Womack: The 50 best players not in the Hall of Fame, version 4.0
From SABR member Graham Womack at Baseball Past and Present on January 6, 2014:
For four years, I’ve asked the same question here: Who are the 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame? It’s not 50 players who need to be enshrined tomorrow or ever, necessarily, just the 50 best not enshrined. As founder and editor of this website, it’s my pleasure to present the latest answer to this question.
To anyone who’s new, four things:
1) This project is strictly voter-driven. A record 208 people voted this year, not far off from the first three years combined. As an aside, I do little to no active campaigning and invite people to set their own criteria.
2) Everyone who votes is required to vote for 50 players. Next to each player a person selects, the voter is tasked to put a “Yes” or “No” designating if the player belongs in the Hall of Fame. The latter component has no effect on ranking and is meant, in part, to signify that a player can be among the 50 best not in Cooperstown while having no business holding a plaque there. That said, were it up to voters from this project, seven players would be enshrined this coming summer, all from the 2014 writers ballot. In alphabetical order, these players are: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines and Frank Thomas.
3) Any player who hasn’t appeared in the majors in five years is eligible for this project. A player need not have played 10 seasons or even in the majors to be eligible here.
4) Please feel free check out the preceding three years of this project: Version 3.0, Version 2.0 and the debut of this project.
All this being said, here’s how voting came out this year:
Read the full article here: http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2014/01/06/50-baseball-players-hall-fame-version-4-0/
SABR members Brendan Bingham, Michael Clair, Adam Darowski, Bill Deane, Nick Diunte, Dave England, Dan Evans, Diane Firstman, Eugene Freedman, Stacey Gotsulias, Christopher Kamka, Jason Lukehart, Dalton Mack, Dan McCloskey, Howard Megdal, Peter Nash, Rob Neyer, Lewie Pollis, Jen Mac Ramos, Eno Sarris, Gabriel Schechter, Graham Womack and Geoff Young all contributed essays to the project.
Originally published: January 7, 2014. Last Updated: January 7, 2014.