Hall of Fame Candidates 2010

Hard to believe that time of year is coming soon when we discuss and rate our favorites to end up in Cooperstown, but it's coming very soon. In fact, by the end of the first week in January, we'll all know whether holdovers Dawson and Blylevin made the grade and whether first-timers McGriff and Larkin will make a dent in the voting.

For all those that like to look at numbers, check out of Rating the Hall of Fame Candidates 2010 page. There's a whole lot there to shake through, including PEVA Career Totals for the Regular Season, Postseason, PEVA-EQ stats, and where they'd stand among Hall of Famers already in if they make it, too.

But for now, we'll just ramble on and on about how we think about such things, and elaborate a bit as well.

First off, we're very stingy about who we think should make the Hall of Fame. It's a special place where only the best of the best should reside. Now, there are many already there who you could argue against inclusion, so it's probably not quite as exclusive a club as we'd like, but ... as they say, it is what it is. And it's great!

For Stat Geek Baseball and the baseballevaluation PEVA system, it's pretty apparent who should definitely get in. All players who have garnered 275.000 PEVA Ratings Points (PEVA-B or PEVA-T) or 285.000 including the postseason during their career, and eligible for the Hall, are in. So if any players on the current ballot has reached that Total, it's a no brainer. But nobody has. Now it gets tricky. When you get to a 200 PEVA level, about 75% get in, but you better be above 210 to have the best shot. There are 124 in that category (on the All Inclusive List) and 75 are in, and 16 not yet eligible.

But what about those 25% who are on the outside looking in, why are some included and some not. Well, for starters, many who are on the outside have lower PEVA per EQ year averages. This is the average PEVA value for a full season per the player's career. But there are some who have similar values and have not made it, while others have.

That's just the way the game is played. But for us this year, it comes down to the case of "are any of the players deserving" and "how many of the marginal to good candidates" should make it. We're of the opinion that every year should have at least one HOF inductee, with the perfect year 2, and the maximum three. For us, this is one year when we'd only choose 1.

Bert Blylevin has been toiling in this HOF voting for 14 years, and if he doesn't make it in 2010, he has only one more year on the writer's ballot to make it. He's getting punished for playing on bad teams that lost games, even though he did his darndest to prevent it. Bert won 287 games in his career with a 3.31 ERA. His Total PEVA score of 274.610 ranks #69 All-Time among all players and pitchers. Yes, his PEVA Per EQ average year is lower than we'd like at 13.075 when he should be around 15.000 and if there were other better options, we'd choose them. But this year, there just aren't, and it's time to elect Bert to the Hall of Fame.

For us, not too many others even deserve a mention. We'll get one out of the way before going any further. If Mark McGwire had not used or been involved in the PED allegation scandal, he'd be a lock to be in the Hall. But for us, we think his use added enough to his stats that without them, he'd be below the threshold for election. We're not saying that we'd never vote for anybody involved in this scandal; we're using the "if they hadn't used PEDs, would they still have made it" logic. We don't think Mark would have; Sammy and Rafael, too when they're on the ballot in the future.

Okay, so who are the other possible players we have considered. There are three that top our list, but fall just short of deserving inclusion. One holdover, Dale Murphy, and two newcomers, Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff. For some reason, voters don't like Dale, preferring to toss votes more toward Andre Dawson or Tim Raines or Dave Parker last year. And he is similar to those players, but we think better. Murphy had 228.963 Total PEVA points in his career after hitting 398 HR, 1266 RBI, with a 0.265 AVE. Those numbers aren't quite good enough for us, but one number is, a 15.767 PEVA EQ. But for this year, our nod goes to Bert and leaves Dale behind. It's unlikely Murphy ever makes the Hall, and he may be just under our radar every year, too, in the future. But of the rest of the holdovers, we like Dale better than the rest.

McGriff and Martinez are interesting candidates to us. You could make the same case for Edgar that we just made for Murphy, Martinez with 227.901 Total PEVA Points and a 15.130 PEVA EQ. He had a higher AVE than Murphy, but was a DH most of his career, which will likely be counted against him. McGriff played on a ton of good teams and put up HR and RBI numbers that almost gets him to automatic inclusion (well at least past automatic inclusion), 493 HR and 1550 RBI. But his PEVA numbers were lower than those numbers suggest at 229.985, because he played on those teams and the PEVA EQ score of 13.319 does not quite cut it for us. (PEVA separates production with rate stats like OBP and SLG to segment some of the production that was dependent on teammates). We won't be surprised if McGriff actually makes the Hall someday, and that would be okay. But he'd be just on the outside looking in for us.

Well, that's about it for now, with the possible exception of not understanding why Lee Smith is thought so highly of, but that might be out penchant to undervalue the relief pitcher compared to the starter. Geez, just like we undervalue the pinch hitter versus the every day player. But that's a debate for another day.

All the best guys from Stat Geek Baseball.