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Voting closed on 12/31/2022 for the 2023 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, so we are in the period of eagerly awaiting the announcement of the results on 1/24/2023. In this post I will break down the players on the 2023 Hall of Fame ballot in 3 different ways, as applicable:
For those of you that are new and unfamiliar with my Hall of Fame predictive model and my Player Value metric, I will give a brief overview of them here. If you're already aware of these or don't care about the details as much, feel free to skip ahead to the specific sections for each player instead. Note that the the predictive model can be applied in two ways:
From a predictive analytics standpoint, the initial model is more accurate. The dataset's variables were trimmed down based on their correlation with other variables and their Hall of Fame predictability, based on the data in the initial dataset. The range of values used to tune the model's parameters to their optimal values was also based upon the initial model and dataset. The initial model had an AUC of .9817. AUC stands for Area Under the Curve and is essentially just a measure of accuracy for classification models. That's what we have here, because we are classifying players as either Hall of Famers or not Hall of Famers. A 'perfect' model would have an AUC of 1, while a random guess, coin flip model would have an AUC of 0.5. The fact that the initial model's AUC is so close to 1 is a testament to its quality. From a historical and baseball standpoint, you might think of the updated model as more accurate. It is the model whose training dataset is up to date, after all. It is aware of the Hall of Fame results from last year and December, and the induction of those players should logically have an impact in its decisions of which players to approve this year. However, this updated model has a lower AUC of .9425. When I used the model to predict the players on the 2023 Era Committee ballot, updating it with the 2022 results made it worse, giving it an AUC of .9286. This means that telling the model that Oliva, Minoso, Hodges, and technically Ortiz were Hall of Famers made it worse. However, as we can see here via the since improvement in AUC, telling the model that McGriff was a Hall of Famer made it better. The model uses 5 classes of predictors:
Lastly, remember that the final model is an ensemble of 4 different submodels. So while the overall model may not predict a player as a Hall of Famer, specific submodels might. This ensemble technique results in a final model that is more accurate than any of the individual submodels. You can read about my initial creation of my Player Value metric here, as well as an important addendum here. Note however that I've been doing further research into my Player Value weights using play by play data from Retrosheet, so the ones I used in this post are slightly updated, as detailed below: Run value weights for the relevant pitching events: non-Home Run Hit: -.43 runs Home Run: -1.29 runs Unintentional Walk: -.21 runs Intentional Walk: -.05 runs Hit By Pitch: -.23 runs Sacrifice Bunt: .12 runs Sacrifice Fly: .05 runs Strikeout: .33 runs Groundball Double Play: .70 runs Other Out: .30 runs Wild Pitch: -.27 runs Balk: -.26 runs Run value weights for the relevant defensive events: Putout by a non catcher or first baseman: .30 runs Unassisted Putout by a first baseman: .30 runs Non-strikeout Putout by a catcher: .30 runs Assisted Putout by a first baseman: .2*.30 = .06 runs Strikeout Putout by a catcher: .33*.30 = .099 runs Assist: .8*.30 = .24 runs Error: -.38 runs Double Play: .11 runs Passed Ball: -.26 runs Stolen Base allowed by catcher: -.18 runs Caught Stealing by catcher: .37 runs Run value weights for the relevant offensive events: Single: .35 runs Double: .64 runs Triple: .92 runs Home Run: 1.29 runs Unintentional Walk: .21 runs Intentional Walk: .05 runs Hit By Pitch: .23 runs Sacrifice Bunt: -.12 runs Sacrifice Fly: -.05 runs Strikeout: -.33 runs Groundball Double Play: -.70 runs Other Out: -.30 runs These weights are not pulled out of thin air, but rather mathematically determined based on the historical effect that each event has on a player's probability of scoring. For hitting, this is not that dissimilar from wOBA, although I emphasis scoring probability rather than run expectancy, I utilize more baseball events in the calculation, and I use a constant weight over time based on all available data rather than a weight that changes each year based on each year's data. Overall, Player Value is basically my version of WAR that I think is simpler and more logical in its application over time. The main differences are that I don't convert runs to wins, I use the 25th percentile as the baseline rather than a theoretical replacement level, and I compare players to their position in all aspects of the game, rather than comparing them by position defensively but to the league overall offensively. Because of this, there is no need for a positional adjustment. Lastly, I compute players fielding, baserunning, and pitching components much more similar to how I compute their batting components. The other components of WAR vary greatly in how they are calculated compared to the batting component of WAR. Baseball Reference currently has listed that there have been 22,860 players in MLB history. There are currently 269 former players in the Hall of Fame. Both of these totals include players that played in the Negro Leagues. This means that just the top 1.18% of players get inducted into the Hall. This will serve as our baseline for whether a player should be a Hall of Famer according to Player Value. For position players, I will be comparing players during the span when the AL had a DH and the NL did not, from 1973-2021. There were 4,737 such position players during this span, so position players must rank in the top 57 to be worthy of the Hall. For pitchers, I'll go ahead and use that same span. From 1973-2021, there were 5,248 pitchers, so pitchers must rank in the top 62 to be worthy of the Hall. Carlos Beltran, CF (1998-2017) I've stated this before, but I think reaching 3,000 hits or 500 home runs automatically qualify a position player for Hall of Fame induction, unless they obviously used steroids. Beltran did not achieve either of these, but he came close for both, amassing 2,725 hits and 434 homers in his career. Among primarily centerfielders, that's good for the 9th most hits all-time, behind 5 Hall of Famers, and the 5th most homers all-time, behind 4 Hall of Famers. Using Stathead, we can see that across all positions, just 22 players in MLB history have reached at least 2,700 hits and 400 home runs. Of those 22, just 7 are currently not in the Hall of Fame. Two of those 7 used steroids and have been voted off the ballot (Bonds and Palmeiro), 1 used steroids and is still on the ballot (A-Rod), 3 have yet to appear on the ballot and are virtual Hall of Fame locks (Pujols, Cabrera, Beltre), and the last is Beltran. Given that Beltran didn't use steroids, I don't think I need to say much more, at least on the basis of his numbers alone. Nonetheless, I'll discuss his numbers a little more. Beltran's career WAR of 70.1 is the 8th most all-time among primarily centerfielders, behind 7 Hall of Famers and the currently active great of Mike Trout. If we look at his JAWS of 57.3, which considers both his 7-year peak WAR and his career WAR, he falls a spot to 9th, but the guy that passed him is another Hall of Famer in Duke Snider. Beltran's 1,587 RBI ranks him 5th among CF, behind 4 HoFers. His 1,582 runs scored ranks him 10th among CF, behind 6 HoFers. While his 312 career stolen bases may not seem excessively impressive to you (just 45th all-time among CF), he amassed that many while only being caught stealing 49 times. Every CF with more steals than him was caught stealing more times. Beltran was truly an excellent base stealer. He has the 4th highest career stolen base percentage of all-time across all positions, according to Baseball Reference's leaderboard qualifications. And he stole more bases than the 3 guys ahead of him on that list combined. In terms of accolades, Beltran was a 9 time All-Star, tied for the 7th most among CF behind 5 HoFers and Trout. He also won 3 Gold Gloves, 2 Silver Sluggers, and was the 1999 Rookie of the Year. He never won an MVP, but finished in the top 10 in voting twice. Beltran was also a member of the 2017 Word Series champion Houston Astros, which is the only slight source of reason to exclude him from Cooperstown. The Astros that season were of course caught up in a sign-stealing scandal that resulted in the suspensions of their GM and manager for the 2020 season (both of whom got fired), a $5 million fine, and the loss of their 1st and 2nd round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. The bench coach was determined to be the mastermind of the operation, and was suspensed for the 2020 postseason (although he also was fired, but then rehired). Beltran was also named in MLB's report, which prevented him from being the Mets' manager in 2019. I obviously do not support the Astros' actions in 2017 but do not think they are enough to exclude Beltran from Cooperstown. The punishments that the MLB dealt out were not extreme enough to me to justify a Hall of Fame exclusion. Pete Rose isn't in the Hall because he was literally banned from baseball by the commissioner. None of the Astros' players were banned, suspended, or even fined. We aren't talking about the 1919 Black Sox here. The Astros' title remains with them. And the sign-stealing doesn't appear to really be the reason why the Astros were good, either. The Astros have been a dynasty for a while now, even after the scandal has come to the public eye, winning the AL pennant in 2019 and 2021 and the World Series again this past year. They won their division in 2018 and made it to the ALCS in 2020. Beltran was in his final season and had a negative WAR in 2017, so he certainly didn't personally benefit on the field that much. Beltran, albeit a seasoned veteran, was still just a player on the team, not the ultimate leader of the team. Brian McCann supposedly asked him to stop. The hitting coach claims Beltran was a leader of the operation, while Carlos Correa claims he wasn't. I digress. I just don't think the scandal had a big enough impact on Beltran's career or the quality of the Astros as a team to merit it as a reason from preventing him getting into Cooperstown. The initial version of the Hall of Fame predictive model predicts Beltran as a Hall of Famer, giving him a 72.73% probability of being a Hall of Famer. Given that the voting approval rate is 75% though, one might believe that Beltran won't be good enough. Of course, the model isn't aware of his ties to the 2017 sign stealing scandal, so it will overpredict his probability in light of that lack of information. Some voters are certaintly docking him for his involvement. All 4 of the submodels give Beltran a greater than 50% probability of being a Hall of Famer. The updated version of the Hall of Fame predictive model also predicts Beltran as a Hall of Famer, giving him a 81.65% probability of being a Hall of Famer. This shoots him up over the 75% line, but recall that the updated model is less accurate. All 4 of the submodels give Beltran a greater than 50% probability of being a Hall of Famer. Beltran's total Player Value of 416.4 ranks 38th among position players from 1973-2021, above Darrell Evans and below Willie Randolph (perhaps two highly underrated players, as neither is in the Hall). With 4737 position players during that span, Beltran is among the top 0.80% of players, good enough to merit induction. His Batting Value of 284.8 ranks 41st, above Ellis Burks and behind Andrew McCutchen. His Fielding Value of 108.7 ranks 197th, above Mike Lowell and behind Mike Benjamin. His Baserunning Value of 23.0 also ranks 21st, above Barry Bonds and below Ron Leflore. So all you crazy Bonds fans out there that like to hype him being the only 400+ homer and 400+ stolen base guy in history, note that Beltran also had 400+ homers and his base stealing was more impressive when you consider his position and how many times he was caught stealing. Beltran had a 60+ Player Value season in 2006 when he finished 4th for the NL MVP and posted his highest WAR season of 8.2, as well as three other 50+ Player Value seasons and two other 40+ Player Value seasons. