MLB HOF - Too Big or Too Small?
 

Reading the recent Jackson/Rose thread and thinking about the numerous past threads on here debating who belongs in the HOF, I started wondering - Are there too many players in the HOF, or too few?

Many times folks argue that Rose/Jackson/Hodges/Wood/Minoso/Schilling etc should be in the Hall. But just as many folks seem to argue that the Hall is watered down and has let in too many marginal players.

So which is it - are there too many players in the Hall, or too few?

Third choice should've been "Just about right size"

The moment Baines / Raines got in it became a joke.

When I go to the Hall I get excited about the Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Willie Mays displays. Not so much with a poorly designed 1986 Harold Baines White Sox jersey...

I used to think much too big but I'm used to it now so I would say about right. Agree Baines was a really bad choice though.

I figure 1-2 players per year since the start of NL is the right size, so I guess that makes me a Big Hall guy. However, there are probably 20 guys in there that I never would have voted for, so I have more of an objection to which players are in than to how many there are.

Actually, there have been many before that brought it to that: Lindstrom, Haines, Marquard, Ferrell, Mazeroski and Tinker to Evers to Chance just to name a few.


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Both overinclusive and underinclusive.

So I’ll take door number three.

I would go with choice 3, Too Random.

Think about how different the HOF would be if we started over, and used actual reasoned analysis instead of politics and myth.

This is an institution that elected Tinker-Evers-Chance simultaneously because they were in a famous poem, Mazeroski based mainly on a single home run and Bruce Sutter despite a fWAR of 19.2.

Lou Whitaker has a higher fWAR than fellow Tigers Jack Morris and Alan Trammell, and more than double the fWAR than fellow 2B Mazeroski. Yet he's not in. I just don't see any rationality in Mazeroski being in and Whitaker out.

So I've given up. I just don't care, because it's simply too random to be valid, IMO.

Suppose...

there was an algorithm that could measure the greatness of players, factoring in the longevity of their careers, the differences between the parks they played in, the competition they faced, and the influence their own teams and managers had upon them.

the governing bodies agree to use the algorithm and determined a threshold for hall entrance.

would people care about the Hall of Fame?

I don't think they would.

The point I am trying to make is that while the Hall of Fame has some egregious inclusions, the subjectivity and human element to the election process is why we tune in each time new votes come in. It is partly why players play out their careers the way they do. And it is largely why people talk about the hall of fame at all. If people couldn't debate who should be in or debate who belongs in what imagined tier of greatness, what talk of the Hall would there be?

I think it is neither too big nor too small. And yes, Lou Whitaker should definitely be in there. And Bruce Sutter is a head-scratcher.

About the right size. And yes, some aren't deserving and some that are deserving are left out.

I'm with you on Baines, but Raines was criminally underrated due to the misfortune of laying at the same time as Rickey Henderson. Raines belongs.

Baines was a complete joke, I agree.

It would seem there are a bunch of New York players who got in due to the sheer number of Big Apple newspapers back in the day, with their baseball writers having votes on the HOF.

Mazeroski is the greatest defensive 2nd baseman of all time. In my opinion, he is far more deserving than Lou Whitaker. I would take a guy who is the best in one area over a guy who is above average in all areas. It wouldn't be a Hall of Fame without Brooks Robinson, Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski.

Fangraphs is a joke. They still think pitchers have no control over balls hit in play despite all of the evidence that disproves their hypothesis. That is probably why they don't value defense.

And I voted too big. There are too many above average players while some deserving players are on the outside looking in.

I don’t disagree - but I think people sometimes discount how close the “numbers geeks” and the “old school” are in alignment. Sure, there are cases that differ, but look at a voted list of the top 100 or 200 players in history against a list of the top 100 or 200 by WAR…and I bet it’s 80% to 90% the same.

When I was a kid, a Hall of Famer meant a 'perfect' player, basically someone who could do no wrong on the field. Granted, it's a naive way of thinking, but I still look at it along those same lines. The biggest WTF moments are when players whose entire careers I've witnessed are 'suddenly' HOF'ers. Most have already been mentioned in the thread, so I won't cast further aspersions, but it is a huge disappointment when players who were never for a moment considered HOF-worthy when they actually played are voted in!!!

Too big!!!!!!!

