hall of fame, next vote...

when FG and BR synchronized their replacement level or w/e it added/subtracted like 8+ WAR to some players, and we still don't have a grasp on UZR before 2002 (or 1B/C UZR at any point), and we can't even decide on ERA or FIP for pitchers, urgh

xp

i don't really know what you're sarcasming at ZS

obv didn't mean WAR per plate appearance but WAR per 600-or-so plate appearances, etc

seeing as WAR per year wouldn't know the difference between a cup of coffee at age 20 and a full season at 30

changing the denominator wouldn't matter xp

ZS was just goofing tho i think

oh, i'm just sarcasming at no one in particular, sorry!

but yeah, if there was going to be a WAR/time stat, i think WAR/AB would actually work. or maybe (WAR/AB) x 100, just to make things less decimalized. if you average 5 WAR per 500 AB, that would leave you with a (WAR/AB) x 100 of 1.0. or WARservicegoamericawarisgood for short. of course it would be totally meaningless in small samples. but that's also true of tons of baseball statistics. when pete kozma was jesus for the last month of 2012, only total fucking idiots who nonetheless filled the airwaves of sportstalkradio believed that it meant anything.

god, if you think my sarcasming is insufferable tonight (and it is, i know), you should have had a conversation with someone last winter in STL who thought pete kozma was actually good. it honestly felt like a circle of hell, i couldn't help but try to scratch my skin off

Probably WAR/PA would be the way to go.

the main point of WAR and all other non pitcher-win numbers is to laugh at Jack Morris For the HOF ppl.

Can you name the MLB hitters who produced the most WAR per plate appearance?

No idea if this is accurate but i guess someone was thinking about it...

if you somehow actually "get" all 20 of them, you're an insane person

i typed in number 17 as a joke and it was right

i only got 11, missed some really obvious ones (a.m. brainlessness)

#17 & 18 were hardest. I suspect #17 will fall out of the top 20 before long.

actually his yearly totals are still pretty high! Good thing he misses 30-50 games every year.

wish i could give it a shot but the website is blocked at my work. is there a minimum PA requirement, or is it just straight up WAR/PA?

doesnt specify min PA, just B-R as a source

Only 14/20, but no wrong guesses. Missed #12, #14 (surprised), #15 (should have had it), #16 (a guy who probably gets overlooked a lot), #17 (yeah, shocking), and #20 (team sort of threw me off, but I guess that's the best designation).

got 15/20, dumbest omission was aaron. kept trying to put "jones" for braves

there must be a minimum PA or WAR or else you'd think trout (or puig) would be #1

The first name I typed was "Henry Aaron," got nothing, gave up, said "just give me the fucking names already." Oh, you wanted HANK Aaron?!

just figured it out and trout would actually be a distant second, with 13.96, just ahead of bonds. that baby ruth lady was good

those gams were so nice

you can just type the last name, geez. its like yall have never sporcled before.

18/20. Missed #17 and 18.

I was looking at the career leaders in XBH, and a benchmark that's close to infallible (if you adjust for one thing) in predicting induction is 1,000 XBH. Thirty-five guys have done it (Helton ended up two short). Of those 35, a) 21 are in the HOF, b) 6 will go in for sure (Pujols, Griffey, Thomas, Chipper, Biggio, Thome), and another 6 almost certainly would have gone in if not for other factors (Rose + 5 PED guys). That leaves Sheffield, who could be added to the 5 PED guys--I'm not 100% sure if he would have made it minus PEDs--and Luis Gonzalez, who was never going to go in regardless of PED suspicion. Ortiz is at 969, so barring sudden free-fall, he'll cross 1,000 with room to spare.

At that point, he either joins the 6 sure-things, the 5 who are in limbo, or Luis Gonzalez as the second (or third, if you count Sheffield) 1,000-XBH guy who's not in the HOF because he wasn't considered good enough.

That's all clear, right?

I hedged on including Thome in the sure-things, but I think I was over-compensating for the fact he comes out of the offensive boom years. When you look at his career box, he's got the HOF covered a number of different ways. And if he's in that category of vague-suspicion with Bagwell and Piazza, so be it. I'm positive Bagwell and Piazza are going in within the next 2-4 years--I know people want them in right now, but they're both near 60%, they will go in shortly.

I'd never noticed this post before:

The funny thing about Morris, as I recall, is that he always seemed to pitch just good enough to stay ahead. If his team had 7 runs he'd give up 6 and if his boys only managed 1 run he'd throw a shut-out. It was the weirdest thing.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 23 December 2004 03:07 (8 years ago)

So that's where that theory started!

(And since Sutter and Candy Cummings are in the Hall for inventing pitches, I now elect Thermo for inventing one of the key theories of our time.)

