2014 Predictions: AL Central

This is a continuation of my series from the other day predicting the 2014 season. Here’s the AL East article for those who missed it. Now, let’s get right into the AL Central predictions.

AL Central
Tigers-93 Wins/99 Pythagorean Wins (based on run differential)
Indians-92/90
Royals-86/87
Twins-66/63
White Sox-63/67

2014 Predictions: AL East

We’re fast approaching Opening Day, so I may as well make my predictions. They’re sure to be wrong, but they’ll be fun if nothing else. I’ll keep the introduction short so I can get right into the predictions, but first, a short description of my methods: basically, I’m going to look at how teams did last year (both in wins and Pythagorean wins, which are based on runs scored and allowed) and what should be different this year. The latter is a broad category that can cover anything from newly-acquired players to injuries to just straight regression to the mean (always an underrated force, but always prevalent).

AL East
Last year: Red Sox-97 wins/100 Pythagorean wins
Rays-92/87
Orioles-85/85
Yankees-85/79
Blue Jays-74/77

What should be different:

Roy Oswalt's Retirement and the Raised Bar for Hall of Fame Pitchers

I’m going to be covering some older news here, so apologies if you were looking for breaking news. Unfortunately, real life has kept me busy lately; I was determined to write this, though.

Roy Oswalt retired this offseason, as you may well know. When I heard this, I went through my traditional reaction, which was to look at Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference and reflect on his career. He had quite the run of dominance; from his 2001 debut year to 2007, he threw 1413.1 innings with 1170 Ks and a 143 ERA+, as well as three All-Star Game selections and five Top-5 Cy Young finishes.

For his career, he managed a 163-102 record with a 3.36 ERA in 2245.1 innings and 1852 strikeouts against only 486 unintentional walks. That all translates to a 127 ERA+, 49.9 rWAR, and 49.7 fWAR. All in all, pretty solid stuff. He’s certainly going to be well-remembered in Houston (I can’t imagine his number 44 remaining in circulation with the Astros for very much longer given their history and his talent), but he’s probably not going to Cooperstown without paying for a ticket.

Except there’s one other career value that I like to check: Hall Rating. And according to Adam Darowski’s metric, Oswalt actually clears the Hall of Stats bar. Granted, it’s just barely, with a 104 rating. And given the fluid nature of the Hall of Stats, combined with his proximity to the border, it’s no guarantee that he’ll make the Hall of Stats come 2019 (since they try and match the size of the Hall of Fame in size and keep the worst member as 100, the formula for Hall Rating shifts depending on voters). But he’s pretty much on track-it looks like 24 people would have to get the boot before he would slip below 100.

Lance Berkman and Michael Young Retire: Reflecting on Two Texas Stars

A pair of iconic Texas baseball players retired this past week. Like I do any time notable players retire, I wanted to take the “Hall of Fame” aspect of the discussion and run with it. So, are Lance Berkman and Michael Young Hall-worthy?

Let’s start with Berkman, since his announcement came first. I’ve always liked Berkman. As a non-Astros fan who moved to Houston in the post-Bagwell/Biggio years, Berkman was easily always the most fun player on the team to root for. His key role on the 2011 Cardinals only cemented that image of him for me.

It’s still easy to overlook just how dominant his run in the 2000s was, though. From 2001 to 2008, he had an OPS+ over 150 five times, with an overall OPS+ of 151 in that time span. His best mark, though, was his 164 mark in that 2011 season, something that will probably irk Houston fans a little (although four times in Houston, he fell between 160 and 163). The man could flat-out hit.

His 366 home runs rank fourth for a switch hitter, behind only Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, and Chipper Jones (and 76th all-time). On top of that, he managed a solid 422 doubles. His 1905 hits may seem uninspiring, but he reached base another 1201 times via the walk. It all added up to a .293/.406/.537 batting line, making him one of only 25 players with a .290/.400/.500 line in 6000 at bats. It also adds up to a career 144 OPS+ in fifteen seasons, 44th best all-time. It ties him with, among others, Hack Wilson, a Hall of Famer that he compares well with.

