2019 Hall of Fame Ballot and 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame

I realized the other day that it’s been 3 years since the last time I did a “50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame” piece, and even that was a reduced 25-player ballot. The last proper 50-player list was five years ago. It seems Graham Womack had ceased work on the project, but I still find the subject interesting, so I wanted to pick it up again and see what my list today would look like.

After all, with so many players going in over the past few years (18 inducted over the past five cycles, with likely another five or six joining them this year), there must be a lot of turnover, right? Let’s start by looking at my list from last time (sorted by Hall Rating); as a reminder, players are eligible even if they’re on their first ballot this year and haven’t gone through a election cycle yet:

2016 Hall of Fame Ballot and 25 Best Players Not in the Hall

After a one-year hiatus, Graham Womack has returned to his 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project, and I have once again decided to contribute. One twist is that, this year, he had to trim his list down to just the 25 Best Players. I might still name a Top 50 to match years past, but for now, I’ll just go over my ballot for the top 25 and save the rest for another day. Once I do that, it shouldn’t be too difficult to whittle that down to my 10-person Hall list for 2016.

My methodology for my ballot was pretty straightforward. I used my past years’ ballots as starting points, saw how many openings I had, then decided what changes I needed. The top spots were easy to decide, and the only really difficult choices came down to the last four or five slots. As usual, I noted on Graham’s ballot that I’d vote for all of my choices for the real Hall of Fame, as all 25 easily clear the standards set forth by Cooperstown (as I’ve shown in the past, usually, the top 50 or so players not in the Hall are still as good as the median Hall of Famer, if not better, as the Hall includes far more than just the Willie Mayses as Babe Ruths of the game).

Since my last ballot on this matter, four players have gotten the call: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, and Joe Torre. That means I’ll need to cut at least 21 players to get to the appropriate number. How many newcomers do I have to account for? Certainly Ken Griffey, Jr., as there’s clearly no argument against him. Also Jim Edmonds; I can’t see any argument that he isn’t on of the 50 Best players not inducted yet, although we’ll need to see if he makes the top 25. I’m not sure I’d add Trevor Hoffman or Billy Wagner to the list, but they’d be in the conversation. My uncertainty stems more from how to treat the general position of relief pitcher (if we decided we need to elect some eligible reliever to Cooperstown right now, Hoffman and Wagner would be my choices 1 and 1A). So at least two of our open slots are filled.

Next, I need to whittle my rough, ~48-person list down to just 25. This seems like it might be a difficult task, but it winds up being easier than you might think. While the ballot itself never requires ranking, it would be a lie to say that I don’t consider some players on my list stronger candidates than others. I’ll start with the more “obvious” choices, as they generally take less explanation to get through.

Breaking Down This Year's 50 Best Not in the Hall: Which Team Gets Snubbed the Most?

I may as well continue with the Hall of Fame theme I have going on. One thing that I always wonder when filling out my 50 Best Players in the Hall of Fame ballot is if there’s any noticeable bias in who gets snubbed from the Hall. Like, whether there’s a specific position that the voters overlook, or if certain teams get passed over more often than others. I guess it’s also possible it’s my bias, but I’d like to think I’m objective in filling this out.

Anyway, if you need refreshing, here’s the selection of 50 Players I ended up going with this year. I wanted a quick number to look at for Hall worthiness, so I went with Adam Darowski’s Hall Ratings, since 1) that’s exactly what they were designed for, and 2) he includes breakdowns of how much of a player’s Hall Rating came in each season, with each team in total, and so on.

First, we have the straight number of players each franchise had on the list:

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame, 2013

For the last two years, I’ve participated in Graham Womack’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. So naturally, I had to participate when he announced his fourth edition of the project. This year, I’m taking a bit of a shortcut; I’ve written about all of these players over the last two years, and I don’t want to waste too much time going over old ground. So instead, I’ll post my list from last year for reference.

In addition to their names, I’ll include their Hall Rating from Adam Darowski’s Hall of Stats. As a refresher, that’s based on Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement and normalized to a scale like OPS+. So, a 100 rating is the minimum to make the Hall of Stats. For reference, a 150 would be the equivalent of one-and-a-half Hall of Fame careers, a 200 rating would be as good as 2 Hall of Famers mashed together, and so on-you can read more about it at his site.

