from Amazon
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Coming Hall of Fame Apocalypse
The first column is the number of Hall of Famers born in a particular decade. The second column is the number of players with at least 50 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) born in that decade.
We can see that through players born in 1941, we had 167 Hall of Famers, with 138 players with at least 50 WAR. That would imply that 50 WAR is kind of a strict standard. Of players born from 1942 to 1961, we have only 33 Hall of Famers (and counting), while 54 players had at least 50 WAR. This would imply that the voters have been pretty strict with their selection of players, really raising the standard.
Of players born in the single decade of 1962 to 1971, already 38 players have exceeded the 50 WAR threshhold. Given that the voters have only selected 33 of 54 “qualified-ish” players, and they might select a couple more, that would imply a rate of about 65% selected players. With 38 players in the “qualified-ish” camp, that would mean we might get 25 players in the Hall of Fame from players born 1962-1971. While that number is not unprecedented as we can see in the below chart, the current Hall of Fame balloting process is going to make it very difficult to elect anything close to that number. Even though the standards have been raised, as we can see by 1942-1961 players, it seems the standards are going to be raised yet again.
Basically, we’re at the point where there’s so many qualified players to choose from, the voters risk not voting in enough players because of the constraining process.
HOF WAR50 Birth Decade
14 14 1852 1861
9 14 1862 1871
12 15 1872 1881
19 16 1882 1891
27 10 1892 1901
27 18 1902 1911
20 15 1912 1921
18 14 1922 1931
21 22 1932 1941
17 32 1942 1951
16 22 1952 1961
-- 38 1962 1971
Great point. I had a vague sense of a coming bottleneck, but had never thought about quantifying it. And of course this will get wrapped up with the PED nonsense, which will become a rationalization for saying “no” to some players. Eventually, it will become clear that the de facto standard was raised to 60 WAR or more (if it hasn’t already), but that will be obscured by the PED battle for a while.
It’s unfortunate that the standards got raised at the same time the pool of great players became much more racially diverse. I don’t think that’s why the bar got raised, but the reality will be a Hall with a bunch of not-so-great white guys, while some very talented blacks and Latinos end up on the outside.