Another Look at Predicting Hall of Fame Hitters

As some of you may remember, last year I took a look at the active players who were, in one sense, on track to join the Hall of Fame. I wanted to update it with the players from last year, but after looking at it in retrospect, there were a few things I needed to fix. The biggest issue was that, when gathering the historic data, I only went back to 1901. This time, I included all years in the Play Index search. This ended up pushing the median Wins Above Replacement higher than last year, which led to interesting results on the prediction angle.

First, though, a quick summary of what I did for those who didn’t see last year’s article: I looked at the Hall of Fame hitters and their career Wins Above Replacement through each age from 20 through 35 (last year, I only went to 30). In each set, I picked the median career value. Then, I looked at how many hitters in history had been worth that much through those ages, Hall of Fame or not. I removed players currently on the BBWAA ballot, since they’re still up in the air, then found a simple percentage of how many players at the Hall median for the age would go on to Cooperstown.

For example, take the age of 20. Of the 60 Hall of Famers who had played games through their age 20 seasons, the median value provided was 0.45 WAR. Therefore, 30 Hall of Famers were above that. 90 Players not in the Hall have matched that mark, with 1 of them being on the ballot this year. That works out to 25.21% of 20-year old players who were at the Hall median eventually making the Hall of Fame.

There are still some issues with this. The two biggest are related. Mostly, this doesn’t account for deserving players not in the Hall. One that sticks out in my mind is Ted Simmons; I remember seeing him consistently above the median, and he’s definitely better than half of the catchers in the Hall, but as is, he’s just not in.

However (the second problem) is that this also doesn’t account for future Veterans Committee picks. For example, Simmons may one day get his induction; right now, though, it just doesn’t factor in. Either way, these numbers would be underselling the likeliness of future election in both cases.

At the low end, there’s also the issue of incomplete information (since not all players debut at the same age), but there isn’t much that can be done with that. Also, I’m just going by what has historically happened, not counting stuff like all the protest nonsense, steroid-moralizing, and whatever else has been going on the last few ballots.

Anyway, on to the numbers. Below, in order are the Ages, the median WARs (from Baseball-Reference), the number of Hall of Famers at that mark, the number of non-Hall of Famers, the number on the ballot still, and finally, the resulting percentage that have made the Hall.

Examining the Hall of Fame Vote for Starters

Well, the Hall of Fame votes were finally released. There are a lot of ridiculous things I could cover (like Craig Biggio’s exclusion, missing by two votes and largely caused by the artificial 10-person limit), but I won’t. Instead, I want to look at something else. Pitchers, specifically.

There were eight starters up for election this year. If you were to rank them, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens would undoubtedly be options 1 and 1A. Hideo Nomo and Kenny Rogers would probably bring up the rear (although Rogers is probably better than at least a couple pitchers already in the Hall; that’s not really a huge help for his candidacy, though).

Really, I want to look at the middle four, those being Tom Glavine, Jack Morris, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling. Really, I want to keep it to just this year’s ballot, otherwise I would throw in John Smoltz and Kevin Brown as well, but let’s just keep it simple.

First, let’s see how they did in voting:
Glavine: 91.9%
Morris: 61.5%
Schilling: 29.2%
Mussina: 20.3%

I find this interesting for a lot of reasons. Mostly, the voting doesn’t really seem to reflect performance terribly well in my mind. If I had to rank these guys, I’d probably put them Schilling/Mussina/Glavine in a tight bunch but in that order, followed by a far lagging Jack Morris. A 70+ point spread doesn’t seem at all justified. So, just for fun, here are some comparisons. I’ll award each pitcher points based on where they finish in the group; first gets 4, last gets 1. I haven’t run this experiment, so I don’t know if it’ll turn out like I expect, but let’s see.

Reconsidering Fred McGriff for the Hall of Fame

I didn’t really give a lot of time to the returning candidates this year that I didn’t vote for in past years. Which I guess makes sense; I mean, I knew I couldn’t vote for any of them, with 18 players that I knew I’d vote for. It made sense to stick with the new guys that I may have not considered, since I’ve by definition already looked at past years.