Anyway, my 2013 list included the following names:

Barry Bonds, 363
Roger Clemens, 293
Curt Schilling, 172
Jeff Bagwell, 164
(5) Larry Walker, 151
Pete Rose, 150
Mike Piazza, 147
Bill Dahlen, 145
Lou Whitaker, 144
(10) Alan Trammell, 143
Bobby Grich, 141
Kevin Brown, 138
Rick Reuschel, 136
Edgar Martinez, 135
(15) Kenny Lofton, 132
Jack Glasscock, 131
Shoeless Joe Jackson, 130
Luis Tiant, 130
David Cone, 129
(20) Tim Raines, 128
Craig Biggio, 126
Graig Nettles, 126
Rafael Palmeiro, 125
Reggie Smith, 125
(25) Buddy Bell, 124
Mark McGwire, 124
Willie Randolph, 124
Dwight Evans, 123
Bret Saberhagen, 121
(30) Sal Bando, 118
Ken Boyer, 118
Dick Allen, 116
Sammy Sosa, 116
Keith Hernandez, 115
(35) Dave Stieb, 115
Deacon White, 114
Ted Simmons, 113
Kevin Appier, 112
Joe Torre, 112
(40) Bobby Bonds, 111
Sherry Magee, 111
Eddie Cicotte, 111
Jim Wynn, 110
Darrell Evans, 106
(45) Tommy Bond, 103
Thurman Munson, 101
Minnie Minoso, 99.8
Bob Caruthers, 96
Ross Barnes, 83
(50) Ezra Sutton, 71

The numbers are a little wonky with some of the older players (Sutton and Barnes retired in 1888 and 1881, respectively), as playing time was very different then (and in Minoso’s case, he caught the tail-end of segregated leagues). But that’s a pretty solid list.

One of the things that you need to do with this list is indicate how many players on your list you would actually put in the Hall of Fame. The last two years, I’ve said that I would put every player on my list in the Hall. I’ve always wondered if this waters down the Hall too much. I finally looked at that a little, though.

For an unrelated project, I examined the Hall of Fame and the best players not in the Hall in a variety of stats; Baseball-Reference’s WAR was one. I know it’s just one standard, and by no means the end-all, be-all, but: the average WAR of the top 62 hitters not in the Hall of Fame and the average WAR of Hall of Fame hitters is not statistically significant. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not lower…but at the same time, I also only added 39 hitters last year rather than the full 63.

Going all the way down to the 60s gets you players like Jim Fregosi, Brett Butler, Bernie Williams, or Bobby Veach… I’m still not quite that far down the list. So the point is, I’m still in the same neighborhood as the actual Hall. I wouldn’t be shocked if I was improving the pitchers, given that I’m only adding 13 this year (we’ll go over the changes shortly, and it’s quite an impressive bunch, with an average Hall rating of over 150).

But now, the big question: what changes does this year bring? Well, first, Deacon White was inducted last year, meaning I can clear him off my list. Joe Torre was just inducted as a manager…but since that was for the class of 2014, it doesn’t take effect yet. All the others are in the same place they were last year.

So who takes this one spot? Well, this year’s ballot brings five people that I would consider worthy into the discussion. In the format from earlier:

Greg Maddux, 220
Mike Mussina, 163
Tom Glavine, 149
Frank Thomas, 140
Jeff Kent, 103

That’s a solid group, to say the least. Maddux takes White’s spot by default. Also, if you remember, in my wrap up last year, I was feeling a little uneasy about Sutton and Barnes. I replaced them with Tommy John (106) and John Olerud (103) for a variety of reasons. I realize it was a different time and you have to account for the different playing times, but at the same time, my research about how the Hall has changed over time made me feel more willing to side with more recent players. So those two should probably go into the discussion as well. There are a few more players from my first edition that may also work their way back in to consideration, in particular Wes Ferrell (111), who I had a hard time cutting last year.

On top of that, Adam has revised his Hall system even more, which gives me a little bit of a different perspective on these players. A lot of the changes are to the early days of the baseball and how Hall rating works with regards to playing time and pitching back then; that’s why you may notice players like Bob Caruthers and Tommy Bond taking dives compared to where they were last year (the long-short of it: since part of WAR is playing time, and pitchers back then threw so many more innings, Adam’s formula was overestimating how valuable they were compared to their peers).