I agree totally it is too big and it may get bigger over the next few years and become more of the Hall of the Very Good when you look at the eligible players over the next few on the BBWAA ballot , as well as those who the Veterans Committee may vote in . Remember the Veterans Committee has given the Hall most of these “debatable “ inductees .

Not sure how less than 1.5% of all players is too big. Also, everyone upset with Baines but there are so many others that could be swapped out instead.

HOF watered down to many same as my post in a different thread

I think the fact that everyone names the same few players as "don't belong" is a sign that the vast majority of those in DO belong.

And the HOF standard is actually going UP...before Baines, when was the last "bad" selection? And when was the last bad selection from the writers?

People who think the hall "used to stand for greatness" weren't paying attention, the watering down didn't start when you were an adult, it didn't start when you were 8-12 years, old...it started in the late 30's and 40's (apologies to anyone over 83 reading this). :p

They need two halls.
 

One a 40 man roster of HOFer's, and another of secondary Hofer's. To get in the 40 man, someone must be moved to the lower tier.

It's not an either/or. It's too big and there are few players who deserve to be in.

You know that concept of "every kid gets a trophy"? Maybe that all started with the BB HOF veteran's committee many years ago...

When was this? Seem like the HOF has been watered down for a long time.

I was speaking more metaphorically. When reading very old books about the great players from earlier in the century - Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, etc. - I simply thought of them as baseball gods who did everything perfectly, the paragons of the game. Of course, when my dad told me not only did The Babe hit more homers than anyone else, but he also struck out the most times in history, it was a bit of an awakening. But those were old black and white photos in books, and I had no attachment to the players. As I grew up, that all changed as I actually saw/experienced the entire careers of players. When you're talking Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Rickey Henderson, Nolan Ryan and Bob Gibson, for instance, they were always surefire Hall of Famers while they were still playing the game. Announcers would say "future Hall of Famer (enter player name here). Everyone (contrarians aside) knew it. No debate necessary. But Baines, Sutton, Blyleven, Raines, etc.? We all experienced a huge portion (or all) of their careers, and who among us ever thought of them as HOF'ers?? Decent players, stars, sure, but Hall of Famers?? No way.

The year before - Jack Morris. And Lee Smith went in the same year as Baines - another terrible selection.

The year before Baines - Trevor Hoffman.

On Hoffman…if you’re going to put closers in the hall of fame, and like the DH, they’ve been a thing for almost 50 years, so they probably should…I wouldn’t say one of the two closers with 600 saves is a terrible choice. Are there a few others I’d put in, sure (Wagner has a good shot this year).

Hoffman suffers similar fate to Raines…if not for playing at the same time as Rivera and Henderson, respectfully, they’d be viewed quite differently.

I wasn’t a big fan of either the Morris or Smith choices - if you’re going to put in a 70’s-80’s Tiger, Whitaker is a better choice. That being said…these picks are “metrics darling” picks…actually quite the opposite. These selections are old school “thumbing the nose” at advanced statistics in favor of “once had the most saves” and “most wins of the 80’s, great game in the WS”.

I don't mind the size, I kind of wish there were a criteria. I think Japan's HOF has specific statistical threshold that if you reach, you're in. But that involves a lot of debate. One moderately bad selectin that never gets pointed out is Jim Rice. He was the least deserving of the great Boston OF of Rice, Dewey and Lynn.

That in itself is a good empirical question. I just took the top 100 players as listed by popular fan vote over at ranker.com and compared them to my sabermetric rankings as a comparison of "old school" vs "numbers geek" rankings.

The lists begin the same (Ruth is #1) and disagree about everyone else from #2-#100. Their #2 (Gehrig) is my #15. Some other notable discrepancies:

Ernie Banks is their #18 and misses my top 100.
Yogi Berra is their #22 (#1 catcher) and misses my top 100 (#8 catcher [or #7 if you exclude Josh Gibson, but you shouldn't; anyway, Gibson did make both lists]).
Barry Bonds is my #4 and misses their top 100 (#105).
Roger Clemens is my #5 and misses their top 100 (#124).
Kid Nichols is my #10 and misses their entire published list (which goes through #150).
Eddie Collins is my #17 and their #74.
A-Rod is my #21 and misses their entire published list.
Mike Schmidt is my #24 and their #93.


