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This list uses my Hall-of-Fame Metric, which I explained in detail in an earlier post: introducing-my-hall-of-fame-metric.html . In addition, I've found a source that calculated "hypothetical" Silver Slugger winning catchers prior to 1980 in order to more accurately determine the list. Credit to whoever calculated these hypothetical awards. For Catchers, our Hall of Fame line is approximately 1017 points, with two player exceptions due to their era and one player that shouldn't be in the Hall. Current Hall of Famers will be highlighted in gold, with snubs and future Hall of Famers highlighted in green. Current players are italicized.
_______**HALL OF FAME LINE**_______
There are lies the top 25 catchers. Completing the rest of the list are: 26. Bob Boone, 935.584 points (has the 4th most Gold Gloves for catchers, with 7) 27. Wally Schang, 737.644 points (about 907 points with 2 hypothetical Silver Sluggers. He scores above the 2 HoF catchers from the "No All-Star Game" era and thus is a snub; ranks 1st in triples and 2nd in on-base percentage) 28. Sherm Lollar, 870.782 points (about 900 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger) 29. Salvador Perez, 856.928 points 30. Jim Sundberg, 850.801 points 31. Walker Cooper, 757.724 points (about 847 points with 3 hypothetical Silver Sluggers) 32. Darrell Porter, 799.119 points (about 829 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger) 33. Tony Pena, 827.062 points 34. Jason Kendall, 821.673 points (ranks 3rd in singles and 2nd in stolen bases) 35. Rick Ferrell, 808.061 points (shouldn't be in Cooperstown; though he ranks 5th in walks, his overall point total is significantly lower than his contemporaries of Hartnett, Dickey, and Lombardi) 36. Mickey Tettleton, 805.844 points (ranks 2nd in walks) 37. Javy Lopez, 800.732 points (ranks 3rd in slugging percentage) 38. Smoky Burgess, 765.513 points (about 795 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger) 39. Russell Martin, 791.293 points 40. A.J. Pierzynski, 789.755 points 41. Jason Varitek, 767.937 points 42. Charles Johnson, 733.966 points 43. Mike Stanley, 724.934 points 44. Gene Tenace, 724.108 points (ranks 1st in walks and 4th in on-base percentage) 45. Spud Davis, 662.479 points (about 722 points with 2 hypothetical Silver Sluggers; ranks 4th in batting average) 46. Sandy Alomar Jr., 713.642 points 47. Tim McCarver, 680.255 points (about 710 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger) 48. Terry Steinbach, 709.115 points 49. Roger Bresnahan, 674.684 points (about 704 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger; ranks 3rd in triples, 1st in stolen bases, and 5th in on-base percentage; low points due to era) 50. Manny Sanguillen, 673.289 points (about 703 points with a hypothetical Silver Slugger) 51. Darren Daulton, 696.585 points 52. Ray Schalk, 620.292 points (about 680 points with 2 hypothetical Silver Sluggers, ranks 3rd in stolen bases, low points due to era) 53. Matt Wieters, 667.789 points 54. Ed Bailey, 665.545 points 55. Tom Haller, 627.028 points 56. Butch Wynegar, 618.305 points 57. Mike Scioscia, 604.032 points 58. Chris Hoiles, 594.837 points 59. Carlos Ruiz, 584.77 points And that's a wrap. Thank you for reading and feel free to let me know what you think about my rankings. Look at the attached spreadsheet below for the full process of my calculations:
Credit to the Baseball-Reference and Wikipedia pages for each player, as well as the linked source above for "hypothetical" Silver Slugger winners, for providing the data necessary to make this list.
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This list uses my Hall-of-Fame Metric, which I explained in detail in an earlier post: introducing-my-hall-of-fame-metric.html For Closing Pitchers, our Hall of Fame line is approximately 1225 points, with one player exception due to his era. Current Hall of Famers will be highlighted in gold, with snubs and future hall of famers highlighted in green. Current players are italicized.
______** HALL OF FAME LINE **______
And there's our top 25 closing pitchers of all-time. Rounding out the rest of the list are: 26. Robb Nen, 1099 points 27. Dave Righetti, 1086.3 points (one of 3 closers on this list with a no-hitter) 28. Sparky Lyle, 1076.7 points (one of 9 closers on this list with a Cy Young) 29. Armando Benitez, 1072.1 points 30. Jeff Montgomery, 1063.8 points 31. Todd Worrell, 1061.3 points 32. Rod Beck, 1050.9 points 33. Rick Aguilera, 1047.7 points 34. Doug Jones, 1031.9 points 35. Willie Hernandez, 1028.4 points (one of 9 closers on this list with a Cy Young, and one of 4 with an MVP) 36. Heath Bell, 1009.9 points 37. Francisco Cordero, 1007.6 points 38. Todd Jones, 1006.7 points 39. Jason Isringhausen, 993.5 points 40. Fernando Rodney, 990.8 points 41. Roberto Hernandez, 983.1 points 42. Steve Bedrosian, 982.7 points (one of 9 closers on this list with a Cy Young) 43. Joakim Soria, 978.3 points 44. Ugueth Urbina, 975.9 points (attempted murder isn't really a career helper) 45. Brad Lidge, 973.1 points 46. Mike Marshall, 962.2 points (one of 9 closers on this list with a Cy Young) 47. Bob Wickman, 960.8 points 48. Roy Face, 959.2 points (The Baron was a 6x All-Star and early pioneer for closers) 49. Jose Mesa, 956.5 points (unfortunately 4th highest in career walks) 50. Lindy McDaniel, 938.1 points (3rd on the list in wins & 4th in strikeouts, but 5th in walks) 51. Tug McGraw, 929.3 points (his son was a singer, or Something Like That) 52. Bill Campbell, 922 points 53. Brian Fuentes, 920.1 points 54. Bobby Thigpen, 915 points (set the record for most saves in a season with 57 in 1990, broken by K-Rod) 55. Brian Wilson, 913.6 points (how about that beard though?) 56. Kent Tekulve, 882.3 points 57. Jim Konstanty, 878.3 points (one of 4 closers on this list with an MVP) 58. Jesse Orosco, 876.5 points (one of only 29 players in history to play in 4 decades) 59. Mark Davis, 824.9 points (one of 9 closers on this list with a Cy Young) And there's our final list. Thanks again for reading and hopefully you agree somewhat with the rankings. I've attached a spreadsheet with the full process of my calculations below:
