Hoffman and the Hall

Tom Tango looks at players with similar first year Hall of Fame vote percentages as Trevor Hoffman, and how long it took them to make the Hall:

So, expect Hoffman to be voted in, no later than on his 5th year.

Bill James published a free article on closers and the Hall of Fame yesterday. Most of it is about how to value closers, where these pitchers are concerned, I’m closer to this argument:

The Hall of Fame is not about value—I am just being the Devil’s Advocate here—the Hall of Fame is not about VALUE, it is about EXCELLENCE. Perhaps his managers should have assigned Trevor Hoffman a different role. Perhaps conventional wisdom placed Trevor Hoffman in a 55-inning role when it should have put him in a 90-inning role, and perhaps conventional wisdom had him protecting three-run leads because three-run leads will get you a save but are not actually a high-leverage situation. . .perhaps, perhaps. This isn’t about value, it is about excellence, and about historic standards. In the role that he was assigned, Trevor Hoffman had historic impact.

Here again, a fallacy. The Hall of Fame is (unarguably) about historic performance. But we really don’t know yet whether Trevor Hoffman’s 600 saves are or are not a historic performance. Closers have only been in their modern role, piling up 45 saves a year, since about 1990. It may be that, in 30 years, there will be 20 pitchers with 600 saves, and it may not be all that notable.

I think the sabermetric community is guilty of a confusing what is permanent—Hall of Fame selection—with what is temporary (our current best estimates of player’s value), but I also think the traditional sportswriting world is guilty of the same thing, in assuming that Trevor Hoffman’s 600 Saves are a historic accomplishment, when in fact they may not be. I’m not sure I would vote for Trevor Hoffman over Lee Smith or Billy Wagner; in fact, I think I probably wouldn’t. I probably would vote for Smith or Wagner first, despite the career Saves number.

But would the Hall of Fame be better, without any Closers? Would a baseball team be better without a Closer? I don’t think so. I think you have to have Closers in the Hall of Fame, regardless of what Baseball Reference thinks their WAR is. I don’t think you can make the Hall of Fame discussion into a wholly owned subsidiary of WAR.

Like it or not, Closer is a position on the team. There should be very few, but the greatest closers should be in the Hall. That goes for designated hitters as well.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1mUWg2i