Anyway, I anticipated a hard time deciding who all to kick off to make room for everyone. The starting place would probably be Barnes and Sutton; I was already kicking them off last year, so I may as well start there this year. That frees up two spaces, which probably go to Mussina and Glavine. Tommy Bond is someone I had been meaning to kick off last year, too. I’m not an expert on early baseball, and Adam wrote an interesting piece last year about 19th century pitchers. The biggest takeaway: Bond played in a wildly different time. He’s still the all-time leader in K/BB ratio…but he also had no value after the league moved the mound back from 45 feet (!!!). His spot probably goes to Frank Thomas.

Those are really the big moves, actually. Jeff Kent falls into a weird level for me; he’s sort of on the level of players like Robin Ventura, Will Clark, and John Olerud…all players who have made my list in the past, mind you. I would support all of them for the Hall, but they’re sort of my borderline, and they don’t quite make this top 50 list. If, say, we elected 10 players this year and freed up a ton of spots for next year? They’d be first on the list. But right now, they’ll have to settle for honorable mentions.

There are two other changes I would make to this list, though. First, Adam’s rejiggering of Hall Rating has given me second thoughts. I waffled back and forth on getting rid of Wes Ferrell last year; his combination of pitching and hitting was hard to beat. Bob Caruthers had a similar case, actually. However, Caruthers played much earlier in the history of the game. In the refiguring of innings pitched value for early pitchers, Caruthers dropped quite a bit. I’d be more than willing to swap Caruthers out for Ferrell, especially since they fill a similar niche.

One other player I have second thoughts about every year is Eddie Cicotte. I even marked him on my spreadsheet from last year. He always looks like a good idea, but when I would do my write-up for him, I’d always sort of lose my conviction on him. Also, I’ve been wanting to fit Tommy John onto the list. This seems like as good a swap as any. Also, it’s worth bringing up their Fangraphs WAR, where John is over 75 while Cicotte is below 50. Fangraphs WAR for older pitchers is a little weird for my liking (maybe I just need to get used to it more, who knows; there are just a few pitchers who seem a little higher or lower than I would have thought), but I think that’s a pretty comfortable margin to go by.

And…that’s about it, really. My list is the same as last year’s version, with six changes:

Deacon White (elected to Hall) -> Greg Maddux
Ezra Sutton -> Mike Mussina
Ross Barnes -> Tom Glavine
Tommy Bond -> Frank Thomas
Bob Caruthers -> Wes Ferrell

Eddie Cicotte -> Tommy John

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of...Merit?

So, in my rage against the Hall of Fame last week, I mentioned maybe just diverting a majority of my focus to Baseball Think Factory’s Hall of Merit next year. After looking at it for some time, I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s closer to the Hall of Fame that I’m expecting than the actual Hall of Fame is.

How so? Well, as you recall, for a chunk of time in December (for the second year in a row), I contributed to Graham Womack’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. My end result was 50 players who I thought could be safely added to Cooperstown without lowering their standards.

How would a similar project look for the Hall of Merit? Are they really that much better? Basically, the Hall of Merit is an alternative to the Hall where Baseball Think Factory “went back” (all the way to 1898) and began electing players who would have been eligible for the Hall of Fame had it existed at that time. The top players from each ballot were selected, with the goal being to match up with the Hall in size by the time they reached present day (at the time of the Hall’s creation). Since that point, they’ve continued electing players, with rates revised to reflect the size and quality of the league in comparison with historical standards. A more in depth description can be found here.

Back to the original question: using the same rules as the 50 Best Players not in the Hall, what would a 50 Best Not in the Hall of Merit look like?

Top 50 Players Not in the Hall: Final Comparison

Graham Womack finally posted the results of this year’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project last week. So why not compare my ballot to the final results?

Out of the 50 players, there were 39 who overlapped in the two, including the top 24 vote-getters. In order of most votes received, they are (place on the final project included):

50 Best 2012 Wrap-Up and Analysis

I finished this year’s look at my 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame in about half the time of last year. So, I figured the best way to finish this series (and this year, as I will be taking the next week off) would be a wrap-up similar to last year’s.

