Looking over the lists - the only Hall of wWAR players in my PHoM are Tiant and McCormick. I think wWAR is right on Pete Browning, Ralph Kiner, Edd Roush and Nellie Fox. Sal Bando is loved by the new WAR systems - except Dan R's and I think Dan has some good points about why Bando is overrated.

I find it interesting that Tiant gets much more support than Munson in HoM ballots, although Tiant has less WAR than Munson. It makes me wonder if the Tiant voters are actually drawn to his candidacy for non-WAR reasons. It's fairly clear that Bando's support is largely a WAR creation.

???

Tiant is well ahead of Munson in WAR, 60-43.

What is wWAR?

Of the 49 players in the HoF who aren't in the other two constructs, how many of them were elected by the BBWAA and how many were put in by the VC? Anyone have that handy??

What is wWAR?

Clearly you haven't rushed out to your (lone remaining) bookstore and snatched up a copy of A Stutterer's Guide to WAR.

What is wWAR?

Weighted WAR - it appears to try to add some peak/prime adjustments to WAR

Weighted WAR - it appears to try to add some peak/prime adjustments to WAR

Oh great, like we needed a third stat with the same name.

Of the 49 players in the HoF who aren't in the other two constructs, how many of them were elected by the BBWAA and how many were put in by the VC? Anyone have that handy??

I don't know or care about the "Hall of wWAR", but it looks like these are the BBWAA electees not in the Hall of Merit:

Herb Pennock, Pie Traynor, Dizzy Dean, Rabbit Maranville, Lou Brock, Catfish Hunter, Tony Perez, Kirby Puckett, Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice

And now wWAR answers that eternal BBTF question:

"With Ron Santo’s induction to the Hall of Fame, the Hall of wWAR needed to also expand to 207 members. Since Santo was already in the Hall of wWAR, Frank Tanana is inducted into the Hall of wWAR."

That doesn't even affect Frank Tanana.

I wonder who's the one in the wWar and HOF and not in the HOM.

I wonder who's the one in the wWar and HOF and not in the H

Vic Willis

Vic Willis finished in the top 10 players not elected in the most recent HoM election. He's a borderline guy. It took forever for the HoF to elect him.

Since Santo was already in the Hall of wWAR, Frank Tanana is inducted into the Hall of wWAR

Tanana's an interesting case. My gut response is no, he doesn't feel like a HOFer. He pitched forever, and his record looks like that of an accumulator, not a dominant pitcher. Like Don Sutton or Tommy John, only not as good.

But he sure was a dominant pitcher for a few years before his arm gave out. That was before my time, by the time I started following baseball he was an 82 MPH junkballer.

His career breaks down like this:

Age 19-23: 1080 IP, 28.1 WAR, 131 ERA+
Age 24+ (16 years): 3100 IP, 27 WAR, 100 ERA+

So from a pure bulk value standpoint, he pitched to age 39 but still had more than 50% of his value before he turned 24. In my opinion his whole case comes from what he did up to 1977, and the remainder of his career does nothing for me as far as HOF consideration goes.

Career numbers wise, Tanana, Morris and Dennis Martinez are essentially identical triplets. Which you rank highest basically comes down to what extent you value peak (Tanana) vs. prime (Martinez) vs. je ne sais qua (Jack the Jack). I particularly like Martinez vs. Morris

JM: 254-186, 3824 IP, 105 ERA+, 175 CG, 28 ShO, 39.3 WAR, 7-4, 3.80 ERA post-season
DM: 245-193, 3999.2 IP, 106 ERA+, 122 CG, 30 ShO, 47 WAR, 2-2, 3.32 ERA post-season

From ages 32-40, Martinez had 1875 IP and a 130 ERA+. Morris's career best was 133.

Tiant is well ahead of Munson in WAR, 60-43.

Munson beats him in wWAR. I'm guessing that's what Fra meant. wWAR seems to be similar to the old BPro Pennants Added.

For those who wonder why starting pitchers are so "babied" now, meet Frank Tanana.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCI/is_10_65/ai_n27050460/

"Promoted to the majors shortly after his 20th birthday in 1973, Tanana was know for a fastball that flirted with 100 MPH. A July, 1977 arm injury that came after throwing 14 consecutive complete games caused Tanana to dramatically change his Style, and he became a crafty control artist for the next 16 seasons.

