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Sunday, January 01, 2012
Rebooted Hall Of Fame
If you follow sci-fi or comic book movies, you know what I’m talking about here. Sometimes, the weight of history is too much for the mythology to survive into the next generation. Bad decisions don’t need to be propogated or respected. Do we need to follow Batman’s Clooney, Schwarzenengger, and Schumacher, or can we just start over with the Frank Miller inspired version, with Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan?
You get a reboot.
My rules for the Hall of Fame is that it’s based on birth year, when the player turns 45 (and if he’s still active, then so be it… worked fine for Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux and Guy Lafleur… an active-playing Hall of Famer), and he remains on the ballot for at most ten years. Each year, you have ten new players nominated (that is, the ten best players of the new birth year), and the top ten players of the previous ballot carrying over (so we always have twenty players on the ballot, except for the inaugural year). Every ballot is an ordered ballot, and must have ten names. The top two each ballot gets elected the Hall Of Fame. It’s an elect-2 system.
There’s going to be two groups, one that starts with birth year 1931, and then we’ll have another one for pre-1931. Why 1931? Well, it’s the first year where you have an over-abundance of qualified players, following a dearth of under-qualified players. (It also gives us some breathing room with the Negro League stars.) I’ve studied it, and it’s going to work. I’ll show it next time.
Anyway, we start with imagining this is the end of 1976, and players born in 1931, and here are the ten players on the 1977 ballot:
Willie Mays
Mickey Mantle
Eddie Mathews
Ernie Banks
Ken Boyer *
Ed Bailey * +
Joe Cunningham *
Bill Virdon
Jim Bunning *
Larry Jackson * + - /
This becomes an easy selection. I don’t think we need to do any kind of mock balloting, or trying to use past ballots to try to simulate this ballot. (It might be fun in other years, and maybe we’ll do that, but not here.)
So, our first two Hall of Famers are Willie and Mickey.
That’s how you reboot something.
(Don’t pay attention to the symbols after their names. It’ll be explained in a few minutes.)
Now we go to players born in 1932. It’s a pretty weak year:
Maury Wills * + - /
Woodie Held * +
Eddie Broussard *
Don Blasimgame
Jim King
Eddie Kasko
Johnny Podres * +
Ron Kline *
Billy Hoeft
Hal Woodeshick
The next two members are carry-overs: Eddie Mathews and Ernie Banks.
Only ten can carry-over onto the next ballot, and they’ve been marked by *.
Now it’s on to 1933:
Rocky Colavito + - /
Norm Sieburn +
John Roseboro +
Ed Charles
Jim Davenport
Jerry Lumpe
Tito Francona
Billy O’Dell +
Ken Johnson +
Bob Shaw
The next two members in the rebooted Hall of Fame: Jim Bunning, Ken Boyer.
The ten carryovers have been marked with a +.
Now it’s 1934 birth year players, and we’ve got a great set of players:
Hank Aaron
Al Kaline
Roberto Clemente - /
Norm Cash - /
Luis Aparicio - /
Roger Maris - /
Bob Allison - /
Bill White -
Camilio Pascual -
Turk Farrell
Our two new members are Hank Aaron and Al Kaline.
The carryovers are marked with -.
It’s the 1935 birth year players, and we’ve got a whole mess of pitchers to contend with:
Frank Robinson
Felipe Alou /
Earl Battey
Bob Gibson
Sandy Koufax /
Jim Perry
Bob Veale
Lindy McDaniel
Pedro Ramos
Don Cardwell
Our two new members are Frank Robinson and Bob Gibson. Hard to believe, but Roberto Clemente has to carryover yet another year.
The carryovers are marked with /.
We’ll do one more, then we’ll stop for now. The 1936 birth year players on the ballot:
Harmon Killebrew
Frank Howard
Bill Mazeroski
Tony Gonzalez
Floyd Robinson
Clay Dalrymple
Don Drysdale
Stan Williams
Bill Monbouquette
Ron Perranonski
Finally, we get to clear out some carryovers: Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax.
After six elections, we have these as our twelve players in the rebooted Hall of Fame:
1977: Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.
1978: Eddie Mathews and Ernie Banks.
1979: Jim Bunning, Ken Boyer.
1980: Hank Aaron and Al Kaline.
1981: Frank Robinson and Bob Gibson.
1982: Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax.
And our ten players that carryover to the next ballot:
Harmon Killebrew (b. 1936)
Norm Cash (b. 1934)
Luis Aparicis (b. 1934)
Rocky Colavito (b. 1933)
Roger Maris (b. 1934)
Felipe Alou (b. 1935)
Frank Howard (b. 1936)
Maury Wills (b. 1932)
Don Drysdale (b. 1936)
Larry Jackson (b. 1931)
Next time, I’ll do players born 1937-1942.
