That's a tough choice. I'll leave it to everyone else to pick the backup catcher.

I have been on the road for awhile but am back home now and will have some time to do some WAR calculations for the guys mentioned. I'll post those here this weekend if the decisions haven't been made yet.

Here is how the names mentioned stack up with regards to the backup catching position using Importance Score:

David Feng, 12.1 Importance Score
Fautino Saenez, 10.8 Importance Score
Bruce Sandberg, 10.1 Importance Score
Dan Porter, 9.6 Importance Score
Jose Viriato, 8.1 Importance Score
Charlie Marte, 2.6 Importance Score

As I enter my third year here in Stickball, my HOF metrics and data are also getting more accurate since I have had time to collect data. This year I will be using a combination of Importance Score, remaining eligibility and previous voting results to narrow my focus on the most deserving of the HOF candidates for this season. To start with, I'm going to use the list that I generated for last season's voting:

1. Jeimer Ortega, 19.5 Importance Score (Elected last season)
2. Clarence Paul, 15.8 Importance Score (Elected last season)
3. John Servais, 14.4 Importance Score
4. Marcus Shipley, 8.0 Importance Score
5. Robert Jacome, 7.9 Importance Score
6. Darren Harvey, 6.7 Importance Score
7. Ivan Franco, 5.5 Importance Score (no longer on ballot)
8. Kris Wanatabe, 5.1 Importance Score (Elected last season)
9. Aroldis Torres 4.7 Importance Score
10. Mark Moore, 4.0 Importance Score
11. Roosevelt Curtis, 3.9 Importance Score
12. Willis Tanner, 1.8 Importance Score

Those numbers above are a mix of park adjusted WAR totals and estimated WAR totals, so my next step is going to be to calculate the rest of the park adjusted totals to see how it changes how those guys stack up:

• John Servais: 14.4 Importance Score
• Robert Jacome: 12.4 Importance Score
• Mark Moore: 10.6 Importance Score
• Willis Tanner: 1.8 Importance Score

The following guys are in their first year on the ballot, let me know which of them I should evaluate: Diego Trinidad, Al Montanez, Timothy Lewis & Donald Miles

Thanks again, Bruinsfan, you are doing yeoman's work and it is appreciated!

NOT looking at the year of eligibility as a deciding factor (which is just giving us a place to start), I'd say the locks are:

1. Gabriel McKain (just kidding ... sort of ...)
2. John Servais
3. Donald Miles

For the suggested alternates, I'm leaning toward:

1. Shipley
2. Harvey
3. Torres
4. Jacome
5. Trinidad
6. Curtis

(pretty much in that order)

Spreadsheet updated:

My thoughts are:
Lock
Donald Miles

Others to recommend in my order (my votes right now):
Servais (vote)
Shipley (vote)
McKain (vote)
Jacome (vote)
Trinidad
Torres

Trinidad was one of my Fargo guys and I loved having him. I am not sold completely on his stats as a 1B that he should be in. The thing I would say for him is he was always clutch and I did not remember him winning 2 MVP. My thought is I wont vote for him 1st ballot but might in the future.

Before fully drilling down, I would agree with Fargo that the only lock IMO is Miles.

My draft list would pretty much mirror thebigdogs this year.

Okay, I'd say the list Big Dogs put out sounds good. Maybe Servais outta be a lock though.

Time is ticking, so, if this looks okay, let's run with the following list:

Locks:

• Donald Miles
• John Servais

Top Considerations:

• Shipley
• McKain
• Jacome

I'm doing orientation for a new job tomorrow and next week so if I don't get to a deep dive this weekend it probably won't happen, but the eye test definitely supports that list. I'm happy to roll with that.

As regards Servais as a lock - I think we pushed that out a little too hard last season and received (deserved) pushback. He's a good player but not a great one, and really the only thing that recommends him in a major way is his batting average. 300+ homers which is good but not crazy. He stole 200 bases, but he was also caught 160 times, so like, not much value there. He played 2B and CF which should in theory boost him (and we want to try to get more of those players in) BUT he played them HORRIBLY. 136 negative plays at 2nd, 30+ at CF, he was a real liability in both spots. I think our experience in the past few seasons has showed that people don't really want merely decent players with warts shoved at them as locks; We've done a good job of getting a lot of strong players in but I think we can take a step back and keep players like Servais (and Shipley, and Jacome, who are both awesome but not NEED to be there guys) and recommend them strongly and make arguments for them, but not say we're essentially demanding everyone vote for them. That would be my thought on how to proceed.

On McKain, I honestly can't believe we're still doing this. It's kinda silly at this point - there has been virtually zero support for him from the electorate even in the times we DID say "ok some people feel strongly about him," and I really do think it undermines us to be putting a player out there who the vast majority of people look at and say "this guy is a gadget player and absolutely not a hall of famer" - which, if you can't tell, is 100% my stance. But if you feel like we need to, I'll do it again, and he'll get 5 votes, again.

For the record, I do enjoy this discourse and am happy we continue to do something that helps this world stand out; my mckain hate aside, thanks for continuing to push this, commish.

As someone who is a newer owner here and going mainly off numbers rather than reputation, this is how I'd view the five we are looking at:

• Donald Miles = Lock (125 Estimated WAR)
• John Servais = Voter's Choice (57.1 Park Adjusted WAR)...aka I wouldn't make him a committee recommendation but will probably still vote for him unless there are four clearly superior options besides Miles.
• Marcus Shipley = Voter's Choice (68 Estimated WAR)...also not necessarily a recommendation but is good enough to get my vote based on the other options this season.
• Gabriel McKain = Voter's Choice (36.6 Estimated WAR)...I can understand why he was nominated, but I won't be voting for him. He seems to be a classic example of someone who belongs in the "Hall of Very Good"
• Robert Jacome = Voter's Choice (54.2 Park Adjusted WAR)...he falls into the same category as Servais and Shipley where there cases are good enough to get my vote but not good enough to warrant a committee recommendation in my opinion.

Ok well hearing no further immediate discussion I'm going to get this going on the blog with Miles as lock and Servais, Shipley, and Jacome as recommendations. And in the interest of inclusivity, I will even mention Gabriel McKain, because look, he seems like he was a really nice guy.

McKain has been phoning me constantly. Can we just get him in already?