Season 33 Hall of Fame Voting

In most of my worlds, I run a blog segment that focuses on trying to figure out who should be elected to the Hall of Fame that season. Over time, I have figured out that there are two ways that have proven to be the most successful. The first is figuring out who previously got the most votes in that world and then checking the stats to see if the top 5 previous vote getters were indeed worthy (they usually are) and then pooling votes behind those guys. The second is to break down the list of candidates into tiers based on their statistical success and throw support behind the most deserving guys. 

The tiers that I often use are the following: “I Should Have Been In Years Ago”, “I Will Get In Eventually”, “I Might Get In”, “Praying For A Miracle” and finally the “Field of Pipe Dreams.” When I first came up with these categories my ideal scenario was to apply career WAR totals to these tiers and analyze guys that way, but at that point I was in a world with 30+ seasons of history and not enough time in the day to calculate 30+ seasons of WAR. However, I have since discovered a fairly easy way to estimate WAR for hitters. So, my approach this season is going to be to use that WAR estimate and those tiers to evaluate the HOF case of the top vote getters from last season. 

The first step in that process is figuring out who the five guys with the highest previous vote totals are...a quick investigation turns up the following results:

1) Phillip Friend, prev. high of 16 votes

2) Jeff Mills, prev. high of 10 votes

3) Kyle Norton, prev. high of 8 votes

4) Willard Bradshaw, prev. high of 6 votes

t-5) Carlos Quixote, prev. high of 4 votes

t-5) Sven Sparks, prev. high of 4 votes

t-5) Wilkin Nunez, prev. high of 4 votes

So, now that I've figured out who the most popular candidates are, let's take a look at each of their HOF cases to see which ones to put our weight behind. A quick note before we get started, though- I use a 5 tier system based on career WAR to evaluate HOF worthiness broken down as follows:

I Should Have Been In Years Ago = 100 WAR or 130+ uHOFM score

I’ll Get In Eventually = 70 WAR or 100 uHOFM

I Might Get In = 55 WAR or 70 uHOFM

Praying For A Miracle = 30 WAR or 50 uHOFM

Field of {Pipe} Dreams = 29 or fewer WAR, 49 or fewer uHOFM

Here's how that applies to the players listed above:

Phillip Friend, Center Fielder 

Estimated 69 career WAR, "I Might Get In"

uHOFM = 169 

Career Standard Score = 64.5

VERDICT: HIS PERFORMANCE ON SECONDARY METRICS PUTS HIM IN THE "I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN YEARS AGO" CATEGORY {VOTE #1}

Jeff Mills, Left Fielder

Estimated 42 career WAR, "Praying For A Miracle"

uHOFM = 151 

Career Standard Score = 50.4 

VERDICT: HIS PERFORMANCE ON SECONDARY METRICS (uHOFM & Career Standard Score) PUTS HIM IN THE "I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN YEARS AGO" CATEGORY {VOTE #2}

Kyle Norton, Relief Pitcher

Estimated career WAR unknown

uHOF Monitor Score = 120, "I'll Get In Eventually"

Career Standard Score

VERDICT: HE IS HOF WORTHY {VOTE #3}

Willard Bradshaw, Starting Pitcher

Estimated career WAR unknown

uHOF Monitor Score = 109, "I'll Get In Eventually"

Career Standard Score

VERDICT: HE IS HOF WORTHY {VOTE #4}

Carlos Quixote, Shortstop

Estimated 56 career WAR, "I Might Get In"

uHOFM = 127 

Career Standard Score = 54.2 

VERDICT: HIS PERFORMANCE ON SECONDARY METRICS PUTS HIM IN THE "I WILL GET IN EVENTUALLY" CATEGORY

Sven Sparks, Starting Pitcher

Estimated career WAR unknown

uHOF Monitor Score = 109, "I'll Get In Eventually"

Career Standard Score

VERDICT: HE IS HOF WORTHY {VOTE #5}

Wilkin Nunez, Starting Pitcher

Estimated career WAR unknown

uHOF Monitor Score = 71, "I Might Get In"

Career Standard Score = 42.6

VERDICT: HIS PERFORMANCE ON SECONDARY METRICS KEEPS HIM IN THE "I MIGHT GET IN" CATEGORY