaking, and I think there have been some great suggestions here. Hopefully Ely will be motivated to iterate the model, run again, and make a future post with V2 of his HoF.
Speaking of Dick Radatz, his son once posted here. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to find out that his dad makes the hypothetical HoF in this exercise.
Dick Radatz Jr. posted several comments on a blog entitled Flashback: J.R. Richard on 9-17-2012.
Radatz holds the record for most WAR for a relief pitcher in his first three seasons, 17.3 from 1962-1964.
Every time I think I fully understand this list, I’m not sure I do. Will White should qualify even without his AA seasons because he was Top 10 in NL pitching WAR 4 times – granted, it would have almost been impossible for him not to finish Top 10 since every team’s #1 starter was basically guaranteed a spot in the Top 10 (heck, in 1877, he had 0.9 WAR over just 27 innings, but finished 9th in the NL; in 1878 he was 6th in WAR, ranked 5th among the 6 #1 starters – the only one below him in WAR was the fantastically nicknamed Edward ‘The Only’ Nolan), but he still should qualify by the rules. Meanwhile, if AA stats don’t count, how is Silver King making it? All of his big seasons were either in the AA or the PL.
Let’s take a look at Frank Sullivan. His fourth place WAR finish in 1954 consists of a 4-9 record against winning teams, with an ERA of 4.32. His luck was in against the Yankees that year: in spite of a 4.67 ERA he finished 2-2. Against the champion Tribesmen he was 0-5 and 4.50.
On the other hand, he was a terror against the Tigers, Orioles, Senators, and A’s with an 11-3 W-L showing, plus a 1.98 ERA. These teams, perhaps fortunately for him, had W-L averages of .442, .429, .351, and .331. He poured it on especially well against the last place A’s: ERA of 1.19, and a 3-0 record.
In 1955, when he finished 5th in WAR, his home starts at Fenway, resulting in a 10-5 record, were impacted by a park factor of 123, which, if I understand correctly, gave his WAR a considerable boost. In away parks, although his 2.35 ERA was over a point lower than at home, his W-L record was 8-8. Against winning teams he did better than the previous year, going 9-8, but he was 0-5 against the champion Yanks, 4-0 against the fifth place Tigers.
Skipping to 1957, the year he finished first in WAR, his 14-11 record included only 3 wins against better than .500 teams. He went 11-2 against the rest, 7-0 agains losers and 4-0 over the 76-76 Orioles.
Over his career he basically had poor success against the better teams( .390 W-L) and dominated the losing ones. Unlike most pitchers of that era he did well at Fenway, and that quirk boosted his WAR. He finished at 97-100 in 1732 innings with an ERA+ of 116.
Was he really such a hidden treasure as to be HOF worthy? Or is he just a poster child for those of us who can’t quite buy the idea that all we need to evaluate players is an all-encompassing mathematical formula?
Good points, nsb.
WAR, of course, normalizes for home ballpark, but not (I think) for actual ballparks where players pitched, or for strength of opposition/schedule.
Players since 1914 who pitched better against .500 teams (no. of 150 IP seasons with ERA against .500 teams 0.8 runs lower than overall ERA).
Pitchers since 1914 who pitched worse against .500 teams (no. of 150 IP seasons with ERA against .500 teams over 1.4 runs higher than overall ERA). Sullivan had one of these seasons.
Very cool way to look at it. Thanks for the hard work. Stylistic note: Edd Roush belongs on the list of position players not in now, not pitchers.
Oh, and Mordecei Brown is underlined as if he isn’t currently in the HOF, but he is.
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Thanks for reading and making those corrections, Brent.
And Eddie Cicotte is not underlined. Uh, He’s a Black Sox. And Newsom had a losing record.
A couple other minor underlining corrections:
Chuck Klein, Deacon White, Hughie Jennings, Sam Thompson and Frank Chance are all underlined but shouldn’t be – they’re all in the real HoF. Then there’s Clark Griffith, and that one is a judgment call. He’s not underlined, but he could be – he’s in the real HoF, but he’s there as an executive, not a player. Though I suppose someone could make the same argument about John McGraw, who makes it here as a player but made the HoF as a manager.
and another player we discussed at length so long ago in the CoG that I had nearly forgotten about him: Bobby Grich should be underlined.
One other potential issue – I believe this exercise is looking at people who were Top 10 in WAR for pitchers, no the Top 10 in WAR among pitchers. It’s not a huge difference, but it leaves out hitting value. Please correct me if I’m wrong on that point, Ely.
