THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

After 22 votes, the average is :18:

I picked 10, give or take—one for every position thereabouts. I’m laughing at the people picking freaking THIRTY. 15 or 20, I think there’s a conversation there. 30? Madness.

I don’t see the problem with 30.  I think the NHL has 25 over a 10 year period. 

I can see how 30 is the limit, but I don’t see why it’s amusing in the least.  It’s very justifiable to have 2-4 guys voted into the HOF each year.

The median and mean has established itself very quickly to :20:

i can read the post but the poll doesn’t show up at work. Otherwise I’d vote for 25. 2-3 a year sounds right. 3 inductees per year would be fine though. doesn’t sound much like madness to me.

Now, go vote here:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/poll_for_players_born_1962_1971_i_would_vote_in_number_of_players/

Ok, after 56 votes, it has settled.  No real reason to keep voting here.  It’ll be more interesting to vote in the other thread.

And after 58 votes, 8.6% of voters read down the page far enough to vote on the second question.

Justin/2: uh… would you like to revise your official position?

Because 10 is far more “mad” than 30, based on the link in #6.

After 129 votes, the mean is 21 (20.7), extremely close to the 20 it’s been stuck on since the beginning.

14% chose 12 or fewer players, while 17% chose 28 or more players.

I’d like to thank Justin for being so brave and brash in stating his opinion, as if his opinion made the most sense, or was the most sane.  He very much represented the minority viewpoint.

This seems typical I think that we all think we’re “centrist” or “sane”, when the reality is that our perception is not more accurate of reality than the guy next to you.

So, don’t laugh at the opinion of the next guy as someone being more insane than your opinion.  At the least, acknowledge that we’ve all got some level of insanity.

One SD = 7.3%, so half of responses would be 16 to 26 players.

Thirty isn’t madness at all.  It only sounds like a big number in isolation.

Look at what the Hall of Merit did at the Baseball Think Factory.  They’ve scheduled inductions based on the historical number of HOF-ers per year and the number of teams per league.  They are up to 3 per year in the post-expansion era.  That’s not out of line with what Cooperstown has been doing if you include the Vets Committee.

I agree, that an alternating elect-2, elect-3 system would be wonderful.

It’s a celebration of who gets in, rather than “how could they not elect that guy”.

Why is it reasonable to think that there’s some stable number that approximates the correct number of HOFers electable in a given ten-year period?  It could be, but the much more natural assumption to me is that it varies widely in different ten-year periods.

A lot has been made of the HOF classes that will be eligible in the coming years.  2013 is a huge one, with 6-7 guys who are deserving HOFers (depending on how you feel about Lofton).  The next 3 classes, which you can see on BB-ref, feature 4-5 guys per year who are well qualified.

If the writers only elect 1-3 per year, then we’re going to have ballots that are 18-20 deep with guys who should be voted for.

I don’t know if there’s any end in sight.  I don’t think this is a fluke, but more the result of changes baseball made during the prime of these player’s careers, expansion in 1993 and 1997.  More teams = more players putting up HOF worthy numbers.

I can try and project out to the 2017 ballot:

Ivan Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez are easily qualified.  Vlad Guerrero and Jorge Posada have good cases, and Omar Vizquel will have his support.  Of course, any of these guys could mess that up by signing a contract for 2012.  I don’t think any of them are officially retired.

It’s a way to guage what kind of hall of fame you want, to give you a general ballpark number.

If you believe the AVERAGE is supposed to be 20, then you would expect some 10-yr period to be as low as 15 and some other 10-yr period to be as high as 25.

It’s to try to frame how big you really want the hall of fame.

Look at one of the early commenters who was in disbelief at the high numbers being offered, when the reality is that he was the one in the minority in being so low.

It’s a question of simply setting the landscape.

Obviously, star pitchers born in 1962-1971 are far far far better than those born 1952-1961.  You can make the argument that the 4 best pitchers of all time were all born in the same 10-yr time period.

Try not to take the number too literally.  I’m framing the argument for discussion purposes.

I think the number per decade should increase to take into account population growth, integration, and international recruitment.  In chapter four of Wizardry, I make the back-of-the-envelope case that such factors have increased the talent pool so much that we should be honoring about six times as many players who peaked in the 1990s as those he peaked in the early 1900s.

It should not be population growth, but pool growth, which is not necessarily the same thing.

First of all, we should not talk about the population growth but the BIRTH growth.  The population grows for three reasons:
1. more people born (which is NOT the case for the last several decades)

2. more people living longer, which IS the case

3. more immigrants, which is probably the case

In addition, in MLB, you get minorities which were not part of the original pool, but exploded after Jackie, but then has not kept up, among natives, but has jumped based on non-nationals.

The number of American-born players in 1969 and today is the same in MLB.  Expansion has led to all the new players coming from outside USA.  But there’s also been a loss of black players.

So, there’s many parameters to consider, of which I’ve only touched on a few.

Therefore, I agree with Michael on two of his three variables.

Tom, I agree.  When using the word “population,” I meant _relevant_ population, which in Wizardry was estimated number of white U.S. males in their twenties and thirties.  The numbers used were very rough, but the whole idea is very rough.

Basically, the idea--which obviously can be modified and refined--is that a Hall of Fame or Merit etc. should include white U.S. players from each decade based on the relative number of white U.S. males in their twenties and thirties over tim, PLUS any non-U.S., non-white players as good or better than their respective white U.S. contemporaries.