MLB Hall of Fame: Breaking down the Modern Era ballot

The peak candidates

Broadly speaking, there are two basic philosophies underlying views regarding MLB Hall of Fame candidacies: those who emphasize peak value, and those who prioritize career value. Neither is inherently better than the other; the preference for one vs. the other is individual.

Beyond that, there are two broad categories of evaluating player performance,

OPS+ is a widely accepted number that assesses a player’s performance relative to all other players of his time in a park-adjusted and era-adjusted context. In OPS+, a score of 100 is considered average; the higher the score, the more valuable the player.

WAR, Wins Above Replacement, is a widely accepted number that evaluates each player’s performance in terms of games won relative to replacement-level players. As with ERA+, higher is better.

Normally, those preferring to evaluate candidates on a peak value standard are looking at their performance over a period of about five consecutive seasons. For this exercise that will be our standard.

Our ranking is slightly complicated by the fact that three of the nine nominees – Evans, Simmons and Whitaker – do not have a clear five-season block of excellence, In the case of each of those three, their peak seasons for OPS+ do not align with their peak seasons of WAR. In effect, then, those three players have two peaks.

Having noted that, here how the nine nominees rank in terms of peak performance in five season OPS+.

                Name                                    Seasons               OPS+

1              Don Mattingly                   1984-88                747

2              Dave Parker                       1975-79                733

3              Dale Murphy                      1983-87                728

4              Dwight Evans                     1984-88                693

5              Ted Simmons                     1976-80                684

6              Lou Whitaker                     1991-95                662

7              Steve Garvey                     1974-78                657

8              Tommy John                      1966-70                639

9              Thurman Munson            1973-77                616

And here is the peak performance rank as measured by five season WAR.

                 Name                                    Seasons               WAR

1              Dale Murphy                      1983-87                31.5

2              Dave Parker                       1975-79                31.1

3              Don Mattingly                   1984-88                28.8

4              Thurman Munson            1973-77                27.0

5              Lou Whitaker                     1982-86                25.3

6              Ted Simmons                     1975-79                22.9

6              Dwight Evans                     1978-82                22,9

8              Steve Garvey                     1974-78                22.7

9              Tommy John                      1966-70                20.9

Based on those tables, it’s clear that voters emphasizing peak value have a core of three preferred candidates: Mattingly, Parker, and Murphy in some order.