Predicting Today's Future Hall of Fame Pitchers, 2022 Edition

I would like to begin by noting something big that I completely missed in this year’s article on Future Hall of Fame Hitters: this is my tenth year doing this series! That’s pretty neat!

For those who haven’t read one of these before, a quick overview of the process (before I discuss a trend I noticed in the results). Basically, what I’m doing is finding the median Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference edition) for Hall of Fame starting pitchers by age. So I start by looking at every eventual starter in Cooperstown at 20 arranged by total WAR at that age, pick the midpoint, then look at them all at age 21 and pick the midpoint, and so on, all the way into their 40s. Once I have that trend line, I go and look at how many eligible non-Hall of Famers topped those median marks and didn’t eventually go into Cooperstown (I exclude players still on the BBWAA ballot, since their fates are more up in the air).

Once I have those numbers, I go age-by-age and determine what percent of players over the median WAR at each age go on to the Hall of Fame. So, if there are 20 Hall starters at age 20, and the exact midpoint in their value is 2.0 WAR, that’s our median point. And say that there are 90 pitchers in history who had 2.0 WAR by age 20 and didn’t make it to the Hall. We’d have 10 Hall of Famers out of 100 total 2.0-WAR 20 year olds, so our odds for 20-year-old pitchers over the Hall median for that age going on to Cooperstown is 10%. Also, for the sake of comparing to mostly modern starting pitchers, my searches here are limited to Live-ball era pitchers* (so those that debuted after 1920) who have started in 10% of their appearances.

*Out of curiosity, I actually calculated the median including Deadball Hall of Famers, just to see if it changed things. It’s a lot closer than I thought it would be, but it’s still not great. For the median line including Deadball pitchers, the biggest difference was an even higher peak value, but trailing off a few years earlier. Interestingly, the overall career median including Deadball pitchers was actually 2.0 Wins lower than the Live-ball-only one, thanks in part to the longer careers of Live-ball Hall of Famers.

This year’s look at the pitchers turned up some unusual results. For those who have followed from years past, you might have noticed that the list for pitchers is always a little sparser than the one for hitters. This year takes it to an extreme, however; there are only five active pitchers who fall above the Hall median for their age, and all five are in their 30s. Given that a major inspiration for this series was trying to identify young players on track for Cooperstown, this kind of stood out as an issue (don’t worry, I still covered the WAR leader for each age regardless of whether they topped their age-median, so there is still an article to read).

It’s hard to pinpoint one reason for this dramatic drop-off. Part of it might be the shortened pandemic season, but if so, it’s a little weird that it took an extra year for that to show up, since last year’s article was relatively normal. It’s also unusual that this didn’t seem to be the case for position players, and on top of that, most of the top players by age group would have needed a really good full 2020 season to make up the gap. Maybe one of them could have made it with a Cy Young-caliber effort, but even that’s low probability.

So there’s probably something else at play. It might be the result of more injuries to young pitchers? Or maybe the result of the different approach for younger pitchers these days, focusing on later call-ups and lighter workloads? The Median line for Hall pitchers does start early and aggressively, so a later start can affect a starter years down the line as they have to play catch-up. Given the fact that MLB players seem to be retiring earlier than they used to, would we start to see the best pitchers squeezed on both ends, or would the best of the best continue to last into their 30s? Alternatively, maybe there will be a shift in how pitchers are used as they adapt to the new state of the game, or some rule change to push back at these factors?

Or perhaps the problem is the disappearance of the below-median Hall of Fame starter, slowly pushing the standards higher and further out of reach for all but the best young pitchers? It’s hard to see how that trend might reverse itself going forward, and if younger pitchers aren’t making it as long on top of that, the issue is only going to compound itself. Or maybe Hall voters completely upend how they evaluate starters to account for that, in which case, how useful will it be to look at past Hall of Famers as a method of prediction?

In the end, I don’t know that I have an answer here, and my strategy for now will probably be to see if this becomes a larger trend in coming years, or if this is just a one-year aberration brought on by a confluence of rare-but-impactful events. For now, I’ll keep my current system while trying to brainstorm alternative methods to look at this question in the future.

