BTRTN: Our Annual Analytically-Based Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Predictions

Occasionally we take a break from politics and turn our attention to weightier matters, such as our annual prediction of who will be elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.  It is a Ruthian task, indeed.

SOME BACKGROUND

NOTE:  We realize that votes for the baseball Hall of Fame are being publicly tabulated as sportswriters announce them publicly.  We are publishing our predictions earlier this year to “get ahead” of most of those announcements.  To the extent that any are out there this soon, we have avoided peeking at them, so these are “pure” predictions guided only by our own statistical methods and judgment.

Each year we analyze the baseball Hall of Fame ballot to answer two questions:  1) which nominees will be elected in this year’s voting, receiving at least 75% of the vote of the Baseball Writers Association of America (we also predict what percentage each nominee will receive), and 2) who amongst the nominees deserves to be in the Hall of Fame?  The two lists are never identical. 

For the first question, we use various statistical models to come up with an initial estimate of the percentage of the vote they will receive, and we use judgment to massage and finalize that estimate.  For the second question, we have developed a methodology to compare nominees to their predecessors to determine their HOF-worthiness.  

This year the Modern Baseball Era Committee (you might still think of them by their former name, the Veteran’s Committee), convenes to consider players who missed in the sportswriters’ ballot.  Essentially this group gives them a second chance.  We don’t attempt to predict what that committee will do -- that would be just an outright guess, as there is no real track record to analyze (unlike with the BBWA).  We certainly never saw Harold Baines coming (selected by last year’s “Today’s Game Era” committee).  But we do pass judgment on whether we think any of the nine player nominees are HOF-worthy.

HOW DID WE DO LAST YEAR?

We rather immodestly bill ourselves as “The Best MLB Hall of Fame Predictors” (we may be the only ones) and last year did nothing to hurt our claim to that title!

We predicted accurately that first-timer Mariano Rivera would be elected (we really went out on a limb there, good for us!); that Edgar Martinez would make the big jump he needed on his tenth and last chance to make it on the writers’ ballot (a good call); and that Mike Mussina would make it on his sixth try (our best call).

But we missed Roy Halladay, who made it on the first ballot; we predicted he would get 65% of the vote but he actually got 85%.  We made it clear that we considered Halladay a HOF-worthy player, but did not expect him to be enshrined on the first ballot.  He was the first player since Thurman Munson for whom the five-year window was waived after his untimely death.  The waiver did not help Munson, but it might have helped Halladay.

We did well on those who came next in the voting, the close-but-no-cigar grouping of Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.  We did not quite foresee the big jumps that Larry Walker and Fred McGriff received in their 9^th and 10^th years, respectively, but we were right that McGriff would not make the grade in his last year.  We came quite close on the other repeaters, which is, of course, not so hard to do. 

Overall, we were off by an average of 3.3 percentage points per nominee, our best performance since 2015.  Here are last year’s results for each nominee, including our assessment of whether they deserve to be in the HOF.  The “PED” guys are, in our view, not worthy.

