The WIS Hall of Fame - SimLeague Baseball

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After reading Ponanski's article about the Hall of Fame, I was wondering what kind of Hall of Fame the WIS database would produce. The methodology would be simple: just add up the yearly salary of every player in the database. The top total salaried players are the best and HoFers. In theory the methodology would be kind of sound. The WIS database basically assigns a salary value to every player based on what they actually did and adjusts it by era (or league averages) across all years from 1885 to 2011. The sum of these values should give a good estimate of their worth. There are some advantages to this methodology:

* As mentioned, the WIS salaries players by actual performance not perceived talent.

* The WIS database also does an excellent job of adjusting value by position, something that I’m not sure the BBWAA does particularly well.

* The database adjusts players by era (or year) better than I have seen anywhere else.

Of course there would be some known problems:

* Years before 1885 aren’t in the database. Since the big leagues date to 1871 or 1876, depending on your standards, this short-changes some notable stars like Cap Anson.

* The PA/162 methodology (scaling each season to 162 games) over values some 19^th century players and a few strike shortened seasons.

* Defensive range measurements used by the WIS are crude. Obviously the accomplishment of some players is over estimated (Horace Clark and David Eckstein, I’m looking at you) and other players are under estimated (perhaps Marty Marion and Tommy Herr).

* Despite fielding normalization, there probably isn’t enough adjustment in the database to properly evaluate old-time players. Players like Bobby Wallace and Rabbit Maranville were considered studs in their time. I’m not sure the database captures that.

* Since salaries are absolute and not over replacement value, players get credit even for years where they weren’t very good and probably disserved their teams by sticking around.

* Some stats are estimates (sb, cs) and their reflection in salary actually throws off the methodology.

* This methodology would only work for position players. The differences in IP over a season completely distort the value of pitchers across different eras.

With those caveats known, I’ll present the top 10 in the WIS HoF now. Subsequently I’ll run down all players, by primary position played) who made the top 200 as well as any actual HoFers that didn’t make it. I choose 200 mostly because it is a nice round number and definitely captures the talent/ accomplishment level that is currently associated with the HoF. (The actual hall of fame has 132 non-pitcher players and there are 20-30 players that either aren’t eligible yet or currently on the ballot that will almost definitely make it in eventually.)

1/8/2012 5:31 PM (edited)

zubinsum

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So here is the top 10:

Name	Position	Total Salary	Rank
Ty Cobb	CF	166292421	1
Babe Ruth	RF	163928563	2
Barry Bonds	LF	163744473	3
Tris Speaker	CF	149039216	4
Willie Mays	CF	140848005	5
Stan Musial	OF/1B	139921418	6
Hank Aaron	RF	138627226	7
Ted Williams	LF	137192972	8
Honus Wagner	SS	127748721	9
Rogers Hornsby	2B	123072930	10

There aren’t many surprises here. Ty Cobb edges Ruth for the greatest position player in the database, though counting Ruth’s pitching years, the Bambino easily wins. This comparison may shed a bit of light on why Cobb was considered the superior player up to the middle of the century. It probably helped Cobb’s case that Cobb was a very capable player at 41 when he retired while Ruth was cooked at age 40.

Bonds being number 3 is expected, but we’ll see what kind of respect the BBWAA gives him. (None, I hope—but that is besides the point.)

It is kind of interesting that Speaker beats Musial, Mays and Aaron by $8-10M. I have always thought of the quartet as being tied more or less behind Ruth, Cobb and Williams as the best OFers in MLB history. WIS gives Speaker some much-needed respect. However, when you consider military service (Musial missed ’45 in WW2; Mays missed ’52-’53 in Korean service) Speaker-Musial and Mays are probably pushed together.

Williams being behind the aforementioned quartet makes sense as he missed 5 years (’43-’45, ’52-‘53) with military service. That would pack on $40 in salary and push him up to Cobb-Ruth levels.

After Williams, there is a $9 gap to Wagner. If the WIS better normalized his fielding skills, I suspect he’d be up there with Mays, perhaps even Speaker. More importantly he ranks as the best shortstop ever, just as he should.

Hornsby rounds out the top ten, rightfully ranking as the best 2^nd baseman in history. But more about that later.