With all of that preamble out of the way, let’s move onto the age-by-age breakdown. Remember that players are listed based on their age in the 2021 season (so, for example, pitchers in the Age 23 group will be 24 for the upcoming year and working towards the age-24 goal):


Age 20: 0.9 WAR Median; 14.81% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

There weren’t any 20-year-old pitchers who started at least 10% of their games last year, let alone any who reached nearly a full Win Above Replacement.



Age 21: 1.9 WAR Median; 10.28% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

At least we had some pitchers who fit this qualification, some of who have even been worth positive value, but most of those are late-season call-ups with a good start under their belt. Luis Patino (0.0), who went to Tampa in the Blake Snell trade, is the active WAR leader here among starters with more than nominal innings.



Age 22: 4.0 WAR Median; 14.74% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Another Ray, Shane Baz (0.4), is the leader here, but he’s literally at 10% of where he needs to be. Getting value as a super-young starter is difficult.



Age 23: 6.5 WAR Median; 15.09% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Ian Anderson (4.1) has cleared the bar for the age group below him, but is a little short of his own. Given that one of his two seasons was pandemic-shortened, though, that’s not too shabby; he’s probably one of the two pitchers who most realistically could have made it but missed out, although an injury or slow month could have still done his chances in. And a really good 2022 season could technically get him to the median next year.



Age 24: 9.8 WAR Median; 16.83% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

To give you some perspective on how aggressive the median WAR line is for starters, Julio Urias had a 4.4-WAR breakout season last year after hanging around the majors since 2016, and he still didn’t hit this mark (7.6). That’s far enough away that I’m not even sure if he would have made it with a full 2020 season.



Age 25: 12.35 WAR Median; 17.76% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Sandy Alcantara (8.4), Jack Flaherty (8.3), and Brad Keller (8.2) lead the way, but all of them would need a huge 2022 to actually reach the median mark. It’s stuff like this that makes me seriously question how applicable these standards for starters are to the modern game.



Age 26: 18.15 WAR Median; 26.39% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

German Márquez (15.4) was above the median as recently as last year, and an All-Star 2021 season wasn’t even enough to keep him close to the borderline this year (granted, it was a middling All-Star season from a weak Rockies squad, but still). Also falling short are fellow 2021 All-Stars Walker Buehler (12.4) and Shane Bieber (11.5, although his year was also injury-shortened in the second half). Lucas Giolito has picked up Cy Young votes for the last three years, and would still need a 10+ WAR season to catch back up (11.0).



Age 27: 21.55 WAR Median; 27.14% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Luis Severino (12.0) has thrown under 28.0 innings over the last three seasons combined (including the postseason), and yet he still leads this group. Max Fried (11.3), Jose Berrios (10.8), and Lance McCullers Jr.(10.1) have all had their own injuries and inconsistencies to overcome in the meantime.



Age 28: 26.45 WAR Median; 34.55% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Aaron Nola racked up 2.1 WAR in 2020 in only 71.1 innings, and he’s almost exactly 2.0 WAR short (24.5), so I think there’s a real argument that he’s only below the median because of that. Granted, refusing the COVID vaccine, missing time due to it in 2021, and any potential negative effects the illness had on his performance (he was only worth 2.3 WAR in 180.2 innings last year) also probably doesn’t help him much.



Age 29: 31.2 WAR Median; 38.00% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

If Robbie Ray’s Cy Young campaign last year is a sign of things to come (and I’m sure the Mariners hope that’s the case), he might start making up ground. I’ve noted it in the past, but there’s a decent number of pitchers in recent years (Cole, Scherzer, Kluber…) who had middling backgrounds before breaking out in their late 20s and going on to incredible runs, so I don’t think it’s absurd to wonder if Ray fits that mold.



Age 30: 36.3 WAR Median; 52.78% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Gerrit Cole is basically a year behind pace, with 31.1 WAR to his name. A full 2020 probably would have gotten him to the point where a good 2022 would get him to the mark, but that’s already 2 conditionals stacked on top of one another. As is, he’ll need a 10-Win 2022 season, so he’s mostly going to be trying to not lose too much ground. Maybe remaining one year behind is a more realistic goal?



Age 31: 41.2 WAR Median; 54.29% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Madison Bumgarner had a solid, 2-Win year, which is both an improvement on his rough 2020 and also not nearly enough to catch back up to the median after he fell below it last year. As it stands, he’s been worth 33.3 pitching WAR, and even adding his hitting only gets him to 38.2. Of course, given the arrival of the DH to the NL, even that’s about to dry up.



