Earlier this week, my post on John Franco and the Hall of Fame inspired some great discussion. Posters commented on my opinions and the HOF cases for Trevor Hoffman and Goose Gossage. This topic interests me quite a bit, so I’d like to open it up a bit more. What should we use as criteria for Hall of Fame membership?
I think that there are two smart schools of thought, and the old school dumb school of thought. Everyone is familiar with the old school way – how many hits does he have? How many home runs does he have? How many wins does the pitcher have? Today, how many saves does he have? These are all dumb criteria for entry that I don’t think I need to address.
The first smart school of thought is that the Hall of Fame should contain the players who contributed to winning games the most over their career, represented by a holistic statistic like WAR. This has a lot of intellectual and intuitive feel. The best players both played a lot and played very well. Players who didn’t play a lot or didn’t play very well just weren’t as good. Under this logic, Barry Bonds is the best post-WWII hitter of all time, followed by Willie Mays and Stan Musial, and Roger Clemens is the best post-WWII hitter of all time, followed by Tom Seaver and Greg Maddux. Using this view, very little is up for debate. You check out the WAR leaderboards at Baseball Reference and make a decision.
The second school of thought is that the Hall of Fame should look for some combination of dominance and longevity, though not strictly in the form mentioned above. Under this view, guys like Scott Rolen (66 career WAR and counting, easily in HOF range) should be omitted, on the basis of their long but only very good careers. Hall of Famers should be the best of the best: the undisputed stars on their time. Scott Rolen has never been the best at anything. Traditionally, we cite awards voting like Cy Youngs, MVPs, Gold Gloves, All Star games, etc in these debates.
The second school of thought is also intellectually appealing, because it allows for some wiggle room. If you ask me who the best post-WWII pitcher of all time is, I’m probably going to answer “Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson”, even if they are a bit lower down there in WAR, based on dominance factors. However, awards voting is a poor way of measuring this. There are plenty of examples where the awards voters were just plain wrong in the player that they picked.
I like the second school of thought, though I want to find a way to debate it better. So, I propose three new statistics, which I will do my best to calculate some time in the next week. These statistics are xCy, xMVP and xAllStar. They represent as follow:
xCy: The top 5 pitchers in each league every season as measured by WAR.
xMVP: The top 10 hitters in each league every season as measured by WAR.
xAllStar: The best player at a given position in each league each season as measured by WAR.
So, for example Mike Mussina’s career:
- 1992 – xCy 3rd
- 1994 – xCy 3rd
- 1995 – xCy 3rd
- 2000 – xCy 3rd
- 2001 – xCy 1st
Want to argue that Mike Mussina never won a Cy Young Award? Well, he should have. And he should have finished 3rd on four separate occasions. Mussina was never so lucky, in part because he played much of his career with the Baltimore Orioles.
For Derek Jeter:
- 1998 – xMVP 2nd
- 1999 – xMVP 1st
- 2005 – xMVP 5th
- 2006 – xMVP 5th
- 2009 – xMVP 5th
Derek Jeter should have won the MVP award in 1999, and xMVP gives him credit for that. In reality, he finished 6th in voting that season.
How about Mr. Pedro?
- 1995 – xCy 8th
- 1997 – xCy 1st
- 1998 – xCy 3rd
- 1999 – xCy 1st
- 2000 – xCy 1st
- 2001 – xCy 6th
- 2002 – xCy 5th
- 2003 – xCy 2nd
- 2004 – xCy 5th
- 2005 – xCy 4th
Pedro was actually pretty well represented by voters, winning all of 1997, 1999, and 2000 and coming in 2nd in 1998 and 3rd in 2003.
You can also take these finishes and make them into one score, where 10 points is assigned for 1st place and 1 point for 10th place. For reference, Pedro would score 69 while Mussina would score 38.
These statistic aren’t meant to be a substitute for measuring longevity and dominance, but instead to substitute for actual awards voting when debating a player’s case. Hopefully I’ll assemble all the data together (my database skills aren’t all that advanced) sometime next week and be able to put out some actual rankings. Who got robbed the most from Cy Young Voters? Who got the most undeserved recognition? What does the average HOFer’s expected record look like?