2019	Year on Ballot	Should be in HOF?	BTRTN Proj. %	Actual %	Act vs Proj  pp diff.
Mariano Rivera	1	Yes	99	100	1
Edgar Martinez	10	Yes	81	85	4
Roy Halladay	1	Yes	65	85	20
Mike Mussina	6	Yes	76	77	1
Curt Schilling	7	Yes	58	61	3
Roger Clemens	7	PED	60	60	1
Barry Bonds	7	PED	59	59	0
Larry Walker	9	Yes	40	55	15
Omar Vizquel	2	No	40	43	3
Fred McGriff	10	Yes	28	40	12
Manny Ramirez	3	PED	21	23	2
Jeff Kent	6	Yes	16	18	2
Todd Helton	1	No	40	17	24
Billy Wagner	4	Yes	11	17	6
Scott Rolen	2	Yes	14	14	0
Gary Sheffield	5	PED	9	14	5
Andy Pettitte	1	PED	8	10	2
Sammy Sosa	7	PED	6	9	3
Andruw Jones	2	Yes	7	8	1
Lance Berkman	1	No	6	1.2	5
Miguel Tejada	1	No	2	1.2	1
Roy Oswalt	1	No	4	0.9	3
Placido Polanco	1	No	1	0.5	1
Kevin Youkilis	1	No	1	0.0	1
Derek Lowe	1	No	1	0.0	1
Michael Young	1	No	1	0.0	1
Freddy Garcia	1	No	0	0.0	0
Vernon Wells	1	No	0	0.0	0
Ted Lilly	1	No	0	0.0	0
Travis Hafner	1	No	0	0.0	0
Jason Bay	1	No	0	0.0	0
Jon Garland	1	No	0	0.0	0
Darren Oliver	1	No	0	0.0	0
Juan Pierre	1	No	0	0.0	0
Rick Ankiel	1	No	0	0.0	0
			754	795	114
			# on ballot		35
			avg. off per player		3.3

WHO WILL BE ELECTED?  THIS YEAR’S PREDICTIONS

On to this year!  Considering only the sportswriters’ ballot, here we go:  BTRTN predicts that the MLB Hall of Fame will soon vote in THREE new members:  Derek Jeter, Curt Schilling and Larry Walker. 

BTRTN agrees that each of those three should be in the HOF;  and we think the ballot includes four other players that also should be in the HOF, but will fall short in this year’s balloting: Andruw Jones. Jeff Kent, Scott Rolen and Billy Wagner.

Among the Modern Baseball Era group, we think that Lou Whitaker, Ted Simmons, Thurman Munson and Dwight Evans are HOF-worthy.  And much as we love the rest of the group – Don Mattingly, Steve Garvey, Dave Parker, Dale Murphy and Tommy John – we think the writers were correct in their first go-round in not admitting them to the HOF.

Back to the writers’ ballot…this is the first year in quite a while when we did not feel there were at least ten HOF-worthy players on the ballot.  For years there has been a glut of candidates, caused by a particularly large number of great first-year candidates who kept others from moving up, and also by so many players who used performance enhancing drugs.  Those players were caught in limbo, with too few supporters to surmount the 75% entry threshold but too many to drop them below the 5% cutoff for retention.  But with the help of the new 10-year voting period (versus 15 before), a number of them are now gone.

But still there are quite a few who remain:  seven are on the ballot, including first-timer Jason Giambi.  Our model has an adjustment factor for PED-taint and it is a powerful one.  But in terms of whether the PED gang should be in the HOF, we at BTRTN are quite clear:  we think not.  

This year is a difficult ballot to predict.  Among the first-timers, only Derek Jeter is HOF-worthy, and the next most qualified first-balloters, Bobby Abreu, Cliff Lee and Jason Giambi, will struggle to hit the 5% mark.

That makes it an excellent year for the close-but-no-cigar folks to move up.  We believe that Schilling and Walker will benefit greatly from this, and jump into the “Yes” column after eight long years. 

But, given the incremental nature of support for PED players, we do not see Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds making a similar jump.  Instead we see them making progress toward their inevitable entry, which will likely come next year, when there are exactly zero HOF-worthy first-timers.  The top players in next year’s class are Tim Hudson, Mark Buehrle and Torii Hunter, fine players but a long comedown from Jeter, Rivera, Halladay, Jim Thome, Chipper Jones, Ivan Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr., John Smoltz, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, who all were first-timers over the past five years.  Plenty of votes will be available for returning candidates.

All of this makes “total votes” a real problem for prediction.  For the last five years, there has been a total of roughly 7.5 to 8.5 votes per ballot, but this year, even with upping the “bumps” the repeaters might get, we can only get to just 6 votes per ballot.

Here’s the summary chart of this year’s ballot, including our predictions.

