Darowski: A deeper look at the Modern Era ballot

From SABR member Adam Darowski at Hall of Stats on November 10, 2017:

This morning, I woke up to a couple notifications about a Jon Heyman article. Turns out he was railing against “one site out there” and its opinions about the Hall of Fame cases of certain players.

There’s one site out there that has a scale that gives Rick Reuschel a 136 and Jack Morris a 76. The same scale gives Lou Whitaker a 145 to 78 for Don Mattingly. It gives Bobby Grich a 140 and Steve Garvey a 61.

Reuschel, Grich and Whitaker were all excellent players worth considering. But what kind of scale would suggest they are twice the players of Morris, Mattingly and Garvey? No scale I’d ever want to use, that’s for sure.

In case you couldn’t guess it, that “one site” is the Hall of Stats (since Jon cited each player’s Hall Rating).

If you’re wondering where on the site I suggest “[Reuschel, Whitaker, and Mattingly] are twice the players of Morris, Mattingly and Garvey” the answer is… nowhere. In fact, on the About page, I explicitly say:

Should numbers be the only arbiter of who gets into Cooperstown? Certainly not. The Hall of Stats is merely meant to serve as a conversation starter. That objective starting point is one thing that’s sorely lacking in the Hall of Fame voting process today.

I’d like to think that makes me a reasonable person rather than some monster who blindly follows WAR values, but whatever.

Read the full article here: http://www.hallofstats.com/articles/heyman-nice-shot



Originally published: November 10, 2017. Last Updated: November 10, 2017.