Hall of Fame biases

In some of the other Hall of Fame threads, I've brought up reasons that certain players are greatly underrated by the electorate, specifically value coming from places like walks and defense and also, being a third basemen. Sky Andrecheck wrote an article for Sports Illustrated touching on five biases in the Hall of Fame vote.

1) Walks are underrated - Agreed, and I've said the same thing here in other threads.

2) Become a closer - I think it's too early to tell on this. It certainly hasn't helped Lee Smith, while somehow it served to help a vastly inferior pitcher in Bruce Sutter, but as I said, too early to tell here. I don't think it's a particularly noteworthy bias though.

3) Be flashy/spectacular, not slow/steady - Agreed. He brings up Nolan Ryan, who I think embodies this in the most extreme way. He certainly was exciting and unique, but that's led to him receiving one of the highest vote percentages ever while also being routinely thrown into "best pitcher ever" discussions, despite not actually being appreciably more valuable than a host of other pitchers that have struggled or waited to get into the Hall like Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton, and Phil Niekro.

4) Third basemen are underrated - Another thing I've brought up myself. And, upon reading this article, I was reminded of how Eddie Mathews polled at 32% on his first ballot and had to wait until his 5th ballot to make it in, despite him being inarguably the best third basemen ever at the time of his retirement (and he's still #2).

5) Have good teammates - Agreed wholeheartedly here. If Jack Morris hadn't had the superb and underrated double play combination of Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker playing behind him, would he still be on the ballot at this point, let alone gaining traction?

Sky then looked at it statistically over at The Baseball Analysts. His conclusions:

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In all, the empirical analysis shows the following:
1) HoF voters undervalue walks (p-value .001)
2) HoF voters overvalue batting average (p-value .001)
3) HoF voters overvalue longer careers (p-value .001)
4) HoF voters undervalue starting pitchers (p-value .001)
5) HoF voters overvalue relief pitchers (p-value .001) though this bias seems to be decreasing
6) HoF voters overvalue Wins and Losses for pitchers (p-value .003)
7) HoF voters undervalue players at defensive positions (p-value .005)
8) HoF voters overvalue homeruns/RBI (p-value .06)

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agree!

Every single point actually.

It's sort of like the MVP/Cy Young/Gold Glove ballots, just on a larger scale.
I don't know if this is computable, but they also value milestones, to an extent to which some people put certain milestones as a hall of fame lock at that point.

Like 500 home runs (Besides McGwire, but that's a whole other story) seems to generally be a lock to get you in. If the Crime Dog got 7 more home runs his vote total could have potentially doubled.

Also, if you don't ever win a major award you get looked down upon majorly it seems.

It seems like an easier way to become a hall of fame hitter you should get a lot of hits for awhile, be an average defender but try to make a diving play every once in a while so they can show it on your highlight reel and you'll be considered a great defender. Be on a winning team and surround yourself with great hitters.

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Originally Posted by BenFink

It's sort of like the MVP/Cy Young/Gold Glove ballots, just on a larger scale.
I don't know if this is computable, but they also value milestones, to an extent to which some people put certain milestones as a hall of fame lock at that point.

Like 500 home runs (Besides McGwire, but that's a whole other story) seems to generally be a lock to get you in. If the Crime Dog got 7 more home runs his vote total could have potentially doubled.

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I don't know about these potential "lock" milestones. Ignoring the steroid issue, it may SEEM like that, but really, all the players that have reached those milestones and have been inducted were legitimately HoF-caliber players anyway, except maybe Lou Brock with 3,000 hits, but he had a whole lot of other things going for him (the steal records, the playoff performance), and a couple of the 19th century 300 win pitchers.

I think the real test case will be when/if someone like Garrett Anderson or Johnny Damon reaches 3,000 hits.

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Originally Posted by BenFink

It's sort of like the MVP/Cy Young/Gold Glove ballots, just on a larger scale.
I don't know if this is computable, but they also value milestones, to an extent to which some people put certain milestones as a hall of fame lock at that point.

