The Hall of wWAR Inducts Frank Tanana

by adarowski on Dec 8, 2011 9:02 AM EST in History & Hall of Fame

One of the goals of the Hall of wWAR is to show what the current Hall of Fame would look like if it were populated by a single metric. As a result, it is important to keep the Hall of Fame and the Hall of wWAR the same size. With this week's wonderful news that Ron Santo became the 207th MLB player inducted to the Hall of Fame, the Hall of wWAR also needed to expand to 207 (yesterday, I went into detail about why).

So, today the Hall of wWAR will officially induct a player for the first time. Induction is a simple process. I just need to pick the 207th best player of all time (retired for at least five years), according to wWAR. That player is Frank Tanana.

Frank Tanana
WAR/pos	-0.1
WAR/p	55.1
WAR/tot	55.0
WAR/162	55.6
WAE	16.3
WAM	4.7
wWPA	-0.4
wWAR	76.2

Tanana actually made the cut for the first version of the Hall of wWAR. In the updated version released in November (with more adjustments), he ended up being the player on the other side of the induction cutoff. When writing about Tanana for the first version, I wrote:

Tanana had two excellent careers. Through his age 25 season, he was basically Nolan Ryan. He compiled 32.1 WAR while piling up strikeouts for weak Angels teams. Then the overuse led to injury. He pitched 14 more seasons as a finesse pitcher. Basically, he then was Jamie Moyer. While he wasn't as effective, he still earned 23.0 more WAR to give him a total of 55.1. The early peak boosts him to 76.1 wWAR.

The table below illustrates that "first career" quite well. These pitchers had the most pitching WAR through their age 23 seasons (since 1900):

Rk	Player	WAR	From	To	Age	G	W	L	IP	BB	SO	ERA	ERA+	Tm
1	Bob Feller	35.6	1936	1941	17-22	205	107	54	1448.1	815	1233	3.18	137	CLE
2	Bert Blyleven	29.3	1970	1974	19-23	181	80	75	1335.2	319	1094	2.74	134	MIN
3	Dwight Gooden	28.6	1984	1988	19-23	158	91	35	1172.2	332	1067	2.62	135	NYM
4	Frank Tanana	28.1	1973	1977	19-23	142	66	49	1082.0	292	937	2.69	131	CAL
5	Walter Johnson	25.1	1907	1911	19-23	175	82	78	1355.1	303	915	1.77	148	WSH
6	Christy Mathewson	24.5	1900	1904	19-23	174	97	62	1388.1	372	879	2.28	135	NYG
7	Larry Dierker	24.2	1964	1970	17-23	181	71	62	1250.1	353	874	3.19	108	HOU
8	Don Drysdale	24.0	1956	1960	19-23	188	66	54	1071.1	329	822	3.21	128	BRO-LAD
9	Smoky Joe Wood	20.2	1908	1913	18-23	175	92	48	1145.1	334	856	2.00	152	BOS
10	Noodles Hahn	19.6	1900	1902	21-23	117	61	51	1007.2	216	513	2.58	127	CIN

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/7/2011.

In Tanana's first four seasons, he posted WAR totals of 4.9 (at age 20), 7.8, 7.2, and 7.7. Then he suffered an arm injury and had to adapt. While he never approached his early career dominance (he only surpassed 3.0 WAR one more time), he still pitched 21 seasons in all. He sits at 59th all time in wWAR among starting pitchers (among those retired for 5+ years). While his numbers don't necessarily scream dominance, he also ranks 32nd among that group in innings pitched. So, his lack of dominance drops him 27 notches down the list. But he hangs on just enough to qualify for the Hall of wWAR.

There are several Hall of Fame pitchers who rate behind Tanana in wWAR. The 20th century hurlers on that list are Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez, Burleigh Grimes, Eppa Rixey, Waite Hoyt, Chief Bender, Herb Pennock, Addie Joss, Catfish Hunter, Jack Chesbro, Jesse Haines, and Rube Marquard. The short careers of Dean and Joss bring their totals way down. I'm not sure anyone else on that lists strikes me as better than Tanana.

Congratulations to Frank Tanana! As referenced yesterday, this induction may actually be short-lived, as the Hall of wWAR is a more "fluid" institution than the Hall of Fame. But today, right now, he is one of the 207 best players by wWAR. And that gets him in.

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Comments

You should design plaques.

Left Field: Adventures in baseball fanaticism, music obsession, craft beer enthusiasm, and other stuff from out of left field.

by Dan McCloskey on Dec 8, 2011 9:09 AM EST reply actions

Oh gosh that would be fun.

And I’ve only thought about doing it one billion times.

Creator of the Hall of wWAR • @baseballtwit on Twitter

by adarowski on Dec 8, 2011 9:13 AM EST up reply actions

Frank Tanana fit my baseball card fetish as a youngster

Of players who had been around forever, and weren’t talked about like stars. I used to think “Why am I the only one to see how good this guy is?” Qualities included lots of tiny writing on the back of their card, an preferably starting in the 1960s-early 1970s.
The list included pitchers Blyleven, Tanana, Reuschel, Reuss, Hough, the Niekros, John, Alexander, Tekulve, the Forsches, Sutton, Koosman
Hitters Dempsey, Boone, Buckner, Downing, Evans, Speier, Nettles, Simmons, Cruz, Chambliss, Lopes, McRae, Staub.

Of course later, I learned some of these players were way overrated, some way underrated, and some just lasted forever. Probably why some of my recent favorites have included Moyer, Stairs, Rogers, Orosco, Raines, among others.

by cookiedabookie on Dec 8, 2011 7:31 PM EST reply actions