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Hall of Famer Player Value: Hall of Famer Andruw Jones, CF (1996-2012) Jones is in his 6th year on the ballot, and I already advocated for his induction last year. He doesn't meet the 500 homer mark, but he's close with 434. That puts him just 1 home run behind Beltran for 6th most all-time among centerfielders, with 4 Hall of Famers ahead of them in Mays, Griffey Jr., Mantle, and Dawson. The rest of Jones' traditional counting stats don't stack up as well among CF given his shortened career that ended at age 35. His WAR of 62.7 ranks 14th among CF, behind 10 Hall of Famers, Trout, Beltran, and Kenny Lofton. I like all of those guys for the Hall. His JAWS of 54.6 ranks even better at 11th among CF, behind 7 Hall of Famers and the aforementioned 3 players. What really puts Jones over the top is his stellar fielding. His 10 Gold Gloves are tied for the 3rd most among outfielders with Ichiro, Al Kaline, and Ken Griffey Jr. Two of these dudes are Hall of Famers, and the other one surely will be once he reaches the ballot in 2025. The two outfielders with more Gold Gloves are Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays with 12 each. WAR agrees with Jones' fielding ability as well. His Rfield of 235 is the 4th most all-time across all positions, and the most all-time among outfielders. If basically every centerfielder with as many HRs or as many Gold Gloves as Jones is in the Hall of Fame, shouldn't Jones be as well? Not to mention him rating as the greatest defensive outfielder ever, according to WAR... Jones had a domestic violence incident in 2012. Voters have used such incidents as reasons not to vote for Omar Vizquel and Francisco Rodriguez, but have been seemingly ignoring Jones', given his much higher percentage of votes received. The initial Hall of Fame predictive model does not predict Jones as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 25.01%. However, one of the four initial submodels does predict Jones as a Hall of Famer. That was the least accurate of the initial submodels though, with an AUC of .9493. The updated Hall of Fame predictive model also does not predict Jones as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 10.32%. Now, none of the four updated submodels predict Jones as a Hall of Famer. For his career, Jones had a total Player Value of 334.9, which ranks 65th among position players from 1973-2021. I have 4737 players on record for that span, meaning Jones is in the top 1.37% during the period, just slightly off Hall of Fame pace. He sits above non-Hall of Famer Buddy Bell and below Hall of Famer Tim Raines. His Batting Value of 177.9 ranks 112th, ahead of Pedro Guerrero but behind Jose Altuve. His Fielding Value of 157.8 ranks 83rd, above defensive great Mark Belanger but behind Robby Thompson (note that Belanger's first season was in 1965, so part of his value is cut off here). Jones had four impressive 40+ Player Value seasons and another 39 Player Value season. In 2005 when he finished 2nd in the NL MVP voting, his Player Value of 44.0 ranks just 9th in the NL. In 2000 when he posted his highest WAR season of 8.2 and finish 8th in the NL MVP voting, his Player Value of 47.2 (also his highest season) ranks just 10th in the NL. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jeff Kent, 2B (1992-2008) Kent is in his 10th and final year on the ballot, and he was on my hypothetical ballot last year as well. His 377 home runs are the most by a second baseman in history. Cano is active (and used steroids) and ranks 2nd with 335, while players 3-6 are all in Cooperstown. The all-time catcher HR leader is Mike Piazza with 427, who is in the Hall of Fame. The all-time first base HR leader is Albert Pujols with 703, who will surely be in the Hall, and Hall of Famer Jim Thome is 2nd with 612. The all-time third base HR leader is Mike Schmidt with 548, who is in the Hall. The all-time shortstop HR leader is A-Rod with 696, who would surely be in the Hall if not for steroids, and technically still has a chance as he's still on the ballot. Hall of Famer Ernie Banks is 2nd with 512. The all-time left field HR leader is Bonds with 762, who would surely be in the Hall if not for steroids. The same is true for 2nd place Manny Ramirez at 555, who still has a shot since he's still on the ballot. Hall of Famer Ted Williams is 3rd with 521. The all-time center field HR leader is Hall of Famer Willie Mays with 660. The all-time right field HR leader is Hall of Famer Hank Aaron with 755. Every single positional HR leader that did not use steroids is in the Hall of Fame, besides Jeff Kent. Kent's 1,518 RBI ranks 3rd all-time among second basemen, behind Hall of Famers Nap Lajoie and Rogers Horsnby. His 2,461 hits are 13th all-time among second basemen, behind 10 Hall of Famers, the technically active and steroid using Cano, and the notable compiler Julio Franco (who played until he was 48). Kent's 1,320 runs scored rank 12th all-time among second basemen, behind 10 Hall of Famers and Lou Whitaker, who absolutely should be in Cooperstown. His 560 doubles rank 5th all-time among second basemen, behind 3 Hall of Famers and Cano. You get the picture. Kent was one of the best hitting second basemen ever. Defensively, Kent wasn't stellar, but not enough to jeopardize his candidacy in my opinion. He never won any Gold Gloves, and his Rfield of -42 is the 22nd worst all-time among second basemen. But Hall of Famer Joe Morgan ranks even worse with an Rfield of -48. Morgan won 5 Gold Gloves, so there is some disconnect there. Kent was the 2000 MVP, a 5 time All-Star, and a 4 time Silver Slugger. Just 15 second basemen have won an MVP in history, and 11 of them are in the Hall of Fame. The initial Hall of Fame model does not predict Kent as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 20.54%. None of the four initial submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. The updated Hall of Fame model also does not predict Kent as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 14.47%. None of the four updated submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. Kent's total Player Value of 463.8 ranks 28th among position players from 1973-2021, above Hall of Famer Larry Walker and below Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar. With 4737 players in that span, Kent ranks in the top 0.59% of players, clearly good enough for induction. His Batting Value of 324.6 ranks 31st, above Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell and behind Lance Berkman. His Fielding Value of 148.0 disproves the notion from WAR that he was a poor defender. He ranks 96th, above Jose Molina and behind Jim Edmonds. Kent posted two 50+ Player Value seasons and four 40+ Player Value seasons. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Hall of Famer Scott Rolen, 3B (1996-2012) I would have voted for Rolen last year if I had a vote, who is now on his 6th year on the ballot. Rolen is one of the best defensive third basemen in history, as his 8 Gold Gloves rank him 4th all-time among third basemen behind Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt, and the still active Nolan Arenado. WAR agrees too, as his Rfield of 175 ranks 12th all-time across all positions. Defense may be the driver of Rolen's case, but he certainly wasn't Mark Belanger. He hit 316 home runs, amassed 2,077 hits, and his 517 doubles rank 6th all-time among third basemen, behind 4 Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre. His 7 All-Star appearances ties him for 12th all-time among third basemen with Hall of Famers Paul Molitor and Edgar Martinez (who both were also largely DHs), and behind 8 other Hall of Famers. WAR is also high on Rolen, as he ranks 10th among third basemen at 70.1 behind 8 Hall of Famers and Beltre. The same is true for his JAWS of 56.9. Rolen also won a Silver Slugger and was the 1997 Rookie of the Year. It is my opinion that any player that is one of the best defenders at his position in history, and is still a very competent batter, deserves a spot in Cooperstown. That logic applies to both Jones and Rolen. The initial Hall of Fame model does not predict Rolen as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 14.15%. None of the four initial submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. The updated Hall of Fame model also does not predict Rolen as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 16.96%. None of the four updated submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. Rolen's total Player Value of 410.0 ranks 40th among position players from 1973-2021, above Mark McGwire and behind Darrell Evans. With 4737 players in this span, that puts Rolen in the top 0.84% of players, good enough for induction. His Batting Value of 216.5 ranks 73rd, above Ron Cey and behind Paul Goldschmidt. His Fielding Value of 192.0 ranks 50th, above Fernando Vina and behind DJ LeMahieu. Rolen had just two 50+ Player Value seasons and one 40+ Player Value season, but four seasons in the middle to upper 30s and another four seasons in the 20s. His best was his 57.4 Player Value season in 2004, when he finished 4th for the NL MVP with a 9.2 WAR, also the highest of his career. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Hall of Famer Todd Helton, 1B (1997-2013) Helton is in his 5th year on the ballot, and would've gotten my vote last year. He has decent accolades with 5 All-Star games, 4 Silver Sluggers, and 3 Gold Gloves, but those alone aren't enough to merit his induction. What does are his career stats and his similarities to other current Hall of Famers. Two of the more recent inductions to the Hall were Edgar Martinez and Larry Walker. Let's see how Helton stacks up compared to these two Hall of Famers:
If the top 2 guys are Hall of Famers, why shouldn't Helton be? His rate stats are extremely comparable, not to mention amassing more runs scored, hits, doubles, and RBI. Martinez was primarily a DH, another position that most people think requires less defensive ability (like first base). Walker also played in Colorado for most of his career, so both him and Helton have the infamous "Coors effect". Helton did play his entire career for the Rockies, however, while Walker played just 10 seasons. OPS+ considers park effects and has Helton at 133, meaning he was still 33% above league average for his career after considering the impact of Coors. Among first basemen with at least 9000 plate appearances that ranks 13th, behind 10 Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers Pujols and Cabrera. Helton's road OPS of .855 would rank 58th all-time among first basemen, and his overall OPS ranks 10th among first basemen behind 8 Hall of Famers and the steroid using Mark McGwire. He ranks 15th in RBI among first basemen behind 11 Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and the steroid using Rafael Palmeiro. He ranks 4th in doubles behind recent Hall of Famer David Ortiz, and then again Pujols and Cabrera. He ranks 7th in OBP among first basemen, behind 5 Hall of Famers. If Coors was such a thing for Helton, we'd be complaining about his larger HR totals. Homers aren't nearly the crux of Helton's Hall of Fame argument. A bigger part is his ability to walk and get on base, something that parks have no impact on. He ranks 12th all-time among first basemen with 1,335, behind 7 Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famer Pujols (and maybe Votto), and steroid users Palmeiro and Jason Giambi. Helton's career OBP ranks 29th all-time across all positions, behind 21 Hall of Famers, the active Mike Trout, steroid using Barry Bonds, the banned Shoeless Joe Jackson, and a few earlier generation players that had far less plate appearances than Helton. According to WAR, Helton was also one of the best defensive first basemen of all-time. His Rfield of 76 ranks 8th among players that spent at least 50% of their time at first. His WAR of 61.8 ranks 17th among first basemen, behind 11 Hall of Famers, future HoFers Pujols and Cabrera, the active Joey Votto, and the steroid users of McGwire and Palmeiro. His JAWS of 54.2 bumps him up to 15th, putting him ahead of Eddie Murray and McGwire. And for all you Reds fans out there, Helton getting inducted would just be another step in the right direction for a player like Joey