Like 500 home runs (Besides McGwire, but that's a whole other story) seems to generally be a lock to get you in. If the Crime Dog got 7 more home runs his vote total could have potentially doubled.

Also, if you don't ever win a major award you get looked down upon majorly it seems.

It seems like an easier way to become a hall of fame hitter you should get a lot of hits for awhile, be an average defender but try to make a diving play every once in a while so they can show it on your highlight reel and you'll be considered a great defender. Be on a winning team and surround yourself with great hitters.

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good sir, we have a player called Derek Jeter who fits that mold.....a player that will be a first ballot hall of famer i believe.

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Originally Posted by Jeffy25

good sir, we have a player called Derek Jeter who fits that mold.....a player that will be a first ballot hall of famer i believe.

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And deservedly so....

Jeter deserves to be a hall of famer, but probably not for the reasons that the voters will cite and he'll receive far more praise than he deserves for these reasons.

I have it on good authority that HOF writers only choose know team.

On several occasions, voters have been singled out convincingly for being dumb as a kid.

http://www.inmowetrust.com/img/nickpuntobig.jpg

Hall of fame.

Sliding into first once a game is severly undervalued in HOF balloting

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Originally Posted by DiceDig

Sliding into first once a game is severly undervalued in HOF balloting

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not funny

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

1) Walks are underrated - Agreed, and I've said the same thing here in other threads.

2) Become a closer - I think it's too early to tell on this. It certainly hasn't helped Lee Smith, while somehow it served to help a vastly inferior pitcher in Bruce Sutter, but as I said, too early to tell here. I don't think it's a particularly noteworthy bias though.

3) Be flashy/spectacular, not slow/steady - Agreed. He brings up Nolan Ryan, who I think embodies this in the most extreme way. He certainly was exciting and unique, but that's led to him receiving one of the highest vote percentages ever while also being routinely thrown into "best pitcher ever" discussions, despite not actually being appreciably more valuable than a host of other pitchers that have struggled or waited to get into the Hall like Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton, and Phil Niekro.

4) Third basemen are underrated - Another thing I've brought up myself. And, upon reading this article, I was reminded of how Eddie Mathews polled at 32% on his first ballot and had to wait until his 5th ballot to make it in, despite him being inarguably the best third basemen ever at the time of his retirement (and he's still #2).

5) Have good teammates - Agreed wholeheartedly here. If Jack Morris hadn't had the superb and underrated double play combination of Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker playing behind him, would he still be on the ballot at this point, let alone gaining traction?

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1) Real life actual quote from local BBWAA cretin and general embarrassment Richard Griffin re: Andre Dawson (Keep in mind that Griffin was the Expos PR director and he only missed about 15 games of Dawson's 11 year stay with the Expos, so he knows better than us stat geeks and most of his fellow writers whether Dawson is a HoFer or not ;) ): "(To the rest of the guys in the booth with him) You or I could step into the batter's box and draw a walk, but that's not what makes a hitter a HoFer." This of course completely glosses over the fact that if a hitter repeatedly demonstrates that they're unwilling to take pitches, eventually pitchers will stop throwing them pitches in the strike zone. Then he goes on to wax eloquent about how he saw Dawson and Raines in the clubhouse everyday and you knew who was the leader and who was the follower and how Dawson always carried himself like a HoFer and had that special aura about him. Really Dick? What colour was that aura exactly? Or were you in some kind of permanent acid flashback haze back then? This is the same local writer who was ripped a new one by FJM (RIP) when he reminisced at one of the recent winter meetings that was a bit slow for news about conceiving one of his daughters (how humiliating for her) at a past winter meetings at the same locale. *facepalm*

I submit to you that had Dawson (OPS+ : 119, wRC+ : 120) played in this era, he would've been more of a Vernon Wells (OPS+ : 107, wRC+ : 108) type hitter, and Vernon will only ever go to the HoF as a visitor, not a member. No matter how many times they throw Vernon that low/outside slider, he always chases it. Their slash stats are extremely similar, but of course Vernon plays in a more hitter friendly era: Dawson (.279/.323/.482) vs Wells (.280/.329/.470) and Wells has the better K/BB ratio in his career. It's so comforting to me that morons like this are the gatekeepers of the HoF of my favourite sport.