"I hurt my labrum and shoulder," Tanana said. "Back then, they didn't even know what a labrum was. My arm hurt even when I signed with the Angels. As a pitcher, it's not a matter of pain, since there is always some pain and arm soreness. What matters is if the pain is tolerable." "

Tanana was supposed to be the second coming of Herb Score and Sandy Koufax. He was on the Angels when Ryan was, too, and there was little doubt in anyone's mind who was going to have the greater career. He pitched a lot of innings at very young age. He never got to have that one magnificent season like Gooden, but expectations were similar. It's a marvel he salvage the career he did..

I wonder who's the one in the wWar and HOF and not in the HOM.

Who else? Octavio Dotel.

This reinforces my position the HOF makes far more serious errors of inclusion than errors of exclusion. I think Bagwell and Larkin are getting in eventually through the BBWAA, and the VC will probably pick up a good portion of the other neglected players eventually. You can probably count on one hand the number of HOF-only players that I'd say even merit consideration in a 200-person HOF out of 49.

Putting aside the steroid players, I'd say that there are close to 5 times as many terrible HOF selections than there are terrible HOF omissions right now (and I think at least half of the non-steroid omissions will ultimately be inducted).

Just now got a chance to read the article.

the first sentence is so ####### horribly bad that I couldn't leave it alone.

Between my own Hall of wWAR, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Baseball Think Factory's Hall of Merit, there are now three "Halls" that honor the game's best players.

Um, no, there are not three "halls" there are thousands of (individual) "halls" or two. Your phom is not a ####### option as a third hall. I mean, seriously how full of yourself would you have to be to write that first sentence? basically he is saying his personal hall of merit, is equivalent to a writers hall of merit and a analytical hall of merit, both with dozens of writers. Not even Ray Diperno is that ####### ignorant. (ok, he probably is, but actual human beings who interact with other adults, aren't that self important once they reach age 25)


So this guy starts with a premise, that his personal hof of merit is arguably equivalent to other halls that actually put more than a few hours of thought into the process.

Then he completely ignores the narrative of the hall of fame, and the history of the hall of fame (seriously, wait five years before you complain about the lack of Bagwell) For the record, Bagwell is not struggling to make the hall of fame. And of course his complaint about a top fifty player not making the hof is based strictly upon his own numbers.... If you base top "fifty" hof criteria based upon guys who go into the hof in their first ballot, then you have guys like Lou Brock or Kirby Puckett struggling to make the other halls....But for the record, as it stands right now, based upon the prior history of hof votes, Bagwell is not struggling to make the hof, he is a guy who hasn't made it in his first ballot. (who in the top 50 in wWar didn't make it into the hom? or even this guys personal hof? in their first year of eligibility?)

I mean the self sanctimonious attitude of this piece is ###### up beyond believe, these type of articles is why the msm doesn't take hard core analysis seriously. Poor writing along with weak reasoning, that pretends to be supported by facts that actually just ignores all evidence.

I mean this article's entire premise is my personal hof is correct, and I use a strict formula for figuring out the answer, and based upon my formulas these are the best, and I can't understand why the hof or hom isn't in line with my formulas. (he literally argues that his formula is the proof of the best players of all time, (here is his comment:

One would think that those would be the 144 best players of all time. Well, one would be wrong. Here is a list of the top players (by wWAR/norm) who are not in all three Halls.

his formula is by his definition the defining answer to the best of all time. Seriously this is exactly what this comment effectively says.

and crowing up about matching up with the hall of merit that just put in Rick Rueschal, isn't really something I would be that proud about.

and again, he uses his wWar argument at the end of the article to list

Here's another interesting table—the best players not in any of the Halls (the top 30):

I'm an arrogant mf, but seriously to think that his wWar is the ultimate answer to the best of all time, is beyond arrogant, straying into the typical stupid area.

Come on, now, cfb, how is what this dhimp has done really all that much further out there what's already the case and rampant all over the Internet? After all, Clay Davenport could be accused of the same thing with Equivalent Runs; so could Jim Furtado with Extrapolated Runs...we've had "competing metrics" for the way to measure "modeled runs" since the 1980s.

