Modeling Random Debut HOF on RL

[VanillaGorilla]

On June 8th, 2008, Ruth signed a 1 year deal with the Astros for $3.75 million. He had been seeking $15 million. He hit 33 HRs to bring his career total to 774. There just wasn't money for all the sluggers' demands.

Dave Kingman sat out the entire year, but has signed a 4 year $41 million deal with Washington. At the start of the preseason Ruth, Bonds and Willie McCovey are unsigned. It will be interesting to see who settles for less and who sits out.

ADD: 40 year-old Bonds signed for $7.02 million with the Giants, about half of what he was asking. As the 2009 season begins, Ruth and McCovey remain unsigned. McCovey is asking for $15M, Ruth $14M.

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Immortalized in "Rainman", The Big Klu is now immortalized here.

Ted Kluszewski was taken as the 26th pick pick by the Chicago White Sox in 1983. As a 21 year old rookie he slashed 348/380/596 for a npa OPS+ of 172 while hitting 48 HRs, driving in 130 and scoring 115 to win the 1983 Rookie of The Year. That was just the beginning.

He drove in 100+ runs in each of his first 12 seasons. 7 times he collected 200, or more, hits. He batted over .300 10 of those seasons, tacking on an 11th in 1998, at the age of 36.

8 times he hit 40+ HRs, 3 times he hit 50, and in 1988 he hit a career high 64. In 1988 he also posted career bests in hits (231), RBI (171) and runs (133) as he led both leagues in each Triple Crown categories, each by a lot. He slashed 353/403/701 which made for a npa OPS+ of 210.

He retired in 2002 having collected 2898 hits, 584 HRs (18th), 1826 RBI (24th), and posting a line of 308/352/546 for a npa OPS+ of 144.

Kluszewsli appeared in 10 post seasons, 4 WS, and won a ring with the 1990 Baltimore Orioles. That Orioles team made the play-offs 5 times from 1990-1996. HOFers Mickey Mantle and Tom Tresh were also 1990 WS winners, and they formed the core of those perennial play-off teams. In 1990, he hit 5 HRs in 56 post season ABs.

Klu won 3 MVPs and was named to 9 All-Star teams.

No hitters were inducted for his first year of eligibility, but he gets in on the First Ballot screening standard in his second.

Black Ink: 55 (11)
Gray Ink: 215 (112)
HOFm: 313 (76)
HOFs: 56 (24)

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Hank Aaron hammered his way into the 'best ever' player discussion by posting a composite score of 13, becoming the latest, and probably the last, "once in a decade" player to be enshrined.

Aaron posted a career slash line of 317/376/604. He has the highest slg% and OPS of any Hall member. His npa OPS+ is 163.

He retired as the All-Time HR leader after overtaking Willie Mays in his final season, 2002, by hitting 48 HRs at age 38 to give him 911 for his career (2nd).

Taken 10th in the 1982 draft by the Cardinals, Aaron was the NL recipient of the ROY in 1983, the same season Kluszewski won in the AL. Aaron batted .306 with 33 HRs and 110 RBI to take that award.

In his career, Aaron won 5 MVPs, 2 GGs, made 14 AS teams, and picked up a Triple Crown. In his 20 seasons, he drove in 100+ runs 19 times (injuries in 1988 limited his output). He batted over .300 16 times, and his 33 rookie HRs were his lowest full season output. He hit a career high 73 in 2000, having hit 50 7 times in his career.

In 5 post season appearances he batted .331 with 10 HRs in 42 games, but he never won a title. He hit at least one post season HR each year he was in the play-offs.

He finished his career with 3874 hits (7th), 2232 runs (9th), and 2541 RBI (3rd).

Like Kluszewski, Aaron gets in on the First Ballot screening in his second year of eligibility.

ADD: Aaron hit his Triple Crown the year following Kluszewski in his first American League season. Like Kluszewski, Aaron not only led the AL in each category (.341, 59, 180), but the ML in each, as well.

Black: 91 (76)
Gray: 330 (408)
HOFm 584.5 (421)
HOFs: 75 (74)

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Oddly, Gene Woodling is the only true First Ballot selection in this class, though he does not get in on the First Ballot screening. He is also a floor breaker.

Woodling was a supplemental 1st rd pick by the Rangers (33rd overall) in 1983.

He retired after the 2003 season with 3111 hits (35th) and 356 HRs. His 1613 career walks ranks him 24th all-time.

He had a career slash line of 272/363/437 that gives him a npa OPS+ of 117.

