THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Bias among Holy Writers vis-a-vis WAR for the HOF

If we treat WAR as the perfect way to capture the career value of a player, what else does a Holy Writer look for?

In all, the empirical analysis shows the following:
1) HoF voters undervalue walks (p-value .001)
2) HoF voters overvalue batting average (p-value .001)
3) HoF voters overvalue longer careers (p-value .001)
4) HoF voters undervalue starting pitchers (p-value .001)
5) HoF voters overvalue relief pitchers (p-value .001) though this bias seems to be decreasing
6) HoF voters overvalue Wins and Losses for pitchers (p-value .003)
7) HoF voters undervalue players at defensive positions (p-value .005)
8) HoF voters overvalue homeruns/RBI (p-value .06)

Great work to Sky.