As for the Hall of Fame, Bill James created a set of measures and "standards" that get used to rank players. He stops short in PoG from creating his own Hall of Fame with it, which was well-advised, but his entire approach and tone in that book opened the door for others to do so. Did we think that, in such a climate, the fact that neither Sean (Forman or Smith) or the Fangraphs folks hadn't created a "metric-derived personal Hall of Fame" meant that no one else would do it? It's kind of like lighting a stick of dynamite and asking it not to go off...

CBird: most of what you're griping about (and methinks you, like many, overstate the problem) comes from the Frisch-era VC. The total number of BBWAA "bad inclusions" (this is if we decide to agree 100% with the HoM folks) is ten (thanks, DA, for posting that earlier--and thanks to Joe D. for sending it to me offline when I only had phonymail later on yesterday). The exclusions, according to the HoM, prove to be significantly higher than that--when we adjust for nineteenth century players and Negro Leaguers, plus the current active balloteers, and the two ineligibles, the BBWAA missed 29 guys.

The numbers that this guy is using, as is also the case with the HoM, are thus somewhat inflated because of the addition of players who could never have been reasonably elected by the BBWAA using the shifting voting processes that were imposed over the actual voting history. It's easy to slam the HoF for not having thought out a process like the HoM, but the actual voting "errors" are smaller in nature if you make a reasonable allowance for the historical facts. Both the HoM and the architect of "WAR for stutterers" have something of a vested interest in not doing this: the more f'ed up they can make the HoF look, the better.

Of the 29 guys that the HoM elected that the HoF hasn't, it's interesting to note which were mentioned on more than/less than 75% of the HoM ballots. (And, yes, Joe D. and all other yeoman HoM'ers, I do realize that the voting method doesn't hinge on this tally, but it's the only actual basis of comparison with the BBWAA voting.) What we find is that as we get closer to the present day, the percentage of ballots appeared on slips under 75% more often than not. Here are the two lists:

Over 75%: Allen 91%, K. Brown 85%, W. Clark 94%, Grich 87%, Groh 92%, Hack 83%, K. Hernandez 78%, Magee 92%, Sheckard 87%, T. Simmons 93%, Torre 82%, Whitaker 90%

Under 75%: Boyer 63%, Cone 68%, Da Evans 70%, Dw Evans 67%, Ferrell 65%, Freehan 65%, Keller 50%, Minoso 60%, Nettles 49%, Pierce 55%, Randolph 55%, Reuschel 68%, Saberhagen 48%, Stieb 50%, R. Smith 50%, J. Wynn 59%

Some of the deviations here have to do with the yearly fluctuations in candidate strength, an issue that's looming over the next few years of the HoF voting. But it shows two things: 1) often the HoM vote percentages for inductees do not rise up to the 75% rule used by the BBWAA and 2) this is happening with a fairly sizable number of mostly recent players.

It would be very interesting if the HoM took this sub-group and simply voted on them using BBWAA rules to see which ones would rise to the BBWAA standards. On such a ballot, with all the names on it at once, there would be likely be no one here who'd get all that close to 75% of the vote. It would make for a pretty fascinating result, however.

I would never consider players like Kiki Cuyler, Chuck Klein or Pie Traynor "errors" by the Hall of Fame voters. All are legitimately great players, they just happen to be slightly outside the current borderline. Voters in previous generations may have preferred a larger size Hall of Fame. Of course the borderline is going to be blurry. The true errors are the WTF choices like Lloyd Waner and Jack Chesbro and the errors of omission like Mize and Arky Vaughn.

The HoM kind of is voting on Minoso and Boyer in this fashion AT THIS MOMENT. They don't look likely to make it above 75%.

My guess is off that 2nd list you would have seen both Evans, Freehan and perhaps Minoso eventually make it above 75% but they were elected before they got that far. Keep in mind the HoM uses a 15 player ballot that must be filled out completely. A 10 player ballot is that much smaller.

Can anyone tell me why the HoM adopted the "top-3 get in" approach rather than 75%, or some other hard cut-off?

Looking at this list confirms for me, at least, the value of the HoM over a rote formula. The list of candidates inducted by his "system" but not in the HoM or HoF is basically just a collection of candidates that are boosted by the flaws in his system (i.e., not correctly accounting for low replacement levels in the 70's, not accounting for ease of dominance in certain eras). The HoM-not-others list is dominated by guys who, for one reason or another, are not properly represented by statistics (e.g. Charlie Keller, Lip Pike). By having lots of different voters and systems in the HoM, you cancel out the flaws and idiosyncrasies of each methodology - keeping the David Concepcions AND the Sal Bandos from election.