And speaking of good hitting pitchers, it seems like both George Uhle and Wes Ferrell should be on this list. Uhle has 4 seasons that fit the criteria, and I believe he’d have 5 if he gets credit for his bat. Ferrell has 6 seasons either way.
I forgot to add, on the other end of the spectrum, you take a guy like Dean Chance and I think he gets knocked off the list if his batting WAR is allowed to drag him down. Chance is just about the worst hitting pitcher ever, so I’m not sure if anyone else would fall off – even with his awful bat, Koufax still clears the bar easily with his peak years.
I don’t want it to seem like I’m picking on this idea, since I actually really like it, but if it’s going to be tweaked into something even better we need to make sure that our data is correct, and the more I look at it, the more it seems like we’re missing a lot of pitchers. I wrote above that intuitively, it seems much easier for a pitcher to make this list – there are always more position players vying for Top 10 slots than there are pitchers. Seeing Jack Powell, one of the best under .500 pitchers ever, reminded me of Nap Rucker, probably the greatest pitcher with a record of exactly .500. His fantastic three-year stretch from 1910-1912 included two seasons where he led the NL in WAR, and another season where he was 2nd. I was writing some baseball trivia for some friends of mine in another community I frequent, related to player birth places – that led me to Jack Quinn, the only player ever born in what is now Slovakia. His teammate for a bit on the A’s, Eddie Rommel, has 5 seasons where he was Top 10 in pitching WAR. Babe Adams, star of the 1909 WS, has 4 seasons in the Top 10. Bill Dinneen, who threw four CG’s for the Red Sox in the first ever WS, has 4 such seasons. Another guy from that first WS, Sam Leever of the Pirates, seems like he qualifies, though only by a whisker. It’s entirely possible that I am once again misunderstanding the methodology, but if it only takes those 3 Top 10 seasons, it seems like all of these guys fit the bill.
So the big problem is the criteria of “top 10” in a league that changed size. As a result, it’s an incredibly high bar for position players in recent years and a fairly low bar for old time pitchers. To refine it, the “top X” size needs to be changed with league size and the pitcher/position player ratio controlled similarly. If you do that, it’s still going to be an interesting list but one that’s a lot less wonky.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. I really like this idea a lot, and developing an initial methodology and throwing it out there is a good way to get feedback and discussion about possible refinements (obviously, as there are almost 60 comments here). I think it’s entirely possible to come up with a relatively simple formula to address this, like weight the finishes (10 points for first, 1 point for 10th) and multiply the results by the number of teams overall (that might create too much stratification and weighting towards the current players, but hey, might as well see what happens). Then you could have an absolute bar to clear, like x number of ‘top 10 adjusted points’ rather than the less nuanced ‘>3 top 10 finishes’. Someone like Glavine, who finished just outside of the top 10 a few times but had some high placings and played with a ‘full league’, would probably do better, whereas all the 19th century chaff would have to be quite a bit better to clear the bar.
Either way, obviously a tremendous amount of compilation went into this, so thanks for the post and this concept to chew on.
I get what you’re trying to do and it’s interesting. Without foresight of future players, you have to think what old time voters had at their disposal. Not having modern metrics is one thing but not foreseeing future players strengths/weaknesses is hardly something they thought about. I just think when trying to span such large historical eras that you need to compensate for the change in league size or else things get out of control with “top x player in the league”.
Saying here are the top X career WAR scores is not interesting. What you’re doing is much more clever. I hope you add a little tweak for changing league size so that interesting names for inclusions/exclusions come out of it rather than focusing on what process led to the wonky-ness.
MORE CATCHERS!! – You absolutely need to make adjustments to get more catchers on this list; it loses a great deal of credibility if you don’t have at least 8/10 catchers total.
If I’m reading it correctly, these are only three catchers currently on the above list;
-Johnny Bench
-Gary Carter
-Carlton Fisk
…and if you list him as a catcher (though B-R has him under ‘right fielder’):
– King Kelly
Does anybody really believe these are the only three (four?) HOF-worthy catchers? It is simply not reasonable to have any baseball HOF, subjective or even totally objective/stats-based as this one is, with only three catchers. You absolutely need to find a way to get Yogi Berra in, and most/all of:
– Roy Campanella
– Mickey Cochrane
– Bill Dickey
– Gabby Hartnett
– Ivan Rodriguez
I’m sure a great deal of work went into this list (and I did enjoy reading about the results), so I wouldn’t wish to discard it altogether, but I’d like to tweak it(as several people above stated) to produce more reasonable results.