And to be fair, I went in knowing that I would vote for thirteen of the seventeen returning candidates. That really only leaves four players, and I already know i wouldn’t vote for Jack Morris or Don Mattingly, as I've put more than enough time into considering their cases.

And I’m pretty chilly on Lee Smith’s candidacy as well; I wouldn’t be opposed to him going in, I guess, but I don’t see it as urgent. I’d put him on level with Dan Quisenberry, or maybe even-to-slightly behind Billy Wagner (maybe even Eric Gagne-Lewie Polls at Beyond the Boxscore makes an interesting case for him on a hypothetical unlimited ballot), which is to say: I’d support them if we decided that Cooperstown needed more than seven closers (the five currently in, plus I’m assuming Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman get in, which might be a leap), but given what we know about the difficulty of closing, the relative newness of the closer position, etc, it seems almost silly to put that many in the Hall.

That leaves one holdover-Fred McGriff. I’ve actually voted for McGriff before, back when there were more ballot spaces than worthy candidates. It only seems fair to give him another look, since he’s so close to my borderline.

The Next Six Hall of Fame Ballots

With my recent Hall of Fame kick, I’ve been looking at this year’s ballot and prospective future ballots a lot. And every time, all I can think of is how crazy the ballot will start to look in the future. I just needed to put it all in writing, though, to share my thoughts. I feel like I’ve written this before, but either way, it wasn’t recent enough that I remember doing it, the issue is still relevant, it still shocks me every time.

So, we know that this year has a lot of candidates. As I’ve said, I’d vote for eighteen if given the choice: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Tom Glavine, Mike Piazza, Alan Trammell, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Craig Biggio, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Jeff Kent. We’ll probably get one of them elected this year. Some number will almost certainly drop off the ballot, which is really unfortunate.

On that note, this ballot should have been even more crowded. Kenny Lofton and Kevin Brown should be there, too, but both fell off after one go-around unfortunately. Who all will join them in no-man’s land next year, not on the ballot but too recent for the Veterans Committee? My guesses would start with Kent and Sosa, but I also wouldn’t be shocked about McGwire or Palmeiro. Maybe even Mussina or Walker if we’re really unlucky.

Next year, to replace Maddux and whoever else is gone (Jack Morris at least, since this is his 15th year), we’ll see Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Gary Sheffield, all of whom have Hall Ratings over 100. I’d also like to give a special mention to Brian Giles-he was a personal favorite growing up, and he was almost certainly better than you remember (even a 98 Hall Rating!). In a world with an unlimited ballot, I’d definitely at least throw him a vote based on those two factors, although I imagine I’d be more or less the only person to do so.

Then we have possibly the weakest ballot of the six upcoming in 2016. I’m not sure who all will fall off after the 2015 vote, but we’ll definitely be adding a pair of worthy center fielders in Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Edmonds. Edmonds will almost certainly be underrated and may even fall off the ballot in one try, which will be an absolute travesty (and not just because I’m an Edmonds fan). On the note of personal favorites, Jason Kendall will join that year. He’s a dead match for Giles, in that he has a surprisingly high Hall rating (87!) and he was another personal favorite. Also, the Hall doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of how to deal with relievers, but we’ll be getting to of the better ones in recent memory that year with Billy Wagner and Trevor Hoffman. Yes, this is our “breather/catch-up” year. It will also mark Alan Trammell’s final year, barring unusual occurrences.

2017 will see an interesting quartet added. Ivan Rodriguez is the surest bet of any of them, but who the hell knows how the voters will go anymore. On top of that, we get the introduction of Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Jorge Posada. Manny Will bring an interesting and spirited debate, I’m sure. Vlad and Jorge are both more borderline, although again, I wouldn’t be shocked if both immediately fall of the ballot because that’s how the BBWAA rolls these days.

The 2018 ballot is a doozy, with interesting newcomers just oozing off of it. Chipper Jones will hopefully be elected in his first try. Jim Thome is poised to join the debate that year as well, assuming he doesn’t manage a comeback this year. It’ll be interesting to see how things go for him, although Frank Thomas this year may be a test case. Also, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones, and Bobby Abreu are all set to come up in 2018. I’d say all three are worthy. Abreu looks a lot like Tony Gwynn, believe it or not. Andruw Jones is maybe the best fielder of all-time. I’ve covered Rolen a lot already. He may be my favorite player of all-time (either him, Albert Pujols, or Cal Ripken, Jr.), but even then, his case looks a lot like Ron Santo’s. All the worthiness in the world didn’t get him elected for decades and decades.