2020	Year on Ballot	Should be in HOF?	BTRTN Proj. %
Derek Jeter	1	Yes	99
Curt Schilling	8	Yes	76
Larry Walker	10	Yes	76
Roger Clemens	8	PED	68
Barry Bonds	8	PED	68
Omar Vizquel	3	No	54
Jeff Kent	7	Yes	25
Scott Rolen	3	Yes	25
Billy Wagner	5	Yes	24
Manny Ramirez	4	PED	22
Todd Helton	2	No	19
Gary Sheffield	6	PED	12
Andruw Jones	3	Yes	7
Bobby Abreu	1	No	7
Andy Pettitte	2	PED	6
Sammy Sosa	8	PED	6
Cliff Lee	1	No	5
Jason Giambi	1	PED	2
Rafael Furcal	1	No	1
Eric Chavez	1	No	1
Josh Beckett	1	No	1
Brian Roberts	1	No	0
Alfonso Soriano	1	No	0
Paul Konerko	1	No	0
Carlos Pena	1	No	0
Chone Figgins	1	No	0
Raul Ibanez	1	No	0
Brad Penny	1	No	0
Adam Dunn	1	No	0
J.J. Putz	1	No	0
Jose Valverde	1	No	0
Heath Bell	1	No	0

WHO SHOULD BE IN THE HALL OF FAME?

This the second question we ask annually:  putting aside what the writers think (and, this year, the Modern Baseball Era Committee), who do we think is “HOF-Worthy”? 

To do this, we use the following analytic methodology.  We compare each player to Hall of Famers at his position across a number of key statistics, both traditional (hits, homers, RBI’s and batting average) and non-traditional (OPS+ and WAR).  We show the average statistics for all the Hall of Famers at his position, and then divide the Hall of Famers into halves, separating (using WAR) the top half of the HOF from the bottom half.  And we also include these stats for the “next ten,” the ten players at the position who have the highest WARs but are not in the HOF.  These latter two groups define the so-called “borderline.” 

Our general feeling is that a candidate, to be worthy of the HOF, must be at least as good as the “average” HOF’er at his position across these stats.  Borderline won’t do.  As you will note, the “lower half” HOF’ers are really indistinguishable from the ones who just missed, the “next 10.”  This is because there are more than a few players in the HOG who simply don’t deserve to be so enshrined.

We also pay some consideration to how many All-Star teams a player was named to, and how many times a player was in the Top 10 in MVP voting (or Cy Young voting for pitchers).  And postseason play can certainly be a factor as well, as you will see with a certain bloody-socked pitcher and a tragic pinstriped hero.

Note that because we don’t think that PED-tainted players should be in the Hall, we omit them in the following analysis (most have Hall Worthy credentials, though Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte and Sammy Sosa are subject to debate).

The Modern Baseball Era candidates are noted by a (MB) designation after their names.

BY POSITION ANALYSIS

For ease of getting to the “answer,” note that the players we consider “HOF-worthy” are highlighted in yellow., and the others are not.

Catcher

Both players under consideration are Modern Baseball Era Committee candidates.

Ted Simmons was a terrific offensive catcher.  It was shocking how little support he received in the writers’ ballot because there are only a handful of catchers who were more productive offensively:  Piazza, Bench, Yogi, Fisk, Carter and Pudge.  And Simmons did not pad his stats as a DH for years after his catching prime, that’s a bit of a myth (he was a DH in only 11% of this total games). He sits at or above the average HOF catcher all measures (see the chart below), and toss in eight All-Star selections and three Top 10 MVP’s – and you’ve got a deserving Hall of Famer.

Thurman Munson is a tougher call, but we would include him in our HOF, too.  (And for those of you thinking I am a kind-hearted Yankee fan, reserve your judgment until you see where I netted out on Don Mattingly and Tommy John.)  Munson played only 11 years before the tragic plane crash that took his life, and made the All Star team seven times, with an MVP and two other Top 10 MVP finishes.  He starred in the postseason as well.  His WAR is well above the borderlines, and his OPS+ is in with the bottom half HOF’ers.  He did not have the power of Ted Simmons, but he was a far better defensive player, and the captain and leader of two championship squads.  I think he belongs.

