Season 58

Last season was the first time in quite awhile where we did not get anyone into the FYC Hall of Fame. As you can see in the screenshot of the results below, we didn't really have anyone come very close either. This leads me to wonder whether we are at the point where we lack worthy candidates or if we just didn't get it together very well last season (my memory seems to suggest it was Option B.)

Last year was also the first year that I had fully developed position-by-position WAR standards for the Hall of Fame based on current inductees, so this season I will use those (seen below) to evaluate the entire list of HOF nominees and see if we were way off by not including anyone last year or not. As a reminder, here are the standards:

One last reminder before we get down to brass tax: I define a player's position for HOF purposes as being the one they played the most often during their career rather than whatever the WIS engine decides that it is, so here are the nominees listed by the position I will evaluate them on:

• Larry Brow, LF

• Jamey Carr, SS

• Hooks Collins, SS

• Andres Colome, 1B

• Benny Darr, 3B

• Oswaldo Estrada, 3B

• William Farrell, 3B

• Bruce Milton, LF

• Ivan Osoria, SS

• Esteban Ramirez, C

• Harry Reynoso, C

• Juan Santana, C

• Brandan Smith, CF

• Timothy Watson, LF

• Tony Barry, RP

• Charlie Hoffman, RP

• Leo Jones, RP

• Bruce Latham, SP

• Pascual Machado, SP

• Alex Mack, SP

• Howard Peterson, SP

• Eswalin Valentin, SP

• Felix Waters, SP

With all that out of the way, I'll start with the least represented positions and work my way up...which means taking a look at the three shortstops first. Based on the current HOF membership, a shortstop needs 90+ estimated WAR to make an argument for election, and Osoria tops the trio with 72 estimated career WAR so I'm going to move onto the next group: the catchers. This group might take up quite a few of my votes, because the current membership sets the floor at 46 WAR and the transition from "weak case" to "strong case" at 66 WAR. All three of those guys fall right around the 66 WAR number, with Juan Santana (68) leading the way followed by Reynoso (66) and Ramirez (64). In our next positional group, the relievers, only Leo Jones (81 WAR) makes a case and it's a weak one at that.

Next comes a trio of third basemen...Oswaldo Estrada and William Farrell each make a weak case, but Benny Darr and his 60+ park adjusted WAR make what I'd consider to be the best case yet. For a 3B, 60 WAR is in the "strong case" section but that's for estimated WAR. Since his is a park adjusted total, I value that a little more than normal and bump him up to "Definite HOFer" (especially because I haven't calculated all of his seasons yet.)

After the 3B's come the CF's. This year, that's only Brandon Smith, and he has no case at all. Second basemen would be next, but there are none on the ballot. For left fielders, we've got Larry Brow, Bruce Milton and Timothy Watson. Brow and Milton make weak cases, but Watson makes a case that's very similar to Benny Darr. He's got at least 59 park adjusted WAR (I haven't calculated his full career yet either) and 59 WAR would put him in the Strong HOF category to begin with, so I'll bump him up to "Definite HOFer." Without any RF's on the ballot, I move onto looking at first basemen...which is only Andres Colome and he makes a weak case.

Last but not least we have our batch of starting pitchers. To make a case for the Hall of Fame, starters need at least 92 WAR based on the current collection of elected members. There are six starters on the ballot this season: Bruce Latham (69 WAR), Alex Mack (51 WAR), Eswalin Valentin (38 WAR) and Felix Waters (22 WAR) all fall short, but I still need to crunch the numbers on Pascual Machado and Howard Peterson. As it turns out, Machado has an estimated 54 WAR and Peterson had 59 estimated WAR, so neither makes the cut.