Season 56 Hall of Fame Review

 First and foremost, I want to say thank you for having me and letting me help with both the HOF Committee and the blog...those are the things that made me really excited to join this world and it has certainly lived up to the hype so far! 

Now that introductions are out of the way, I want to take a few minutes to review the HOF process and explain a little more about the Wins Above Replacement metric that I brought to the discussion this season. There are two WAR metrics that I typically use: one is a rough estimate that only takes a few minutes to calculate (and is position adjusted for position players) and the other one takes significantly longer but is also park adjusted for both hitters and pitchers. 

However, I also knew that unlike my other leagues where I'm pretty much a one-person HOF Committee, there were other people here who were much better qualified to speak to the HOF worthiness of the various candidates. My metrics are mainly intended to be a starting point for discussions rather than providing a list of people who should be voted for and overruling the Committee decisions. Keeping this in mind I stayed with the estimated WAR totals for this year and let the rest of the Committee know the scale that I typically use, which is the following: 100+ WAR = Slam Dunk HOF Candidate, 70-99 WAR = Definitely HOF Worthy, 50-69 WAR = Strong HOF Case and 49 or fewer WAR is a Weak HOF Case. 

At the suggestion of the Committee, I started by evaluating those players who were nearing the end of their HOF eligibility and we went from there. As of right now, here are all of the Estimated WAR totals that I have calculated along with a quick description of their HOF worthiness and an MLB comparison where I could find one: 

                            (Note: Those highlighted players have been elected to the HOF)

These numbers did get all three of our suggested locks (Lofton, Saenez & Carl Harvey) elected, but as I mentioned before I find the park adjusted totals to be a much better judge of a player's candidacy. Additionally, I'd like to get to the point where we can say things like "the average HOF player at this position had a career WAR total of X, and this candidate had Y career WAR so they do/don't deserve to be elected", so my plan going forward is to evaluate the three who were elected this year plus the next five vote totals who fell short this season using the more in depth method to see how things go. 

In short, I want to have park-adjusted totals calculated for the following players by next HOF voting season: John Lofton (elected this year), Fautino Saenez (elected this year), Carl Harvey (elected this year), John Servais (8 votes short), Willis Tanner (8 votes short), Darren Harvey (9 votes short), Gabriel McKain (11 votes short & highly debated) and finally Roosevelt Curtis (12 votes short.)