Yesterday, I posted rankings of all Hall of Fame position players by Weighted WAR (wWAR), with this year's Hall of Fame ballot mixed in for some perspective. Wait, what's wWAR again?
So, let's adjust WAR to favor peak years. We already track Wins Above Excellence (single season WAR above 3.0) and Wins Above MVP (single season WAR above 6.0). We'll apply the extra credit there. We'll count WAR above 3.0 twice and WAR above 6.0 three times. Let's call it Weighted WAR (wWAR). The formula is simply WAR+WAE+WAM.
You knew the pitchers had to be coming. Here we go:
Some observations:
- The top of this list is a bit crowded by 1800s pitchers. Because they started a bajillion games per season, the really good ones put up some outrageous WAM figures. I have not adjusted this. Keep that in mind when looking at Cy Young, Kid Nichols, John Clarkson, Tim Keefe, and of course Old Hoss.
- Golly. I think we should put Bert Blyleven in the Hall of Fame.
- Among players who started their careers after 1912, Blyleven would rank seventh among Hall of Famers (behind Lefty Grove, Tom Seaver, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Bob Gibson and Warren Spahn). This, of course, does not include players not yet eligible for the Hall (like Roger Clemens).
- Blyleven over Steve Freakin' Carlton. Dudes.
- I feel like Gaylord Perry and Phil Niekro don't get their due as a couple of the best pitchers ever. Is it the spitballer and knuckleballer thing?
- Also, Don Sutton's reputation as a compiler looks to be true, according to wWAR.
- I love seeing how guys like Bob Gibson, Amos Rusie, Bob Feller, and Sandy Koufax are adjusted by this.
- Kevin Brown still rates ahead of the median. I think I'm sold on him now.
- Al Leiter leapfrogs Jack Morris here.
- Morris is also bested by Rich Gossage. Yup, a reliever. Goose is ahead of Hoyt Wilhelm, but not Eck. Of course, the vast majority of Eck's value came from his years as a starter.
- Don't feel bad for Monte Ward because he's only 66th on this list. He's also 143rd on the position player list, ahead of guys like Lou Brock, Ernie Lombardi, Juan Gonzalez, and Harold Baines. He was a two-way monster.
What else?
Update: (3/15/2011) I just posted the last of a series of articles where I created the "Hall of wWAR". I re-populated the Hall of Fame based purely on wWAR. Have a look!
The Hall of wWAR
Catchers | First Basemen | Second Basemen | Third Basemen | Shortstops
Left Fielders | Center Fielders | Right Fielders | Designated Hitters
Pitchers