Some ideas about HOF Ballot inclusion

[Michael1]

The topic was broached before the hacker(s) wiped out all Speaker and Wilson records and other forum stuff so here is my thoughts on what is needed for ballot inclusion.

Batters any 3 of the following. 10 years playing time. 400 HR, 1500 RBI, 2300 H, 1300 RS, 350 SB, 2GG, 5AS, or 5 WS apps.

Pitchers 2GG, 5AS, 5 WS apps, or 2 Cys or Fireman, 10 years playing time, 200 W, 400 SV, 3.30 ERA or below, and below 1.30 WHIP.

I have noticed in dozens of times I have posted different ballots that anyone under 400 saves has no chance and that most voters will leave closers off the ballot because they just don't like saves as a stat. They also don't care about the Fireman award as it is the outdated Rolaids formula. Now the batter numbers are lofty but they average out over 15 seasons to be 27 HR 100 RBI 153 Hits 87 RS 23 SB.

I am also open to nominations but they would need two owners to do so. Before I publish the November ballot I will put out a list of near misses for nomination. Let me know where you all are at on the ballot inclusion numbers. This is the 18th year of the league and we don't have mega amounts of superstars in the leader lists.

[sixcd]

These work for me -- this is basically what my baselines were for the HWL

[Rutgers92]

Do we want to add MVPs and a percentage category for the hitters (BA)?

[Michael1]

I would be game for MVP's but batting average is relative to AB a player who bats 600 times and gets 153 hits has a .255 while one who has 500 AB hits .306. Of Course some like AVG as a bar. And some even like win pct for pitchers but again averages being what they are it is relative.

[Eaz34]

Again milestones dont tell the story.
You need to look at ba , ops, obp.
Take the players 5 best seasons, were they hof seasons?
Saves are overrated. 1 out = sv

[Michael1]

as I said nominations will be taken and will need a second. PlaYERS that hit those numbers will usually have high numbers in the averages. This site won't list all time leaders in averages until 5000 ab's. So I don't look there. what you all use after the inclusion is up to you.

[TRicc21]

I would suggest if you want guys in that are on the bubble, and you feel strongly about them, start having conversations during voting about what does or doesn't set them apart. Total body of work matters to me. I wouldn't automatically disqualify a guy for only playing 10 years, but most HOF caliber players should be playing a minimum of 12-15 years. Everything is relative. 2300 hits in 10 seasons are Ichiro numbers, but we have 13 active players with 2300 hits and they are not all HOF worthy. I think you also have to consider how dominant a player was in his era relative to his competition. For example, catchers should have lower milestones than first basemen due to getting less AB's.

I will never dismiss any save. Save conversion % is just as important to me (as long as you are talking about 400+ saves with a relatively low era and whip). If not, why is your HOF reliever only a setup guy? or middle relief? If so, he needs to be dealing with a career 2.70 era, a 1.10 whip, and 10 K/9. What else can you judge him on? W/L? I understand your point, but with limited info to show how clutch he might be, there is only so much you can use to judge a reliever. If you do think one out saves are cheap, as long as you also penalize starting pitchers for winning a game 12-10 (cheap win) or RBI's because it was a SF (cheap RBI's) and bunts (cheap hits) then I guess that makes sense. Nobody's will ever sneak into the HOF as a master of one out saves. If a closer has 450 saves, 150 blown saves, an era of +4.50, and a whip of +1.50, he was probably at least a 4 or 5 time "all-star" and won a fireman award or 2 on this game. I will not vote for him because he wasn't an elite closer. He was just around for a long time and most likely on a really good team. My automatic HOF milestones are higher to eliminate good players who just happened to play more seasons than the average Joe.

My final thought is Ted Williams and Ty Cobb never won a WS. Ernie Banks, Rod Carew, and Ken Griffey Jr. never even appeared in a WS. We have access to post season stats. I would look at how guys performed on that stage rather than judging them on how good/lucky their team was.

[Michael1]

Good points above. These numbers I threw out are for inclusion on the ballot. I don't think we need the Cooperstown mega ballots with every player who played ten years on them but if you want to wade through flotsam I can do that. There is no good way as stated above to measure clutch for a RP, the guy who comes in in the 6th gets one out to keep the game tied and the team gets the lead next AB and he is replaced is not as good as the SP who goes 8-9 every start and always gets a decision one way or the other. I agree Catchers are a special case and since they play about 15% less games I can adjust for that. We can look at the past standings but some teams suck so bad that stats get inflated against them but top 3 teams hold you to fewer than 5 runs scored a game. You also don't know if that Long B or Middle B guy was getting shelled in football score games or just had seasons where every APP was fuel to the fire.