hall of fame, next vote...

I'd probably file Tim Hudson in the hall of very good. The guy has been very consistently solid, can't argue he would be a good guy to have on your staff for a decade. Hudson's lost a season or two to injury over his career, which takes down his total counting numbers. That said, I think the way the guy pitches on guile and control, if he can avoid more injuries he could still pitch for a few more years and the Braves are setup to be a pretty good club for the short future.

hudson was i think the first of the billy beane-cultivated "ace" pitchers to arrive in the majors and in the wake of the big splashes made by zito, mulder, and harden he ended up lost in the shuffle and pretty underrated. never as flashy as those three, never a big K guy, but still often the best guy on the staff. obv ended up being the best in the long run. since he arrived, what righty SPs have been better? halladay, verlander, king felix, and the peaks of a couple others i guess? he's good.

thought Harden came after Zito/Mulder/Hudson?

he did.

Hudson's case is probably closest to Mussina's -- very good for a long time but never really had the star aura about him. Mussina's peak and career numbers are better though, so if he has trouble getting in then Hudson has no chance.

yeah harden was '03 so he was a couple years after those big 3, but he was definitely another oakland ace in the making who made people forget about hudson, it seems, or at least made them a lot more comfortable about dealing him. all i remember about harden was how good he was in 2008, especially with the cubs.

This is fairly obvious, but nice summary lifted from James's site of how rookie age relates to HOF chances:

# of Players   Rookie Age   Hall of Famers   Pct.
    3	          18	          1	     33%
   11	          19	          3	     27%
   48	          20	         12	     25%
  111	          21	         10	      9%
  172	          22	          7	      4%
  202	          23	          8	      4%
  212	          24	          2	      1%
  135	          25	          0	      0%
   67	          26	          0	      0%
   26	          27	          0	      0%
   12	          28	          0	      0%
    5	          29	          0	      0%
    2	          30	          0	      0%

Doesn't include active players--Ichiro will almost certainly add a hall of famer towards the end of the chart, but he's a special case that doesn't change the relationship at all.

who are the players who that sample is drawn from?

who = from which

Good question. It can't be inclusive, can it...let me check.

1) All players who played before 1950 (even one game before 1950), and

2) Players who have played since 2011 (2011, 2012 or 2013), since those player may not yet have complete careers.

3) All players who played less than 800 games in their careers.

This third elimination creates a major selection bias in the data, which makes these players who are studied here quite different from all rookies, and limits our ability to generalize what we learn from doing this. (On the other hand, not restricting the study group would cause other problems which, in my judgment, would be much worse, so...six of one, half-dozen of the other. Doing the study this way, you learn quite a bit but you can’t generalize it reliably because of the selection bias. Doing the study the other way you wouldn’t learn anything to begin with.)

I'm too tired to try to make sense of that.

I assume the three criteria are the exclusions, right? So everyone else (played post-1950, career started pre-2011 and played more than 800 games) is the sample?

That'd be it, yeah--all I had to do was glance at some of the names included (e.g., Mantle) to figure that out. The study had to do with a reader question about the predictive value of rookie seasons--the HOF stuff came out of that. I'd link to the whole thing, but it's behind the paywall.

is that for players who played a full rookie season, i'm guessing?

I think so, but I scanned the piece and couldn't clarify that. I think I remember a line about "true rookie season."

Jay Jaffe's HOF favourites, by position, among active players:

http://mlb.si.com/2013/07/26/who-is-cooperstown-bound-a-look-at-active-players-with-strong-hall-of-fame-cases/

I don't know if Cooperstown will ever get over its third-base blind spot, but if you throw in Wright and Longoria, I'd say there are four pretty strong candidates right now.

Voters gonna have to get real sabermetric for Utley unless he lasts til 40.

I wonder what the TV ratings will be like to hear the great-grandchildren of Hank O’Day, Jacob Ruppert and Deacon White.

Tom Cheek got his posthumous Frick Award today, so that's getting coverage here. But that's not induction--all you get is your name on a plaque that's kept in the supply cupboard.

next to the McGwire/Sosa memorabilia

Revived for general purposes. Very quick list from the active WAR leaders--add/delete/adjust as needed. (Trying to guess actual voting; omitting anyone with a PED problem.)

Safe: Pujols, Jeter, Ichiro, Rivera
Probably safe too, but a half-notch lower on the rung: Cabrera, Halladay
Close to safe: Beltre, Mauer, Cano, Verlander
Very good bet: Felix
Getting stronger: Votto, Wright, Longoria
Maybe: Beltran, Helton, Pedroia
Early jump: Trout, Harper, Kershaw, Strasburg, McCutcheon

That's only 21 names--historically, there are about 30 HOF-bound players active in a given year. As there would be this year without PEDs.

Missed Sabathia--add him to "maybe."

Add Posey to "early jump." That's 23.

Feel like Yadier Molina has an outside chance

not sure of serious....

I think outside-shot's accurate. An MVP this year would have really helped. The list of MVP catchers is almost exclusively made up of guys who are either in the HOF or probably headed there:

http://members.tripod.com/bb_catchers/catchers/mvp.htm

From the official list, only Howard, Munson, I-Rod, Mauer, and Posey are not in, and the last two or three look good.

If Utley plays decently the remainder of his new contract, I like his chances either w/ new-era writers 10-15 years from now or a Vets Committee (assuming they ever fix that).

not sure of serious....

I'm kind of serious. He is regarded by many as the best defensive catcher of this era, and is a stabilizing force for a pitching staff that always is good despite lots of turnover .. AND he's a pretty good hitter.