He appeared in 4 posts seasons, 1 WS, but never won a title.

A 3 time All Star, he won one GG.

Woodling was a nice player in RL, and here, he knew no war.

Woodling enters by virtue of his HOFs number being above the Hall average.

ADD: Woodling hit .300 in a season only one time. He never hit 30 HRs. However, his 616 career doubles place him 18th on the career list.

Black: 0 (0)
Gray: 23 (33)
HOFm: 96.5 (24)
HOFs: 56 (21)

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HOFer Fergie Jenkins enters the league in 2009.

Re age modifiers: The Age/dev modifiers are all at the default settings. Will touch upon that subject, again, after 2012.

[VanillaGorilla]

We now have two Gibsons. Joining previously inducted Bob is Kirk. In a departure from most of the namesakes, these are the two Gibsons I would expect to get in.

In a year where the RL inductee was a borderline candidate, Gibson is the epitome of borderline. He gets in by the narrowest of margins.

I love Andre Dawson, and I mean no slight to his career. A borderline HOF career is a helluva career. Jim Rice had a helluva career, but like Dawson, it took a while for 75% of the voters to agree on his Hall worthiness.

Gibson was the 15th player taken in the 1984 draft. He went to Cleveland. After not getting to the post season with the Tribe, he left as a free agent for the Yankees. Four years there resulted in 0 more post seasons. He signed a big contract with the White Sox. No post seasons in 2 years there. The White Sox cruelly traded him back to Cleveland. He retired without seeing the play-offs. Suffice it to say, the Tribe were back to their historical norm following a fluky 70s dynasty. He saw his last ML action in 2000. He retired in 2003.

Aside from an off year in 1988, Gibson produced throughout his career, wherever he went. Aside from 1988, his lowest npa OPS+ was 110 and he hit at least 20 HRs a year.

For his career he collected 2323 (what was the number on his back in the 1988 Series? Take a wild guess.) hits and belted 427 HRs. He did strike out 2004 times in his career which places him 11th on that list. 12th place holder Miguel Cabrera has 2003.

He slashed 274/359/483 for a npa OPS+ of 127.

While he is the most borderline of candidates, a click on his 'compare' button finds that 7 of the 9 players most similar to him are already in the HOF (Mack Jones, Darryl Strawberry, Walt Bond, Al Rosen, Jackie Warner, Roger Repoz, and Willie Aikens) and an 8th is still active.

That Gibson has 7 of his most similar in the HOF is very encouraging. He gets in as the 205th inductee by being above average in one category (HOFs) by the minimum score needed to be above that average. Yet, even by squeaking by on that one number, he finds himself with similar HOF company. He is technically a floor breaker because of his low Ink scores, but Ink is harder to get in 2010 than it was in 1960.

The RL Hall is based on on voters making comparisons of players seeking entry to those already entered. The static HOF standards of the software make no such consideration. I am smiling because the Gibson induction is just the type of induction I want to see happen at this point. There are players with 3000 hits not in. There are players with 500 HRs not in. That he gets in ahead of those guys is really cool.

It could be argued that some deserve entry before him, but not all of them deserve it ahead of him. This induction sparks debate in the Hall process in this alternate world, and that is exactly what happens in this one. And there will be a LOT of legitimate debate over the class of 2013 IRL, no matter if 20 players get in or 0 get in, or any number in between.

Black Ink: 1 (0)
Gray Ink: 74 (44)
HOFm: 79.5 (16)
HOFs: 49 (22)

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RL HOFer Jimmie Foxx enters the league in 2010.

On May 19, 2009, Babe Ruth signed a 1 year Deal with the Nationals for $ 3.76 million. He hit 36 HRs batting in front of Dave Kingman to bring his career total to 810.

On June 17, 2009, Willie McCovey signed with Pittsburgh for one year at $ 3.62 million.

At the start of the preseason, Ruth and McCovey are both Free Agents. Ruth is asking for $14M per, and McCovey $10M per.

During Spring Training McCovey signed with the Cardinals for 1 year at $5.38M. Bonds and Ruth start the season without teams.

[dynaboyj]

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[VanillaGorilla]

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[VanillaGorilla]

Ruth signed a one year deal with Boston on April 13, 2010 for $4.73 million. He hit 55 HRs to give him 865 for his career and to win his 8th MVP.

As the preseason begins, Ruth is once again a free agent. He is asking $16M per.

Barry Bonds sat out all of 2010 but has signed a 2 year deal with Toronto for $13.8M per. He has 1054 career HRs.