CATCHER	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.288	2151	307	1265	124	63
Avg HOF	0.288	1868	221	1056	120	51
Bottom Half	0.287	1544	121	816	115	38
Next 10 non-HOF	0.282	1733	146	889	106	38
Ted Simmons (MB)	0.285	2472	248	1389	118	50	8	3
Thurman Munson (MB)	0.292	1558	113	701	116	46	7	3

First Base 

Todd Helton is one of those exceptionally difficult cases, which alone is a strike against him.  You have to take into account the “Coors Field” high altitude effect that inflates Rockie player stats.  WAR is a park adjusted figure, and Helton's falls between the average HOF and the borderlines.  His OPS+ is down with the borderlines, and if you break this down further, Helton’s home/road OPS’s are 1.048/.855.  That .855 is a problem.  We think Helton is a tough pass.  (Rockies' fans will take solace in our view of Larry Walker, below).

Paul Konerko was a fine White Sox slugger with excellent power stats, over 400 homers and 1,400 RBI.  But he falls well short of HOF standards in the all-important OPS+ and WAR stats, more of a compiler than a superstar.

Carlos Pena does not deserve to be on the ballot.  There has never been a HOF batter, apart from a catcher, with less than 1,500 hits, and Pena did not come close to that.

The two Modern Baseball Era Committee first baseman are all difficult cases as well, which is, of course, why that committee is taking up their case again. 

Don Mattingly and Steve Garvey both have standard stats that are in line with the borderline HOF first basemen – but below the average HOF’er at the position.  Mattingly was the best player in the game over a four-year period before a cranky back robbed him of many productive years and ultimately forced an early retirement.  Garvey racked up 10 All-Star selections and five Top 10 MVP votes, extremely impressive recognition for the Dodger great.  But both fall well short of even the borderline groups in both OPS+ and WAR, and that’s the knock-out blow.  

FIRST BASE	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.311	2566	363	1588	152	83
Avg HOF	0.306	2395	316	1450	143	67
Bottom Half	0.301	2210	265	1300	133	50
Next 10 non-HOF	0.290	2162	261	1172	130	52
Todd Helton	0.316	2519	369	1406	133	61	5	3
Don Mattingly (MB)	0.307	2153	222	1099	127	42	6	4
Steve Garvey (MB)	0.294	2599	272	1308	117	38	10	5
Paul Konerko	0.279	2340	439	1412	118	28	6	2
Carlos Pena	0.232	1146	286	818	117	25	1	2

Second Base 

Jeff Kent is the all-time leading home run hitter among second baseman, and is third in RBIs behind Rogers Hornsby and Napoleon Lajoie.  He also won an MVP once, was a Top 10 in the MVP balloting three other times, and a five-time All Star.  He hit three homers and had seven RBI’s in his only World Series.  He was simply one of the greatest power-hitting second basemen ever and the best in modern times.  His WAR may be a bit low, but it is better than the borderline groups, and his OPS+ is above the average HOF second basemen.  If he had been a little nicer to sportswriters over the years, he might be doing better in the voting to date.  But he is unquestionably a Hall of Famer.

Brian Roberts should not be on the ballot, though at least he managed to surpass 1,500 hits and even made two All Star teams.

Lou Whitaker is a near-clone of his 20-year double play partner, Alan Trammell.  Trammell was on the ballot for the full 15-year period but never elected.  He finally, and deservedly, was selected by the Modern Baseball Era Committee two years ago.  And now it is Whitaker’s turn.  He too was snubbed by the writer’s and is being considered by the Modern Baseball Era group.  Whitaker’s stats are either in line with the average HOF second baseman, or, in the case of his home run total and OPS, exceed them.  Throw in five All Star games and you’ve got a Hall of Famer.  Let’s hope the committee sees it that way – they seem to like Tigers, have selected not only Trammell in 2018 but Jack Morris as well.