1/8/2012 5:31 PM

zubinsum

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Name	Position	Total Salary	Rank	Active	HOF	HOF Ballot
Ivan Rodriguez	C	86703089	56	Yes	No	No
Johnny Bench	C	82585408	72	No	Yes	No
Carlton Fisk	C	80775837	78	No	Yes	No
Ted Simmons	C	76951296	95	No	No	No
Joe Torre	C	74684011	106	No	No	No
Yogi Berra	C	73754409	116	No	Yes	No
Gary Carter	C	72576668	126	No	Yes	No
Gabby Hartnett	C	69627927	143	No	Yes	No
Bill Dickey	C	65585806	180	No	Yes	No
Mike Piazza	C	61178803	227	No	No	No
Mickey Cochrane	C	59578658	247	No	Yes	No
Ernie Lombardi	C	54526226	309	No	Yes	No
Jorge Posada	C	52913358	334	Yes	No	No
Buck Ewing	C	46248037	445	No	Yes	No
Ray Schalk	C	44728375	478	No	Yes	No
Roger Bresnahan	C	44392338	493	No	Yes	No
Rick Ferrell	C	43732898	520	No	Yes	No
Roy Campanella	C	42715689	546	No	Yes	No
Javy Lopez	C	41783271	569	No	No	Yes
Al Lopez	C	41527247	571	No	Yes	No
King Kelly	RF/C	39701184	621	No	Yes	No
Wilbert Robinson	C	36708526	722	No	Yes	No
Connie Mack	C	19863772	1559	No	Yes	No

There are nine catchers in the WIS top 200 while there are thirteen inducted in the Hall of Fame as players. Three more (Mack, Lopez and Robinson) are in for other capacities. The WIS inductees six real life HoFers, a near-certain first ballot HoF in Rodriguez, a catcher who likely should be in the HoF (Simmons), and one who will get in as a manager if not a player (Torre). The WIS list is dominated by catchers who had long careers for obvious reasons.

The top two are who you’d expect. Rodriguez will likely go down as the greatest defensive ever and Bench is widely considered to be the best all around catcher ever. Three guys who spent significant playing time at positions other than catcher follow in Fisk, Simmons and Torre. Berra, Carter, Harnett and Dickey round out the nine that made the top 200.

The WIS has significant misses when it comes to star that shone bright, but faded fast as catchers tend to do. Few would argue that Cochrane, Lombardi, and Campenella are deserving HoFers.

Buck Ewing and King Kelly (If you consider him a catcher) suffer in this methodology being 19^th century stars. That leaves Schalk, Bresnahan and Ferrell the weakest of HoF catchers—something with which most saberticians would agree. Then again, Bresnahan and Schalk were elected in large part for reasons that have nothing to do with on-field play. Besides, Schalk, Ferrell (and Al Lopez) caught a ton of games (over 1700 each) when doing so was an exceptional rarity.

Javy Lopez is on the ballot this year. He won’t and shouldn’t make the HoF.

Another Lopez, Al, is in the Hall as a manger, but given he held the games caught record longer than any other man (from 1945 to 1987), he would have made it as a player.

Wilbert Robinson is in the hall as a manager. While he briefly held the record for games caught (in 1899), his standing as a player really doesn’t compare.

Connie Mack HoF plaque calls him a star hitter as a player, his stats say otherwise.

Overall the list compiled using the WIS data base is worse than the real HoF, but not horrible. The HoF has misses on Simmons and Torre while the WIS HoF misses Cochrane, Lombardi, Ewing and Campenella. As for Schalk and Bresnahan, if they belong in the HoF, it is reasons other than their on-field play.

1/11/2012 12:28 AM (edited)

thejuice6

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Good stuff, ZUB.

1/10/2012 12:22 AM

jjper1

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where did Piazza rank??

1/10/2012 1:18 AM

zubinsum

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Posted by jjper1 on 1/10/2012 1:18:00 AM (view original):
where did Piazza rank??

Piazza is #227, $66,117,803 and for reference Posada is #334 $52,913,358

Piazza's value is crushed by being a catcher that never threw that well. Likely, according to the WIS database, his value would have been better served to play 1B. For reference Jeff Bagwell has a 149 ops+ over 2150 PA compared to an ops+ of 142 over 1912 PA for Piazza. But bagwell's total salary is $82,297,515. I think the WIS database may have gotten this correct.