There are a lot of power guys (and power OFers) on the Free Agent market (see below) and this glut has been keeping their salaries down.

[VanillaGorilla]

Free Agents by power ranking

[VanillaGorilla]

One more season to play through, and then the 2012 Class will be inducted and the fun really begins.

HOFers Roberto Alomar and Dennis Eckersley join the league in 2011.

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For the final pitching entry (before 2013), the Selection Committee, once again, sent the Way Back Machine to get the new entrant, Dutch H Leonard.

Leonard was the first player taken in the 1902 draft, by the Boston Beaneaters.

He spent his entire career with the Bean Sox, and was part of their dominant dynasty of the 1910s. From 1910 to 1919, the Bean Sox won 7 pennants and 6 WS titles. Anchored offensively by HOFer Roberto Clemente and original HOF inductee Rod Carew, Leonard joins THREE other pitchers from those teams in the shrine: Charlie Buffington, Walter Johnson, and Addie Joss. For the 1911 and 1912 seasons, all 4 of these HOFers were in the rotation...holy smokes!

For his career, Leonard posted a record of 252-195 with an OOTP ERA of 2.67 (npa ERA+ 102). 3 times he led the league in strikeouts. Heck, it was a feat just to lead this TEAM in any pitch category. In 1913 he led the league in Ks and ERA while going 26-6 with a npa ERA+ of 130 (2.27).

Falling just short of the current Hall average for HOFs, Leonard gets in on the Veteran Standard. Leonard last pitched in the ML in 1919.

Black Ink: 20 (8)
Gray Ink: 146 (100)
HOFm: 128 (46)
HOFs: 46 (24)

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Dick Dietz was drafted by the Orioles with the 15th pick of the 1983 draft. He slashed 275/367/435 in 1984 with 22 HRs to take ROY honors.

A 10 time All-Star, he retired following the 2000 season with 2444 hits and 413 HRs. He had a npa OPS+ of 130 for his career with a slash line of 269/387/459.

He retires with the 15th most walks (1726) and 8th most strikeouts (2061) all time.

His 2439 career starts at C are 5th most all-time.

Dietz appeared in 7 post seasons, but did not win a WS.

Dietz enters by virtue of his HOFm/s numbers being above the Hall average. He is technically a floor breaker due to his low Ink scores.

Black: 4
Gray: 55
HOFm: 167.5
HOFs: 63

[dynaboyj]

From the tastes we get with teams (the 70s Indians dynasty and this Beaneaters thing) I can't wait to see how all the teams did.

[dynaboyj]

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[VanillaGorilla]

I picked up playing with the 2011 Reds, so the 2012 inductions will be a few days away, probably...they are actually good now.

A couple interesting things:

When Wade Boggs didn't sign with me, I was left to play Jim Command at third base. He has developed into a nice player hitting a 162 game ave of 20 HR per and a npa OPS+ of 120 while fielding with a 1.017 career efficiency at 3B.

It's the first week of May and Babe Ruth is still a free agent. I don't have $ to sign him. The pitching free agents are very thin, but there remains a lot of hitting talent available. I think this mainly due to the fact that there are 30 teams using 5 man rotations and even an average distribution of talent from the random generator would have pitching at a premium in 2011. As I mentioned in the earlier posts, I think I got a lot of top pitchers, proportionately, in the earlier years of the league and few top hitters. Now that has flipped.

[VanillaGorilla]

2012 has been reached! What a long strange trip it has been.....

Posts will follow with charts and thoughts and observations and modifications from the original approach. I have been very pleased with how this model has worked. I will be tweaking the metric modifiers for a subsequent run. I won't do any new inductions on a new run until the RL Class of 2013 is announced.

HOFers Robin Roberts and Bobby Doerr join the league in 2012.

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George R Stone gets in during his first year of eligibility. He did get a First Ballot Screening, but did not meet that threshold. He enters, like Kirk Gibson, with his HOFs number just squeaking above the current Hall average.

Stone was drafted by the Dodgers 4th overall in 1990. He didn't sign with them. In 1991 he was taken with the 9th pick, again, by the Dodgers. They came to terms and he played with them through the 2001 season before leaving as a Free Agent.

From 1994 to 2000, the Dodgers made the post season every year. In 1996 and 1997 the Dodgers captured WS titles. These were the only seasons Stone played in the WS. He is the first player to be inducted into the Hall from these teams.

He retired following the 2006 season with 2522 hits and 205 HRs. His career slash line is a nice 312/387/444 for a npa OPS+ of 122. Stone also stole 426 bases in his career.