The Hall of Merit tried to match the number of candidates elected by the Hall of Fame as of 2001 when the project started. Not all elections were 3 per year, just all of the recent elections. We're currently debating whether to continue electing 3 per year or change that election schedule.

CBird: most of what you're griping about (and methinks you, like many, overstate the problem) comes from the Frisch-era VC. The total number of BBWAA "bad inclusions" (this is if we decide to agree 100% with the HoM folks) is ten (thanks, DA, for posting that earlier--and thanks to Joe D. for sending it to me offline when I only had phonymail later on yesterday). The exclusions, according to the HoM, prove to be significantly higher than that--when we adjust for nineteenth century players and Negro Leaguers, plus the current active balloteers, and the two ineligibles, the BBWAA missed 29 guys.

Removing the bad candidates from the HOF means you have remove that many candidates from the bottom of the HOM as well (since the HOM is sized to mirror the HOF). I'm not sure if you're doing that to get your numbers here. If the BBWAA is doing its job properly (knowing that there is a VC), it should have a more exclusive standard. BBWAA mistakes of inclusion are forever, but BBWAA mistakes of exclusion can be fixed later (and I think the most egregious ones generally do get fixed: Ron Santo is the most recent example).

Even just considering the BBWAA, 29 is still a bit high. The current balloteers aren't really fair to consider right now because they haven't completely gone through even the BBWAA's process yet. Larkin is almost certain to get in and Bagwell is also very likely. Steroids represent a somewhat different issue that is its own animal; we can't really say that the BBWAA "missed" McGwire or Palmeiro because there is some legitimacy to an argument (whether I personally agree or disagree with it) that these players might not have been worthy candidates but for PEDs. We also can't say that the BBWAA "missed" on Joe Jackson or Pete Rose.

To be completely fair, I didn't consider 19th century guys (out of sheer ignorance of that era of baseball) or NeLs (because I don't give any non-MLB credit), but I wouldn't call those players that were inducted mistakes of inclusion either.

Come on, now, cfb, how is what this dhimp has done really all that much further out there what's already the case and rampant all over the Internet?

He put his method as being along two well known established community designed methods. I have no problem with a personal hom or hof, heck I encourage that, using whatever criteria that you want to use to rank it. But a personal hall is not to be confused with being on par with a community version. Yet he acts like his is, just by reading his comments(50th best player is not in all three halls, as if his methodology is 100% right. I think you can come up with a method that would make one of the 50 best hitters of all time not in the hom or his personal hall, just rank it upon career hits and you'll get Lou Brock, Baines and others eventually---his methodology is no more the best way to rank players than just looking at career hits or total bases or whatever arbitrary method you want to choose)

As for the Hall of Fame, Bill James created a set of measures and "standards" that get used to rank players. He stops short in PoG from creating his own Hall of Fame with it, which was well-advised, but his entire approach and tone in that book opened the door for others to do so. Did we think that, in such a climate, the fact that neither Sean (Forman or Smith) or the Fangraphs folks hadn't created a "metric-derived personal Hall of Fame" meant that no one else would do it? It's kind of like lighting a stick of dynamite and asking it not to go off...

and again, I have no problem with a person with their own personal hof, but the height of arrogance is a sentence like this.

Between my own Hall of wWAR, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Baseball Think Factory's Hall of Merit, there are now three "Halls" that honor the game's best players.

Again, NO there are not three halls, there are two halls, and probably another few dozen community designed halls that have some validity in other places, and then this guy has his own pHOM, which is great and fine and dandy, but it's not to be put on par with the other two systems. That is like comparing an 1st grade baseball team to a major league and a triple a team.


I don't have a problem with his formula, or even the relatively foolishness of thinking for a second that a strict stat based design system is actually going to correctly order every single player in history (or even the top 500) It's just the utter arrogance to think his methodology has clearly identified the top 144 players, and has found some that didn't make one or the other hall.

