What Would An “Objective” Baseball Hall Of Fame Class Look Like?
Smoltz was a fantastic pitcher, but his seven-year prime bWAR totalled 38.8, which is not necessarily elite; taking away the name, I wonder if he’d be a first-ballot inductee to a hypothetical “Objective” HOF, so to speak.
Brad: Things like JAWS are definitely interesting from the standpoint of having consistency in HOF classes, but even in a more SABR-oriented era of the game, the Hall still represents things that aren’t necessarily reflected by the raw numbers.
Thom: The “Objective” HOF idea is interesting in that both Smoltz and Biggio got a lot of love for their versatility in the actual Hall voting even though they weren’t necessarily as talented, even in context of their time, as some players on the ballot who missed out.
Drew: The biggest thing for me is that everyone who got in played in the Steroid Era, yet some guys from the same era are still not getting the support they should be, even if they don’t have much of anything connecting them to steroids.
Thom: For what it’s worth, I think the Steroid Era bias shouldn’t prevent guys from getting elected, and I think the stance may be softening, at least for some.
Similar to how the MVP voting has incorporated more advanced numbers, I do wonder if the next generation of HOF voters will take a less subjective approach to HOF voting.
Brad: The best-of-the-best approach to HOF voting is definitely something I can see happening as we continue to learn new ways to analyse the sport, and I do think voters will soften their hard feelings as time goes.
Thom: If we were to take all that subjective stuff out of the equation and go back to our “Objective” HOF concept, Schilling would be a first-ballot inductee and Smoltz wouldn’t be, I’d think right? Brad: Smoltz and Schilling definitely make for an interesting comparison as their numbers look very similar, obviously with the big exception being Smoltz’s saves.
If you were given a 2016 ballot for the hypothetical “Objective” HOF, where the mandate was to enshrine the best players based on a combination of advanced stats, counting stats, milestones and prime numbers, who would be on it?