FanPost

A look at the HOF ballot through the lens of JAWS

Already bored with Tanakamania, I thought I would take a look at the HOF Ballot using JAWS with a twist. The table below is based on the 2014 HOF Ballot Stats Page at BB-Ref

Per BB-REF Glossary

JAWS -- Jaffe WAR Score System
Developed by Jay Jaffe and introduced on Baseball Prospectus.
JAWS contains a combination of Career and 7-yr peak WAR totals
allowing for comparison to average Hall of Famers by position.

What I did was look at the difference between the players JAWS total and that avg total for a HOF at that position and convert the raw number of that gap to a percentage over or under the average. This is how the table came out ranked by that percentage

Player WAR WAR7 JAWS Jpos Ov/Un Pos % Ov/Un Pos
1 Barry Bonds 162.5 72.8 117.6 53.2 64.4 121%
2 Roger Clemens 140.3 66.3 103.3 61.4 41.9 68%
3 Greg Maddux 106.8 56.3 81.6 61.4 20.2 33%
4 Mike Piazza 59.2 43.1 51.1 43.1 8 19%
5 Jeff Bagwell 79.5 48.2 63.8 54 9.8 18%
6 Frank Thomas 73.6 45.3 59.5 54 5.5 10%
7 Alan Trammell 70.3 44.6 57.5 54.7 2.8 5%
8 Curt Schilling 79.9 49 64.4 61.4 3 5%
9 Tim Raines 69.1 42.2 55.6 53.2 2.4 5%
10 Mike Mussina 83 44.5 63.8 61.4 2.4 4%
11 Tom Glavine 81.4 44.3 62.9 61.4 1.5 2%
12 Rafael Palmeiro 71.8 38.8 55.3 54 1.3 2%
13 Edgar Martinez 68.3 43.5 55.9 55 0.9 2%
14 Larry Walker 72.6 44.6 58.6 58.1 0.5 1%
15 Mark McGwire 62 41.9 52 54 -2 -4%
16 Craig Biggio 64.9 41.6 53.3 57 -3.7 -6%
17 Sammy Sosa 58.4 43.7 51.1 58.1 -7 -12%
18 Fred McGriff 52.6 36 44.3 54 -9.7 -18%
19 Luis Gonzalez 51.5 33.8 42.7 53.2 -10.5 -20%
20 Jeff Kent 55.2 35.6 45.4 57 -11.6 -20%
21 Lee Smith 29.6 21.1 25.4 34.4 -9 -26%
22 Don Mattingly 42.2 35.7 39 54 -15 -28%
23 Kenny Rogers 51.4 35.6 43.5 61.4 -17.9 -29%
24 Moises Alou 39.7 27.5 33.6 53.2 -19.6 -37%
25 Jack Morris 44.1 32.8 38.4 61.4 -23 -37%
26 Ray Durham 33.7 25.7 29.7 57 -27.3 -48%
27 Armando Benitez 17.7 16.6 17.2 34.4 -17.2 -50%
28 Mike Timlin 19.6 14 16.8 34.4 -17.6 -51%
29 Paul Lo Duca 17.9 18.7 18.3 43.1 -24.8 -58%
30 Hideo Nomo 21.1 22.8 22 61.4 -39.4 -64%
31 Eric Gagne 11.9 12 12 34.4 -22.4 -65%
32 Richie Sexson 17.9 18.8 18.4 54 -35.6 -66%
33 Todd Jones 10.9 11.3 11.1 34.4 -23.3 -68%
34 Sean Casey 16.3 16.3 16.3 54 -37.7 -70%
35 Jacque Jones 11.5 13.2 12.4 53.2 -40.8 -77%
36 J.T. Snow 11 12.8 11.9 54 -42.1 -78%

Steroids debate aside, this list looks about right to me. I personally have Schilling above Mussina and Glavine, but they are really interchangeable. In the real world, Bonds and Clemens aren't getting in any time soon, Glavine is a LOCK, Trammell will never get in, unfortunately. Raines is a long shot. Piazza and Bagwell are steroids suspects without any evidence. The HOF is a mess. But it's still fun to look back at guys careers and debate who were the best of the best.