Season 58 Hall of Fame Voting

by bruinsfan911 12:33 PM 0 comments

 Over the past few seasons, I have established a method of Hall of Fame voting that blends both previous voting totals and career Wins Above Replacement that has worked quite well and I will continue using that this year. However, I do have an extra wrinkle to add in at this point: I have been tracking WAR long enough that I am starting to get some career totals for Hall of Famers, so not only will I be able to get a general sense of their chances on an MLB scale but I can also now start comparing the candidates to their Plumpy counterparts as well. 

As usual, we start with a reminder of how last season's voting turned out: 

With Ingram and Corpas now in, our top five vote-getters who fell short last season were Miguel Tapies (1 vote short), Elian Rojas Jr. (7 votes short, and this is at least the third time he has shown up on this list), Osvaldo Lee (9 votes short), Guillermo Gutierrez (10 votes short) and Darnell Curtis (11 votes short.) 

Now that we have our list of leading candidates, let's see how their careers stack up using a method that is based on WAR and borrowed from MLB.com (but expanded to give players credit for leading the league in certain categories.) Here are the results:

• Miguel Tapies: 5.37 total points 
• 102 Estimated WAR in 19 seasons = 5.37 Baseline Score*
• ? years of 4+ WAR
• 0 Cy Youngs or MVPs
• 0 World Series Rings
• Won ? pennants 
• Led the league in WHIP, IP, K, Opp SLG and ERA ? times
• Led the league in Gms, SHO, W, SV and Opp OBP ? times
• Led the league in L, Most H, Most R, Most BB, Highest OAVG ? times
• Led the league in GS and SV Opp ? times, Most ER ? times
• Elian Rojas Jr: 12.97 total points 
• 69.54 WAR in 14 seasons = 4.97 Baseline Score
• 8 years of 4+ WAR = 8 points
• 0 Cy Youngs or MVPs
• 0 World Series Rings
• Won ? pennants 
• Led the league in R, H, HR, RBI and OPS ? times, K's ? times
• Led the league in BB, SB, AVG, OBP and SLG ? times, CS ? times
• Led the league in AB, 2B, 3B, HBP, L Streak ? times 
• Osvaldo Lee: 5.87 total points 
• 28 Estimated WAR in 15 seasons = 1.87 Baseline Score*
• ? years of 4+ WAR
• 0 Cy Youngs or MVPs
• 2 World Series Rings = 4 points
• Won ? pennants 
• Led the league in R, H, HR, RBI and OPS ? times, K's ? times
• Led the league in BB, SB, AVG, OBP and SLG ? times, CS ? times
• Led the league in AB, 2B, 3B, HBP, L Streak ? times 
• Guillermo Gutierrez: 10.17 total points 
• 47.61 WAR in 15 seasons = 3.17 Baseline Score
• 5 years of 4+ WAR = 5 points
• 1 MVP Award = 2 points
• 0 World Series Rings 
• Won ? pennants 
• Led the league in R, H, HR, RBI and OPS ? times, K's ? times
• Led the league in BB, SB, AVG, OBP and SLG ? times, CS ? times
• Led the league in AB, 2B, 3B, HBP, L Streak ? times 
• Darnell Curtis: 5.31 total points 
• 43 Estimated WAR in 13 seasons = 3.31 Baseline Score*
• ? years of 4+ WAR
• 0 Cy Youngs or MVPs
• 1 World Series Ring = 2 points
• Won ? pennants 
• Led the league in R, H, HR, RBI and OPS ? times, K's ? times
• Led the league in BB, SB, AVG, OBP and SLG ? times, CS ? times
• Led the league in AB, 2B, 3B, HBP, L Streak ? times 

This seems like a good formula to apply to HOF candidates going forward based on the results, but because I haven't been tracking league leaders up until this point I am going to use the WAR-only standards until we get to the point where candidates have league leader data available. This is what the WAR-only standards have to say about the current candidates:

Slam Dunk HOF'ers (100+ WAR) = none

Definite HOF'ers (70-99 WAR) = Miguel Tapies (102 Estimated WAR) 

Strong HOF Cases (50-69 WAR) = Marty Roosevelt (96 Estimated Career WAR), Nigel Maybin (89 Estimated Career WAR), Xander Cruz (81 Estimated Career WAR), Elian Rojas Jr (69.54 WAR)

Weak HOF Cases (Less Than 50 WAR) = Kordell Rivers (62 Estimated Career WAR), Donne Giavotella (58 Estimated WAR), Geraldo Terrero (Estimated 54 Career WAR), Guillermo Gutierrez (47.61 WAR), Glen Lowell (47.30 Career WAR), Darnell Curtis (43 Estimated WAR), Osvaldo Lee (28 Estimated WAR)

My policy is to vote for everyone in the "Strong HOF Case" category or higher, but looking at the current group of players that would only use up two of my five votes. That leads me to looking at the next three candidates on the list from last season: Geraldo Terrero (4 votes last year), Glen Lowell (4 votes last year) and Donne Giavotella (3 votes last year.) Lowell falls a little short, but the other two make the cut and bring me up to four votes used so far. Next on the list is Kordell Rivers, who received 3 votes last year. He also makes the cut and becomes my final vote for this season. 

Four of the five guys who are getting my votes have Estimated Career WAR totals right now, so the next step is to convert those estimations to park adjusted totals and re-evaluate their candidacy. 

***

Now that voting has actually started and it turns out that Rojas Jr. is not on the ballot this season, I need to find out if there is someone who is worthy of getting my fifth and final vote. I am going to start by looking into others who have received votes so far: 

• Cesar Cairo, 59 Estimated Career WAR
• Marty Roosevelt, 96 Estimated Career WAR
• Xander Cruz, 81 Estimated Career WAR
• Nigel Maybin, 89 Estimated Career WAR

These four are actually going to change my whole ballot around, as three of them turned out to be top five candidates for Virtual Cooperstown. At this point, I am looking at a ballot of Tapies, Roosevelt, Maybin and Cruz with my fifth and final vote still up for grabs.