So, just like last year, we’ll begin with a positional look at my top 50.

P: 11
C: 4
1B: 6
2B: 5
3B: 7
SS: 3
LF: 4
CF: 2
RF: 7
DH: 1

Pitchers are obviously leading the way, with third base and right field leading batters.Overall, nothing too shocking. The only positions that changed by more than one person from last year are first and third base, both of which decreased by two.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame 2012, Part 5

For the second year, I’m participating in Baseball Past and Present’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. First, I covered players still on the ballot. Then, I started on to the backlog of candidates. He’s the final part of the older candidates. Each player is listed with their teams (in order of games played), position, and Hall Rating from the Hall of Stats (which works similar to OPS+; 100 is the baseline for a Hall of Famer).


Ted Simmons, Cardinals/Brewers/Braves, C, 111-Catchers in general are underrated in the Hall, as previously mentioned. Even considering that, though, the voters passing on Simmons is a little odd. His 2472 hits are second most for a catcher, behind only Ivan Rodriguez (meaning he was number one when he retired). He’s tenth among catchers in home runs with 248 (and Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, and Javy Lopez all started after he retired, meaning he was even higher up on the list when he first hit the Hall ballot), and second in doubles with 483 (again, only behind Ivan).

I was kind of surprised to see his Hall Rating at only 111. However, 1) that still puts him in a tie for eleventh all-time among catchers; and 2) he hung on too long. His final fives seasons were pretty bad (-2.9 bWAR and -1.4 fWAR). If he had just quit after 1983, his Hall rating would probably have gone up to something like 137 (if my math is correct), squarely between Mike Piazza and Yogi Berra. Not to say that those seasons shouldn’t count, but, at the same time, Yogi Berra was a second-ballot Hall of Famer, and Piazza might be a first balloter. If they tacked on three or four more seasons with the Mets and A’s (respectively) like the ones they had at the end of their real careers, would that have suddenly invalidated their entire Hall cases? At the very least, I think there’s definitely room in Cooperstown for Simmons. I suppose you get overlooked as a catcher when your career overlaps with Johnny Bench's.

For his career, Simmons was worth 46.7 bWAR and 61.2 fWAR.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame 2012, Part 4

For the second year, I’m participating in Baseball Past and Present’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. First, I covered players still on the ballot. Then, I started on to the backlog of candidates. He’s the third part of the older candidates. Each player is listed with their teams (in order of games played), position, and Hall Rating from the Hall of Stats (which works similar to OPS+; 100 is the baseline for a Hall of Famer).


Sherry Magee, Phillies/Braves/Reds, LF, 109-Magee was one of the premier sluggers of his (early) time. Among players to debut before 1910, he ranks ninth in home runs with 83. He also ranks twelfth in slugging percentage in the same group. His 137 OPS+ (from a .291/.364/.427 batting line) puts him in the same territory as players like Will Clark, Todd Helton, Joe Medwick, and Al Simmons. Add in that he was a moderately above-average fielder in left, and you have someone that clears the Hall standards, with 55.8 bWAR and 73.2 fWAR. I would still put him in the Hall, but he’ll probably be one of the first to go next year when even more worthy candidates are added and only one or two are cleared off of this list.


Minnie Miñoso, White Sox/Indians/Senators/Cardinals, LF, 99-Miñoso is a little like Magee; he was good, but he might need to be one of the first to go next year when I need to add four or five more candidates. Also, with only twelve full seasons, part of his candidacy is dependent on assumptions (how he would have done if he got an earlier start without the Negro Leagues, how he would have done if his age was, in fact, reported wrong, which it might not have been, etc.).

In any case, he was still a good player. In his shortened career, he managed a 130 OPS+ thanks to a .298/.389/.459 batting line. In addition to being good at getting on base , he also managed 205 steals and played solid defense in left. Fangraphs gives him 58.2 WAR, while Baseball-Reference has him at 47.5.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame 2012, Part 3

For the second year, I’m participating in Baseball Past and Present’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. First, I covered players still on the ballot. Then, I started on to the backlog of candidates. He’s the second part of the older candidates. Each player is listed with their teams (in order of games played), position, and Hall Rating from the Hall of Stats (which works similar to OPS+; 100 is the baseline for a Hall of Famer).