Jack Morris says he would've had a better ERA if he'd been asked to

bonus reference to murray chass as a 'blogger'

Long five-part James article on the expansion ballot, behind the paywall. I'll skip to the last paragraph:

My ballot: 1. Joe Torre (yes), 2. Bobby Cox (yes), 3. George Steinbrenner (yes), 4. Tony La Russa (yes), 5. Dan Quisenberry (yes), 6. Dave Parker (maybe), 7. Ted Simmons (maybe not), 8. Billy Martin (maybe not right now), 9. Steve Garvey (probably not), 10. Tommy John (I’m afraid not), 11. Dave Concepcion (no). Marvin Miller...certainly not right now; we can talk about it in a few years.

(His stance on Miller has only to do with Miller's expressed wish not to be inducted, not that he doesn't deserve to be inducted.)

Team success mattered more to Jeff Kent than HOF candidacy

o rly

http://deadspin.com/deadspin-buys-hall-of-fame-vote-will-turn-it-over-to-d-1467003665

lol have you ever seen a big internet poll on HOF voting? if they're going for 75% of the readers they'll be sending in a blank ballot. strds players still probably won't make 50%. and "deadspin readers" isn't some special, 'intelligent' fanbase it's like 50 billion people

Neyer on process, logjam etc

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/11/27/5151640/baseball-hall-fame-ballot-candidates-deadspin-2014-bbwaa

Posnanski's "48,384th" Jack Morris post:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/more-more-morris-2/#comments

Reader comment: "Bo Jackson is famous. Jose Canseco is famous. Bill Buckner is famous. They're all more famous than Eddie Matthews. Don't get distracted by the word 'fame' in 'Hall of Fame.' It leads you to lousy places."

I do, on occasion, give a tiny bit of weight to fame. I'm not consistent, and I probably couldn't even articulate when I think it applies. I'd give Billy Martin a little credit, for example. But yeah, lousy places.

looking at the ballot, there are 18 guys I might throw a vote too. Don't think it will happen tbh but i wouldn't be surprised to see Maddux lose a few votes bc some folks want to save votes for guys they're worried would fall off the ballot. also I'm 50/50 on whether anyone besides Maddux will make it.

Assuming you'd vote for Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Mussina, and Kent from this year's group, which added to last year's holdovers would total 22. So you'd eliminate Mattingly, Lee Smith, Morris, and...McGriff maybe?

Those 5+ biggio, bagwell, piazza, raines, schilling, clemens, bonds, martinez, trammell, walker, mcgriff, mcgwire, sosa, palmeiro

so 19. I guess if I had to stick to ten: maddux, glavine, thomas, biggio, bagwell, piazza, raines, bonds, trammell, clemens. some strategic voting there.

Glavine and Kent - personally would not vote for. Muss - I'm on the fence on.

xpost

i'd be happy if the HOF argument over the next 5-10 years expanded to included "let's stop underrating pitchers who didn't have pristine ERAs in the hardest pitching era maybe ever and let's stop overrating hitters in the same era"

mussina is way more deserving than many of these high OBP/HR 1Bs/corner OFs

if maddux & glavine dont go in together im gonna chimp out

Reader comment from the same Posnanski post, the prime years of two pitchers:

Pitcher A (10 seasons): 335 GS, 173-112, 2471 IP, 3.55 ERA, 114 ERA+, 1.24 WHIP, 36.4 WAR, 0 Cy Young Awards, 1 IP title, 1 AL K title

Pitcher B (12 seasons): 348 GS, 175-96, 2468 IP, 3.15 ERA, 131 ERA+, 1.20 WHIP, 59.9 WAR, 1 Cy Young Award, 1 IP title, 3 straight years of leading MLB in K

"A" is Morris, "B" is David Cone.

I'd normally agree with al leong that no one except Maddux gets through this time, deserving or not--the vote's going to be split so many ways, 75% looks more like 90%--but I think there will be a desire to see Maddux and Glavine go in together, and that might be enough to push Glavine over.

plus possibility cox goes in also.

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/no-100-curt-schilling/

this looks like it will be fun

Just came to post about that. I've voted in a few different polls on his site, but it looks like this list is entirely his own.

You'll be very happy, Kevin, when--I bet--Trout checks in at about #37.

wtf are u not seeing about Mussina, TT

equal to Glavine, played w/ a lotta shitty defenses, as Schoenfeld said today

@TomGlavine
Congrats Bobby Cox on your HOF induction, so proud to have played for you, your the best

#your

@Buster_ESPN 40m
Don Fehr on Marvin Miller/HOF vote: "Marvin should have been elected to the Hall many years ago. It is a sad and sorry state of affairs..."

@Haudricourt 2m
We were told Marvin Miller received six or fewer votes for HOF. Coincidentally, there are six former players on the Expansion Era committee.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BbDwxR0IQAAOU-M.jpg