Only 55 players made both lists. One could calculate a Spearman rank order correlation if so inclined, but it's clearly not going to be nearly as high as I would have expected. I assumed the Yankees would be systematically overrated by the voting, and that is correct, but since I figured only baseball fans would bother voting on the rankings I wasn't prepared to see Barry Bonds at #105 (right between John Smoltz and Robin Yount) or Kid Nichols outside of the top 150.

What is your sabrmetric ranking?

But who is Eppa Rixey? An Albanian spy?.....the National Dish of Turkmenistan?

+1 - Scott's right
 

Raines is a no-brainer, man!

I voted too big. However, saying that, I think the MLB HOF is much, much better than the NBA or NFL Hall of Fames. The main problems that I have with the MLB HOF are that it tends to value longevity too much, and is also sometimes too dependent on the player position. For example, if a player just plugs away, plugs away, and somehow manages to get to 3000 hits, that's an automatic ticket to the HOF even if he were never really great or just great for 1-2 seasons. For the position player argument, I see justifications that this player deserves to be in the HOF because he's was the 8th best 2nd baseman or 9th best hitting catcher. I think it's well known that the toughest fielding position is SS (or maybe 3rd base), and if you're not quite as good, then you get moved to 2nd base. If you really can't field very well, you get moved to 1st base or LF. Some players try to be catchers if they have a hard time making it at other positions. Therefore, I don't think it's right that if you're the 8th best 2nd baseman, you can make it to the HOF, where say the 20th best SS can't make it, but if that SS had moved to 2nd base, then he would be much more likely to be in the HOF. The example I'll use here is Mike Piazza. He was never that great of a fielding/throwing catcher, but his batting stats as a catcher put him in the HOF. However, if he were exclusively a 1st baseman, I doubt that he'd make it.

I voted “a little too big”. I would’ve said “just right” 6-7 years ago, but feel the last few years have been way too lenient. I always thought of Rice, Dawson, Hoffman, Baines, Blyleven, Morris, Sutter and Lee Smith as very good players. Never watched any of them (during their playing days) thinking they were surefire HOFers.

I really wish there were fewer “Closers”. I wonder if the day will come that top-tier pinch hitters, pinch runners and other single-inning players will get in. :rolleyes:

Not sure what your sabermetric ranking looks like, but my first take is that that ranker list may be...not very good. Bonds at 105? Clemens 124?

I mean, if you look at the top 100 players all time by WAR (I used BBR variety), I count 16 who aren't in the hall of fame.

That list includes:

- Five active "likely inductees" (Pujols, Trout, Kershaw, Verlander, Grienke)
- Four steroid guys (Bonds, Clemens, Arod, Palmeiro)
- Two Players on the ballot currently or soon with a good shot at induction (Schilling & Beltre)
- Four players often cited as deserving (Grich, Whitaker, Dahlen, McCormick)
- Pete Rose (I *bet* you know why he's not in)

Of the 16, time should see 7-10 of them should get in, maybe more if the thinking changes on the steroid crew.

Of course, the HOF has something like 235 players, not 100, so you'd get a bigger gap as the list grows.

The NBA doesn't have a Hall of Fame. The recognized Naismith HOF covers more than just the NBA.

If he was exclusively a 1B, his already great numbers (400 homers, 143 OPS+) almost certainly would have been even better without all that wear & tear. Even without that, he'd be an obvious HOFer.

I think the HOF is the right size. There are a plenty of marginal players, some in some out, who can be argued convincingly either way, and a few real head-scratchers who can’t be removed, so discussions about their Hallworthyness are academic.

I think the hall of fame is too big. Last time I was there my feet hurt after walking around the entire place. :p:D

It's just a formula I made up for comparing which of any two players had a better career. It corrects for inflated numbers from being above average for a very long career without rewarding people for retiring as soon as they start to lose a step.

I call it a Simlab number. Pretty simple if WAR is already calculated. Take the square of career WAR and divide it by games played. Multiply that quantity by 1 for pitchers, 3.39 for regular position players, and 4.6 for catchers. Then throw Mariano onto the list because I felt like it.

How did you arrive at those multiplication factors?

I'm curious on the details and what the list result is with this formula, not to dismiss it but because I like to see what people do with stats and what they can create.


Separately, I would say an analysis of comparing if the old-school and new-school views generally agree on the best players would use straight WAR. Better or worse, this is the standard among that crowd.

