MLB Hall of Fame: Breaking down the Modern Era ballot

Who’s in, who’s out?

If we translate our statistical rankings in the four categories to an ordinal placement, we can get what amounts to a “standing.” Mindful that in an ordinal system a perfect score is 1-1-1-1 or 1.00, here are the overall rankings

                 Player                   Pk OPS+       Pk WAR     Car. OPS+  Car. WAR     Avg.

1              Don Mattingly         1                       3                1.5                   7              3.13

2              Dale Murphy            3                      1                 3.5                   6              3.38

3              Dwight Evans          4                      7                 1.5                   2              3.63

4              Dave Parker             2                      2                 3.5                   8              3.88

5              Ted Simmons          5                       5                 5                      4              4.75

6              Lou Whitaker           6                      6                 6.5                   1              4.88

7              Thurman Munson  9                      4                 8                       5              6.50

8              Tommy John            8                       9                9                       3              7.25

9              Steve Garvey          7                        8               6.5                    9              7.63

Looking strictly at the data, the candidacies of Munson, Garvey, and Whitaker are hard to support over numerically better qualified candidates for the MLB Hall of Fame.

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Mattingly, Murphy, Evans and Parker present the four best overall data sets. All clearly meet standards favored by peak-biased voters, and they also rank high in career OPS+.

Voters favoring career-based candidates will look first to Evans, who ranks high in both career OPS+ and career WAR.

The remaining on-field candidates – Whitaker and Simmons – present mixed statistical profiles.

Munson’s career numbers were obviously compromised by his early death. His 27.0 five-year peak WAR from 1973 through 1977 is exceptional, but his 616 OPS+ for that same period is well below the 671.33 average of his fellow nominees.

If the 16 voters choose to include Miller, one of the top four—probably Parker – has to be abandoned.

Of course, a voter opting for Miller will by definition be open to considering non-statistical qualifications, a fact that could give John or Munson just the advantage their MLB Hall of Fame candidacies appear to need.