Not helping matters is that 2018 is also the year that Omar Vizquel, Johnny Damon, Chris Carpenter, and Jamie Moyer will all join the ballot. I wouldn’t vote for any of them, but I would almost guarantee that they’ll all get some level of support. Vizquel is probably the player most likely to inspire heated generational debates that are currently sparked by Jack Morris.

That’s the last year that we know for sure, but we already have something of an idea about 2019’s additions. Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Halladay have all announced that they won’t play in 2014, making them eligible then. On top of that, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman are free agents who may not garner contracts for next season, but both will deserve a good, hard look upon their appearance on the ballot. I’m not sure I see that happening if the ballot is 30 players deep at this point. Assuming nobody I've mentioned falls off other than the players that age out, we'll easily top that mark, even assuming that the BBWAA actually elects somebody in that span.

Worrying about it this early won’t really do anything, but I figured I should bring it up since it was on my mind.

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:

My Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 2

I know I’ve harped on the Ballot backlog enough, but I’m always finding new ways to put it in to number form. For example, take my ballot for the 50 Best Players not in Cooperstown. I said I would put all 50 players in. I’ve pointed out before how it wouldn’t actually water down the Hall, but here’s another way to think about it.

Adam Darowski has an objective look at the Hall of Fame in his Hall of Stats and its Hall Rating system. I’ve explained it enough before, but the highlights: based on Baseball-Reference WAR (rWAR), on a scale like OPS+ (so 100 is Hall minimum, 200 is equal to 2 Hall of Famers worth of value, etc.). My ballot this year had an average Hall Rating of 137.7. That would slide comfortably into 70th place (out of 208) in the real Hall of Fame, which itself only has an average Hall Rating of 132.9 (you can check the numbers from his site if you want, they’re available for download).

This year’s ballot is even stronger. As I said last time, there are 18 players I would vote for this year. Those 18 average out to a 164.6 Hall rating, nestled nicely between Steve Carlton (167) and Carlton Fisk (158).* Even if you want to throw out Barry Bonds as an outlier, you get 152.9. Bonds and Roger Clemens? 144.1. Bonds, Clemens, and Greg Maddux? 139.1.

*Those two aren’t right next to each other, but I liked the symmetry.

Basically, I want to get across that this ballot is incredibly deep. Which is going to make whittling it down to ten for my Baseball Bloggers Alliance ballot even harder. First, which eighteen am I focusing on?

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Tom Glavine, Mike Piazza, Alan Trammell, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Craig Biggio, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Jeff Kent

I hate having to ask “Why wasn’t this person Hall-worthy?” It feels so negative. Unfortunately, it seems like that might be how I have to go about this part, since I have to cut almost half of the names off. I’ll then list any mitigating factors to their negatives, things like titles, extreme stats, or other variables. Let’s start:

My 2014 Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 1

Continuing my theme of Hall of Fame articles, I should probably write something about my Hall of Fame ballot for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Actually, I don’t know who all I’m voting for yet, so this would be a good opportunity to sort things out in my head.

So, last year, my ballot was:
Jeff Bagwell
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Kenny Lofton
Mark McGwire
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Curt Schilling
Alan Trammell

I also thought that there were four more Hall-worthy players on last year’s ballot, in Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Edgar Martinez, and Larry Walker. Thankfully, the voters helped to clear up this logjam by…giving Kenny Lofton less than 5% of the vote so that he fell off the ballot. Thanks, guys!

