Hall of Fame Standards, Pitchers, Part 2

Yesterday, we discussed the Hall of Fame Standards for batters.  Today, we'll discuss them for pitchers in our league.

As a refresher, a HOF Standards score of 50 indicates an average Hall of Famer.  Points are awarded as follows:


1 point for every:

• 10 W over 100, limit 25
• 20 games over .500, limit 10
• .013 WPct over .500, limit 15 (min 500 IP)
• .20 ERA under 4.00, limit 10 (min 500 IP)
• 200K over 1000, limit 10 (min 500 IP)
• .3 BB/9IP under 4.00, limit 10 (min 500 IP)
• .3 H/9IP under 10.00, limit 10 (min 500 IP)
• 1000 IP over 1000, limit 5
• 100 CG over 200, limit 5
• 30 SHO, limit 5

I adjusted the last two for our league.  There is no one in the history of our league with anywhere close to 100 CG or 30 SHO.  As a result, I made it one point for every four CG over 30 and one point for every seven SHO (both subject to a limit of 5).  

So, who are the top pitchers?  Here's the top 10 (minimum 150 GS):

(Italics indicates an active pitcher, Bold indicates a Hall of Famer)

Juan Villatoro (82!) 

Demarcus Ramirez (72)

Ronald Placencia (72)

Christopher Hester (68)

John Okane (61)

Chad Nelligan (59)

Richard Pimental (48)

Fernando Estrada (47)

Albert Garcia (46)

Joseph Macaluso (45)

Some statistical reference points:

Average HOFs for all 110 qualifying pitchers:  21.55

Median HOFs:  21

Standard Deviation:  17.43

Despite Villatoro's extremely high score, he is "only" 2.87 SD above the average (as opposed to Hukill who is more than 3 SD above the mean for non-pitchers with an HOFs of 72).  In fact, there are only 11 pitchers who are better than 1 SD above the mean (the above 10 and Enrico Hernandez (44)).

Of these, some have been retired for a while.  Pimental's last season was 2014 and Garcia's was 2012.  The rest of the non-inductees have pitched in 2022 or later.

One thing that struck me was the lack of lefties among the elite pitchers in the league.  A quick check of the players database reveals that lefties comprise 28% of the all-time pitching pool.  However, they only make up 12% of the top 25 pitchers on the list (3/25 -- Okane, Bill Siple (42), Isaac Diehl (37)).  What does that mean?  I don't know... I'll leave that up to you to decide.  :)

In any event, I've added a tab to the spreadsheet for pitchers.  All 110 pitchers who have started a minimum of 150 games from the 2003 season and later. (GS was not recorded in OOTP 4, which is the version we used for the 2002 season).  You can see that spreadsheet here.

As a last point, Michael and I started discussing additions to the Hall and one of the questions that has to be asked is how exclusive should the Hall be?  Should fewer than 1% of all players be enshrined?  Should it be more expansive (perhaps as high as 4%?)

For historical context, 18,082 men have played in major league baseball since 1876.  Of those, 223 have been selected to the major leagues (excluding those elected as managers, executives, primarily on the basis of their excellence in the Negro Leagues, etc.).  That comes to a percentage of 1.2%.  Our league has had 1473 players play at least one game -- so with four Hall of Famers, we're currently at 0.3%. A Hall of 1.2% would have 18 players in it.

So, what do you think?  Let me know...  Want to see any other statistical analyses?  Let me know....

Zev