Glad someone did it. I like it better than the real thing. They inducted 13 from this ballot.
I created the Hall of Stats so we wouldn’t be ignored. And today, the Hall of Stats includes:
- Barry Bonds
- Roger Clemens
- Curt Schilling
- Jeff Bagwell
- Larry Walker
- Mike Piazza
- Alan Trammell
- Edgar Martinez
- Kenny Lofton
- Tim Raines
- Craig Biggio
- Mark McGwire
- Rafael Palmeiro
- Sammy Sosa
Why? Because the Hall of Fame has 209 players. And they were among the 209 best players ever. Welcome, guys. We’re happy to have you.
Comments
The relative rankings of all the members looks a little funny to me, probably because no real consideration is given to peak value. Career WAA doesn’t even come close to capturing the essence of peak value, regardless of what is done with the negative seasons.
Case in point: Whitaker’s career WAA exceeds Sandberg’s by 4 points despite Sandberg having four seasons that exceed Whitaker’s single best season.
Side point: It’s depressing to look at the statistical cliff that Sandberg fell off after getting his hand broken. I can still remember how the bat would come flying out of his on some of his swings. I was twelve years old at the time, and that was just devastating to watch.
Matt SQuote Reply
I agree, Matt. I think I saw something awhile back where someone tried to incorporate peak years and longevity to create what I’d call a better list of the best players. The trick is figuring out how to weight the peak vs longevity, which most certainly matters.
The one thing I’m confident in saying is that no pitcher has had ever had the peak that Pedro Martinez had. Was he the best pitcher ever? I think you can make a strong argument that he was, but once you factor in longevity it becomes more difficult. What Clemens or even Maddux did each and every season over a very long time is, overall, more impressive than what Pedro did though neither had a peak as good as Pedro.
How do you weight that? Using those 3, which is the order (ignoring PEDs)? I’d say it’s Clemens, Maddux, Pedro, but Pedro isn’t far behind Maddux. I can understand someone putting Pedro above Maddux, but not Clemens. Make sense?
dmick89Quote Reply
I’d put Pedro over both of them, but it would be close.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Peak vs. Longevity is definitely a subjective topic for any discussion of Greatness. I personally put heavy weight on what I’d call the prime of a career: the best 3-5 consecutive seasons. However, I wouldn’t want something like that hard-coded into a formula, because you have to be intelligent when considering injuries.
My real issue with the Hall of Stats isn’t with the specific weight that they give to a player’s peak. It’s that they use a value that equates “peak” with “above average”. It would be better if they either used a hard-cap on the number of seasons considered for the peak score, or if they raised the WAA score for each season to a modest power, instead of applying a linear multiplier. As is, the WAA powered “peak” score pretty much mirrors the longevity score, except in the cases of extreme hanger-on-ism.
I’m a huge proponent of Pedro as Best Pitcher Ever. The seven year stretch starting with his last season in Montreal is beyond epic. And his ’99 – ’00 seasons may never be matched in terms of pure dominance. It’s tough to compare him with Clemens, because Roger’s great seasons were more plentiful but less great. I think I would choose Clemens as the canonical HoF pitcher of this era, simply because longevity is so historically important to HoF considerations. However, Pedro is the guy I’d be most excited to tell my grand-children about.
I happen to view Maddux as a seven year peak player like Pedro, rather than a longevity guy. The shapes of their careers were extremely similar, except that Maddux hung around as useful but no longer great journeyman while Pedro flamed out. Maddux had a GREAT peak. It wasn’t as great as Pedro’s, but it’s a very short list of players who were ever better than Maddux was in the mid-’90s. I think he should be remembered for that far more than the 355 wins or even the 17 years of 15+ wins.
Matt SQuote Reply