So with only thirteen worthy holdovers, we look to the newcomers. Now, you probably have some idea of my thoughts on these guys if you read my 50 Best Players not in the Hall of Fame piece for this year. However, I’ll give them proper run-throughs now. First, here’s every first-year player on the ballot:

Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, Jeff Kent, Kenny Rogers, Luis Gonzalez, Moises Alou, Ray Durham, Hideo Nomo, Richie Sexson, Paul Lo Duca, Armando Benitez, Mike Timlin, Sean Casey, Jacque Jones, Eric Gagne, J.T. Snow, Todd Jones

That list is already conveniently sorted by Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement. Now, I know that Wins Above Replacement is not the only thing that matters, but I don’t want to do write-ups for all 19 players. I’ll just limit it to the top eight, since Moises Alou sits at almost 40 WAR exactly and that seems like as good a cut-off as any. Sorry to the other eleven; if anyone wants me to write why any of those wouldn’t get my vote, I’ll take them up on it I guess. Now then, the case for each of those eight, in alphabetical order:

Moises Alou: 332 home runs, putting him right in a group with Shawn Green, Mo Vaughn, Boog Powell. 2134 hits. A .303/.369/.516 batting line over 17 seasons, which is good, but becomes a 128 OPS+ in the steroid era. That can be borderline Hall-of-Fame stuff if it comes with good defense, or more plate appearances (Alou didn’t even reach 8000), or a difficult position (Keith Hernandez, Sammy Sosa, Jim Wynn, for starters), but Alou comes with none of those. 39.7 Baseball-Reference WAR (or rWAR*); 48.2 Fangraphs WAR (fWAR). Adam Darowski’s Hall Rating from the Hall of Stats gives him a 71. NO

Tom Glavine: 305 wins, which is all that a lot of voters need to hear. He also had a 3.54 ERA (118 ERA+) over 22 years, which fits in nicely with players like Bert Blyleven and Gaylord Perry. Didn’t strike out as many guys as you might have liked, with only 2607 total and no seasons with over 200. There’s definitely Hall-level value in allowing runs at the rate he did over 4400 innings (74.0 rWAR, 64.3 fWAR), and he does bring a pair of Cy Young awards to the table, but he may only be the fifth-best pitcher on the ballot this year. Overall, he has a 149 Hall Rating as well. YES

Luis Gonzalez: He’s probably closer than you’d first realize. His 596 doubles are fifteenth of all-time, plus he had 354 home runs on top of that. His .283/.367/.479 line was good for a 119 OPS+; like Alou, that can work if you have some fielding going for you, but being an average corner outfielder won’t really do it. He did last a little longer than Alou, though, at 19 seasons. Overall, Gonzalez was worth a solid 51.5 rWAR and 55.3 fWAR, which translates to a 90 in the Hall of Stats. NO

Jeff Kent: Kent is an interesting case. He’s the all-time leader in home runs by a second baseman with 377, and for the other common hitter milestone, he has 2461 hits. Not bad. His .290/.356/.500 line means a 123 OPS+, but unlike Gonzalez or Alou, he actually does have some defensive value going for him.

Well, kind of. Having that kind of production from a second baseman is always great…but Kent wasn’t exactly a great fielder. In fact, he negated almost all of his value from playing second base by being bad at it (Fangraphs has his fielding at +1.2 runs, combining the two aspects). His other benefit over the other two is that Kent had a much higher peak than either of them, with an MVP award and three other top-10 finishes. Overall, it comes out to a Hall rating of 103, 55.2 rWAR, and 56.6 fWAR. I think Kent is borderline, but his hitting makes me err on the side of putting him in. I’m not really sure why; fielding in such large sample sets is probably much more stable than I’m giving it credit for.

Maybe part of it is assumed regression? Think of it this way: Gonzalez is a 50-win player who was mediocre at fielding, Kent is a 50-win player with atrocious fielding. I don’t know how bad Kent was at fielding, but it’s a lot easy to assume he wasn’t an extreme negative than it is to imagine that any given player wasn’t just average (given no prior knowledge). I hope that makes sense? Also, I didn’t really see Kent field, so maybe he was awful. Like I said, he’s borderline enough that I won’t be as upset if he falls off as I was about Kenny Lofton. YES

Greg Maddux: Four-time Cy Young Award winner; lifetime 355-227 record; 3371 strikeouts against only 999 walks (177 of which were intentional); 3.16 ERA (132 ERA+) over 23 seasons; 18 Gold Gloves; 104.6 rWAR (eighth all-time); 114.3 fWAR (fourth all-time); 220 Hall Rating