SECOND BASE	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.314	2780	181	1259	132	90
Avg HOF	0.298	2442	160	1089	120	69
Bottom Half	0.283	2103	139	920	107	48
Next 10 non-HOF	0.285	2051	133	889	116	52
Lou Whitaker (MB)	0.276	2369	244	1084	117	75	5	1
Jeff Kent	0.290	2461	377	1518	123	55	5	4
Brian Roberts	0.276	1527	97	542	101	30	2	0

Shortstop 

Derek Jeter is, of course, a no-brainer.  The Yankee captain is perhaps the second greatest shortstop of all time, surpassed only by Honus Wagner, assuming you exclude Cal Ripken, who spent many years at the hot corner (and Alex Rodriguez, who did that as well, and also was on PED’s for many of his peak years).  Jeter compiled enormous standard stats over his long career, but also excellent modern stats as well, hanging with the top half of HOF shortstops in both OPS and WAR.  And 14 All Star selections and eight Top 10 MVP’s speak for themselves.  Not to mention his superlative postseason stats, many indelible moments to remember (the “Mr. November” homer, the dive into the stands, the backhand toss out of nowhere to nail Jeremy Giambi, the 5-5 performance punctuated by a homer for his 3,000^th hit, and on and on), and the utter professionalism he brought not just to the game and to baseball, but to sport as a whole.  The only shame is that he never won an MVP.  And the only question with respect to his HOF candidacy is whether he will, like  teammateMariano Rivera last year, be a unanimous selection.  And I bet a few writers hold him out, tsk-tsk’ing his defense (his “runs saved” was indeed a truly awful -152 from 2003 on).  Shame on them if they do!  This guy was the ultimate winner and leader of five Yankee champions.

Omar Vizquel has done well in the balloting in his first two years, establishing a track record (37% in his first year, 43% in his second) that will likely leading to the HOF in a few more years.  Our feeling is that while Omar deserves strong consideration, we don’t think he is quite HOF=worthy.  With an OPS of only 82 – that means 18% worse than the league average over his career – he is well below both the bottom half of HOF shortstops and the Next 10. The main thing going for him is his 2,877 hits, a testament to his longevity – he did play 24 years.  He was a fine player defensively, with 11 Gold Gloves, but no Ozzie Smith or Mark Belanger, with 129 runs saved in his career versus their 239 and 241, respectively.  (Craig Counsell had 127.)  We pass on Omar.

Rafael Furcal does not deserve to be on the ballot, despite three All Star selections.

SHORTSTOP	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.290	2597	173	1241	116	76
Avg HOF	0.286	2336	120	1053	109	63
Bottom Half	0.282	1997	51	809	100	46
Next 10	0.276	1995	92	903	105	49
Derek Jeter	0.310	3465	260	1311	115	72	14	8
Omar Vizquel	0.272	2877	80	951	82	46	3	0
Rafael Furcal	0.281	1817	113	587	96	39	3	0

Third Base 

Scott Rolen should have avoided retiring the same year as Chipper Jones.  In fact, he should have avoided overlapping his entire career with Chipper, and in the same league, no less.  And, maybe he should have avoided playing third base, a position the HOF does not favor (there are fewer third basemen in the HOF than any other position).   Rolen was a terrific, if underrated player.  Chipper may dominate Rolen in every category, but Rolen in turn is solidly above the average third base HOF’er in all the power categories, right in line with the average HOF third basemen in OPS+ and WAR, and he was a great fielder, too.  Not to mention seven All Star selections.  We believe Rolen should be in the HOF.

Eric Chavez was a solid player in his prime, and that prime was cut short by injuries.  Nevertheless, he really does not belong on the ballot, having never once made an All-Star team or earning a Top 10 MVP ranking in any year.

Chone Figgins falls well short of Eric Chavez as a candidate, although he does have one All Star game and one Top 10 MVP year to his credit. 