I like the idea a lot. However, I will say that I think Rolen is not a great example. He was one of the 2 or 3 best at his position for a long time, particularly when you include defense. Moshe Mandel(Quote)
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EJ Fagan Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Yeah, he was just an example that comes to mind. Defense is also a really hard thing to add into this model, since we don’t have reliable indicator reaching back too many years. Another example: Johnny Damon should finished his career at a borderline HOF level of 50 WAR, but only broke the 4 WAR barrier three times, and the 5 WAR barrier once. EJ Fagan(Quote)
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Damon is a perfect example. Moshe Mandel(Quote)
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HOF criteria has been an interesting and much debated subject because there is little formal guidance given by the HOF itself. Never thought it should be strictly about numbers,whether they be old school counting milestones, rate stats or, newly derived value stats. Obviously, statistics comprise an important component and I’ ve always favored some sort of sliding scale taking into account both dominance and longevity. However, to me the HOF should take into account the historical impact of an otherwise borderline HOF player which in some instances goes beyond the numbers. I’ not saying that someone like Don Larsen or Johnny VanderMerr should make the HOF who fall far short of HOF consideration but for their day ( or two) in the sun. Howver, in the case Give two examples to try to make my point:
1- If you look at Catfish Hunter’s raw numbers – win total in the 220s, career ERA+ of just 104, relatively short peak between 1971 and 1975. On the surface maybe he falls a bit short of the HOF and in many ways is indistinguishable from Luis Tiant who is not in the HOF and is never really thought of as a serious omission.However, Catfish was the ace for the Oakland As from 1972-1974 when they won 3 WS in a row and he pitched the WS clincher for the Yankees in 1978. In these post-seasons he successfully went toe to toe with Seaver, Sutton, Lolich, the Big Red Machine, etc.. But for his contributions, I don’t how many WS victories if any those teams would have won without him. I think this has to go into the HOF calculus.
2- A somewhat different twist would be the case of Bruce Sutter. It is arguable whether Sutter’s numbers alone are enough to get him into the HOF( personally I am pro). However, what tips the balance in his favor, im my opinion, was that he was the first successful practictioner of the split fingered fastball which has become a major part of MLB for the past thirty years. Once again, I don’t know how you put a numerical value on something like this but I think it should be part of the consideration when you,consider someone.
Bill James considered some of these non- quantifiables in a list he published in the 1985 “Baseball Abstract”in the mid 1980s.
1- Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?
2- Was he the best player on his team?
3- Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?
4- Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?
5- Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?
6- Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?
7- Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?
8- Do the player’s numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?
9- Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?
10- Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?
11- How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?
12- How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?
13- If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?
14- What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?
15- Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?”
Though I recognize the limitations of WAR- 1)problems with fielding metrics,2) differences , sometimes significant, among the competing versions of WAR- I think your suggestion would be interesting attempt to put some parameters around James criteria 1-12, the statistical components. Good stuff and I’ll interested to see and comment upon your results. classicsteve(Quote)
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EJ Fagan Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:35 pm
I’m definitely a fan of the Bill James 15 questions. The new X statistics will help to answer 11-12 at least. EJ Fagan(Quote)
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Longevity or not Scott Rolen should easily be a HOFer (like Ron Santo).
And he was the best defender in baseball when he was younger. Even now with Longo and Zimmerman he stands his ground as a great fielder. Disco(Quote)
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I think you are putting a little too much stock in WAR. Neither Votto nor Hamilton nor Halladay led their leagues in WAR (b-ref’s version) but all three were overwhelming favorites even among more progressive-minded stats people. Oddly enough, Fangraphs WAR picked those three but missed the other favorite, King Felix. To say “so and so should have won the award this year based on WAR is oversimplifying. JGS(Quote)
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EJ Fagan Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Yeah, I definitely acknowledge the limitations of WAR. My biggest problem is that Fangraph’s WAR (which I also prefer) doesn’t go back very far. B-R WAR uses play by play data for defense, which is much less advanced than UZR, but its consistent all the way through the modern era. Its a bullet that I have to bite. EJ Fagan(Quote)
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