Bob Caruthers, Browns(Cardinals)/Bridegrooms(Dodgers)/Reds/Colts(Cubs), RF/P, 118-Bob Caruthers was like Babe Ruth before Babe Ruth, in that he was a great hitter AND pitcher. In ten seasons, from 1884 to 1893, Caruthers spent 366 games in the outfield and 340 games at pitcher. In that time, he went 218-99 with a 2.83 ERA (good for a 122 ERA+) while hitting .282/.391/.400 (a 134 OPS+). Going by Baseball-Reference, that gives him 40.1 pitching WAR and 18.6 batting WAR*. I think he was both good enough and interesting enough to merit induction.

*Note that 1800s WAR is kind of weird in that way. The pitchers WAR is greater because of the greater number of innings, while the shorter schedule cut into the batting WAR. That 18.6 batting WAR came in 705 games, or about as many as Joey Votto has played in six seasons.


Eddie Cicotte, White Sox/Red Sox/Tigers, P, 108-Cicotte was banned with Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the Black Sox. He was the ace of that team, too, with a 176 ERA+ and 29 wins in almost 307 innings. His 123 career ERA+ is in the neighborhood of Mike Mussina and Don Drysdale. His 53.6 bWAR is also good, especially when you consider he probably had a few more good seasons left in him when he was forced out of the game. He was 36 in his final season, but he also posted 4.7 Wins. I’d say it’s good enough for the Hall.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame 2012, Part 2

For the second year, I’m participating in Baseball Past and Present’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. Last time, I covered players still on the ballot. Now, I’m delving into the backlog of worthy candidates. Each player is listed with their teams (in order of games played), position, and Hall Rating from the Hall of Stats (which works similar to OPS+; 100 is the baseline for a Hall of Famer).

Dick Allen, Phillies/White Sox/Dodgers/Cardinals/Athletics, 1B/3B, 115-Most of these players appeared on my ballot last year, so I’ll probably just do a quick rundown for each player. Allen was a great hitter in a difficult hitting environment, hitting 351 home runs and posting a .292/.378/.534 (average/OBP/slugging) batting line that translates to a 156 OPS+ and places him nineteenth all-time. Granted, his career was a little short at fifteen seasons, but right ahead of him are Johnny Mize and Hank Greenberg, who each played 15 and 13 seasons, respectively. And his shortened career still led to almost 68 fWAR. I’d say he’s good enough to make it.


Kevin Appier, Royals/Angels/Athletics/Mets, P, 110-One of my two additions to the list this year that isn’t actually on an official ballot. I’ve long felt that the Hall needs to do a better job of recognizing modern pitchers. The most recent debut of a Hall of Fame starter was 1970, that being Bert Blyleven’s. Now, this isn’t to say that Appier’s case is a strong as someone like Blyleven’s; just that the Hall probably needs to do a better job of evaluating modern pitchers.

Appier would fall towards the lower end of the Hall, but that would still be enough, as seen in his 110 Hall Rating. In around 2600 innings, he had a 121 ERA+ (even though he had a 3.74 ERA) and 1994 strikeouts. He played for sixteen seasons, but only thirteen of them could be considered full seasons (the other three each saw him throw between 4 and 22 innings). In those thirteen seasons, he was worth 52 bWAR and 55 fWAR. His peak was impressive, with six of his seasons registering above 5 WAR (and a sixth that would have made it were it not for the 1994 strike)

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame 2012

You might remember that last year, I participated in Baseball Past and Present’s 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame. This year, Graham Womack is running the project again, and I once again decided to participate. The process was much easier this year, as I had last year’s list to work off of. However, this year’s influx of candidates did mean that I needed to do some difficult rearranging.

And that seems like the best place to start. There were fourteen players on this year’s ballot that I count among the 50 best players not in Cooperstown, seven of them new, as well as two more that made the Veterans Committee ballot. And again, I would support the induction of all 50 players that I named.

