A couple months ago I came up with the All-Worst Hall of Fame team using Jay Jaffe's JAWs system. Today I decided to do the same thing, but using Hall Ratings provided by the Hall of Stats. I've included each player's Hall Rating in parentheses, and for comparison's sake consider that the threshold for Cooperstown worthiness is 100. Thus, a player like Freddie Lindstrom who scored a 50 only had half of a Hall of Fame career, whereas a player like Babe Ruth at 395 rolled nearly four Hall of Fame careers into one.
C Ray Schalk (51)
1B High Pockets Kelly (41)
2B Bill Mazeroski (51)
3B Freddie Lindstrom (50)
SS Rabbit Maranville (72)
LF Chick Hafey (56)
CF Lloyd Waner (34)
RF Tommy McCarthy (28)
SP Jesse Haines (57)
RP Rollie Fingers (53)
Turns out this is exactly the same team that JAWs spit out with one exception: right field, which was manned by Ross Youngs in the JAWs version. As expected, this team skews old with only Maz and Fingers debuting after World War II.
A lot of players from the NY Giants got in that probably should not have, at least based on offensive statistics, they include Ross Youngs, Freddie Lindstrom, George Kelley, and Travis Jackson. Take a look at Vada Pinson's or Al Oliver's statistics for instance, why wouldn't they be in?
ReplyDeleteExactly. There was so much favoritism from the Veteran's Committee back then they just put in their teammates and drinking buddies. Such a shame as it really diluted the quality of the Hall
ReplyDeletewhat about harry hooper? i'm looking at his stats and i believe his hof is 34. i get fielding and intangibles, but if he's in then curt flood has been cheated.
ReplyDeleteHooper's not a great choice for the Hall but he's certainly not a bad one: 53.1 bWAR, 114 OPS+, almost 2,500 hits and 375 stolen bases, not to mention four World Series rings and great performances in three of those Fall Classics. Flood was a similar player but not as good with the bat (100 OPS+) or as good on the bases, and because he retired so young his counting numbers are not as good as Hooper's. One of the great what ifs is whether Flood would have made the Hall of Fame had he not sacrificed his career to challenge the Reserve Clause, and I'm inclined to think he would have.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that only 18,200+ men have played baseball at the game's highest level, it seems reasonable to me that 2-3 percent ought to be considered the greatest (i.e. Hall of Fame caliber). This number should exclude pioneers, executives, managers, umpires and other non-players. Given those parameters, 360-500+ could be considered to be "great". Currently the National Baseball Hall of Fame has 306 members, approximately 240 of whom were elected as players. While the All-Worst Hall (Rating) Team certainly demonstrates that none is a Hall of Famer on the magnitude of Babe Ruth, each was a baseball great and worthy of enshrinement - along with 100-300 more, in my view.
ReplyDeleteStephen Mitchell
Jesse Haines beating out Rube Marquard by a nose... must have been quite a race!
ReplyDeleteVada Pinson, the only player in history to have 3 seasons of 200 hits,20 Hr's and 20 steals.Pretty good company.
ReplyDelete