Age 32: 44.7 WAR Median; 57.58% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
Chris Sale (46.6 WAR)

After twelve full age groups with zero players above the appropriate median WAR, we finally have our first success case! Despite missing most of the last two seasons to Tommy John surgery, Chris Sale still has a nearly 2-Win edge on the median Hall of Fame starter. Of course, to stay on pace, he still needs another 5.0 WAR in 2022, and that may prove difficult between his continued return from surgery, his fractured rib, and his refusal to get vaccinated.

Two years ago, Stephen Strasburg was riding high, coming off a World Series win, a World Series MVP, and an overall Cy Young-caliber season. He was about 5 Wins below the Hall median, but it wasn’t hard to envision him at least keeping pace with the standards for Cooperstown. Now, here we are two years later, and Sale still sits at just 31.8 WAR, after throwing just 26.2 innings over the past two seasons. Being a starting pitcher is a difficult, unpredictable job.



Age 33: 51.6 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
Clayton Kershaw (69.1 WAR)

In Clayton Kershaw, we have our first player above the overall median for starting pitchers. Also of note, despite his fairly historic peak, Kershaw only hit the overall mark this past year; despite his debut at age 20 and 3 Cy Young Awards (plus a bunch of runner-up years), he went into the 2021 season just a hair below the 67.2 needed to match the Hall median. For an interesting comparison, if the median WAR for starters was the same as the one for position players, Kershaw would have passed the mark way back in 2018.

Jacob deGrom debuted six years after Kershaw, and has made a good run at the median mark despite that delayed start. Sure, he had an injury-shortened year in 2021, but he was so good that he still managed nearly four and a half wins in just 92 innings. However… that still technically set him back, because of the absurd 7-Win jump between the age 32 and 33 medians.



Age 34: 54.4 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

Lance Lynn (30.2) is this age group’s leader. Maybe he’ll also factor into that “late bloomer” narrative I mentioned earlier; after all, about half of his career value has come in the last three seasons, despite the shortened 2020 campaign. We’ll see how long he can keep this streak up.



Age 35: 59.85 WAR Median; 100% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

None of David Price (40.4), Johnny Cueto (35.0), or Corey Kluber (33.7) seem particularly close to the Hall mark. The most interesting question here is probably which one will end up with the most career WAR. Price still has one year on his deal (who knows what happens after that), and Kluber signed with the Rays pre-lock-out (which I totally forgot), but Cueto is yet to be signed. I bet he catches on somewhere, though, even if it’s just a minor league deal. Kluber is definitely the best of the trio when healthy, but that’s a big “if” here.



Age 36: 60.2 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
Max Scherzer (66.2 WAR)

Like Clayton Kershaw, Scherzer is a three-time Cy Young winner with another three top-three finishes, and overall has one of the best runs of seasons for modern starting pitchers. Unlike Kershaw, he still has not hit the overall median for Hall pitchers, even as he enters his age 37 season! If he permanently blew out his arm in his first Mets start or something, I have zero doubt that he would still be elected to Cooperstown at the first opportunity, but he would still technically go in as a below-median starter. To me, this might be the most convincing argument yet for the need to re-think what a Hall of Fame starting pitcher looks like. If we decide that starters need to look as good or better than Max Scherzer to stand a chance of induction, barring seismic shifts to the way the game is played, we just aren’t going to see many more inducted starters.



Age 37: 61.3 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
Zack Greinke (68.0 WAR)

Zack Greinke joined Clayton Kershaw last year in finally making it over the overall median line, as he came into the year about half a Win short.* The pandemic probably won’t cost Greinke a spot in the Hall, and he’s in the clear on Wins Above Replacement, but it might harm his chances of 3000 strikeouts. His strikeout rate dropped substantially last year, and he still sits almost 200 shy. Another 60-80 in 2020 would give him a decent chance to hit 3000 this year in his return trip to Kansas City, and any more than that would make it even more likely. But now, he’s going to need at least one more season after this one to get there, minimum.

*Granted, I don’t count his offensive WAR in these calculations, since it seems silly to punish pitchers who can’t hit with their negative WAR, since that really doesn’t factor into Hall voting. But Greinke is actually a pretty good hitter for a pitcher, as one of only 24 pitchers in the Expansion Era with an OPS+ of 60 or better (min. 100 plate appearances). I think of that kind of like postseason success: nice extra credit in a resume, but not a must-have.