I don't see Keith Hernandez as better than Tim Raines, and this system says that is the case(his system also doesn't account for war time missed etc. So how can it correctly identify the top 150 or so players of all time?)

and of course his comment about struggling to get in the hof for Bagwell speaks volumes about his relatively uninformed education on the matter of how the hof works and it's history. Bagwell may not get in for other reasons but only receiving 40% of the vote his first year is historically no where close to a guy struggling to get in. In fact it's pretty much a guarantee that he will go in on some future date. It's details like that, which bother me. He is criticizing something and attempting to create a better version of something, in which he seems to be massively uneducated about.(it's probably not true about his uneducation on the matter, but the article makes it look like he doesn't realize that barring steroids, Bagwell is historically a lock for the hof)

A breakdown of players not in the wWAR Hall but in the Hall of Merit:

Pioneers - pre-NA value not-captured in WAR
Start 1860/70s 1B - pioneering great
Wright 1860s/1870s ss - pioneering great
Pike 1860s OF - elected based upon pre-NA play - marginal/tough to gauge.
Pearce 1860s SS - pioneering great
McVey 1870s - not pre-NA but dominate hitter, split between C, 1B, and OF, another toughie

WW credit - huge boost
Keller 1940s OF - WWII credit
Slaughter 1940s OF - WWII credit

1800s extra credit
Galvin 1880s - SP - IA 1870s -minors - comparable to NL - weak support positional voting
Richardson 1880s 2B - 1878 IA - fine hitter split between 2B/OF
Cjones 1880s - OF slugger - voted in with blacklist credit for 1881_1882 - very low support
Griffith 1890s SP - very low support, contraction 1892 dominate in minors

WW credit - small boost - all lukewarm supported candidates
Rixey SP - 1918 WWI credit - very low support, awesome Joe Dimino's PA and WARP1-3
Doerr 1945 WWII credit - weak support
Kiner 1950s OF - WWII credit - very low support

System interpretational factors:
Groh 1910s NL star - replacement levels Dan WAR and WARP differ - show MVP caliber seasons
Sheckard 1900s OF - all-time great defender in some systems - not in WAR.
Carey 1920s OF - sublime defense/baserunning in some systems - not in WAR.

Weak candidates the electorate and I barely support:
Pierce 1950s SP - very low support, light on electees in time era, monster WPA totals
Bresnahan 1900s C - Last catcher elected
Sewell 1920s SS/3B - weakest supported shortstop

Weak candidates in WAR, aided by Win Shares/outside credit
Averill 1930s OF - weak support - 1920s PCL credit voted him in
Thompson 1890s OF - weakest supported right fielder
Roush 1910s OF - very low support, 1922 backlist/holdout credit

For many voters: mistake selections:
Fingers 1970s RP - lowest support and % votes
Fox 1950s 2B - considered worst selection by many - would need a revision of fielding prowess
Browning 1880s OF - very weak support - a slugger in weak league with poor to awful fielding

Players in the wWAR not in the Hall of Merit:
Includes his baseline figure and a total removing post season value:

Strong support from HOM electorate
Bando 3B 93 92.5 Dan R - replacement values say far off
Willis SP 85.3 85.7 Borderline case - hitting was atrocious
Bell 3B 84.2 84.2 Borderline case - unless you love DRA, in which case he definitely belongs
Tiant SP 86.3 84 70s cohort historically excellent keeping
Bonds RF 80.6 80.7 Borderline call - best through WAR lens

Challenging to place in context:
Buffinton SP 88.4 88.4 1891 competition awful - strong 1880s cohort
Munson C 90.1 86.6 Divides the HOM in/out line
Tenace C/1B 84.9 82.9 Tough to allocate catcher bonuses
Olerud 1B 84 82.7 Amazing 1B cohort - Dan R replacement levels

Demerits to league strength/cheating - limited HOM support
Mullane SP 88.7 88.7 45 ft era 1882-1889 weaker league
King SP 82.8 82.8 45 ft era 1887-1889 weak leagues
McCormick SP 78.6 78.6 45 ft era Awful 1884 Union Association
Cicotte SP 79.5 78.6 Discounts to 1919/20 seasons

A smidge over the wwar line - limited HOM support
Cedeno CF 76.6 77.2
Hershiser SP 82.3 77 No postseason in HOM
Appier SP 76.7 76.9
Wood SP 76.7 76.7
Tanana SP 76.2 76.6