So, without further ado (Players are listed with their teams by games played, their position, and their Hall Rating* from the Hall of Stats, with the new players on the ballot italicized):

*The Hall Rating uses Wins Above Replacement and Wins Above Average from Baseball-Reference to determine a player’s worthiness. The Hall Rating is a combination of the two, on a scale like OPS+. 100 is the Hall minimum, 110 represents 10% than the minimum, and so on. It’s more for the sake of quick comparison. All Hall Ratings have been updated to reflect the induction of Deacon White.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Wrap-Up and Analysis

Well, it only took a month, but I finally wrapped up my explanations on my 50 Best Players Not in Cooperstown ballot. I thought I might want to add some thoughts, though. This will probably come out as a jumble of assorted ideas, but I would still like to share all of them. Oh well; it is what it is.

First, a position-by-position look at who I added to Cooperstown (going by primary position):

P: 10
C: 4
1B: 8 (although one of them is Pete Rose, who more so lacks a better position)
2B: 4
3B: 9
SS: 4
LF: 3
CF: 1
RF: 6
DH: 1

Part of my goal was to draw from the more underrepresented positions, which would be third base, catcher, and center field. Well, I definitely accomplished the third base one. Catcher, I did okay; the only other one I may have added was Gene Tenace, and even then, I don’t feel too terrible leaving him off.

Center Field looks disappointing. Reggie Smith might count as a center fielder under the Ernie Banks/Andre Dawson principle-he had his best seasons in center, and was just short of playing 50% of his games there (879 in right to 808 in center). Even then, that still just makes it 6 right fielders and 2 center fielders. What gives?

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Ballot Explanations, Part 5

Edit: Well, this is weird. Blogger seems to have deleted this post overnight. So, here it is again. Look for a wrap-up/look back on Friday.

Links to the rest of my ballot: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The 2011 edition of the 50 Best Players Not in the Hall can be found here.


Round 4 of Additions
David Cone, Mets/Yankees/Royals/Red Sox/Blue Jays, P - Cone may not be a pitcher you think of as a Hall of Famer. Like Luis Tiant, though, if you take the time to look past your initial thoughts. His 57.5 bWAR puts him right in the borderline for the Hall. His 2668 strikeouts put him 22nd all-time, and his 121 ERA+ is solidly in the Hall of Fame range. His strong peak pushes him over the edge, though, in my mind. Going by weighted WAR (wWAR), which gives extra credit for all-star level seasons, Cone has 86.5 wWAR, which is right on par with Luis Tiant and above actual Hall pitchers Stan Coveleski, Don Sutton, Vic Willis, and Rube Waddell, among others. David Cone is not an inner circle member, but in a Hall with over 200 honorees, he definitely has his place.

Thurman Munson, Yankees, C - Munson is another player I hadn’t thought of initially. However, the Hall is definitely short on catchers; sixteen catchers are in Cooperstown, and only thirteen of those have ever played in the Major Leagues. Factor in that some of them are questionable Veterans Committee choices, and it’s obvious that catcher rivals third base for most ignored position by Hall voters. I probably should have added more catchers to my ballot, to be honest.
As for Munson, He was an impressive hitter for a catcher. In eleven seasons, he had 1558 hits, a .292/.346/.410 batting line, and a 116 OPS+. In his shortened career, that was good for 43.4 bWAR and 44.4 fWAR. I have no problem giving players with artificially shortened careers some extra credit (although Kirby Puckett may be pushing it), but in Munson’s case, he was young enough at the end (just 32) and good enough that I think he makes it. It’s interesting to note that, despite his shortened career, he still makes the Hall of wWAR (with 90.1).

Rick Reuschel, Cubs/Pirates/Giants/Yankees, P - According to Baseball-Reference, Rick Reuschel is the leader in WAR among pitchers eligible for Cooperstown, at 66.3. Adam Darowski does a better job of explaining why than I can, but the basic argument is that Reuschel did a great job of limiting runs when you consider that he played in front of bad defenses. Reuschel allowed just shy of 1500 runs in his career, while a replacement pitcher with his fielders would be expected to give up over 2100 runs based on the league’s offense at the time, Reuschel’s parks, etc. That’s a difference of over 600 runs, and with 10 runs equaling 1 win, that’s at least over 60 wins. Even more simply, he threw a lot of innings (3548.1 IP, 32nd since World War II, and there’s value in that) and was good at limiting runs (114 ERA+) despite pitching in front of a bad defense.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Ballot Explanations, Part 4

To see the early portions of my ballot: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Round 2