It is harder to pick a method of comparison for the old-school crowd, because their statistical analysis is rooted in the view that condensing everything into one number is absurd and won't work, so it can't be a single stat we choose like we can for the sabrmetric crowd. Ranker is a fan vote site, it is public popularity, which I think is completely separate from people who believe inn statistical analysis but use traditional stats (Jeter is really good in traditional stats, really good in WAR, the GOAT SS in public opinion). Public popularity is a third thing and different, and disagrees with traditional math quite a bit as well. I'd think we'd have to do something like take a well-reputed older list from a publication that got much agreement, and then remove players since then from the WAR list to compare apples-to-apples and see how much it agrees.

From a broader view, scrolling over the list of players by WAR, I think we can see that WAR does generally rank the players with the best traditional stats as being the best players. A guy may have be 40th in one and 23rd in the other, but there are not guys topping the WAR charts that traditional stats hate and vice versa. This is probably a credit to WAR doing something right.

I am in the middle, I think traditional stats have great value, I think the best achievement of the modern approach is stats that put them into context of their time and place, like OPS+ and ERA+. I think a guy who hits .350 when the league hits .240 is a good hitter, regardless of what WAR says. I don't trust the notion that all facets of the game can be combined into one, perfectly and correctly weighted equation for all of baseball history that will produce any kind of actual truth. The defensive components are even more problematic. I think the results show it does a much better job of comparing modern players together than older players of different times and era's, where players were focused on aspects of the game that may not be in alignment with the weighted preferences of the contemporary mathematician. I think Bill James' work is endlessly fascinating and have worn out my copy of the Baseball Abstract, and simultaneously think that the mathematician model of managing a ball game has ruined the fun of actually watching a baseball game, which has become a strikeout heavy home run derby in which most small-ball strategy is completely gone and pitchers mostly pitch 5 innings or less. 'The Home Run or Nothing' game may generate more runs in today's small parks, but it's personally boring and not why I like baseball.



To the original question, I would vote the issue with the Hall is not the size, it could be expanded, it could be shrunk, it could be kept the same. The issue is that its selections are arbitrary, odd, sometimes common-sense defying, occasionally openly corrupt, and inconsistent. The Harold Baines election is a great recent example, I think Jack Morris is too. Baines gets the nod, who does not compare favorably to other HOFers, while Schilling who compares favorably to recent SP selections is spitefully ignored. It's been present for most of the hall's history, from the original old timers committee's just voting almost randomly for recognizable 19th century names to Frisch's committee electing his friends to the joke that is the current era committees choices. Any group will make mistakes or make choices I don't agree with, but the sheer amount of them and the obstinacy against following their own standards they have made (by now, it's pretty easy to compare if a nominee compares to the average quality of an elected HOFer or not, for example) makes it a crapshoot every year on if a deserving player will simply be ignored and/or a completely undeserving one will be seemingly randomly selected by an era committee.

It's been quite a few years, but my memory is that the 3.39 did the best job of matching the rank ordering of pitchers vs position players from JAWS. Then I noticed that Johnny Bench was the only catcher in the top 100, so I gave catchers the smallest multiplier that would give them I think it was at least 10% of the position players' spots on the list.

I think this is considered the gold standard old school list of greatest players.

How do you know what WAR to use?

It’s a good list, but now 23 years old (pains me to say as it came out the year I graduated college), so there’d be a few adds (and matching removals).

Two more thoughts:

1. The people who really seem to “get” and use WAR mostly openly admit it’s imperfect and is one of many tools you should use to determine greatness. But having something less subjective to drive a conversation has value. It’s kind of the “scouts vs stats” thing from 20 years ago. The “stats geeks” were saying “and” and the old school crowd was hearing “or”.

2. I hope we’re taking “relative” hall of fame size, not raw size…since every year (or so) more players get in. I’d be interested to see how % of players get elected to the hall…adjusted for things like league size.

Doesn't really matter given how high the intercorrelations are. I used the bbref one since that's the site I consult most frequently.

WAR is totally subjective. BB Reference uses ERA to determine WAR for pitchers. Fangraphs uses FIP. Fangraphs thinks Bob Veale was worth 8 WAR in 1965, better than Juan Marichal's 6.8. Baseball Reference thinks Juan Marichal was worth 10.3 WAR and Bob Veale was only worth 4.0. Which one is correct? How can you trust something that has so much variance? What do the error models look like for these two formulas? Imperfect has to be the understatement of the year.