I imagine both Piazza and Posada will make the HoF, though I think only one deserves it.

1/10/2012 10:18 PM

papalon

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Piazza is missing from your list of catchers above.

1/10/2012 10:51 PM

zubinsum

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Posted by papalon on 1/10/2012 10:51:00 PM (view original):
Piazza is missing from your list of catchers above.

He isn't on the HoF ballot yet, but I added him and Posada. Thanks.

1/11/2012 2:10 AM

zubinsum

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18 men grace Cooperstown as first basemen. Another pretty good one is in as a pioneer and executive. The WIS top 200 contain 34 first basemen, not counting several player that split their careers as outfielders. I have added three notable current players and three more on the HoF ballot.

Name	Position	Total Salary	Rank	Active	HOF	HOF Ballot
Stan Musial	OF/1B	139921418	6	No	Yes	No
Pete Rose	OF/1B	119020657	12	No	No	No
Lou Gehrig	1B	116573010	13	No	Yes	No
Carl Yastrzemski	LF/1B	109570347	16	No	Yes	No
Jimmie Foxx	1B	109269708	17	No	Yes	No
Frank Robinson	OF/1B	103955682	21	No	Yes	No
Al Kaline	RF/1B	102231506	23	No	Yes	No
Eddie Murray	1B	94037416	38	No	Yes	No
Rafael Palmeiro	1B	94025919	39	No	No	Yes
Frank Thomas	DH/1B	89865093	46	No	No	No
Todd Helton	1B	89701019	47	Yes	No	No
Albert Pujols	1B	85721686	60	Yes	No	No
Harry Heilmann	RF/1B	83564977	67	No	Yes	No
Jeff Bagwell	1B	82297515	74	No	No	Yes
Jim Thome	1B	77121226	93	No	No	No
Jake Beckley	1B	76706388	98	No	Yes	No
George Sisler	1B	75226475	105	No	Yes	No
Mark Grace	1B	74430463	107	No	No	No
Tony Perez	1B/3B	74359212	108	No	Yes	No
Steve Garvey	1B	74039586	111	No	No	No
Bill Terry	1B	72012216	127	No	Yes	No
Fred McGriff	1B	71412808	129	No	No	Yes
Willie McCovey	1B	71367935	130	No	Yes	No
Johnny Mize	1B	70677787	136	No	Yes	No
Harmon Killebrew	1B	70399319	137	No	Yes	No
Roger Connor	1B	70191267	139	No	Yes	No
Carlos Delgado	1B	69745596	141	No	No	No
Rusty Staub	RF/1B	69424071	144	No	No	No
Dan Brouthers	1B	69241805	147	No	Yes	No
Cap Anson	1B	68040939	156	No	Yes	No
Willie Stargell	1B	67876478	159	No	Yes	No
Jake Daubert	1B	67720116	160	No	No	No
Mickey Vernon	1B	66203470	173	No	No	No
Andres Galarraga	1B	66169284	174	No	No	No
John Olerud	1B	66005383	176	No	No	No
Will Clark	1B	65783929	178	No	No	No
Jim Bottomley	1B	65314884	182	No	Yes	No
Keith Hernandez	1B	65176371	183	No	No	No
Jason Giambi	1B	65009790	184	Yes	No	No
Mark Mcgwire	1B	64627938	188	No	No	Yes
Joe Judge	1B	64444926	191	No	No	No
Joe Kuhel	1B	63420103	199	No	No	No
Hank Greenberg	1B	62917028	206	No	Yes	No
Don Mattingly	1B	60811794	233	No	No	Yes
Orlando Cepeda	1B	60643276	236	No	Yes	No
Derrek Lee	1B	51152523	361	No	No	No
George Kelly	1B	51089577	363	No	Yes	No
Ralph Kiner	LF/1B	50893444	369	No	Yes	No
Miguel Cabrera	1B	49082727	402	Yes	No	No
Frank Chance	1B	44714927	479	No	Yes	No
Ruben Sierra	1B	38760996	647	No	No	Yes
Mark Teixeira	1B	37276243	701	Yes	No	No
Charlie Comiskey	1B	31748138	913	No	Yes	No
Phil Nevin	1B	24599722	1245	No	No	Yes

Gehrig ranks as WIS’s top first baseman with the fore-mentioned caveats. Foxx joins him as the only two to top $100million. Until this exercise I never really thought to consider how awesome Gehrig was. Two year before retirement, he ops+’ed 176. In WIS terms, he was still an $8M player. Had it not been for ALS, he probably would have packed on at least another $25M in value pushing him up to #5 or #6.