Ross Barnes, Red Stockings (NA)/White Stockings/Reds/Red Stockings (NL), 2B/SS - Ross Barnes had a very short career; so short that, if he were to retire today, he actually wouldn’t make the ballot. He only played 9 seasons. In addition, he never played more than 78 games in a season. However, to say that the game was very different when Barnes played would be an understatement. Barnes played from 1871-1881 (taking 1878 and 1880 off), and only played in 499 games. The seasons were much shorter in the 1870s, though. For example, Teixeira also has nine seasons under his belt, but those nine seasons have equaled 1374 games. Rate stats do a better job of conveying just how dominant Barnes was; he had an OPS+ of 168. Also, despite his very short playing time, he managed to get 33.1 bWAR and 30.0 fWAR.

Buddy Bell, Indians/Rangers/Reds/Astros, 3B - You know that group of four deserving third basemen I mentioned in Part 2? The one with Sal Bando, Darrell Evans, Graig Nettles, and one mystery person in that got added in my second round of additions? Well, Buddy Bell should probably get added to that group; for some reason, I didn’t automatically think of him as a Hall of Famer, but he compares to that quartet quite well. Like the others, he was very well-rounded at a difficult position; the difference is that more of Bell’s value came from his glove. Both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference put him at over 17.5 wins through his fielding alone. That makes up for his .279/.341/.406 line and 109 OPS+ (lower than the other four mentioned third basemen). Overall, Fangraphs has him at 66.6 WAR, while B-R puts him at 60.8, both of which put him in good standing (for reference, both figures but him on the same level as first-ballot pick Dave Winfield).

Ken Boyer, Cardinals/Mets/Dodgers/White Sox, 3B - Ken Boyer was actually the last member of the quartet I had in mind. I scrutinized him a little more, as he came up on the Veteran’s Committee ballot this year. However, I determined that third base is underrated enough and all five third basemen mentioned so far are good enough that all of them could be added to the Hall while raising it’s standards. Again, Boyer was a third baseman in the “do everything well” vein, posting a 116 OPS+ while saving over 70 runs (worth over 7 wins) with his glove. The difference is that most of Boyer’s value came over a shorter peak rather than a long, spread out career. He played for roughly 15 seasons, so his 58.4 bWAR and 63.3 fWAR look underwhelming. However, going by weighted WAR (wWAR), which gives extra credit for stronger peaks, Boyer comes in with a solid 87.0, equal with Ozzie Smith and better than Hall members like Harmon Killebrew, Jimmy Collins, and Willie Stargell.

Eddie Cicotte, White Sox/Red Sox/Tigers, P - It’s actually kind of easy to make a case for Cicotte. In fourteen seasons, he had a 209-148 record, a 2.38 ERA, a 123 ERA+, 3226 innings pitched, 49.7 bWAR, etc. He’s not in because he was one of those meddling Black Sox. I’ve made my case on Shoeless Joe, and that applies here as well: at the very least, Cicotte’s been dead since before the 1970s, and the Hall is losing more at this point keeping him out than he is by being kept out.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Ballot Explanations, Part 3

A quick continuation of explaining my ballot for the 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. These players are the final nine from my first round of additions; again, I wrote on my ballot that I supported every one of these players becoming Hall of Famers. To see the earlier parts of my ballot, see Part 1 and Part 2.

Keith Hernandez, Cardinals/Mets/Indians, 1B - Hernandez isn’t like the now-common model of slugging first basemen, but he could still hit well and get on base (426 doubles to go with 162 homers, a .296/.384/.436 line, a 128 OPS+). On top of this, he’s arguably the best fielding first baseman of all-time; both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs put him in the range of 12 to 13 wins just from his fielding. Going by Total Zone Runs, Keith Hernandez saved 117 runs, most all-time for first basemen (and really, only three others are close: Albert Pujols at 114, Todd Helton at 100, and John Olerud at 97. More on this in a bit). Overall, his career and peak seem to match the Hall’s standards: 61.0 bWAR, 61.8 fWAR, and 90.8 bWAR.


Shoeless Joe Jackson, Naps(Indians)/White Sox/Athletics, LF - As a side note, I always forget that Shoeless Joe spent more time in Cleveland than he did in Chicago. Anyway, I don’t really know that Jackson’s playing days are the problem for his candidacy. For example, his career batting line of .356/.423/.517 is good for a 169 OPS+, good for ninth all-time. Despite really only playing for nine full seasons, Jackson amassed 62.9 bWAR and 67.0 fWAR in his career.