Utley is currently 13th by JAWS among 2b, a hair ahead of Biggio. (Of course, they are both behind Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker...)

Yadier 24th among catchers. Not sure if they will put a catcher in mostly for defense if Ted Simmons (and Piazza!?) have trouble as heavy hitters.

Wait, I had a spasm of dyslexia -- Molina is 42nd among catchers. The only catching HOFer he's already passed is Rick Ferrell, who is considered one of the least deserving inductees.

Morbius on the Cabrera thread: "Andruw Jones and Beltran should both be HOFers..."

Honestly don't get the Andruw Jones argument. He was a fantastic defensive player through his 20s, and a pretty good offensive player helped by his era. (Highest OPS+, 136.) He suffered sharp decline at 30, and when he hit 31 he was finished. Jones wasn't Pujols in his 20s, not even close--i.e., Pujols goes in even if he's Andruw Jones for the next five years--and he wasn't Sandy Koufax, forced into retirement at a moment when he was probably the most dominant player in the game. He was simply a very good player through his 20s who then, literally, fell off a cliff.

Lance Berkman?

By the way, Trout's so next-level that "early jump" doesn't do him justice. He needs a separate "just needs to stay clear of Lindsay Lohan" category.

I tend to group Berkman with Matt Holiday in my mind--big hitters who I think will ultimately be lost in a sea of big hitters. I thought he had a chance after 2011, but he's fading fast.

The Andruw Jones argument is a 'peak' argument (and thru his 20s is pretty long peak, as he came up at 19).

Part A:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_CF.shtml

Part B:

WAR, Position Players

1998 NL 7.4 (5th)
1999 NL 7.0 (2nd)
2000 NL 8.1 (2nd)
2002 NL 6.6 (6th)
2005 NL 6.7 (4th)
2006 NL 5.6 (10th)

Career 62.7 (103rd)

I tend to group Berkman with Matt Holiday in my mind--big hitters who I think will ultimately be lost in a sea of big hitters.

Yeah, that's probably true. You could throw Paul Konerko in that group, too.

That's the thing, though--I don't see those peak WAR numbers as being good enough to get in without building on them in your 30s. I'd just as soon put in Garciaparra: 7.4., 7.1, 6.8., 6.6, 6.1.

What about the Big Hitters who are being dismissed on no evidence or hearsay, eg Bagwell, Piazza? xxp

I'm assuming ppl who dismiss Andruw & Beltran wd have to be convinced on Kenny Lofton too.

Even tho Jones' OBP is higher than Dawson (the worst recent mistake of the BBWAA), Andruw will get more skepticism for "hitting" .254.

Andruw was better for longer than Nomar. (Again, w/ peak value -- Koufax didn't build on anything in his 30s.)

rating Verlander and Felix as approaching safe is a little premature; they are down in the 160s in JAWS, where the only modern HOFer keeping them company is Catfish Hunter. (JV at least has some postseason heroism to boost his standing.)

not sure what's hard to get abt jones -- if his UZR is any indication, he's one of the greatest defensive players of all time and he also happens to have 434 HR. it's not like this was a tiny peak, 10 yrs isn't abnormal.

10 years is basically sandberg/puckett. nomar is more like mattingly.

he doesn't seem to be active anymore, but scott rolen is one i wonder about. he probably won't get much of a look (in that berkman/beltran/bagwell mold) but he's got 70+ fWAR.

Rolen is 10th on the 3b JAWS list, everybody ahead of him is in except Chipper and Beltre

Out for a while...I just can't cross that bridge of electing a guy who contributes zilch once he hits his 30s (with the unique exception of Koufax). I'll concede, as I have before, that I'm much more comfortable discussing offense than defense. We'll see what happens--my guess is that Jones does not last more than two or three years on the ballot.

i'm always wary of throwing my support behind a guy whose statistical case hinges largely on defense, since we seem to know less about that, but the thing about andruw is that, subjectively, we all knew we were watching one of the greatest defensive outfielders ever, and probably the best of his generation bar maybe griffey

and i'm all for keeping the hall relatively exclusive, but at least according to JAWS, andruw fits in right with the best (the average JAWS for a center fielder is a bit skewed toward the high side, since willie mays and ty cobb were really good)

lofton is a guy who i never thought of as a HOF candidate but who WAR seems to love, mostly due to his baserunning, defense, and the generous positional adjustment that comes with playing CF for 17 years

Although I find it bothersome that Lofton only played 150 games twice in his career--or three times, if you want to give him credit for '94 (played in every game but one)--I'd be much more comfortable putting him in than Jones. Lofton's offensive-to-defensive ratio for WAR is about 4-1; four parts what metrics analyze really well, one part what is still a work in progress. Jones' ratio is about 5:3--so much of his case rests on the more contentious part. I didn't see Jones play enough to even have a subjective opinion; my subjective opinion on Roberto Alomar is apparently wrong.

The other thing I like about Lofton is that wherever and whenever he played, he was productive--right until the end. At age 38 in Philadelphia, he was getting on base and scoring runs. At age 40, his final year, his line is .296/.367/.414, and he scores 86 runs in fewer than 500 AB. He always contributed; he always made money for his partners. (I will say that Jones' last four seasons look better if you were to group them into two seasons.)

And for that, Lofton got all of 3% his first and last time on the ballot. I don't see Jones doing a whole lot better, unless he catches a break and debuts against a weaker field.

http://www.bravesjournal.us/?p=8729

keltner list on lofton

Good piece. I like the Keltner Test. I once tried to run a variation on it to see who was more famous, Suicide or the Shoes.