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning Cole Hamels here, who saw his comeback attempt last year cut short by injury. It might seem hard to believe, but he’s still within striking distance of the median for his age, at 58.3. Of course, part of the issue is that the median keeps rising for several years after this, so Hamels will need more than one successful year of comeback to keep up, but it’s also not unthinkable. He was still good the last time that he was healthy, after all…



Age 38: 62.05 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
Justin Verlander (72.2 WAR)

We close things out for above-median pitchers with the active pitching WAR leader, Justin Verlander. Like with Kershaw and Greinke, Verlander cleared the overall Hall median in his last full season. It’s just that his most recent full season, thanks to Tommy John surgery, was his 2019 Cy Young campaign.

So I guess if you want to conceptualize these questions I’ve been posing a little better, one more concrete way might be “When did you start to think of Justin Verlander as a Hall of Fame lock?” (I feel comfortable assuming most people evaluate him that way, at this point). Almost certainly not 2014, when he looked pretty done, posting an ERA+ of 85 at age 31. But he rebounded a little the next year (not to All-Star level or anything, but he no longer looked toast), and by 2016 finished second in Cy Young voting again. Was it then? Or maybe in 2017, after his trade to Houston and strong stretch run? Or 2018, after yet another runner-up finish in Cy Young voting? 2019 was great, and helped cement his legacy and got him to 3000 strikeouts and included his third no-hitter and all that, but I also doubt that was the year that made most people decide “Aha, now I feel like he’s Hall of Fame material!”.

And yeah, if he retired before then, he could have just been a below-median inductee; after all, that is, by definition, half of Cooperstown. But at the same time, how many pitchers of the last two decades or so have been better than Verlander, overall? We’ve still been churning out fantastic position players who clear the WAR median with ease over that same span: from Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera to Adrian Beltre and Chase Utley. There are plenty of choices here, even ignoring players with steroid ties (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez), players who straddle the new millennium (Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones), other special cases (e.g: Ichiro Suzuki and his late arrival in America, Todd Helton landing right on the overall median). Plus, I don’t really doubt that we’ll see several more stars currently in their primes clear the position player WAR median easily; Mike Trout’s already a gimmie, but we also have Manny Machado, Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Carlos Correa… But for pitchers in that time, we have four, and none of them are going to be the cases who cruise past the middle point, like Trout or Pujols.



Age 39: 63.5 WAR Median; 79.17% of all players at this mark elected
Age 40: 65.7 WAR Median; 79.17% of all players at this mark elected
Age 41: 66.8 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Overall: 67.2 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Players:
None

This is sort of a post-script section, as there were only three pitchers 39 or older in the majors last season at all, starter or reliever. Oliver Perez just un-retired to sign a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks, although as a 40-year-old situational lefty who threw just 3.2 innings last year, it feels like a toss-up whether he makes their roster. Maybe he’s done, but a situational left-handed reliever hanging around into his 40s is also hardly unheard-of.

As for starting pitchers, we have Adam Wainwright (40.2) and Rich Hill (16.6). Hill making it in the league at all this year as a 42-year-old pitcher is impressive, especially considering where he started, but his Hall prospects are basically nothing. That’s not to say Wainwright has great chances, but he’s definitely starting from a stronger place. He’s two years younger, and doesn’t seem to have committed to retiring after this year (although he’s mentioned it before). It probably won’t happen, but since he’s already found success as a soft-tossing, older starter (reminder: he had a 127 ERA+ last year! It was his best season since 2014!)… just imagine if he decides to hang around and has a Jamie Moyer-like last act left in him. Like, at this age, Moyer still had an All-Star Appearance, a World Series title, and another decade of career ahead of him. And Moyer didn’t have the young peak that Wainwright did (including four top-three finishes in Cy Young voting from 2009 to 2014, plus some votes last year). If Wainwright pulled that off, I wonder how he’d do in Hall voting? I’d bet he at least gets a solid base of support, and that can snowball depending on other factors. Granted, we’d be talking about, like, the 2037 ballot at that point, so who even knows how that looks. Anyway, I think the take-away here is that Jamie Moyer’s career is wild, and I think it would be cool if Wainwright has a few more good years in him.