Greg Maddux is great to write about because it’s almost easier to write what about him wouldn’t merit induction. I can more or less pick out any of his stats and just list them without context and it’ll still be obvious that he belongs. YES

Mike Mussina: He didn’t reach either of the major pitching milestones, but he very well could have with two more seasons (270 wins, 2813 Ks). And he went out more or less on top, plus he missed time from the 1994-5 strike. His 123 ERA+ (3.68 ERA) over eighteen years is right in line with players like Juan Marichal and Bob Feller. He had six top-5 finishes in Cy Young voting as well. Also, he was a master of control: since the mound was moved back to 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893, only one player has a higher K/BB ratio (3.58) in over 3000 innings (Curt Schilling, 4.38). His Hall Rating is a solid 163. At 82.7 rWAR, he’s between Fergie Jenkins and Bob Gibson (24th). His 82.3 fWAR is between Schilling and Warren Spahn (19th). YES

Kenny Rogers: His 4.27 ERA would be far and away the worst of Hall starters (although it was still a solid 107 ERA+ over twenty years). He didn’t even reach 2000 strikeouts (1968), and he didn’t have the control of Schilling or Maddux or Mussina, with 1175 walks. Again, there’s value to being above average for twenty years (51.1 rWAR, 46.8 fWAR, 96 Hall Rating), but not Hall-level value. NO

Frank Thomas: Like Kent, Thomas did not offer a lot of defensive value. The Big Hurt, however, was a much better hitter overall: 521 home runs, 2468 hits, a .301/.419/.555 batting line, and so on. His 156 OPS+ is tied for nineteenth of all-time. All in all, he was worth 73.6 rWAR and 72.4 fWAR while racking up a 140 Hall Rating. YES

*I had abbreviated this as bWAR in the past for convenience sake, but the general standard over the rest of the internet has been to call it rWAR for its creator, Sean “Rally” Smith. I’ll start referring to it as such from now on.

In total, that’s thirteen holdovers and five newcomers, so I have 18 people on this year’s ballot that I want to vote for. Unfortunately, I only get ten slots. Next time, I will attempt to whittle this group down.

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

Roy Halladay's Retirement and Cooperstown

I wanted to explain my awards ballot, but a faulty computer and other commitments have eaten into my opportunities to do that. So rather than dwell on older news, I figured that I may as well move on to newer things, especially since Hall of Fame season is coming up. And so, this piece will be about the Hall of Fame.

Not the newly-elected Veterans Committee picks, though. As I wrote last time, all three were deserving, but they only represented about half (or less) of the deserving people on the ballot. Besides, I would just rehash old ground (such as, why was there a vote cap, or why were managers competing with executive and players for induction, or who exactly picked those players anyway). No, I’m going to start looking forward, to recently-retired Roy Halladay’s case. What will his debate look like come late 2018?

Let’s start like most Hall voters probably will, with pitching wins. Halladay had 203 of them, a rather low total for the traditionally wins-centric BBWAA. 203 ties him with Lew Burdette, Silver King, and Jack Stivetts, not the biggest bunch of names. Right above him are Orel Hershiser and Al Orth, right below him are Charlie Root and Hall member Rube Marquard. Marquard isn’t exactly the best Hall of Famer to stake your case on, though.

Winning Percentage paints him a lot better-Halladay is 17th all-time. Everyone above him with as many seasons pitched is in Cooperstown or will be. Pedro Martinez is the will be, in this case, and he makes for a pretty good comp, career-length-wise, and both had a similarly low amount of wins. Pedro was better, but he’ll probably serve as an indicator of how Doc’s case will fare, if nothing else.

Let’s move from the ridiculous to the only kind of dumb; every pitcher with three or more Cy Young Awards is in the Hall (or is Roger Clemens). Doc has two. What has that meant historically? His fellow two-Cy pitchers and their Hall verdict:

Hall of Fame Season Begins with the Veterans Committee!

