Posnanski: Monitoring Bill James’ Hall of Fame Monitor

From SABR member Joe Posnanski at NBC Sports on February 10, 2016:

I‘ve been working for a while on a big Baseball Hall of Fame idea — I hope to have that out in the next month or so. And while doing some work on it, I ran across a wonderful little prediction section in Bill James’ excellent Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame. Bill was explaining his Hall of Fame Monitor, a method he created to predict a player’s chances of getting elected by the Baseball Writers Association into the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame Monitor awards points for different categories (17 categories for everyday players, 16 for pitchers). You add them all up, and anyone who gets more than 100 points is “likely to get into the Hall of Fame.” As it turns out, 125 points is a better indicator than 100, but the main thing is that this system works quite well.

Remember: The Monitor works only for predictive purposes. It is not meant to determine who DESERVES to go to the Hall of Fame. It is based on the sorts of accomplishments that seem to impress BBWAA voters. How many times did he hit .300 in a season? How many times did he get 200 hits or 100 RBIs? How many times did he win 20 games or strike out 200 in a season or throw a no-hitter? How many MVPs? How many Cy Youngs? That sort of thing.

One more time just so we all have it: The Hall of Fame Monitor does not calculate who belongs in the Hall. It anticipates who will get voted into the Hall.

Read the full article here: http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/baseball-hall-of-fame-monitor-bill-james/



Originally published: February 11, 2016. Last Updated: February 11, 2016.