THIRD BASE	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.290	2715	372	1403	134	89
Avg HOF	0.296	2383	248	1203	125	68
Bottom Half	0.303	2052	124	1037	117	47
Next 10 non-HOF	0.270	2086	256	1103	117	56
Scott Rolen	0.281	2077	316	1287	122	70	7	1
Eric Chavez	0.268	1477	260	902	115	38	0	0
Chone Figgins	0.276	1298	35	403	92	22	1	1

Outfield/DH

Larry Walker’s candidacy, like Helton’s, suffers from “Coors Field Syndrome,” as critics devalue his otherworldly home OPS of 1.068 and focus instead on his very-good-but-not-HOF-worthy .865 on the road (very similar to Helton’s split).  But, unlike Helton, Walker sports a 73 WAR (as noted, this is a park adjusted stat) that is above average for a HOF outfielder, as are his power stats.  Walker is on our ballot. 

Andruw Jones is an interesting case, with those 434 homers and a 63 WAR that also reflects his outstanding defensive skills:  his 253 "runs saved" is exceeded only by Brooks Robinson. That is, more than both Belanger and Ozzie.  That is truly impressive.  His relatively low111 OPS+ is the big knock, but we think the power, defense and WAR add up to a Hall of Famer.

Bobby Abreu is an exceptionally difficult case.  His power stats are above average for a HOF outfielder, but his OPS+ and WAR are borderline.  And when you throw in the fact that he only made two All Star games in his career (putting on quite a display in the Home Run Derby in one of those years) and never once was a Top !0 MVP, it is hard to make a case that he was one of the very best players of his generation.  No HOF for Bobby.

Alfonso Soriano has nice power stats, particularly for a guy who played 40% of his games as a second baseman.  But his OPS and WAR are simply too low to merit serious HOF consideration.

Raul Ibanez brings back fond memories for me for the power display he put on in the 2012 postseason for the Yanks, but apart from that smile, there is not much to recommend him for the HOF.

The three Modern Baseball Era Committee outfielders are truly vexing.  All are truly borderline, meaning they all deserve very strong consideration and yet you can also see why the writers never gave them the keys to the HOF.  Each had power stats that were above average for outfielders.  But I can distinguish from amongst them from there.

Dwight Evans has two things going for him – a WAR that is right in line with average group and very good defensive credentials with 66 runs saved.  He suffers from being unsung in his time, a teammate of Yaz, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice on excellent Red Sox teams in the 1970’s.  But I think he is HOF-worthy.

Dave Parker and Dale Murphy, however, despite seven All Star games apiece, fall short of even the borderline groups in both OPS and WAR, and that leaves them on the outside. 

OUTFIELD/DH	Avg.	Hits	HR	RBI	OPS+	WAR	ASG	MVP10
Top Half	0.317	2898	314	1496	145	91
Avg HOF	0.313	2560	242	1286	136	70
Bottom Half	0.309	2175	161	1047	127	46
Next 10 non-HOF	0.282	2096	241	1052	126	59
Larry Walker	0.313	2160	383	1311	141	73	5	4
Dwight Evans (MB)	0.272	2446	385	1384	127	67	3	3
Andruw Jones	0.254	1933	434	1289	111	63	5	2
Bobby Abreu	0.291	2470	288	1363	128	60	2	0
Dale Murphy (MB)	0.265	2111	398	1266	121	47	7	4
Dave Parker (MB)	0.290	2712	339	1493	121	40	7	6
Alfonso Soriano	0.270	2095	412	1159	112	28	7	2
Raul Ibanez	0.272	2034	305	1207	111	20	1	0
Adam Dunn	0.237	1631	462	1168	124	17	2	0

Starting Pitchers 

Curt Schilling’s ERA+ is a sterling 127 and his WAR is a hefty 81, both up there with the top half of HOF starting pitchers.  And you also have to consider his postseason performances, bloody sock and all.  His stats are phenomenal:  11-2 with a 2.23 ERA.  We’re not fans of his off the field, but Schilling is a Hall of Famer.