As a preface-this was meant to be posted two weeks ago. And then my computer crashed. Thankfully, this was salvaged though!
I forgot that the Veterans Committee ballot was released so much earlier than the rest of the Hall of Fame season. I also forgot to save frequently, so the first version of this article vanished into the ether. Which is a shame, because I was on a roll, too. I’ll try to recapture my muse, though.

Anyway, since I usually weigh in on Hall of Fame things, I should probably offer my two cents. The ballot this year is fairly load as far as these things go. The twelve finalists include:

Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Dave Parker, Dan Quisenberry, and Dave Concepcion

It’s a bit of a confusing list. First, why limit it to twelve? There are plenty of people from the Expansion Era who would hold their own on a Hall ballot (I should write more about the Veterans Committee process later). Let’s assume that the limit is just for practicality though. Then why these twelve? Why are managers competing with players (not even getting into the weirdness of Steinbrenner and Miller)?

And even if we do narrow it down to just players, why these players? For example, I’ve written for the 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame project. Just look at this list to start with. Why isn’t Lou Whitaker on the list? Or Bobby Grich? Or Dwight Evans, or Sal Bando, or Graig Nettles, or Keith Hernandez, or Luis Tiant, or Dick Allen, or any number of other worthy recent players?

Cardinals Fall Short in 2013 Series, but There's a Lot to Look Forward To

Now that the World Series is over and the Cardinals are finally done, I guess I can get back to writing about baseball. And what better way to get back into the swing of things than writing about the Series that just ended?

On one hand, this is a particularly rough way for my team go down. I had been particularly hoping the Cardinals won this one on behalf of Carlos Beltran. He’s been, by all accounts, an incredible and underrated star with a history of great postseason performances and disappointing endings. And by all accounts, he’s been a great guy, too; it’s hard not to feel miserable for him. I’m sorry we couldn’t get him a ring the way we did with Lance Berkman.

There are other reasons to feel frustrated about this series, too. Mike Matheny looked overmatched at times. The Cardinals were utterly deserted by the luck they had experienced with runners in scoring position during the regular season-St. Louis actually outhit the Red Sox 45 to 41 over the six games, despite being outscored 27 to 14. It’s not hard to imagine a title with only two or three more lucky breaks.

But, at the same time, there’s a lot to be excited for in the future. This team won 97 games this season, but there’s still reason to hope for improvement. First and foremost is the pitching; Adam Wainwright may or may not replicate his stellar year as the team’s ace, but there’s still plenty of depth around him. Shelby Miller, just 22 this season, burst out the gates, making a case for Rookie of the Year. Michael Wacha, who turned 22 in July, made a name for himself in September and October.

And then there’s Carlos Martinez (turned 22 in September) and set-up man-turned-closer Trevor Rosenthal (23), who will both hopefully get to show their stuff in the rotation (Jason Motte will be returning from surgery next year, meaning they should have enough depth to shift them). And that’s not even getting into Lance Lynn, Jaime Garcia, and Joe Kelly, all of whom will still be around.

There’s good things on offense, too. Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, and Allen Craig will all be returning. Matt Carpenter had a breakout year at the top of the lineup, and can either stay at second or move to third if prospect Kolten Wong forces his way into the lineup. Matt Adams may become a regular force in the lineup, and the team also has top prospect Oscar Taveras in the wings.

There’s even more to be excited about for 2014. The team could always make a move from outside the organization. Beltran will be hard to replace, but the only other players who are free agents are Jake Westbrook (who looks to be the eighth or so starter on the depth chart), Edward Mujica (who was admittedly a good reliever for most of the season, but those are rather replaceable), Chris Carpenter, and Rafael Furcal (both of whom were injured the entirety of 2013).

All in all, those five represent over $40 million coming off the books, with only one part looking hard to replace. Granted, there will be player raises through arbitration and such, but that still leaves them with something in the neighborhood of $30 million to use as needed for whatever holes they can’t fill internally. It’s a lot of flexibility, especially for a team with as much of a long-term core in place.

It’s always tough to take a loss like this, when you were so close to the top. But it makes me feel better that there are so many reasons for Cardinals fans to be optimistic about 2014 and beyond.