Nominations for the Hall Of Commons - let's play.

[gman]

Lance Berkman (and yet Harold Baines is in)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Chet Lemon.

[Peter_Spaeth]

George Hendrick.

[rats60]

Willie Randolph
Eric Davis
Cesar Cedeno
Jim Wynn
Reggie Smith
Gene Tenace
Boog Powell
Rick Reuschel
Jerry Koosman
Andy Messersmith
Mike Cuellar
Denny McLain
Bill Freehan
Sam McDowell

[jsfriedm]

Jerry Koosman

[D. Bergin]

Willie Randolph 1st came to mind. 66 WAR and only 5 votes his 1st year, and then off the ballot.

There's guys IN the Hall of Fame right now who were on the same ballot, that Randolph destroys in THAT metric anyways.

[D. Bergin]

Brian Downing is another guy who's been treated well by modern day analytics. Same year as Randolph. 2 Votes and off.

[Beercan collector]

Davey Lopes

[tiger8mush]

Jason Giambi immediately came to mind, ~50 WAR, but he has 6 votes, so nope!

[bbcard1]

I'll throw a knuckleball in here with Charlie Hough.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by tiger8mush

Jason Giambi immediately came to mind, ~50 WAR, but he has 6 votes, so nope!

A horrible 1st Baseman, but an absolute hitting machine in his prime. Would have guessed he got more votes.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Willie Randolph 1st came to mind. 66 WAR and only 5 votes his 1st year, and then off the ballot.

There's guys IN the Hall of Fame right now who were on the same ballot, that Randolph destroys in THAT metric anyways.

Bobby Grich has 71.1 WAR and 2.6% of the votes in his only time on the ballot. Look at Derek Jeter with 71.3 WAR in 4,400 more PAs and people were upset he didn't get 100% of the votes. Larkin and Trammell are in with lower WAR. Trammell in particular had a lot of career overlap with Grich. You also have to bring up Lou Whitaker when you mention Trammell.

[qed2190]

Lefty O'Doul.

[Beercan collector]

Willie Wilson
Steve Finley

[Yoda]

Tip O'Neil

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by z28jd

Bobby Grich has 71.1 WAR and 2.6% of the votes in his only time on the ballot. Look at Derek Jeter with 71.3 WAR in 4,400 more PAs and people were upset he didn't get 100% of the votes. Larkin and Trammell are in with lower WAR. Trammell in particular had a lot of career overlap with Grich. You also have to bring up Lou Whitaker when you mention Trammell.

Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago we had a long discussion of Grich. He seems to be a lightning rod for people who don't like WAR. Lots of divergent viewpoints, but I think most agreed he was not likely to make the Hall despite his WAR which obviously would qualify him if you valued the metric.

[D. Bergin]

Thought of Grich, but he didn't qualify under the conditions of the original post.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Thought of Grich, but he didn't qualify under the conditions of the original post.

I read the initial post too fast I guess. I was thinking it said 5% of the votes, which is why I mentioned that he got 2.6%.

[ClementeFanOh]

Bill Madlock? Al Oliver?

Trent King

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ClementeFanOh

Bill Madlock? Al Oliver?

Trent King

Neither qualify

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago we had a long discussion of Grich. He seems to be a lightning rod for people who don't like WAR. Lots of divergent viewpoints, but I think most agreed he was not likely to make the Hall despite his WAR which obviously would qualify him if you valued the metric.

I was slow to fully embrace WAR, but then I noticed so few cases where I disagreed with it. Many of them were 19th century outfielders getting poor defensive ratings. It seems now that a lot of people who don't like it, just point to some outliers they disagree with, but a lot of them have explanations.

Someone on Twitter yesterday mentioned Brendan Ryan being rated higher than Paul Konerko one season as their reason it made no sense, but all they showed was offensive stats. Of course a lot of people agreed. Ryan was a well above average defensive shortstop. Konerko was a well below average defensive first baseman, who had a very mediocre season by his own standards at the plate. WAR helps show the massive defensive value difference between an elite shortstop and a below average first baseman. There's also some value taken from base running, which again was a huge advantage to Ryan.

I see very few surprises with the stat now, though I'll mention I use Baseball-Reference (bWAR) and not Fangraphs (fWAR), because I've seen a lot with Fangraphs WAR numbers that I don't like.

[jingram058]

Cecil Travis. It says on Google he never appeared on BBWAA ballots. I don't know about any eras ballots.

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by z28jd

I see very few surprises with the stat now, though I'll mention I use Baseball-Reference (bWAR) and not Fangraphs (fWAR), because I've seen a lot with Fangraphs WAR numbers that I don't like.

A big issue I have with FanGraphs WAR is that they’ve gone all-in on catcher framing as being about The Most Important Baseball Thing Ever.

[Writehooks]

Dave "King Kong" Kingman