Anyway, I get the feeling that Jackson’s problem is with his banishment. First of all, the Hall of Fame is not actually included in the gambling banishment. The Hall separately added a clause banning players on MLB’s banned list years afterwards. MLB’s ban just prevents these players from holding a position in MLB like player or manager.

But, more than that, the Hall of Fame is supposed to be a museum to remember the game’s best players. That applies to Jackson. At the very least, the guy’s been dead for over six decades. Let it go already; make it a lifetime ban. I feel like the Hall is losing more by not letting him in than he is by being kept out at this point.

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Ballot Explanations, Part 2

This is the continuation of my explanation of my “50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame” Ballot. Part 1 can be found here. These are the next nine players that I added to the ballot in Round 1 of my cutting process, listed alphabetically. The last nine first rounders will be in their own post, so that I can elaborate more fully on each candidate. I marked on my ballot that I support all of these players for induction.

Dick Allen, Phillies/White Sox/Dodgers/Cardinals/Athletics, 1B/3B - Allen was a little hard to get along with, explaining his frequent team changes and relatively short career (his first full season was 1964, and his final was 1977). However, the man could really hit; despite playing during a low-offense era, he hit 351 home runs and put up a .292/.378/.534 career line, good for a 156 OPS+. That puts him tied for nineteenth all-time with Frank Thomas. For his career, he had 61.2 bWAR and 67.9 fWAR.

Sal Bando, Athletics/Brewers, 3B - I hadn’t actually heard of Bando until I started reading Adam Darowski’s Hall of wWAR project. As I mentioned in part 1, third base is overall underrepresented in the Hall of Fame, and this will start to come up more and more as I get further into my ballot. Bando is one of four third basemen that I view as those most deserving of induction now that Ron Santo is in. Two of the other three are in Round 1, while the final one got a little extra consideration due to the fact that he was up for election this year.

Bando presented good hitting (119 career OPS+) and solid defense at an important position over an extended period of time; basically, he did a little bit of everything, and he did it all well. This led to 60.6 bWAR and 62.7 fWAR. Also of note, he had a strong peak; this is represented in his weighted WAR (wWAR) of 93. This puts him ninth among all eligible third baseman, just behind Brooks Robinson (also of note about this ranking is that, with the election of Santo, Bando is the highest-rated third baseman by this metric not in the Hall).

50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame Ballot Explanations, Part 1

I participated in Baseball: Past and Present’s now-annual “50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame” Project. This is the intersection of all sorts of different things that I love: baseball, baseball stats, the Hall of Fame, arguing, snubs and overlooks, lists, voting, really big projects, and so on. The full list will be coming soon, but seeing as I’d like to actually explain my picks (including some of the people who didn’t make the list), the most prudent thing to do is to break the list down into parts.

Part of the ballot was listing whether we thought our 50 Best were actually Hall of Famers. So, I suppose I should start by saying that I am definitely a big Hall of Fame guy; I marked all 50 Players on my ballot as Yeses (there are actually players who didn’t make my final ballot that I would still put in). I operate on the thinking that the Hall was intended to be closer to a big Hall, anyway. Some of the Veterans Committee players that got in under Frankie Frisch weren’t great, but at the same time, they’re in.

Additionally, the game (and, therefore, the number of players in the game) is growing much faster than the Hall of Fame. For example, there are nearly twice as many teams now as there were when the Hall was founded; shouldn’t we be inducting more players now? (If not at a 2 to 1 rate, then maybe a 1.5 to 1 rate or so.) And even more than that, I like to remember players. Every player was someone’s favorite, and each one has some stories that made them stand out. The Hall of Fame is without a doubt the best way to remember and honor great players, so why not add a few more in any way? It’s not like it would detract from the best of them; nobody now cares any less about Babe Ruth because High Pockets Kelly is in Cooperstown with him.

Best 50 Players Not in the Hall of Fame

Baseball Past and Present just put up their post on the 50 best players not in Cooperstown. I voted, and my explanations will be forthcoming. Right now, I figured I would redirect people to the main project page.