Murray, Palmeiro, Thomas, Helton, Pujols, Heilmann, Bagwell, Thome and Beckley all make the top 100. That is a pretty good bunch for inner circle greats. The only guy I’d really question for on-field reasons is Helton—but then the SIM doesn’t park-adjust real-life stats.

The waters get murky pretty quick though. Sisler clocks in at #105 and while he was regarded as an inner circle great when he retired, modern sabermetrics indicate he is a weak career candidate (though his peak was incredible). Mark Grace and his 16 year career rank #107. This seemed really odd to me, but it turns out he had a pretty long run (11 years or so) of being very good and playing lots of games. I would have never guessed his career line was .303/.383/.442. It also doesn’t hurt that WIS over-estimates his-- still considerable-- defensive prowess.

Tony Perez and Steve Garvey are the next highest ranked 1B. At first I couldn’t wrap my brain around how they ranked higher than HoFers Bill Terry, Willie McCovey, Johnny Mize, and Harmon Killebrew. But Garvey is better than I remember (check out his scores on the baseball-reference HoF tests) though no HoFer. Tony Perez is universally regarded as a pretty weak HoFer. Bill Terry really was a full time player for ten years although he had a Sisler-esque peak so I could see why his career value might be roughly equal to Perez or Garvey. I never realized that McCovey missed so many games in his prime and I can’t find out any information why. Mize’s stats are hurt a ton by the three years he served his country- he’d be up around Thomas otherwise. WIS doesn’t think much of Killebrew’s fielding or his average (.256) career so his ranking makes a lot of sense. Current ballotee, Fred McGriff ranksin the middle of this pack at #129. Like Grace and Garvey he was just good for a long time. Its kind of a shame, because at one time 2000 hits and a .500 slugging average was nearly a guaranteed ticket to Cooperstown.

Deadballers Roger Connor, Cap Anson and Dan Brouthers sandwich Carlos Delgado. Cap Anson only has half his career value on WIS otherwise he is up there with Musial. And until just now I had no idea how awesome Cap was. He had 3400 hits even though half his career was spent in 112 game (or less) leagues. Had he started playing ball 20 years later than he did, he might still be the all-time hits leader. Brouthers and Connor suffer similarly as Anson in the WIS ranking, though neither had the kind of career numbers Anson had, both were better at peak. Carlos Delgado is similar to McGriff—had he played 20 years before but still slugged like he was able to in the 1990s, he’d be Willie Stargel (#159).—Look at those career numbers. Can you imagine that there was a time when that was a first ballot HoFer?

Jake Daubert (#160) is in because WIS likes his defense over 15 years. Mickey Vernon (#173), Andres Galarraga (#174), John Olerud (#176) had long careers with a few great years. Will Clark (#178) is similar with more value on defense and a shorter career—which is a shame, because it seemed like when he retired he had a lot of good baseball left in him. Besides, it would have saved me from watching Tino Martinez play 1B for the Cardinals.

Speaking of the Cardinals, Cardinal greats Bottomley, Hernandez and McGwire are at #182, 183# and #188. Bottomley’s ranking is about right. He is a guy who benefited from both the era he play and his teammates to boost his stature. He is a dubious member of the HoF and barely makes our top 200. Hernandez should probably be on the other side of Bottomley. Adjusted for era, he was a better hitter and regardless of era, he was a much better fielder. WIS gives him a lot of credit for his glove and he probably deserves more. McGwire doesn’t get much love from WIS. The database doesn’t case about steroids, but it does care that he was injured a lot mid-career and that his average was just .263. Like with Harmon Killebrew, WIS seems to adjust the value of HRs in a fair way.

Current player, Jason Giambi ranks ahead of McGwire. When he is done, he may Delgado for career value, though with a better steroid aided peak. A pair of Joes, Judge and Kuhel, round out the top 200. Judge had a long career and a good glove for which WIS give him credit. Interestingly enough Kuhel replaced Judge both as the Senators’ 1B and as the premier defensive 1B in the 1930s AL.