I would also like to credit the Baseball-Reference and Wikipedia pages for each player for providing the information necessary to form this list. I know, it's been awhile since I have imparted my wisdom (or opinions) onto you guys. But bear with me, as the culmination of several weeks of hard, laborious work has finally begun to come to fruition. Over the last month or so, I've been working on a system that I've named my "Hall-Of-Fame Metric". In short, it is designed to take into account the awards and statistical parts of a player's career to determine if they belong in Cooperstown. However, the system is designed to only compare players of similar positions. We can compare Hank Aaron and Willie Mays fairly accurately, but not Johnny Bench and Derek Jeter. So, without further adieu, here is how the Hall-Of-Fame Metric is calculated:
Awards 10 points for each Triple Crown 8 points for each MVP 5 points for each Cy Young 4 points for each Hank Aaron 4 points for each Rolaids Relief Man or Reliever of the Year 3 points for each Silver Slugger 3 points for each Gold Glove (2 points for pitchers) 3 points for each World Series MVP 2 points for each League Championship Series MVP 2 points for each Batting Title 2 points for each year leading the league in Home Runs, RBI, Stolen Bases, Wins, ERA, Strikeouts, or Saves 1 point for each All-Star game 1 point for each All-Star game MVP 1 point for winning the Rookie of the Year Stats .67 points for every 10 singles .78 points for every 10 doubles .89 points for every 10 triples 1 point for every 10 home runs, every 10 runs scored, and every 10 RBI .5 points for every 10 walks (for batters) .11 points for every 10 stolen bases .5 points for career batting average x 1000 (ex: .295 would be 295, for 147.5 points) .5 points for career on-base percentage x 1000 .25 points for career slugging percentage x 1000 2 points for each win -2 points for each loss .5 points for 10-career ERA, x 100 (ex: ERA of 3 would yield 10-3=7, 7x100 = 700, for 350 points) 1 point for 5-career WHIP, x 100 (ex: WHIP of 1 would yield 5-1=4, 4x100 = 400, for 400 points) 1 point every 10 strikeouts (for pitchers) -1 point for every 10 walks (for pitchers) 1 point for every shutout 1 point for every save -1 point for every blown save 25 points for every perfect game or no hitter Total = Stats + 10 x Awards It is also important to note that differences in era can have an affect on the outcomes, especially with the awards. Players that played before 1933 had no All-Star game and thus had no access to the points associated with that honor. Those that played prior to 1957 likewise had no Gold Glove award. Anyone that played ahead of 1980 had no Silver Slugger award and lastly, players that played before 1999 had no Hank Aaron award. Similar scenarios can be seen in pitchers without the existence of the Cy Young award until 1956 or any sort of Reliever award prior to 1976. For the purpose of my metric, I created 5 eras of baseball, each divided by the start of a major award: 1) Beginning of time to 1932, highlighted in green (no All-Star game) 2) 1933 to 1956, highlighted in blue (no Gold Glove, mainly no Cy Young) 3) 1957 to 1979, highlighted in gold (no Silver Slugger, mainly no Relief award) 4) 1980 to 1998, highlighted in silver (no Hank Aaron) 5) 1999 to present day, highlighted Pointing out these eras allow us to first take note of a player's total score, but then take into consideration his era. A total of 2,000 from 1930 should be ranked ahead of a total of 2,015 from 2004 because the older player likely would have more points had he had the opportunity to win all the awards that the newer player benefited from. Though older players missed out on these award points, they did benefit in some ways with players leading the league in certain categories more often, giving them more points, which in turn lead to more triple crown winners and even more points. Consider the 11 players that won the Triple Crown in the 52 year span from 1915 to 1967 versus the 1 player that won the Triple Crown in the 52 year span from 1967 to today. Older players also benefitted with higher career batting averages (the "newest" played in the top 10 is Ted Williams, who retired in 1960), more triples ("newest" in top 20 is Stan Musial, who retired in 1963), and less strikeouts, although they did usually have less home runs. On the pitching side, Triple Crowns are still less common than before albeit more common today than the batting version of the award. Earlier pitchers saw much more games started and thus more wins and shutouts, but had no access to the save. Hopefully you are eager to discover which players are the greatest at their respective positions, including finding out notable Hall of Fame snubs or those already in Cooperstown that may not belong. I will try my best to post the results of a position each week. For now, I'll release some spoilers for each position: Barry Bonds*: 2828.7 Vince Coleman: 782.165 Ivan Rodriguez: 1782.672 Walker Cooper: 757.724 Albert Pujols: 1925.935 Bill Skowron: 793.8 Rogers Hornsby: 1181.847 Bobby Richardson: 609.489 Alex Rodriguez*: 2254.602 Dave Bancroft: 753.883 Mike Schmidt: 2126.162 Freddie Lindstrom: 753.815 Roger Clemens*: 2491.9 Ted Lyons: 870.9 Mariano Rivera: 1944.2 Kent Tekulve: 882.3 You know what the asterisk means. Thanks again for reading, be on the lookout for my position lists in the coming weeks, and Roll Tide! Aaron Springer |
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