2) Ah yes, but Sutter revolutionized pitching with the split fingered fastball dontcha know? ;)

3) You could say the same thing about the difference between Ozzie Smith and Alan Trammell, who will make his 10th appearance on the ballot next year, while the Wizard of Oz went in right away. They both retired in 1996, and Trammell is the more valuable overall SS of the two, but Ozzie got 91.7% of the vote on his first try, while Trammell finally made it past 20% (22.4), this year on his ninth. Ugh. There's no question who the flashier player is and because of that, if you polled 10 baseball fans, all 10 would probably say Ozzie was better and some of them might even ask: "Alan who?"

4) I've struggled with trying to figure out if 3B are underrated or if CHONE's WAR values them too highly. It's the only position where I see players who are within the range of the HoF and ask: "Really? Player X was that good?"

5) I think you forgot about the third point of the Bermuda Triangle where balls went to die on those great Tiger teams of '80's: Chester Earl "The Jet" Lemon in CF. Reason #10664 why the Gold Gloves are an absolute travesty of a sham of a mockery: Chet Lemon never won one Gold Glove in his entire career and they give away 3 GGs per year to OF. Not too much of a slight. :rolleyes: Lance Parrish of course completed the whole defense up the middle on championship teams thing. Where so many teams have filled these four positions with excellent defenders by reputation, these four actually were awesome defenders and the team's results during their primes had a lot to do with these four players.

Even the backwoods writers understood that at the time as John Scott Morris never placed higher than #3 in Cy Young voting. Of course that could also have something to do with all those high ERAs. :rolleyes: Something that somehow gets lost in all the myths and big game gibberish that follow him around these days in his quest for Cooperstown. :rolleyes:

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4) I've struggled with trying to figure out if 3B are underrated or if CHONE's WAR values them too highly. It's the only position where I see players who are within the range of the HoF and ask: "Really? Player X was that good?"

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PERHAPS a combination of the two. I have little doubt that 3B are underrated by the BBWAA. Ron Santo on the outside looking in. Eddie Mathews taking 5 years to get in. The standard for the BBWAA for third basemen seems to be Wade Boggs, yet it isn't the same at other positions where players like Andre Dawson and Jim Rice wind up getting in and similar or better players (in terms of value) at third base drop off the ballot without a second thought - Darrell Evans, Graig Nettles, Robin Ventura - even if you knock some off their WAR, they're at or higher than the Dawson/Rice/Puckett group of outfielders.

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Originally Posted by actionjackson

Even the backwoods writers understood that at the time as John Scott Morris never placed higher than #3 in Cy Young voting. Something that somehow gets lost in all the myths and big game gibberish that follow him around these days in his quest for Cooperstown.

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But he had 7 top-10 finishes in the Cy Young voting!!!!

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Originally Posted by BenFink

Jeter deserves to be a hall of famer, but probably not for the reasons that the voters will cite and he'll receive far more praise than he deserves for these reasons.

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exactly what I think.

I think he is a hall of famer, but not for the reasons he will be voted in necessarily.

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Originally Posted by Jeffy25

exactly what I think.

I think he is a hall of famer, but not for the reasons he will be voted in necessarily.

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He'll be voted in for being a top shortstop, one of the top 10, and probably top 5 ever, with 3,000 hits and a bunch of World Series rings. While writers will likely overly praise him, the basic reasons are pretty simple and obvious and should be agreed upon by everybody with a functioning brain.