THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, March 07, 2011

Do we want to know about peak years for HOF?

Adam Dorowski, as per VivaEl:

Essentially, wWAR double counts anything from 3.1-6.0 WAR and triple counts anything at or above 6.1 WAR.  You’d total these numbers for players across their entire career and use this as a Hall of Fame comparison instead of just straight WAR perhaps.... “Voters want a guy who was the best at his position for a certain period of time. Quiet consistency is boring. They want Ryne Sandberg (62.1 WAR) and not Lou Whitaker (69.7 WAR)."… If we know anything, it’s that voters for the Hall of Fame talk a lot. But are they holding true to this axiom? Adam’s anecdotal remark aside, I’ve never seen a comprehensive analysis that shows players with better peaks are more likely to get into the hall of fame than players with comparable overall value but worse peaks.  So we’re making, what seems to me, a leap of faith here that voting patterns are intrinsically consistent with an argument that’s unverified.

Fair enough.  Let me give it a first go.

I ran a simple correlation of:
1. Total WAR
2. Number of 3-6 WAR seasons
3. Number of 6+ WAR seasons

The T-stat was 0.0 for #1, 7.5 for #2 and 18.7 for #3!  That is, knowing the total WAR gives us NOTHING AT ALL, if we already know the number of good or great seasons a player has had.  The number of great seasons (6+ WAR) is what counts the most.

The correlation is r=.68 based just on these three stats (really, just the two).  Data was against players born between 1895 (Ruth) and 1958 (Rickey).  Here are some highlights:

These players were overqualified, in that the estimate was greater than 100%:

aaroh101
maysw101
ruthb101
musis101
schmm001
gehrl101
hornr101
willt103
ott-m101
mantm101
hendr001

These players are all at 50%+ of being in the Hall of Fame, but are not:
gehrc101
rosep001
wynnj101
santr102
appll101
bands101
whitl001 <-- Whitaker
bellb001
trama001

These are players who had a less than 50% chance of making the HOF based on their “peak” seasons, but are nonetheless in the HOF:

dawsa001
murre001
smito001
starw101
winfd001
peret001
ricej001
brocl102

Except for Rice and Brock, all had at least 50 WAR.

***

There were 61 players born between 1895 and 1958 with between 50 and 70 WAR.  31 of those are in the HOF.  Among THOSE players, the T-stat is highest for the WAR parameter.  But, number of 3+ WAR seasons is close behind AS A NEGATIVE.

That is, among players on the borderline, total WAR is a much stronger indicator than number of great seasons.  For example, there are 8 players with at least 12 3+ WAR seasons, and only two of them is in the HOF: Brooks Robinson, Carlton Fisk.  There are 11 players with AT MOST 8 3+ WAR seasons, and 7 of them are in the HOF (Perez, Dawson, Stargell among others).

However, among players with at least 5+ 6 WAR seasons, 7 of 9 are in HOF (not Santo, Jimmy Wynn).

***

All to say: it depends where you are in total WAR.  If you’ve got less than 40 WAR, it’s extremely hard to make it, even if you have alot of good seasons.  If you’ve got more than 70 WAR, you’re going to make it, regardless of how few good seasons.  And between 40 and 70, things start to balance out from one point to the other.