His best season came in 1996 when he batted .360 with 20 HRs. He finished second in the NL batting race to some guy named Musial.

Stone is a floor breaker. He was an All Star 4 times.

Black Ink: 3
Gray Ink: 46
HOFm: 120.5
HOFs: 49

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And the final inductee before the end of the world is Ross Youngs.

Youngs was not a computer selection, and I find that to be very appropriate. After all, if I liked how the computer selected HOFers, I wouldn't be doing this in the first place.....

I also think it is cool that the final (for now) HOFer is a RL HOFer.

Ross Youngs was selected by Oakland as the 5th player taken in the 1975 draft. He went to 6 AS games and won 4 GGs as a RFer before retiring in 2001.

Youngs collected 200 hits in each of his first 4 seasons. He finished his career with 2934 hits and 220 HRs. His slash line is 293/373/432, npa OPS+ 125.

Youngs, like Stone, squeeks in with a number slightly above the Hall average in the HOFs category. It is interesting to note that Youngs got his needed HOFs points from his career totals in hits and XBH while Stone got his from the average categories. Two different types of careers, both getting points as RFers,but both get in by that same measure.

In 62 post season games, Youngs hit .313. He won a WS with the 1987 Dodgers which featured fellow HOFers Rogers Hornsy, Willie Stargell, Ken Williams, and Jair Jurrjens.

In what is a beautiful modeling of RL, Youngs had his best season in his Free Agent year of 1985 when he slashed 319/405/466 for a npa OPS+ of 147.

Youngs stole 246 bases in his career. He is a floor breaker.

Black: 7 (5)
Gray: 92 (115)
HOFm: 107.5 (72)
HOFs: 50 (32)

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A note on the floor breakers. All hitters entered since Hank Aaron in 2009 have been floor breakers getting in on HOFs numbers. In a 30 team environment, the Ink became scarce. I expected this, but I didn't think it would be as scarce for HOF entrants as it has been. There are no players on the spreadsheet that have been reviewed with either Ink number close to what BBREF lists as RL HOF average. This RL average is slightly less than this Hall's average.

[VanillaGorilla]

First off, I would like to publicly apologize to dynaboyj for getting personal in an angry moment on the thread. It was a misunderstanding. I contacted him though personal message and told him I was taking my post down and he was kind enough to return the favor and the thread is now free of that silly drama, which was all my fault. I should have taken my issue to him in private to begin with. Those posts were not removed by the OOTP staff.

Dynaboyj handled himself with the class and dignity of a gentleman even though I had not. Thank you for that, DB.

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Babe Ruth sat out the 2011 season. For 2012 he has signed with the Yankees, again. I am attaching the career HR leader board. To have the top 4 place holders the same as in RL is cool. Should Ruth get between 25 and 46 HRs in 2012, the top 4 placeholders will be in the same order ...THAT would be super cool!

3000 hits, 500 HRs, 300 wins, 3000 strikeouts...these are the magic numbers in RL (though this is changing). Here, the magic numbers are 3500 hits, 550 HRs, 350 wins, 3500 strikeouts. All eligible players above these thresholds are in this HOF.

The number of players that reached these plateaus here when compared to the corresponding targets IRL is pretty close to the same.

ADD: Johnny Mize is listed here as playing until 2006. He did not retire until 2007, so he was not eligible for entry until 2013.

[VanillaGorilla]

209 players are in the Hall of Fame. 52 of them entered in their first year of eligibility. An additional 10 players were inducted on the First Ballot Screening that did not get screened on their first year of eligibility.

I did a weighted random determination for settings. Middle settings were more likely to be used than extreme ones. I did not randomly choose to use a recalc or player development. I used both of these by design. I also left player dev/aging rates at the default of 1.0.

Settings I used:

Started in 1879
Luxury Tax
Recalc of 5 years
Neutralized Stats
Potential Ratings on recalc period
Rookie Fielding ratings based on career
Pitcher Stamina based on 3 years
Scouting: Low
Lineups: Traditional
AI Trade: Low
Trade Difficulty: Easy
Trade Preference: Heavilly Favor Veterans
Suspensions: High
Injury: Very Low
Delayed Diagnosis of Injury
Fatigue: Low

AI Player Eval: 20/55/20/5

The injury and fatigue settings in use are probably responsible for the high career totals in the HR (and other) categories. The point of the exercise was not to recreate history, but to use this altered history for a HOF induction method that works based on relative performance to the league itself, whatever settings are in use.