Votto having a shot at induction. His career numbers will likely end up very similar to the 3 mentioned above. The initial Hall of Fame model predicts Helton as a Hall of Famer, giving him a solid probability of 72.89%. However, that would still be below the 75% approval rating needed to actually be inducted. All four of the initial submodels give Helton a greater than 50% probability of being a Hall of Famer. The updated Hall of Fame model also predicts Helton as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 54.15%. While this is enough for Helton to be a "yes" to the model, it's now even further beneath the 75% voter approval required. Notably, now only two of the updated submodels give Helton a greater than 50% probability of being a Hall of Famer. Helton is simply put a Player Value darling. His WAR of 61.8 is impressive and somewhat highlights his greatness more so than his accolades or counting stats might, but his Player Value of 698.5 is even more impressive. Since the introduction of the DH in the AL in 1973 and up through 2021, that Player Value ranks him 5th among all players, behind Barry Bonds (1095.4), Alex Rodriguez (820.4), Mike Schmidt (787.9), and Rickey Henderson (767.4). Yes, you read that right: according to Player Value, Todd Helton is the best first baseman and the 5th best player overall since 1973. By comparison, Helton's WAR is only the 53rd best since 1973, and interestingly enough the top 4 WAR guys are also the top 4 Player Value guys. Helton sits above Ozzie Smith, who has 648.0 total Player Value. He truly was a tremendous fielder for a first baseman, as his Fielding Value of 328.6 ranks 3rd among all players in that span, behind Ozzie Smith (470.7) and Henderson (328.8), and above Frank White (328.6). He also was a solid hitter, as his Batting Value of 375.5 ranks 20th across all players during that span, sitting just above Albert Pujols (though probably behind him now, given Pujols' 2022 season). All batters ahead of him are either Hall of Famers, steroid users, or Mike Trout. With 4737 total position players during this 1973-2021 span, Helton's total Player Value ranks him in the top 0.1% during this period, clearly worthy of induction. And even if you decide you hate my Player Value metric and want to rely on WAR instead, he'd still be in the top 1.12% during that span. Helton posted an 80+ Player Value season in 2003, three other 70+ Player Value seasons, three other 50+ Player Value seasons, and a 39 Player Value season. In 2003 he finished 7th in the NL MVP, but based on Player Value he should have won it. In 2000 he finished 5th in the NL MVP, but also should have won it based on his Player Value of 76.2. We might think of Helton differently had he won two MVPs... My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Hall of Famer Player Value: Hall of Famer Omar Vizquel, SS (1989-2012) Vizquel is in his 6th year on the ballot and would have had my vote last year as well. He didn't reach the magical 3,000 hit mark, but was close with 2,877 hits. That's good for the 44th most all-time across all positions, and the 6th most all-time among shortstops. In terms of just SS, he's behind 4 Hall of Famers and the steroid using Alex Rodriguez. Across all positions, he's behind the gambling and banned-from-baseball Pete Rose, steroid users A-Rod, Palmeiro, and Bonds, future Hall of Famers Pujols, Cabrera, Beltre, and Suzuki, and 35 Hall of Famers. Yep, that's right - Vizquel has the most hits of any player that's been on a ballot, didn't use steroids, isn't literally banned from the sport, and hasn't been inducted. He did play 24 seasons until he was 45 years old, so he certainly had ample opportunity to compile those hits. But that's kind of just how hits occur. Of the 43 players with more hits than Vizquel, 21 of them have more plate appearances than him. But career hits aren't all that Vizquel has going for him. He was also one of the best defensive shortstops ever. He won a whopping 11 Gold Gloves, the 2nd most by a shortstop in history, and tied for the 8th most across all positions. These aren't Jeter-esque undeserving Gold Gloves, either. Vizquel's Rfield of 129 is the 55th highest in history across all positions. But Vizquel was also a shortstop, which many people believe to be the most critical position to have a good defender at. Baseball Reference's dWAR considers a player's Rfield along with WAR's positional adjustment to account for this. Vizquel's dWAR of 29.5 is the 9th most all-time across all positions, and the 7th most all-time among shortstops. Vizquel was just a 3 time All-Star, but his 1,445 runs scored rank 9th all-time among shortstops, behind 5 Hall of Famers, the steroid using A-Rod, and two archaic players in Bill Dahlen and Herman Long. According to Baseball Reference's qualifications, Vizquel is the all-time career leader in fielding percentage among shortstops, and only a single shortstop (Jeter) has played more innings in the field than him. He also has the 5th highest Total Zone Runs in history among shortstops, behind 3 Hall of Famers and the defensive great Mark Belanger. Belanger won 8 Gold Gloves and has been excluded from Cooperstown due to his lackluster hitting ability, batting a dismal .228 for his career with just 1,316 hits in an 18 year career. I find Vizquel to be much more comparable to Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith than to the defensively concentrated Belanger. Vizquel started off hot in his first year on the ballot in 2018, securing 37% of the vote. He got up to 52.6% in 2020. Since then, he's seen a decline each year despite not many more extremely qualified players showing up on the ballot, receiving just 22.9% in 2022. What happened? Many voters have been using the character clause on Vizquel. It was reported during the ballot season in 2020 that Vizquel had domestically abused his wife in 2011 and 2016. In 2021, he was named in a sexual harassment case against an autistic batboy for the AA Birmingham Barons. I find both of these actions deplorable and do not support them in any way. They are blatantly obvious wrongdoings. But in the end I feel that the makeup of the baseball Hall of Fame should be the best baseball players in history, not the players that were good but also happened to be good guys as well. While moral standards have clearly increased over time, there are surely current Hall of Famers that abused their spouses. We shouldn't celebrate these actions in anyway, and I'm all for a Hall that allows for the criticism of player's character and actions off the field in their exhibits, but in the end I think that only the most extreme of actions should be able to prohibit a player from entering the Hall based on his on the field performance. Other players on the ballot have also had domestic violence incidents but have not faced the same backlash as Vizquel, such as Andruw Jones. The initial Hall of Fame predictive model does not predict Vizquel as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 21.34%. None of the four initial submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer, although one of them gave him a probability of 43.4%. The updated Hall of Fame predictive model also does not predict Vizquel as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 26.20%. Interestingly, now one of the four updated submodels predicts him as a Hall of Famer, at a probability of 52.17%. This is the most accurate of the updated submodels too, with an AUC of .9195. Vizquel's total Player Value is 285.8, which ranks 91st among position players from 1973-2021. With 4737 position players during this span, Vizquel ranks in the top 1.92%, impressive but outside of the Hall of Fame cutoff point. He sits just above Curtis Granderson and just behind Hall of Famer Jim Rice. His Batting Value of 3.43 ranks a poor 778th, above Doug Rader (who debuted in 1966 and thus has some of his value cut off) and behind the still active Daulton Varsho. This echoes the sentiments of WAR that despite Vizquel's nearly 3000 hits, he really wasn't that great of a hitter. He only amassed so many because he played until he was 45, hence why many people think of him as a "compiler". I thought Vizquel's Rbat of -244 was because we were comparing a stellar defensive shortstop to the league average across all positions, but in reality even when compared to the 25th percentile of shortstops, Vizquel's hitting doesn't hold water across his career. However, his Fielding Value of 278.5 ranks a very impressive 6th during that span, above Bobby Grich and behind Brad Ausmus. Was Vizquel's defense enough to overcome his offense? I personally still think yes, but WAR and Player Value disagree. Despite stealing 404 stolen bases, which ranks 72nd all-time, he only had a Baserunning Value of 3.9, ranking 221st during the span. Vizquel posted two 40+ Player Value seasons and one 30+ Player Value season. He had a fair amount of positive batting seasons as well, especially in his prime in the late '90s and early '00s. What hurt him were his early '90s years with the Mariners and his later seasons from 2007-2012. This begs the question: should Omar really be punished for playing from when he was 40-45? Sure it helped his counting stats, but teams chose to put him on the field. If we remove his last 6 seasons, Vizquel puts up a total Player Value of 325.9, with a Fielding Value of 253.7 and now a not as poor Batting Value of 64.8. That would rank him 68th, ahead of Tony Gwynn and behind Albert Belle, and in the top 1.44%. Still not quite at the Hall line, but solid improvement. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Torii Hunter, OF (1997-2015) Hunter is in his 3rd year on the ballot and received just 5.3% of the vote last year, barely enough to cover the 5% needed to remain on the ballot. I did not include him on my 10 person ballot last year (but did place him in my "close" players), as he was blocked by the 10th year candidates of Schilling, Bonds, and Clemens. According to Ryan Thibodaux and friends' Ballot Tracker of publicy released BBWAA ballot, I am far in the minority with my support of Hunter. While we're here, shoutout to Joe Haakenson who voted for 8 of the 9 guys that I would have. He voted for Wagner last year, but dropped him from his vote this year. He also voted for Jimmy Rollins and Bobby Abreu. So, given this unpopular stance, why Hunter? My arguments for Jones, Rolen, and Vizquel have all been their superb defense combined with solid offensive production. Keeping things as simple as career hits, home runs, and Gold Gloves, we have the following:
Jones was power heavy and received 41.4% of the vote last year. Vizquel was contact heavy and received 49.1% of the vote in 2021, until his character came into question and he lost some votes. Rolen was a balance of power and contact (less ABs and a higher career AVG than Jones) and received 63.2% of the vote last year. Hunter was also a balance of power and contact, but received just over 5% last year! Again, 9 Gold Gloves is no small accomplishment. Just 23 players have done that in history across all positions, and just 7 outfielders have reached that many. 15 of those 23 are in the Hall of Fame, 3 are currently on the ballot (Jones, Vizquel, and Hunter), and 2 have yet to appear on a ballot (Yadier Molina and Ichiro Suzuki). All 3 remaining non-Hall of Fame, 9 time Gold Glove winners were first basemen, a position that most people think is less important defensively. Maybe 9 Gold Gloves is too focused of a cutoff. There are 7 outfielders that won 8 Gold Gloves, and only 1 of them is in Cooperstown (Andre Dawson). Surely the 9th Gold Glove isn't that important. Paul Blair and Garry Maddox were excellent defenders, but mediocre with a bat, hence their lack of induction. Alex Gordon technically hasn't been on a ballot yet, but I'm sure he'll receive a similar fate. Barry Bonds is Hall of Fame worthy, but his steroid use is what has kept him out. Jim Edmonds and Dwight Evans are more so in the same boat as Torii Hunter. If you think those guys are Hall worthy, you ought to think that Hunter is too. Hunter played about 2/3 of his total innings at CF and about 1/3 at RF. He ranks 11th among CF in career home runs, behind 6 Hall of Famers, as well as Jones & Beltran. He has many more hits than Edmonds or Dale Murphy. His 498 doubles rank 9th among CF, behind 5 Hall of Famers and Beltran. He has many more home runs than Johnny Damon or Al Oliver. His 1,391 RBI rank 9th among CF, behind 7 Hall of Famers and Beltran. The initial Hall of Fame model does not predict Hunter as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 17.77%. None of the four initial submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. The updated Hall of Fame model also does not predict Hunter as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 10.46%. None of the four updated submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. Hunter's total Player Value of 215.8 ranks 157th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 3.31% of players, not good enough to make the Cooperstown cutoff. He ranks just above Fernando Vina and just behind Shin-Soo Choo. His Batting Value of 86.3 ranks 262nd, above Jason Varitek and behind Bobby Bonds (who debuted in 1968 and thus has some of his value cut off). Player Value seems to disagree with my thoughts about the quality of Hunter's hitting; he wasn't bad, but he wasn't as good to still merit induction. His Fielding Value of 143.4 ranks 107th, above Yadier Molina and behind Johnny Damon. That's also not quite good enough to support induction. Hunter also had a Baserunning Value of -13.9, as he was particularly hurt for being a CF that lacked the speed and base stealing efficiency of some of his positional counterparts. 195 steals while being caught 99 times isn't nearly the clip needed to hold up with most center fielders. Because of this, he ranks as the 8th worst in Baserunning Value during the span, above Duane Kuiper and behind Harold Reynolds. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Billy Wagner, CP (1995-2010) Wagner is in his 8th year on the ballot, and I would have voted for him last year. Closers have been a tricky thing for Cooperstown to handle, as only 8 players have been inducted. Actual relief pitchers, meaning the setup guys and guys that get you through the middle innings, have virtually no shot at being in the Hall of Fame. I do not think that is a good thing. These are important roles in the sport, and any player that masters his role and performs above all others should have a chance to be inducted. Cooperstown needs more closers. For a long time, saves have been the key traditional statistic to judge closers on. However, there isn't really an established saves threshold that merits induction like there is with 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts/hits, or 500 home runs. The top 3 career saves leaders are all in the Hall of Fame. Four others have at least 300 saves, a threshold probably too low now given the increase in the use of closing pitchers. Hoyt Willhelm had just 228 and was retiring just as the likes of Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage were taking off. I think 400 saves could be a good cutoff point, as just 6 pitchers have reached that mark in history, and it helps us avoid inducting some closers that have more of "Hall of Great" energy. With 422 career saves, Wagner ranks 6th in history and would be over my established threshold above. Wagner was also a 7 time All-Star, which ties him with 5 players for the 5th most among closers in history. Of the 4 players ahead of him, 3 are Hall of Famers and Craig Kimbrel is still active. Of the 4 players tied with him, 3 are Hall of Famers and Aroldis Chapman is still active. These two arguments alone - career saves and All-Star games - squarely place Wagner among the Cooperstown calibre closers. Besides the great Mariano Rivera, Wagner's 2.31 career ERA is the highest among qualified closers who aren't still active (and the 3 active guys ahead of Rivera and Wagner have only pitched a fraction of their career innings). The reliever adjusted version of JAWS has Wagner at 24.9, ranking 6th all-time among closers, behind 5 Hall of Famers. People like to discredit relievers for induction because of their lack of innings compared to other starting pitchers. Wagner had a 2.31 ERA in 903 innings pitched. Mark Buehrle had a 3.81 ERA in 3,283 innings pitched. Finding the intersection of quality and quantity can be difficult. I don't think WAR does a great job of capturing this, as even the greatest closer of all-time in Rivera has a lower WAR than Buehrle. The truth is that the later innings in close games are important to victory. Someone needs to go out there and pitch well, and guys that exceed at doing that substantially more than their peers should be represented in the Hall. Wagner's total Player Value of 135.9 ranks 40th among the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 0.76%, good enough for the Hall. He sits above Kevin Appier and behind Brandon Webb, presumably two underrated guys. In reality there just aren't enough pitchers in the Hall, especially during this era. If 1.18% is the going rate for Hall of Fame induction, that rate should hold for both position players and pitchers, since they both fill important and distinct roles. Wagner's Pitching Value of 138.6 ranks 28th, ahead of Jake Peavy and behind C.C. Sabathia. His Fielding Value of 2.13 is low because as a closer he had less chances in the field to be able to stand out defensively over his reliever peers. And since Wagner played in the NL his entire career, his hitting was somewhat of a factor, even as a closer. Wagner had just 21 plate appearances in his career, but he didn't bode too well, even when compared to other NL relief pitchers. He had a Batting Value of -4.85, not too surprising for a guy that went 2/21 for his career with a .243 OPS and a -35 OPS+. Nontheless, Wagner's pitching alone was enough to merit his induction according to Player Value, and his high ranking shows how Player Value can compare relievers more favorably to starters. Using pitcher WAR from 1973-2021, Wagner ranks just 128th. Mariano Rivera ranks 10th in Player Value during this span, and 31st in WAR. Wagner had one 20+ Player Value season in 1999, and another 19.7 Player Value season in 2003. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Hall of Famer Francisco Rodriguez, CP (2002-2017) K-Rod is in his 1st year on the ballot, and is another closer that I think deserves induction to make up for their current lack of representation in Cooperstown. His 437 career saves are above my 400 saves threshold and rank him 4th all-time, the most of any player not in the Hall of Fame. He is also the single-season record holder for saves, when he recorded 62 in 2008. His 6 All-Star games tie him with 5 others for the 10th most all-time. Of the 9 players with more, 6 are Hall of Famers, one is Wagner, and 2 are active (Kimbrel and Chapman). Of the 5 players he's tied with, 2 are Hall of Famers, and he has more saves, innings pitched, and strikeouts than Joe Nathan or Jonathan Papelbon. Roy Face played when there were 2 All-Star games per year, so he really only had 3 All-Star seasons compared to K-Rod's 6. K-Rod was named the reliever of the year twice, and just 20 closers in history have done so. Of those 20, 6 are in the Hall of Fame and 5 are still active. I don't think K-Rod's case is as strong as Wagner's (who has had to wait at least 8 years), so his case isn't on the forefront of my closer Hall of Fame arguments. His case is also blemished via the character clause, as he also had a domestic violence incident in 2012. Player Value is less high on K-Rod than it was on Wagner. His total Player Value of 72.9 ranks 101st out the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 1.92%, not quite Hall worthy. He sits above Larry Andersen and behind Josh Johnson. His Pitching Value of 64.2 ranks 89th, ahead of the still active Yu Darvish and behind Barry Zito. He had a Fielding Value of 8.8, decent compared to his reliever peers. K-Rod has just 2 plate appearances in his career, so his Batting Value of 0.2 is of no consequence. K-Rod had one 20+ Player Value season in his great 2004 record setting season. My opinion: Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Bobby Abreu, RF (1996-2014) Abreu is in his 4th year on the ballot, and while I wouldn't have voted for him last year, he was at least in my group of guys that I thought were close. But I notably have a 9 person ballot this year, so Abreu still doesn't quite do it for me. I would like him to remain on the ballot as long as he can though, to give me as much time to ponder, analyze, review, and be convinced as I need. Next year's ballot has some solid names though, so I'd be surprised if Abreu is able to crack my top 10. For now, the short of it is that Bobby Abreu doesn't come off the tongue as a Hall of Fame player to me. I never thought of him as such as a kid when he was playing, but to be fair his prime years were when I was still quite young. His accolades aren't impressive, as he's just a 2 time All-Star and a single Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winner. WAR relatively likes Abreu, as his 60.2 ranks 19th among rightfielders. That's more than Ichiro and 12 Hall of Famers at RF, including my favorite player Vladimir Guerrero. Ahead of him are 13 Hall of Famers, the steroid using Gary Sheffield, the banned Shoeless Joe Jackson, Dwight Evans, and Reggie Smith. His 2,470 hits rank 22nd among RF, behind 17 Hall of Famers, Ichiro, Sheffield, Rusty Staub, and Dave Parker. His 574 doubles impressively rank 4th among RF, behind 3 Hall of Famers. His power isn't as impressive though, as his 288 home runs rank 39th among RF. His 1,363 RBI rank 21st behind a decent contingency of non-Hall of Famers in Parker, Staub, Evans, and steroid users Sheffield, Sosa, Jose Canseco, and Juan Gonzalez. His 1,476 walks also impressively rank 4th among RF, behind 3 Hall of Famers. While it's surprising that Abreu stole 400 bases, that really isn't nearly enough for it to have significant value compared to the other aspects of the game. WAR rates Abreu as a below average defender across his career, giving him an Rfield of -7. That's not terrible, but clearly defense isn't an argument for Abreu's induction. In the end, Abreu is just an unsexy player, likely the reason for his lack of accolades. While other rightfielders were accumulating hits and blasting home runs, Abreu was getting walked and hitting doubles. I can appreciate and acknowledge that Abreu was a better player than I first perceived, but I'm not quite convinced that he's Cooperstown worthy yet, although it seems to be getting closer and closer each year. The initial model does not predict Abreu as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 34.42%. However, one of the four initial submodels does predict Abreu as a Hall of Famer, the same one that supported Andruw Jones. This was the least accurate of the initial submodels, though, with an AUC of .9493. The updated model also does not predict Abreu as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 17.47%. Now, none of the four updated submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. Abreu's total Player Value of 266.1 ranks 107th among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, ahead of Placido Polanco and behind Sammy Sosa. That puts him in the top 2.26%, good but not quite Hall of Fame territory. His Batting Value of 237.5 ranks 65th, ahead of Carlos Delgado but behind Jorge Posada. His Fielding Value of 11.5 is unimpressive and is what really hurts his case. That ranks a dismal 1596th, above the still active Illdemaro Vargas and behind Alex Cole. Abreu was just barely an acceptable fielder throughout his career. However, his Baserunning Value of 17.1 ranks a favorable 39th, ahead of Toby Harrah and behind Carl Crawford. Abreu put up two 50+ Player Value seasons. He did a good job of avoiding bad seasons, but he just didn't have enough really great seasons. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jimmy Rollins, SS (2000-2016) Rollins is in his 2nd year on the ballot and was in my group of close guys last year. He's a memorable name but a lot of the Phillies players of that time seem to be a collective group of "Hall of Great" guys to me; teammate Ryan Howard has already appeared on and fallen off the ballot. In terms of accolades, Rollins is one of just 14 shortstops to be named MVP. Six of those 14 are in the Hall of Fame and two used steroids (A-Rod and Tejada), but there's still 5 other non-Hall of Famers there. Rollins appeared in just 3 All-Star games, which ranks an unimpressive 49th, but Robin Yount also won an MVP and appeared in 3 All-Star games and is in the Hall of Fame. Rollins' 4 Gold Gloves ties him with four others for the 7th most by a shortstop. Three of the six with more Gold Gloves are in the Hall of Fame, and just one of the four tied with him is in Cooperstown, granted two of those four are still active players (Brandon Crawford and Andrelton Simmons). Rollins also won a Silver Slugger. So I compared Rollins to Yount, but Yount is above the magical 3,000 hit mark with 3,142 hits, while Rollins is below it with just 2,455 hits. That ranks him 14th all-time among shortstops, behind 10 Hall of Famers, steroid using A-Rod, should-be-Hall-of-Famer-if-not-for-character-clause Vizquel, and the archaic Bill Dahlen, who arguably should also be a Hall of Famer. Rollins' 231 home runs ranks him 10th all-time among shortstops, behind 4 Hall of Famers and steroid users A-Rod and Tejada. His 511 doubles ranks 7th all-time among shortstops, behind 5 Hall of Famers and A-Rod. His 470 stolen bases rank 11th all-time among shortstops, behind 5 Hall of Famers. His 1,421 runs scored ranks 10th all-time among shortstops, behind 5 Hall of Famers and A-Rod. However, Rollins' WAR of 47.6 ranks 26th among shortstops and is lower than 20 of the 23 Hall of Fame shortstops. His JAWS of 40.1 ranks 32nd among shortstops. We can parse things to make Rollins standout, as he's the only shortstop in history with at least 2,400 hits, 200 home runs, and 400 stolen bases. But again, those 400 steals don't really add all the value you may think to make a player a Hall of Famer; Rollins wasn't Rickey Henderson. I think Rollins has a decent case, but to me he's just a shining example of what a borderline Hall of Famer looks like. He comes short in the cumulative stats and accolades where other players like A-Rod and Vizquel are more impressive, and his WAR isn't good enough to help him make up that ground. The initial model does not predict Rollins as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 34.62%. However, one of the four initial submodels does predict Rollins as a Hall of Famer. This was also the most accurate of the initial submodels, with an AUC of .9797. The updated model also does not predict Rollins as a Hall of Famer, but gives him a decent probability of 45.22%. Now, two of the four updated submodels predict him as a Hall of Famer. While one of these is the most accurate updated submodel, with an AUC of .9195, the other is the least accurate of the updated submodels, with an AUC of .8879. The two intermediate submodels that don't predict Rollins as a Hall of Famer are more critical of him and are accurate enough to beat out the other two for the final prediction to still be a no. Rollins has a total Player Value of 229.2, which ranks 146th among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 3.08%. He sits above Andy Van Slyke and behind Ray Lankford. His Batting Value of 147.6 ranks 144th, above Joe Mauer and behind Mark Teixeira. His Fielding Value of 52.6 ranks just 589th, ahead of Dave Martinez and behind Dave Stapelton. So while Rollins was a pretty solid hitter, it just wasn't quite enough to make up for pretty standard shortstop defensive play. What helps a little is his Baserunning Value of 28.9, which ranks an impressive 13th, above Tony Womnack and behind Julio Cruz. Rollins was clearly above most of his shortstop contemporaries when it came to stealing bases. He put up just one 40+ Player Value season during his career, which was his MVP wining season of 2007. However, he had just the 8th best Player Value in 2007 at 46.5. He was not the best shortstop in the NL, as the MVP should have went to Troy Tulowitzki at 66.9. He also wasn't the best Phillie, as Chase Utley finished with a 64.0 for the 2nd most in the NL. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Mark Buehrle, SP (2000-2015) Buehrle is in his 3rd year on the ballot and received just 5.8% of the votes last year, and I only had him in my list of guys that I thought were close. His accolades are not terribly impressive, as his 5 All-Star games are tied with 22 pitchers for the 53rd most all-time among starters. He never won a Cy Young and only received votes once, when he finished 5th in 2005. However, he is one of only 13 pitchers to win at least 4 Gold Gloves. Of the other 12 though, only 6 are in the Hall of Fame and 2 are still active (Greinke and Keuchel). Greinke and Keuchel also have a Cy Young to their name however, as do 3 of the Hall of Famers (Maddux, Gibson, Palmer), and one of the other non-Hall of Famers in Ron Guidry. Of the other 3 Hall of Famers with at least 4 Gold Gloves, Jim Kaat had a whopping 16 Gold Gloves to go with 283 wins and it still took him until last year to get inducted despite retiring in 1983. Mike Mussina has nearly double the amount as Buehrle with 7 Gold Gloves, as well as 270 wins and 2,813 strikeouts. Phil Niekro had just 5 Gold Gloves, but had 318 wins and 3,342 strikeouts. Buehrle initially seems most similar to non-Hall of Famers Mark Langston and Kenny Rogers. Point being: while rare, 4 Gold Gloves does not a Hall of Fame pitcher make. Buehrle's typical pitcher marks are also not too impressive. Every pitcher with 300 wins or 3,000 strikeouts is in the Hall of Fame unless they haven't been on a ballot yet, used steroids, or are named Curt Schilling and blocked due to writers' use of the character clause. Buehrle falls well short of these automatic thresholds though, with just 214 wins and 1,870 strikeouts. He's tied with Rick Reuschel in wins for 93rd all-time among starters, and ranks just 105th all-time among starters in strikeouts. His career ERA of 3.81 is not very promising either, ranking 377th all-time among qualified starters. Of the 72 primarily starters in the Hall of Fame, just 5 of them have an ERA higher than Buehrle's. Of those 5, 4 of them played around the turn of the 20th century. Jack Morris is a fairly controversial Hall of Fame pitcher, and even he has notably more wins, strikeouts, and innings pitched than Buehrle. I will say that comparing Buehre's career ERA among all pitchers can be flawed because a lot of those (especially active ones) pitchers threw far fewer innings. And that's really the crux of Buehle's case for Cooperstown: durability and innings pitched. But even at surface level, this doesn't seem all that impressive. His 3,283.1 innings pitch still rank just 95th all-time. Of the 94 players with more innings pitched, 86 of them have a lower ERA than Buehrle, while just 10 of them had a higher ERA. So what's the deal? The key idea is that pitchers are not being used like they used to, so Buehrle's production in terms of innings pitched needs to be measured relative to his peers. Since 1980, just 14 pitchers have tossed as many innings as Buehrle. Of those 14, only 7 had a career ERA lower than Buehrle's, and 5 of them are in the Hall of Fame, to go with the steroid using Roger Clemens and likely future Hall of Famer C.C. Sabathia (who has yet to appear on a ballot and reached the 3,000 strikeout mark). Again, there is also Hall of Famer Jack Morris who pitched more innings but had a higher ERA than Buehrle. Andy Pettite also pitched more innings with a higher ERA. This seems to paint a picture of Buehle being the dividing line between quality and quantity, but the 3,283 inning cutoff mark is somewhat restrictive and random. If we expand it to pitchers with 3,000 or more innings pitched since 1980, we see that we get 25 hurlers, 14 of which had lower ERAs than Buehlre. Now also ahead of him are two likely future Hall of Famers in Verlander and Greinke, and the should-be-Hall-of-Famer-if-not-for-character-clause Curt Schilling. But also now ahead of him are notable non-Hall of Famers Kevin Brown, Orel Hershiser, Tim Hudson, and Dennis Martinez. WAR takes into account innings pitched. The more a player pitches at a quality above replacement level, the higher his WAR will be. Buehrle's WAR of 59.1 ranks 69th all-time among starters. Among pitchers since 1980, his WAR ranks 18th. Ahead of him are 7 Hall of Famers, 5 guys yet to be on a ballot, steroid users Clemens and Pettite, and the character clause blocked Schilling. But Kevin Brown and David Cone do notably have higher WARs and are also not in the Hall of Fame. In the end, I think Buehrle's ability to stay healthy and pitch many innings has been impressive, but not impressive enough to merit induction. Until pitchers that pitched more and at a higher level like Schilling, Brown, and Hershiser are in Cooperstown, I can't push Buehrle too much. He's basically the intersection of durable but effective hurlers like Chuck Finley and Charlie Hough and solid defensive pitchers like Mark Langston and Kenny Rogers, but none of these 4 are Hall of Famers and I'm not convinced that some combination of their skills is Cooperstown worthy. Buehrle's total Player Value of 82.3 ranks 85th among the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 1.62%, not quite good enough for the Hall of Fame mark. He sits ahead of Roger McDowell and behind the still active Sonny Gray. His Pitching Value of 12.6 is actually rather unimpressive and ranks just 379th, ahead of Jared Burton and behind Mark Wohlers. Most of Buehrle's value actually comes from his glove, as his Fielding Value of 84.3 ranks a solid 11th, ahead of Jake Westbrook and behind Livan Hernandez. It seems that Buehrle's Gold Gloves were well justified. Buehrle's Batting Value of -14.5 doesn't help him either, ranking as the 176th worst, ahead of Rick Helling but behind Amaury Telemaco (my, what a name!). But hey, Randy Johnson ranks as the 11th worst in Batting Value but still finishes in the top 10 in total Player Value during this span. Buehrle posted two 20+ Player Value seasons in 2001 and 2005. He finished 5th in the AL Cy Young in 2005, but his Pitching Value ranked 4th in the AL and his Player Value ranked 2nd in the AL that year. Buehrle was a solid fielding pitcher throughout his career, and a good pitcher during his prime years, but his poor Pitching Value as he aged is what really does his case in. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Andy Pettitte, SP (1995-2013) Pettitte is in his 5th year on the ballot and was a no for me last year despite perhaps being there numbers-wise because of his PED use. Pettitte was named in the Mitchell Report, said to have used PEDs by a former player during a federal raid, and has confessed to his PED use. Though he was never suspended any games, his use of PEDs is cut and dried. Pettite's 256 career wins rank 42nd all-time, behind 34 Hall of Famers. He has more wins than basically 34 Hall of Famers too, so in terms of wins Pettitte is right there among average Hall of Fame starting pitchers. His 2,448 career strikeouts rank 46th all-time, behind 25 Hall of Famers. He has more strikeouts than basically 43 Hall of Famers, so he'd actually be an above average Hall of Fame starter in terms of strikeouts. His 3.85 career ERA is less exciting and currently ranks 386th all-time among qualified starters, and his 3,316 innings pitched rank 90th all-time. Only 7 pitchers have thrown that many innings and had a higher ERA than Pettitte, while 83 pitchers were able to throw that many innings with a lower ERA. Only 1 of the 7 is in the Hall of Fame (Jack Morris), while 47 of the 83 are in the Hall of Fame. The quantity of Pettitte's production and the quality of that production does not seem too impressive at face, but again let's look at things with a generational lens. From 1980 to present, just 12 players have thrown as many innings as Pettitte. 