Missing the WIS top 200, but in the Hall are Hank Greenberg (#206), Orlando Cepeda (#236), George “Highpockets” Kelley (#363) and Frank Chance (#479). The Hebrew Hammer essentially had an 11 year career, essentially missing all of the WWIIE years killing Nazis with Brad Pitt. As for Cepeda, remember what I wrote about slugging .500 and getting 2000 hits, it turns out .499 is good enough. In WIS terms, he fits the mold of Galarraga and Olerud, but in a lower offensive environment for which WIS doesn’t completely adjust. It’s a shame Don Mattingly (#233) didn’t play with Frank Frisch in the 1920s, then he’d be in the Hall of Fame. And he’d still be a better first basemen than George “Highpockets” Kelly. As for Frank Chance, the WIS database doesn’t read poetry.

AS bad as some HoF picks are, I’d have to call the WIS 200 worse. It’s becoming clear to me that without looking at peak, there are too many good- but not great guys. Its also becoming clear to me that the WIS database doesn’t adjust as much for era as most saberticians would.

1/12/2012 1:25 AM (edited)

boogerlips

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Interesting that Carl Yaz is just ahead of Foxx. Someone asked who the second best Red Sock was and someone else piped up "Yaz!" and I explained how they were stupid for forgetting Jimmie Foxx. Oh well...

1/11/2012 10:46 AM

boogerlips

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Zoob, how do you think the WIS salary system compares to WAR?

1/11/2012 10:48 AM

mattedesa

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Great work on these posts, zub. Really interesting how these good but not great players that had an extra long career show up to be so valuable in this measurement. It might be a questionable indicator for real-life HOF, but how about a progressive league HOF? Which is more valuable - an average length great career or an extended length good career? I could make arguments both ways.

1/11/2012 11:04 AM

brianjw

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I think it will turn out to matter a lot what kind of progressive league you are in. The WIS salaries are value above an incredibly low threshold. It's not quite not being there, but it is close. In most progressives, the replacement quality players will be a bit higher than that. But the difference between being in a 24 team progressive in an era of 26 teams (when replacement will be very very low) and a 24 team progressive in an era of 30 teams (when there will be some decent replacement players floating around) is very important for figuring out value in a progressive. (I'm assuming here that value is value above replacement, and replacement is literally what you can get in a draft at around the point where most people stop making picks.)

That's all to say, there's no such thing as a progressive league HOF without getting very clear on the structure of the progressive involved.

1/11/2012 1:22 PM

crickett13

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I never realized that McCovey missed so many games in his prime and I can’t find out any information why

He had really bad knees.

1/11/2012 2:16 PM

zubinsum

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Posted by boogerlips on 1/11/2012 10:48:00 AM (view original):
Zoob, how do you think the WIS salary system compares to WAR?

For position players, Wins Above Replacement or WAR a composite stat generated using offensive and defensive metrics. Typically weighted on base average (wOBA) and ultimate zone rating (UZR) are used, but as I understand different organizations use different metrics. The offensive and defensive metrics
are added together in a from that gives total worth in runs. This value is compared to a theoretical replacement player that is usually defined as being the league average less a constant. A positional and league adjustment is made to get Runs Above Replacement (RAR). RAR is converted to WAR by dividing by ~10. I think the end result is also scaled to playing time.

The WIS salary data base differs in three major ways

* RC and fielding/range grades are used instead or wOBA and UZR.

* Salary is in absolute terms while WAR is relative to replacement level-- or really league average. But we could adjust WIS salary to salary above average (or replacement) rather easily. Salary Above Replacement (SAR) would equal ($/PA - k )*PA. I am guessing replacement salary would be ~$4000/PA.

* Most importantly I THINK in the WIS database the marginal cost of production (in salary) increases as RC/PA increases. In WIS, RC/PA (inclusive of defensive and seasonal adjustments) is ralated to salary per PA ($/PA) in some kind of exponental function: e.g. $/PA = x * (RC/PA)^y. To put this another way, using WAR, each win is treated as being equal and a 8 WAR year is worth as much as two 4 WAR years. In WIS an 160 RC year cost more (in salary) as two 80 RC years.

[Edit-- Thinking about it more, WIS may use RC27 instead of RC to salary players... the would also explain the exponential effect that I percieve.]

1/12/2012 1:24 AM (edited)

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