How much impact the Heavily Favor Veterans setting had on keeping guys around longer, I don't know. I do know my magic numbers of 3500, 550, 350, 3500 are all evidence of this combination of settings resulting in longer and more productive careers than seen IRL.

[VanillaGorilla]

Dutch Zwilling and Babe Ruth had 2000 seasons that are the best ever, here. One can argue either one is the best and not be wrong. Zwilling did get a CF GG in his season, so I think I have to give him the nod.

All career leaders eligible for the HOF are in the HOF.

[VanillaGorilla]

There was some controversy when the selection committee tabbed Buck Conglaton and his 1024 hits for the HOF. He was third on the career BA list at the time of his 1963 induction. I said it was a 50/50 proposition that he would still be at the #3 spot when 2012 rolled around. Well, he is still in the three spot.

Also cool to note that since Wade Boggs didn't sign with me when I drafted him, he entered the league the same year as George Brett, and they have the SAME career batting average. How cool is that!?!

[VanillaGorilla]

Nolan Ryan is still active at 45 years of age, and has a stamina of 15 and good ratings across the board. He is second to Koufax on the K list with 5752. If only the world wasn't going to end......

Rube Waddell not only has the single season and career K/9 marks, he has the top 4 single season K/9 years and 7 of the top 20.

Frank O'Connor is second on the saves list with 559.

Controversial Inaugural Class inductee Cozy P Dolan's numbers have held up since 1936. He is second to Willie McGill on the win% list, but McGill is active and could slide back.

[VanillaGorilla]

I will be posting a corresponding chart for the RL HOF based on the same structure I have been using for this HOF, once I get all of those numbers put together.

In 132 seasons of play, there have been 15 "once in a decade" players, those that had a composite score of 10, or more.

[VanillaGorilla]

In looking at the dynamics of how the Hall evolves over time, I came to the conclusion that if these "once in a decade" are once in a decade players, it doesn't matter when they appear. They will perform at an extremely high level and will gain entry easily without any regard to what the current standards may be. They were just so good for so long that the minimal standards are meaningless.

So, I enlarged the chart and snipped off the top of the chart and left the plots of entrants with composite scores of 8 and below to see how these entries changed over time.

We see the established floor of a 4 score break in the 65-75th plots and then a new floor get firmly established around a score of 3 starting around the 90th plot.

While the floor has shifted, and we had our entrants since Aaron (excluding Dutch Leonard) be technical floor breakers, we haven't seen an entrant with a composite score below a 2 since Kenny Lofton was the 190th entry.

If this experiment were to continue (and it cannot, because of the lack of RL HOF entries to use in correspondence) we would still see the once in a decade players enter with their high scores, but we would also continue to see lower composite scores for entrants, not because they aren't as good as those from 50, 60, or 70 years before, but because of the expanded league structure and the increased difficulty to get Ink points, especially Black Ink points, in this environment.

We would also probably not see as many, if any, entrants with scores below a 2 composite. This is because with a league of 30 teams, there are more players that will accumulate HOFm/s numbers that will get them into the HOF which will have their composite scores close to, if not over a 2 before the Ink that they did accumulate is added. Therefore, having the selection committee going to the leader boards to find entrants will not be necessary. It is when the leader boards are used that we have gotten these composites below a 2.

This is not saying that I don't think Lofton or Lobert or Congalton belong in a HOF. I think they do. It's just that their skills and their output didn't match up favorably with the Ink/HOF metrics. These metrics, like any single or set of measurements, do not tell you the whole story about a ball player, or the game of baseball. They are not Gospel, but a guide.

This is the aspect of this exercise that has given me the most encouragement. The system, by using purely objective criteria, and a random list sort, has resulted in a HOF that looks to have been filled by subjective voters and a political Veterans Committee. Big smile for that.

[VanillaGorilla]

I went to the spread sheet and looked at the players remaining there to see who would eventually gain entry if the standards in 2012 remained unchanged.

There are 7 players who exceed the current Hall average in at least one of the four metrics. All of these players were inducted by the default software settings, but none of them met the standard of the First Ballot Screening which requires a composite Ink score and a composite HOFm/s score to both be above the current Hall average.

Any of these 7 would have gained entry in 2012, but the voters chose Stone and Youngs to take those two spots. Why the voters chose Stone and Youngs is speculation. I can tell you that when I ran the list of potential candidates through the random.org randomizer, Stone and Youngs were place further up the list than any of the other 7.

