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December 12, 2007

The Class of 2008

The Hitters, Part One

by Jay Jaffe

We've already torn the wrapping paper off this year's Hall of Fame ballot class in the form of its brightest new addition, Tim Raines. And well we should have; the contrast between the general perception of Raines' Hall-worthiness and the robust strength of his numbers and overall case merited the heightened level of attention he received upon the ballot's initial release. Now it's time to hunker down and address the rest of this year's crop.

Aside from Raines, it's a less controversial one than last year's slate, when the first wave of performance-enhanced sluggers reached the ballot. Admitted steroid users Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti were easily swept aside by the voters--respectively garnering 1.1 percent and 0.4 percent--while Mark McGwire, the most widely-suspected user this side of Barry Bonds, received just 23.5 percent, enough to keep him on the ballot but less than one-third of the votes he'll need to make it into the Hall. Aside from Raines and the perennial drama surrounding the candidacy of holdovers Goose Gossage and Bert Blyleven, further clues as to Big Mac's fate may be the most interesting aspect of this year's voting.

This marks the fifth year I've used the very self-consciously named Jaffe WARP Score system (JAWS) to examine the ballot. The goal of JAWS is to identify candidates who are as good or better than the average Hall of Famer at their position, a bar set so as to avoid further diluting the quality of the institution's membership. Clay Davenport's Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) totals are the coin of the realm for this endeavor because they normalize all performance records in major league history to the same scoring environment, adjusting for park effects, quality of competition, and length of schedule. Pitchers, hitters and fielders are thus rated above or below one consistent replacement level, making cross-era comparisons a breeze. JAWS does not include non-statistical considerations--awards, championships, post-season performance, rap sheet, urine test results--but that's not to say they should be left by the wayside. They're just not the focus here, though they'll be discussed in the context of the various candidacies.

Election to the Hall of Fame requires a player to perform both at a very high level and for a long time, so JAWS identifies a player's peak using his seven best WARP scores (for this exercise, WARP refers exclusively to the adjusted-for-all-time version, WARP3). Effectively, we double-count more of a player's best seasons, an appropriate strategy given what we know about pennants added and the premium value of star talent: individual greatness can have a non-linear effect on a team's results both in the standings and on the bottom line.

The career and peak WARP totals for each Hall of Famer and candidate on the ballot are tabulated and then averaged [(Career WARP + Peak WARP) / 2] to come up with a JAWS score. JAWS averages for the enshrined are calculated at each position to provide a baseline for comparison, but the lowest-ranked player at each position (and four pitchers) are omitted before that calculation. Invariably these are Veterans Committee selections who lag far behind the pack, lowering the bar with scores that might be one-third of the position leader.