I played with a HOF reboot last year, so this prompted me to formalize it with a program.
Methodology:
Using Lahman database (through 2010) plus rWAR from BBRef. Calculated a seasonal weighted WAR based on:
0.002x^3 + 0.13x^2 + 0.695x
(fitted onto double for 3-5.9 WAR, triple for 6-8.9 WAR, etc.)
Eligible at age 45, for 10 years. Selected by sum of seasonal weighted WARs. All players carryover.
Shortcomings: Dependent solely on this one number. Doesn’t account for missing time (WWII, pre-integration). Likely sells relievers short, minimally b/c they can’t get high season WAR levels.
Now, the results:
1977: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle
1978: Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks
1979: Jim Bunning, Ken Boyer
1980: Hank Aaron, Al Kaline
1981: Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson
1982: Roberto Clemente, Don Drysdale
1983: Juan Marichal, Brooks Robinson
1984: Gaylord Perry, Willie McCovey
1985: Phil Niekro, Carl Yastrzemski
1986: Ron Santo, Sandy Koufax
1987: Pete Rose, Harmon Killebrew
1988: Fergie Jenkins, Dick Allen
1989: Joe Morgan, Jimmy Wynn
1990: Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton
1991: Rod Carew, Jim Palmer
1992: Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando
1993: Nolan Ryan, Johnny Bench
1994: Carlton Fisk, Reggie Smith
1995: Mike Schmidt, Bobby Grich
1996: Rick Reuschel, Don Sutton
1997: Bert Blyleven, Graig Nettles
1998: Buddy Bell, Bobby Bonds
1999: George Brett, Keith Hernandez
2000: Gary Carter, Ozzie Smith
2001: Robin Yount, Dave Winfield
2002: Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray
2003: Lou Whitaker, Dwight Evans
2004: Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs
2005: Alan Trammell, Ryne Sandberg
2006: Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn
2007: Tim Raines, Andre Dawson
2008: Roger Clemens, Dave Stieb
2009: Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez
2010: Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin
2011: Craig Biggio, Kevin Brown
2012: Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling
2013: Larry Walker, Kenny Lofton
2014: Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas
2015: Ken Griffey, Mike Mussina
2016: Jim Edmonds, Jim Thome
2017: Pedro Martinez, Sammy Sosa
2018: Chipper Jones, Manny Ramirez
2019: Roberto Alomar, Todd Helton
2020: Derek Jeter, Mike Piazza
[These last few years still have a few active players competing, but seemed pretty likely.]
The only difference in the first 6 years was picking Drysdale over Koufax. Regular rWAR has Drysdale 69.8 to 48.7. Weighted rWAR was 102.6 to 96.1.
I ran it starting with pre-1856 birthdays, which is when enough HOF-level players were around for 2 per year and has the happy coincidence of the first induction year of 1901.
“Worst” players to make it (rWAR/wrWAR):
- Roy Campanella (36.2/52.2)
- Al Rosen (33.0/54.2)
- Vern Stephens (43.5/56.3)
- Jack Quinn (48.2/58.1)
- Gil Hodges (44.6/59.3)
- Nellie Fox (44.4/60.6)
“Best” players dropped (rWAR/wrWAR):
- Mark McGwire (63.1/91.0)
- Tom Glavine (71.6/89.6)
- Rafael Palmeiro (66.0/88.5)
- Luis Tiant (59.4/83.7)
- John Smoltz (65.3/81.7)
- John Olerud (56.8/80.9)
[Yes, Glavine, Smoltz, and Olerud are dropped after 2020, but there are already enough players ahead of them to keep them out.]
Best players that have to wait till next year:
- 1934 Pete Alexander(106.8/179.8) - 1933: W Johnson and E Collins (plus Speaker in 1934).
- 1978 Eddie Mathews(98.3/165.8) - 1977: Mays and Mantle
- 1982 Roberto Clemente(83.8/129.1) - 1980: Aaron and Kaline; 1981: F Robinson and Gibson
- 1978 Ernie Banks(64.4/110.5) - 1977 (what a year!)
- 1950 Paul Waner(73.8/107.3) - 1949: Gehrig and Charlie Gehringer
- 2015 Mike Mussina(74.6/104.0) - 2014: Bagwell and Thomas; 2015: Griffey, Jr.
Players elected in their final year (or two):
- Will White (1909)
- Jimmy Collins (1924 - year #9)
- Tony Lazzeri (1958)
- Dizzy Trout (1970)
- Vern Stephens (1975)
- Roy Campanella (1976)