These 7 are presented in order of their composite scores, highest to lowest.

Edgar Martinez 3B (5.0, ret 1999), 3191 hits, 466 HRs, 1798 RBI, 1 Batting Title, 1 RBI Title, 8x AS, 287/371/473, npa OPS+ 129...of his 9 most similar players, 6 are HOFers and 3 are on this list of 7 that meet current HOF criteria.

Matty Alou LF (4.4, ret 2000), 2950 hits, 7x H leader, 1 batting title, 2x AS, 2x GG, 264 SB, 317/249/414, npa OPS+ 110....5 of 9 most similar in the HOF.

Bob Bailey 3B (3.9, ret 2004), 2908 hits, 424 HRs, 1691 RBI, 3 RBI titles, 7x AS, 275/357/456, npa OPS+ 124....5 of 9 most similar in HOF, 3 of remaining 4 on this list of 7.

Mike Carp 1B (3.6 ret 2003), 2711 hits, 479 HRs, 1652 RBI, 1 RBI title, 8x AS, 285/391/491, npa OPS+ 140....5 of 8 most similar (eligible) in HOF.

Jim Ray Hart 3B (3.4 ret 2004), 2848 H, 519 HR, 1714 RBI, ROY, 7x AS, 278/337/482, npa OPS+ 118.....4 of 8 most similar (eligible) in HOF and 1 of remaining 4 on list of 7.

Ted Easterly C (3.3, ret 2000), 2538 H, GG @ C, 4x AS, 310/353/427, npa OPS+ 116.....1 of 9 most similar in HOF.

Ron Fairly CF (2.7, ret 1999), 3331 H, 579 2B, 393 HR, 1671 RBI, GG, 5x AS, 281/374/437, npa OPS+ 124.....7 of 9 most similar in HOF, remaining 2 on list of 7.

[VanillaGorilla]

There are 4 players on the spreadsheet that would get in on the Veterans Standard if the standards were to remain unchanged and they were screened after having been retired for 20 years.

One of the mechanisms I have not explained in detail is how players get removed from the spreadsheet. One way is by getting inducted into the HOF....the other way is a sliding scale of standards that I came up with on previous dry runs, and it has worked well.

Players on the sheet, after all first ballot screenings have been performed for available slots, are put into the list randomizer. I go through the list from top to bottom and if they don't have scores that are required to stay on the sheet (read ballot) they are removed. If they have scores high enough to stay on the ballot, but not sufficient to get into the Hall, a tally is given to them and they wait for a screening in another year. When a player has been screened once before, he has a higher standard to stay on the ballot for that second screening, and then a higher standard for each following screening. Eventually he is either inducted or removed from the spread sheet.

A player removed from the spreadsheet can still gain entry via a leader board selection, but that player once removed from the sheet.ballot cannot gain entry either through the standard screening or the Veteran Standard.

Even if a player has sufficient scores to reach the Hall on the Veteran Standard, he can be removed from the ballot if he has been screened often enough that the standard to stay on the ballot has become higher than the VS for induction at that time, but he has not been retired for 20 years. Again, such a player who would have scores to reach the Hall via the VS but does not have 20 years since retirement will be removed from the list and not be eligible for induction by any standard other than leader board placement.

The Veteran Standard was created in an attempt to mimic the purpose of the RL Vet Committee to honor those who were overlooked by the voters. If a player is being screened multiple times, he is not being overlooked, he is being examined closely. What the VS hoped to do here is catch those players who found themselves being on the bottom of the randomized list so often that they were not given a fiar chance to enter on their contemporary standards...they had literally been overlooked. The idea of giving deference in the consideration of entry to older players over younger retirees is a staple of the RL Hall tradition, and this mechanism has worked well in emmulating that aspect of the Hall.

On the BBREF fan Elo page, Al Lopez is number 888 among hitters. He is in the HOF. Lou Whitaker is 69th. He is not in the HOF. I am not wanting to argue the Hall worthiness of Whitaker. I am pointing out that the Hall has inducted players that are far down the list of what the conventional wisdom of baseball fandom produces.

I know this isn't the first time I have said this, but the point of this exercise was not to develop a HOF that was just and true to the notion that everyone in it was better than everyone not. It was to test a process that can result in inductions that resemble the RL HOF.

Bill Delancey and John Romano are akin to Schlak and Lopez and Fairly is akin to Whitaker (even more so like Bagwell, if he is not elected in January). This happened without me forcing any of the events or entries. And I know this isn't the first time I have said this, either....I am very pleased with these results.