THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

-Edgar
-Dawson

+McGwire
+Whitaker (write in)

I second adding Whitaker and dropping Dawson, but the rest of the list looks great as-is.

Bill Dahlen looks great by WAR, but a lot of his value comes from defense. And I wouldn’t be comfortable making a defense-first HoF case for a player from so long ago.

Whitaker is not on the ballot, but of course, I’d want him in.

Limiting myself to the ballot, and if I had to list 7 names, those 7 would be it.

Cyril Morong did something similar on his blog, with a bit more detail: http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-predictions-for-hall-of-fame-vote.html

He also ran his calculations against the votes from the 1980s to see how it matched up: http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2009/12/estimating-hall-of-fame-vote.html

Good stuff, in my humble opinion..

The day is coming when Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker will have to buy a ticket to see Jack Morris’s HOF bust.

That will be unfortunate.

Glad to see Lynn Henning took time out from lobbing grenades towards Curtis Granderson about how much he doesn’t care about baseball and wore out his welcome by being too involved in the community and charity that he had to be moved so he could write this article.

/my ant-Lynn Henning rant.

Offensively, McGwire has a career wRC+ 10-points higher than Edgar Martinez.  Additionally, during their careers of similar length, McGwire played 10,271 more innings on the field.  Their relative value is not close.  I don’t see how a ballot with Martinez on it does not also have McGwire (excepting consideration of Congressional testimony).

Paul, interesting.  Let’s see what Rally says:
http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/m/marte001.htm
http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/m/mcgwm001.htm

He’s got Edgar as 4 wins ahead of McGwire.

Edgar has 1000 more PA to start with.  That’ll be worth 3 wins. 

Offensively, he’s got then as equals above average.  So, if Fangraphs has McGwire as that much higher than Edgar, then Fangraphs is doing something very different from Rally.

Fielding-wise, he’s got Edgar a bit ahead of McGwire (Edgar did have a few seasons at 3B), by 1 or 2 wins.  Not much though.  Pretty dead even.

Overall, dead-even cases.

It would be a tough line to draw to include Edgar and keep McGwire out.

FanGraphs and Rally aren’t that far off of each other.  McGwire’s wRC+ is 10 points higher, but Edgar makes up most of the wRAA by having 1000 extra PAs, because it’s not just 1000 more PAs of replacement bonus, it’s also 1000 more PAs at 51% better than the league average RC/PA.

wRAA = lgR_PA * PA * (wRCplus - 1)

So assuming the lgR_PA for both is roughly equal, the ratio of their runs above average would be:

(PA_Edgar * .51) / (PA_McGwire * .61)

.51 and .61 are their respective wRC+ minus 1.  Also, I know they should be subtracted and not divided, but dividing cancels out the lgR_PA, so it’s easier for back-of-the-envelope type stuff if I don’t have to worry about what that constant is.

That would mean if McGwire is 578 runs above average, Edgar would be at 547, and if Edgar is at 559, McGwire would be at 591.  So that’s only about a 12 run difference.  Given that the two use different linear weights and that they might have different park factors, 12 runs over a career isn’t that big a difference.

Then I put Edgar back on my fictional ballot.

And I’m still writing the name “Whitaker” in the margins with a big red X next to it.

Wells:

Thanks!

Cy

I came to the same conclusion about Edgar/McGwire.  More or less dead even careers.  If you thought McGwire a HOF sans steroids (IE, as if Steroids had no impact on your belief about his HOF cances), then Edgar is a HOF.  I have no problem with a moral ding for steroids, but still don’t see McGwire not in my HOF. 

McGwire was a slightly better hitter, but it wasn’t by much, and Edgar played longer, and was an Elite Hitter for a very long time.  If you give Jim Rice the HOF for being “feared”, then Edgar should be a shoe in.  As an M’s fan, I saw MANY any interview with an opposing teams players saying exactly that.  I give “teh fear” no credence in my hall, but if you do, Edgar’s gets that too. I’d hate to be an opposing pitcher and face him at his peak.  IMO the Kingdome is overrated as a hitters paradise.

I think Chris Miller hit the nail on the head.  Solely based on his on-the-field performance, Mark McGwire was a shoo-in first ballot Hall of Famer.  If you can put Edgar in the same conversation with him statistically, there is no argument for keeping Edgar out. 

Personally, I have always felt the steroid issue should be ignored so long as major league baseball keeps the record book--and that includes the teams’ wins and losses--where they are.  Either the games were real or they were bogus.  If they were bogus, where are our refunds for tickets?

Bernie Miklasz disclosed his ballot today, and it was pretty similar (link in name):

Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell

He adds McGwire and Lee Smith to Lynn Henning’s list (he’s a St. Louis writer, which might have something to do with Lee Smith); otherwise, it’s the same.

Also, Miklasz specifically cited WAR for Trammell and Martinez in defending his choices (not in the above blog post, but elsewhere) and linked to Rally’s top 500 list.

The tide could be turning just in time for Blyleven, Raines, et al.  It’s a shame Whitaker wasn’t kept on the ballot long enough for any kind of re-evaluation that may be coming.