7 of them did so with a lower ERA, and 5 of those are Hall of Famers. The other 2 are likely future Hall of Famer C.C. Sabathia and fellow steroid user Roger Clemens. Again, Morris threw that many innings and had a higher ERA, but he did throw about 150 more innings than Pettitte. This is basically the exact same situation that I laid out for Buehrle; both guys are right at the border of quantity and quality, when compared to other players of their time. Pettitte ranks 24th in strikeouts among starters since 1980, behind 7 Hall of Famers and maybe 5 future Hall of Famers (Sabathia, Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw, Greinke?). Buehrle ranked 59th. In terms of wins, Pettitte ranks a stellar 7th among starters since 1980, behind 4 Hall of Famers, while Buehrle ranked 18th. So in terms of innings pitched and ERA, Buehrle and Pettitte are basically even, with Buehrle having a slightly lower ERA and Pettitte having slightly more innings pitched. Buehrle was the better fielding pitcher given his 4 Gold Gloves, but Pettitte racked up more wins and strikeouts, probably more important metrics for measuring pitchers for the Hall of Fame. Pettitte's WAR of 34.1 ranks 175th among starters, not too impressive. Pettitte was just a 3 time All-Star, while Buehrle went to 5. Neither ever won a Cy Young, though Pettitte finished in the top 10 five times to Buehrle's one. I'd argue they are both close but not quite there, and especially given Pettitte's steroid use I'm further not inclined to say he should be in. Pettitte's total Player Value of 130.6 ranks 46th among the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 0.88%, good enough for the Hall. He sits ahead of Tom Gordon and behind Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman. His Pitching Value of 100.8 ranks 53rd, ahead of Jimmy Key and behind the still active Kenley Jansen. He adds some solid value with his glove, as his Fielding Value of 38.9 ranks 98th, ahead of Carlos Zambrano and behind Larry Gura. He loses some value with his hitting, with a Batting Value of -9.1. Most of Pettitte's 237 career plate appearances came from his three years in the NL with the Astros from 2004-2006. He had a -10 career OPS+, getting 6 hits in all those plate appearances. Pettitte posted two 30+ Player Value seasons in 1997 and 2005. He finished 5th in Cy Young voting in both of those years, but he actually had the 3rd and 4th highest Pitcher Value in his league in those years, respectively. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, model doesn't handle pitchers, and due to steroid use Player Value: Hall of Famer Alex Rodriguez, SS/3B (1994-2016) A-Rod is in year 2 on the ballot and was a no for me last year, and will continue to be a no for me this year, because of his steroid use. I gave Bonds a pass because he was so much better than the rest of the steroid users, which A-Rod kind of is too, but Bonds also was arguably a Hall of Famer before he ever even used steroids. A-Rod has been open to his use of steroids, and I'm happy that he's come to terms with his decisions and admitted them. I respect those that acknowledge their mistakes more so than those that try to cover them up. For some reason others see it the other way around and want to penalize the for-sure suspended players of A-Rod and reward the supposedly "unknown" steroid users like Sammy Sosa. A-Rod first confessed to using steroids from 2001 to 2003 with the Rangers, and at the end of 2000 he had just 189 home runs and 966 hits, so that's not enough for me to think he was already a Hall of Famer before using steroids. He would have had 5 All-Star appearances and 4 Silver Sluggers by 2001, so he was certainly on the right track, but certainly not enough in isolation. Nonetheless, despite his transparency with his use, Rodriguez still juiced up and won't get my support for Cooperstown until the first for-sure steroid user is inducted. Steroids aside, A-Rod is obviously worthy of the Hall of Fame. His 3,115 hits surpass the general threshold of 3,000, rank 5th all-time among shortstops, and rank 22nd all-time across all positions. His 696 career home runs surpass the general threshold of 500, rank 1st all-time among shortstops, and rank 5th all-time across all positions. His 2,086 career RBI also rank 1st all-time among shortstops, and rank 4th all-time across all positions. He clearly was one of the greatest hitters ever, and still was acceptable defensively, having a career Rfield of 23, 18 of which came from his days with the Rangers and Mariners when he was primarily a shortstop, arguably the most difficult defensive position in baseball. A-Rod's WAR of 117.6 ranks 2nd all-time among shortstops, and ranks 12th all-time across all positions (besides pitchers). In terms of accolades, A-Rod's 14 All-Star games are the 3rd most by a shortstop behind Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken Jr. His 3 MVPs are the most by a shortstop in history, and he's one of just 11 players with at least 3 MVPs in history. Of those 11, 7 are Hall of Famers, Trout and Pujols haven't been on a ballot yet, and Bonds also used steroids. A-Rod won 10 Silver Sluggers, including 7 as a shortstop, the 3rd most by a shortstop in history. He also won 2 Gold Glove awards. One important thing to note is that while A-Rod is technically more of a shortstop (1,272 innings), he also played 1,194 innings at third base, so the split is nearly 50/50. But given that he's one of the greatest ever, which position we compare him to is of little consequence. Not surprisingly, A-Rod's total Player Value of 820.4 ranks a very impressive 2nd among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 0.04% of players, clearly in the Hall of Fame category. Player Value does not do any kind of discounting for players that used steroids. He sits above Mike Schmidt and 4734 others, and the only player ahead of him is Barry Bonds. His Batting Value of 656.0 also ranks 2nd behind Bonds and ahead of Schmidt. His Fielding Value of 140.1 ranks 116th, ahead of Julio Cruz and behind Chris Speier. For all that he could do with a bat, A-Rod was certainly still capable of putting up a solid defense at shortstop. A-Rod's Baserunning Value of 24.3 also ranks an impressive 19th, as he possessed unique speed for someone with such power. He sits ahead of Ron LeFlore and behind Eric Davis. A-Rod has a staggering two 90+ Player Value seasons, an 80+ Player Value season, two 70+ Player Value seasons, three 60+ Player Value seasons, and a 50+ Player Value season. That's nine seasons at a truly elite level, not to mention all of his other quality years. He won 3 actual MVPs in 2003, 2005, and 2007, but his best 3 Player Value seasons were actually in 2000, 2001, and 2002. He had the highest Player Value in 2003 and 2005, but was outpaced by Curtis Granderson in 2007, so 2 of his 3 MVPs were merited. But he also led the AL in Player Value in 1996, 2000, 2001, and 2002, so I count at least 6 MVPs that A-Rod should have won. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, due to steroid use Player Value: Hall of Famer Manny Ramirez, OF (1993-2011) Manny is in his 7th year on the ballot and like A-Rod was excluded from my voting list last year, despite his obvious statistical worthiness, due to his steroid usage. He violated MLB's drug policy twice, receiving a 50 game suspension in 2009 and a 100 game suspension in 2011. If you're caught and suspended, there is no speculation about your use, so Manny has a cut and dry case. His 555 homers are above the magical 500 mark and rank 2nd among leftfielders behind only Bonds, ahead of the 21 Hall of Famers at the position. He also ranks 15th all-time in homers across all positions, behind 8 Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols, but also behind 5 steroid users in Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, McGwire, and Palmeiro. His 1,831 RBI rank 4th among leftfielders behind Bonds and Hall of Fame Red Sox players Ted Williams and Yaz. He ranks 20th in RBI across all positions, behind 14 Hall of Famers, 2 future Hall of Famers (Pujols & Cabrera), and 3 steroid users. His 2,574 career hits rank 17th among leftfielders, behind 13 Hall of Famers, Bonds, Pete Rose, and Luis Gonzalez. His 547 career doubles rank 5th among leftfielders, behind Bonds, Rose, Gonzalez, and Yaz. His 1,544 career runs scored rank 12th among leftfielders, behind 9 Hall of Famers, Bonds, and Rose. Manny's career counting stats clearly line him up with other Hall of Famers. On the more advanced side of things, Manny's OPS+ of 154 ranks 5th among leftfielders, behind Hall of Famer Williams, steroid user Bonds, the active Yordan Alvarez, and the archaic Henry Moore (who played in just 1 season in 1884). If we remove the context of run scoring environment and park factors, Manny's raw career OPS of .996 ranks 3rd among leftfielders, behind Williams and Bonds. His WAR of 69.3 ranks 8th among leftfielders, behind 5 Hall of Famers, Bonds, and Rose. Ramirez was a poor defender, however; with a -129 Rfield for his career, he grades as the 7th worst in history according to WAR. If we consider the positional adjustment, Manny's dWAR of -21.7 still ranks as the 7th worst in history. In terms of accolades, Manny never won an MVP but won an impressive 9 Silver Sluggers, 8 as an outfielder and 1 as a DH. Those 8 are the 3rd most by an outfielder, behind Bonds and Mike Trout. It is important to note that this award didn't exist until 1980, so many outfield greats like Williams, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Ruth, Rose, and more can't really compare. Manny also went to 12 All-Star games, which ranks 6th among leftfielders behind Bonds, Rose, and Hall of Famers Williams, Yaz, and Minnie Minoso (who benefitted from double All-Star seasons in both his Negro League and MLB playing days). So although Manny was a terrible defender, his offense certainly made up for it to make him a very valuable player over his career. However, given his steroid use and the fact that he's not quite the best of the best among the steroid users, I don't support his induction currently. Manny's total Player Value of 445.8 ranks a solid 32nd among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 0.68%, good enough for the Hall of Fame mark. He sits above his Indians teammate Jim Thome and behind Jeff Bagwell, both Hall of Famers. His Batting Value of 485.2 ranks an even better 5th, ahead of the still active Mike Trout and behind Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. Manny's Fielding Value of -32.8 ranks as the 45th worst, ahead of Dave Kingman and behind Frank Taveras. The worst player in terms of Fielding Value during the period was Howard Johnson. Manny posted just one 50+ Player Value season and one 40+ Player Value season, but he did have many solid years in the 20-30 range. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, due to steroid use Player Value: Hall of Famer Gary Sheffield, OF/3B (1988-2009) Sheffield is in his penultimate year on the ballot and is close to not being initially inducted given that he received just 40.6% of the vote last year. He wouldn't have received my vote last year either, despite his obvious statistical worthiness, due to his use of steroids. Sheffield's case is less similar to A-Rod's and Manny's and more similar to players already voted off of the ballot like Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and Palmeiro. He was never suspended for steroid use because when he was using them players were not being regularly tested. Sheffield didn't have the crazy home run surges of Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire - only hitting a maximum of 43 homers in a season during his career - but neither really did Palmeiro (who capped out at 47), or Manny for that matter. Sheffield was named in the Mitchell Report and implicated in the BALCO scandal. Sheffield used the same personal trainer as Barry Bonds and investigative reporting has already done the dirty work of explaining Sheffield's steroid use, so I won't rehash it here. He used steroids and there isn't much debate to be had about it, even if he we don't technically have a confession from him or a positive test like we do with A-Rod, Pettitte, or Manny. Steroids aside, Sheffield clearly has Hall of Fame numbers. He's above the magical 500 home run mark with 507 career blasts, ranking 7th among rightfielders behind 5 Hall of Famers and Sosa. His 2,869 career hits rank 18th among rightfielders, behind 14 Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki, Rusty Staub, and Dave Parker (both of whom Sheffield has vastly more homers than). His 1,676 career RBI rank 8th among rightfielders, behind 7 Hall of Famers. His 1,636 career runs scored also rank 8th among rightfielders, behind 7 Hall of Famers. His 1,475 career walks rank 5th among rightfielders, behind 3 Hall of Famers and Bobby Abreu. Sheffield's WAR of 60.5 ranks 18th among rightfielders, below the Hall of Fame average of 71.1. But I think using the mean as the average here doesn't make much sense to be fair, as positional greats like Ruth, Aaron, and Musial shouldn't severely diminish the success of other players. And from a median view of "average", we should expect that half of the guys are below the line anyway, so Sheffield's WAR ranking shouldn't be too concerning. He's got 14 Hall of Famers ahead of him, along with Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, and the banned Shoeless Joe Jackson. Sheffield does have the same problem as Manny though, as he was also a bad fielder. His career Rfield of -195 ranks as the 2nd worst in history, ahead of only Derek Jeter. As primarily a rightfielder, the positional adjustment doesn't help much either, as his career dWAR of -27.7 also ranks as the 2nd worst in history, ahead of only Adam Dunn. So Sheffield was a poor defender, but his bat was more than enough to give him a solid WAR and have great Hall-of-Fame-esque numbers overall. However, given his steroid use and the fact that he wasn't among the greatest of steroid users and that we don't have evidence that he was a Hall of Famer before his use, I don't currently support his induction. Sheffield's total Player Value of 377.2 ranks 48th among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 1.01%. That's above the Hall of Fame line, and specifically he's above Hall of Famer Eddie Murray and behind Chase Utley. His Batting Value of 419.1 ranks an even better 12th, ahead of Mike Piazza and behind George Brett. However, his Fielding Value of -49.1 ranks as the 25th worst, ahead of Greg Norton but behind John Wathan. Sheffield recorded one 50+ Player Value season and two 40+ Player Value seasons. His best year was 1992, when he finished 3rd in the NL MVP voting, and he had the 3rd highest Player Value in the NL as well. Bonds was still the highest, but Ryne Sandberg should have finished 2nd rather than Terry Pendleton. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, due to steroid use Player Value: Hall of Famer Nobody else on the ballot really has a shot at going in, and I don't really consider most of them as being in the neighborhood of Hall of Fame consideration. I'll go over them pretty quickly here, and note that I didn't feed most of these players through the predictive model. The exceptions were Peralta and Werth, whom the model thought very little of. Huston Street, CP (2005-2017) Street was a solid closer for most of his career, racking up 324 career saves, which ranks 20th all-time. That group of '90s, '00s, and '10s closers with about 300 or so saves is way too log jammed to really consider any of them Hall of Famers. Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon got removed from the ballot last year and I think both of them had better careers than Street. He won a Rookie of the Year, but he was never a reliever of the year and only went to 2 All-Star games. Street has a total Player Value of 62.8, ranking 127th out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 2.42%. He sits ahead of Hall of Famer Steve Carlton (who we should very importantly note began his career in 1965), and behind Orlando Hernandez. He had a Pitching Value of 47.2, which ranks 130th, above the still active David Robertson and below Ben Sheets. He also had a Fielding Value of 16.3. Street had no seasons with a Player Value of 20+, but he did have a 19.4 Player Value season in his rookie year of 2005. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer John Lackey, SP (2002-2017) He was a starting pitcher in MLB for 15 seasons, which is about the extent that I can argue fro him. Went to just 1 All-Star game, finished top 10 in Cy Young voting twice, and won an ERA title. Won 188 games, struck out 2,294 guys, had a 3.92 career ERA, and pitched 2,840 innings. If guys like Mark Buehrle, or even Tim Hudson or Tim Lincecum from last year's ballot aren't Hall of Famers, then Lackey surely shouldn't be. One could say that his candidacy is Lack-ing... Lackey had a total Player Value of just 13.0, ranking 486th out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 9.26%. He sits above Dave Tobik and below Horacio Pina. His Pitching Value of -4.1 is certainly unimpressive, ranking 2167th ahead of Dewon Day (who pitched 1 season and only 12 innings!) and behind the still active Gabe Speier. In terms of pitching alone, Lackey was a very standard pitcher over the course of his career. Most of his value came from his glove, as his Fielding Value of 33.8 ranks 132nd, ahead of Brett Myers and behind Rick Langford. Lackey also had a not-so-stellar Batting Value of -16.4, which ranks as the 136th worst behind J.A. Happ and ahead of Carl Pavano. Lackey did have two 20+ Player Value seasons in 2006 and 2007, but other seasons wiped that value away. He finished third in the AL Cy Young in 2007, but he actually had just the 9th best Pitching Value and the 6th best Player Value in the AL that year. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jered Weaver, SP (2006-2017) A slightly more memorable name than Lackey, but had a shorter career with just 12 seasons. Went to 3 All-Star games and finished top 5 in Cy Young voting for each of those seasons. If Weaver could have been his 2010-2012 self for a longer portion of his career, then Cooperstown could have been a possibility. Won 150 games, struck out 1,621 batters, had a 3.63 career ERA, and pitched 2,067 innings. Ranks 2nd all-time in infield fly balls, since FanGraphs began tracking it in 2006. The similar WARs of Lackey and Weaver (37.3 vs 34.6) shows how it already kind of handles the quantity vs quality/peak debate. Weaver's total Player Value of 40.5 ranks 229th out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, placing him in the top 4.36%. He sits ahead of Eric Gagne and behind Ken Brett. Most of his value came from pitching, as his Pitching Value of 49.4 ranks 123rd, ahead of Brad Ziegler and behind C.J. Wilson. He loses some value with his hitting, with a Batting Value of -8.1. He had an inconsequential glove over the course of his career. Weaver posted a solid three 20+ Player Value seasons in his All-Star years of 2010-2012. In 2010 he finished 5th for the AL Cy Young, and had the 4th highest AL Pitching Value. In 2011 he finished 2nd for the Cy Young, and likewise had the 2nd highest Pitching Value in the AL. In 2012 he finished 3rd for the Cy Young, and likewise had the 3rd highest Pitching Value in the AL. Close but no cigar - if not for Verlander, we may have remembered Weaver more fondly. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jacoby Ellsbury, OF (2007-2017) Interestingly enough, Ellsbury is the single-season and career record holder for catcher interferences. While one or two instances may be the cause of pure chance and luck, the fact that Ellsbury got significantly more than most other players shows that it was a skill of his, and we should acknowledge that value. However, only getting on base an extra 30 times due to that skill certainly isn't enough to make a big difference. He won one Gold Glove, one Silver Slugger, and appeared in one All-Star game. All of those occurred in 2011, when he also finished 2nd in MVP. That season he uncharacteristically had some power, hitting 32 home runs, despite never hitting more than 20 in any other season and only hitting more than 10 one other time. He was tied with Jose Bautista with 8.3 WAR for the most by a position player in the AL, losing the MVP to Justin Verlander and his 8.6 WAR. If Ellsbury was his 2011 self for more of his career, he probably has a shot at Cooperstown. But alas, he was a one hit wonder (well, really a 1,376 hit wonder, but still certainly not enough). Ellsbury's had a total Player Value of 128.6, which ranks 325th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 6.86%. He is just above J.J. Hardy and just behind the still active Jonathan Schoop. He had a Batting Value of 60.6 and a Fielding Value of 55.2. His Baserunning Value of 12.7 ranks 63rd, ahead of Larry Lintz and behind Von Hayes. He did have one 50+ Player Value season in 2011, which was the 2nd most in the AL, justifying his MVP place finish. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Matt Cain, SP (2005-2017) Another pitcher with a decent career but certainly not a Cooperstown worthy one. Made it to 3 All-Star games and finished top 10 in Cy Young voting twice. Needed to maintain his 2009-2012 self to maybe have a shot at the Hall. Lost more games than he won, despite being part of the golden years of the San Francisco Giants that won 3 World Series in the 2010s. Decent career ERA of 3.62, but only played 13 seasons and pitched just 2,085 innings. Struck out 1,694 batters, but ranks 4th all-time in infield flyballs since FanGraphs began tracking it, which are basically as good as strikeouts (my deeper level Player Value weight research has a strikeout and a popout worth .33 runs, with groundouts at .29 runs and flyballs/lineouts at .31 runs). Cain's total Player Value of 76.5 ranks 91st out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 1.73%. He sits ahead of Jake Westbrook and behind the still active Aroldis Chapman. He had an even better Pitching Value of 89.0 that ranks 61st, ahead of Tom Gordon and behind Hall of Fame closer Rollie Fingers (whose career we should also importantly note began in 1968). He had a decent Fielding Value of 10.1, but a not-so-decent Batting Value of -22.7. That's the 68th worst, ahead of Tim Belcher but behind Tony Armas. Cain posted two 20+ Player Value seasons in 2011 and 2012, the two seasons he finished top 10 in the NL Cy Young. He had the 3rd best Pitching Value in the NL in 2011, so he should have finished better than 8th like he did. He had the 5th best Pitching Value in the NL in 2012, so his 6th place finish was more justified. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jhonny Peralta, SS (2003-2017) Peralta went to 3 All-Star games and appears to have been in the prime of his playing days from 2011-2015, based off of his accolades. His best seasons according to WAR were actually in 2005 and 2014 (5.1 and 5.8), and he was an All-Star in neither. While Peralta has as many All-Star games as candidates that I argued more for above in Vizquel and Rollins, his other numbers are more lacking. His WAR of 30.4 is well below both of those guys and ranks 74th all-time among shortstops. He had decent power for shortstop, hitting 202 homers (ranks 14th) and 20+ in a season five times. Just 1,761 hits and 873 RBI though, to go with a pretty average 102 OPS+. Fielding was not his saving grace either, with an Rfield of -30. The initial model did not predict Peralta as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 2.65%. None of the four initial submodels predicted him as a Hall of Famer. The updated model also did not predict Peralta as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of just 5.90%. None of the four updated submodels predicted him as a Hall of Famer. Peralta's total Player Value of 207.0 ranks 164th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 3.46%. I was actually surprised Peralta was this high. He sits above Don Money and behind Brian Dozier. He had a Batting Value of just 63.5, but his Fielding Value of 151.8 ranks a pretty solid 89th, ahead of Adrian Gonzalez and behind the still active Anthony Rizzo. His Fielding Value of -8.4 ranks as the 49th worst, above Dave Martinez and behind Dion James. He had no seasons of Player Value that were 40 or greater, capping out at 37.7 in 2005. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer R.A. Dickey, SP (2001-2017) Dickey was a late bloomer and even won a Cy Young in 2012 at the age of 37 when he went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA in 233 innings pitched, along with league leading 230 strikeouts. He also appeared in his lone All-Star game in that season. He won his lone Gold Glove in 2013, though I've argued based on Player Value that he should have won the NL pitcher Gold Glove in 2010 as well. Besides that special 2012 season, Dickey was mainly just a knuckleball pitcher that could log you innings at a decent quality. He was nearly .500 for his career, with 120 wins and 118 losses. He recorded a 4.04 career ERA across 2,073 innings, with 1,477 strikeouts. If 2012 Dickey was the norm he could be a Hall of Famer, but that just wasn't the case. Dickey had a poor total Player Value of -17.9. That's the only player we've discussed that's been negative over his career. This means that overall, Dickey was generally in the bottom 25% of starting pitchers throughout the course of his career. He ranks a dismal 4103 out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021, putting him only in the top 78.18%. A better way of putting it is that Dickey is in the bottom 21.82%. He's ahead of Kei Igawa and behind Edgar Garcia. His Pitching Value of -66.7 ranks as the 159th worst, ahead of Dave Lemanczyk and behind Homer Bailey. His Fielding Value of 56.8 saves him somewhat, ranking 42nd ahead of Bob Stanley and behind Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera. But his Batting Value of -7.9 further hurts him, as he has a -28 career OPS+ and got just 45 hits in his 306 career plate appearances. So why's he on the ballot? Mainly just the 2012 Cy Young season, when he had his lone 20+ Player Value year. He also had a 19.1 Player Value season in 2010, driven by his fielding. In reality he had just the 3rd most Pitching Value in the NL in 2012, so that Cy Young probably wasn't merited. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Andre Ethier, OF (2006-2017) Ethier won one Gold Glove, one Silver Slugger, appeared in two All-Star games, and finished top 10 in MVP once between 2009-2011. His best season according to WAR was actually 2012, when he put up 3.5 wins. His 12 season career really wasn't long enough to put up any impressive counting stats, with only 1,367 hits, 162 homers, and 687 RBI. He was a solid hitter during his playing years, however, with a 122 OPS+. His fielding could have been better, though, with an Rfield of -29. Overall his playing days were not great enough in quality for his peak to justify induction, with a WAR of just 21.5. Ethier's total Player Value is just 51.5, ranking 659th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021. That puts him in the top 13.91%, ahead of Ozzie Guillen and behind the still active Cesar Hernandez. He had a Batting Value of 81.6, a Fielding Value of -22.9, and a Baserunning Value of -7.2. His Fielding Value ranks as the 80th worst, above Champ Summers and behind the still active Dominic Smith. His Baserunning Value ranks as the 96th worst, above Jose Hernandez and behind Joe Orsulak. Around Ethier's range is former Red Eugenio Suarez, the hitting side of Shohei Ohtani (and not counting 2022), and the last 3 seasons of Hank Aaron's career. Ethier had no 40+ Player Value seasons, and in fact didn't even have any seasons over 20. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Jayson Werth, OF (2002-2017) Werth was a part of the great late 2000s Phillies teams full of "Hall of Great" players. He'll join the likes of Ryan Howard and potentially Jimmy Rollins in the future, though Werth is probably a borderline "Hall of Great" player at that. He went to one All-Star game in 2008 and finished top 10 in MVP voting in 2009, receiving MVP votes in three other seasons. While he technically entered the big leagues in 2002 at the age of 23, it really took until his age 29 season in 2008 for him to take hold. From there he was a solid player until about 2014. He recorded seven seasons of 3+ WAR, but only had a 29.2 career WAR. His 1,465 hits, 229 homers, 799 RBI, and 117 OPS+ just aren't enough to really argue for induction. I argued that based on Player Value, Werth was the best hitting NL rightfielder in 2010 and the second best NL rightfielder in 2010 overall, behind Jay Bruce. The initial model did not predict Werth as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 2.12%. None of the initial submodels predicted Werth as a Hall of Famer. The updated model also did not predict Werth as a Hall of Famer, giving him a probability of 4.92%. None of the updated submodels predicted Werth as a Hall of Famer. Werth had a total Player Value of 180.6, ranking 207th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021. This put him in the top 4.37%, ahead of the contract king Bobby Bonilla and behind Steve Finley. His Batting Value of 106.8 ranks 217th, ahead of Brian McCann and behind Matt Williams. His Fielding Value of 62.7 ranks 473rd, ahead of Marlon Byrd and behind Adam Eaton. He also had a surprising Baserunning Value of 11.1, which ranks 75th, ahead of Gene Richards and behind Bob Dernier. While he only stole 132 bags, he played RF, where the base stealing standards are pretty low. Werth had one 40+ Player Value season in 2009. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: Not a Hall of Famer Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer J.J. Hardy, SS (2005-2017) Hardy went to 2 All-Star games, won a Silver Slugger, and won 3 Gold Gloves. He also had decent power for a shortstop, hitting 20+ homers in 5 different seasons. His 188 career home runs rank 18th all-time among shortstops. His 1,488 career hits and 688 career RBI are much less impressive, though. With an OPS+ of 91, Hardy scores as a below average hitter, but he did have a positive Rfield of 84. Overall his WAR of 28.1 shows that he isn't in the Hall of Fame conversation. Hardy's total Player Value of 128.6 ranks 326th among the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, putting him in the top 6.88%. He sits just behind fellow first year candidate Jacoby Ellsbury, and just above Derrek Lee. His Batting Value of 18.5 ranks just 599th, ahead of Kelly Johnson and behind the still active Luis Arraez. However, his Fielding Value of 112.5 ranks a more admirable 188th, ahead of Brendan Ryan and behind Jerry Hairson Jr. Hardy posted one 40+ Player Value season in 2011. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Mike Napoli, 1B/C (2006-2017) If Napoli were actually a catcher for more of his career, I might be arguing his case a little more and put him in the "maybe" category. With 267 career home runs, he would rank 10th all-time among catchers behind 6 Hall of Famers, Brian McCann (who hasn't yet appeared on a ballot), Lance Parrish (who I think should be in the Hall), and Jorge Posada. His 744 RBI are less impressive and rank just 35th, and his 1,125 hits are even less impressive and rank just 77th. His 650 walks rank 25th. So while he had some pop, he didn't really walk enough or otherwise bat well enough to be a good "three true outcomes" type player. Part of his lacking counting totals are due to his shorter 12 season career, though. His OPS+ is decent at 117, but certainly not enough to merit serious induction. He wasn't a great fielder either, with an Rfield of -17. And again, Napoli wasn't entirely a catcher; he played 678 innings at first base and 539 innings at catcher, switching over in 2013 when he left the Rangers and joined the Red Sox. Among first basemen, his 267 homers would rank just 55th. Napoli's total Player Value of 94.0 ranks just 454th out of the 4737 position players from 1973-2021, only in the top 9.58%. His Batting Value of 73.6 ranks 295th, ahead of the still active Jose Abreu and behind the still active Cody Bellinger. His Fielding Value of 22.7 ranks 1139th, ahead of Brian Hunter (the CF) and behind the still active Luis Rengifo. I thought that Napoli would have had a higher Batting Value and a lower Fielding Value, but that isn't in the case. It was that position change that really did him in, as his Batting Value was solidly positive for most of his catcher years but declined for his first base years. For Fielding Value, he fared better as a first baseman and worse as a catcher. This is in line with the logic of the different offensive and defensive positional expectations for catchers and first basemen. Napoli posted one 40+ Player Value season in 2011. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer Bronson Arroyo, SP (2000-2014, 2017) Ah, Bronson Arroyo. As a kid growing up in Cincinnati in the 2000s and 2010s, Arroyo's famous leg kick was a timeless move to imitate. But alas, sentiment alone isn't enough to merit induction into the Hall of Fame. Although, Arroyo was recently announced as the 2023 inductee for the Reds Hall of Fame (I argued for Aaron Boone, based on Player Value). Arroyo went to one All-Star game in his first year with the Reds in 2006, and won one Gold Glove in 2010 (that Player Value thinks belonged to Dickey). As I showed in my linked Twitter thread about the Reds Hall of Fame candidates, Bronson had some great seasons in 2004, 2006, 2010, 2005, 2009, and 2003. However, his 2007 and 2008 were poor, as were most seasons before and after that main span. WAR thinks more highly of the 2007 and 2008 seasons, as well as 2012 and 2013, than Player Value does. Bronson just needed that 10 year stretch from 2003-2014 to be a bit better, or to extend for longer than 10 years. He ended with 148 wins, a 4.28 career ERA, 2,435 innings pitched, and 1,571 innings pitched, producing a 23.4 career WAR. Unfortunately for my Reds fandom, Arroyo's had a total Player Value of -45.3, ranking a poor 4927 out of the 5248 pitchers from 1973-2021. That puts him in just the top 93.88%. More accurately, he ranks as the 322nd worst, in the bottom 6.12%. He sits ahead of Jonathon Niese and behind Mark Knudson. His Pitching Value of -68.1 ranks as the 150th worst, ahead of Vince Velasquez and behind Kip Wells. His Fielding Value of 48.9 somewhat saves him and ranks 66th, ahead of Rick Mahler and behind Fergie Jenkins. His Batting Value of -26.2 further hurts him though, ranking as the 37th worst, ahead of Fred Norman but behind the still active Alex Wood. It's not like Bronson was bad for his entire career, though, or else he probably wouldn't have been kept around. He had a 20+ Player Value season in 2006, as well as an 18.2 Player Value season in 2004. For most of 2003-2010, Bronson was a solid pitcher, with the odd exceptions of 2007 and 2008. During those 8 years, he put up a 52.2 Player Value, and that shoots up to 67.2 if you ignore 2007 and 2008. What hurt him were his poor early years in Pittsburgh from 2000-2002, and his seasons after 2010. That extra season in 2017 after not playing for two seasons was especially detrimental, as he posted a -24.5 Player Value. Bronson's rise after his poor early career in Pittsburgh is admirable, but sometimes players need to know when it's time to hang up the spikes. My opinion: Not a Hall of Famer Predictive model: N/A, not good enough to make it worthwhile, and model doesn't handle pitchers Player Value: Not a Hall of Famer And that's the ballot! I've broken down every player on the ballot, in terms of my own personal arguments (based on statistics, of course), my predictive model's thoughts, and how the players rate under my Player Value metric. As a final summary, let's quickly hash out each stance's Hall of Fame thoughts: My Opinion:
Hall of Fame Predictive Model:
Player Value:
Player Value is of course a new concept and probably the most controversial of what I've written from above. Maybe you think it's trash. I admit it's not perfect, nor is it where I would like it to be. I still need to measure players' opportunity sets more fairly, rather than just based on plate appearances or innings pitched/in the field. However, I don't think it's completely useless. The 3 best position players during the span used were Barry Bonds, A-Rod, and Mike Schmidt. The 3 best hitters were those same 3 guys. The best fielder was Ozzie Smith, the 2 best baserunners were Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines, and the top 5 pitchers (at pitching) were Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson. The best fielding pitcher was Greg Maddux. The best hitting pitcher was Mike Hampton. I don't think anyone will argue too much with those results, and any metric that can reproduce those rankings is one that I think is at least somewhat worthy of using for evaluation. See the 4 attached files below for the Player Value totals for both position players and pitchers careers from 1973-2021, as well as the zipped Player Value totals for position player and pitcher seasons from 1988-2017 (the period where any of the 2023 ballot players played in).
Below is the dataset used to train the initial Hall of Fame model, the dataset of players from the 2023 BBWAA ballot, and the initial model's predictions on those players:
Below is the dataset used to train the updated Hall of Fame model, and the updated model's predictions on the players I used from the 2023 BBWAA ballot:
Thanks everyone as always for parsing through another lengthy post. I look forward to continuing my Player Value research this year and sharing the results after I've refined it to another level of acceptability. Statting Lineup Newsletter Signup Form:
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