Tommy John is a remarkable case.  His “brand” has evolved from “solid major league pitcher” to “career saving arm surgery” (of which he was the pioneer) to “upscale men’s underwear” (which I believe is unrelated to him but nevertheless ubiquitous on satellite radio ads).  What he is not, however, is a Hall of Fame pitcher.  He is perhaps the ultimate compiler, and he went at it for 24 seasons, the last 14 of which with a new elbow, courtesy of a tendon in his leg.  For all that compiling, however, he failed to reach the magic 300 number.  And thus his other stats must be weighed, and the damning one is his ERA+ of 111, well below even borderline standards for the HOF. 

Cliff Lee and Josh Beckett were both absolutely dominant pitchers over relatively short stretches of their careers, only average in other part, and oft-injured as well.  Each had short careers, 13 for Lee, 14 for Beckett, not enough to run up the win total.  If you are not going to be a compiler, a la Don Sutton, you’d better be brilliant, a la Sandy Koufax or Dizzy Dean.  And Lee and Beckett were not that, as evidenced by their ERA+ and WAR’s, both low by HOF standards, well below the average HOF starter and even the borderlines in most cases.  And there has never been a HOF starter with fewer than 150 wins (Dean had 150), so at least for a few more years that is probably a good minimum standard.

Brad Penny does not deserve to be on the ballot.  His ERA+ was 99, which means it was below the league average for his career!

STARTING PITCHERS	W	W/L Pct	ERA	ERA+	WAR	IP	ASG	CY10
Top Half	313	0.593	2.98	124	89	4700
AVG HOF	267	0.599	2.99	123	69	3989
Bottom Half	222	0.604	3.00	122	50	3277
Next 10 non-HOF	237	0.568	3.07	116	64	3758
Curt Schilling	216	0.597	3.46	127	80	3261	6	4
Tommy John (MB)	288	0.555	3.34	111	62	4710	4	4
Cliff Lee	143	0.611	3.52	118	44	2156	4	5
Josh Beckett	138	0.566	3.88	111	36	2051	3	2
Brad Penny	121	0.545	4.29	99	19	1925	2	1

Relief Pitchers 

There is not an extensive history of relief pitchers, so we have changed the comparison categories accordingly.  Here we compare the seven “pure” relievers in the HOF (Rivera, Gossage, Fingers, Hoffman, Smith, Sutter and Wilhelm, but excluding Dennis Eckersley who started many games before becoming a reliever) with the 15 relievers who reached 300 or more saves but were turned aside on the first ballot by HOF voters (none met the 5% threshold).   

Billy Wagner’s statistics are amazing, and some keen voters – too few -- have noticed this because he has made it to a fourth year on the ballot.  He has well over 400 saves and a 1.00 WHIP that is – incredibly – equal to Rivera’s (and better than Trevor Hoffman’s 1.06).  His stats compare favorably to the big seven.  Wagner is on our ballot – he is simply one of the greatest relievers ever.

J.J. Putz, Jose Valverde and Heath Bell were all fine relievers, with fine WHIPs and ERA+, but none accumulated 300 saves and none had a WAR approaching even that of the borderline group.  And they were pure closers, only one inning per game types, which helped them achieve ERA’s comparable to some of the HOF’ers who included more one-two innings types.

RELIEF PITCHERS	Saves	WHIP	ERA+	WAR	IP	IP/G	ASG	CY10
Avg HOF (ex-Eck)	416	1.14	143	35	1496	1.5
Non-HOF 300+ Saves	331	1.27	129	18	1004	1.2
Billy Wagner	422	1.00	187	28	903	1.1	6	2
J.J. Putz	189	1.15	138	13	566	1.0	1	0
Jose Valverde	288	1.20	133	12	630	1.0	3	2
Heath Bell	168	1.27	112	7	628	1.1	3	1

That’s it!  The Modern Baseball Era Committee announcement is this coming Sunday, December 8^th.  And then come back on Tuesday, January 21nd with the writers’ selections and see how we did!