The Futility Infielder

Yesterday evening my pal Alex Belth sent an email asking my opinions about the Hall of Fame credentials of several active pitchers:

Got a question I thought you might have some thoughts about. I figure that Maddux, Johnson, Pedro and Clemens are sure-fire, first-ballot Hall of Famers. And I also figure that Glavine and Mariano will get there too.

1. Do you think T. Hoffman will?

2. Of the remaining starters with a legitimate shot now how would you rank the following pitchers: Mussina, Boomer Wells, Smoltz, Schilling and K. Brown (and is there anyone else I'm missing?).

In the midst of the Yankees' drubbing by Toronto, it seemed a better use of my time to research for a more definitive answer than a quick off the cuff response, so I broke out my JAWS gear. First off, I have to commend Alex for correctly identifying the top nine active starting pitchers according to the system; he almost certainly did so without scouring their Baseball Prospectus figures, but he didn't miss one. Here are the nine, updated through yesterday (so leaving aside Mussina's drubbing at the hands of the Blue Jays), along with some average JAWS scores for Hall of Fame pitchers:

                 Age   PRAA  PRAR   WARP3   PEAK   JAWS
Roger Clemens     42   637   1787   187.5   53.9   120.7
Greg Maddux       39   471   1535   159.3   57.5   108.4
Randy Johnson     41   442   1336   130.7   49.9    90.3
Tom Glavine       39   290   1255   125.2   42.0    83.6
Pedro Martinez    33   417   1036   106.2   56.2    81.2
Mike Mussina      36   304   1084   112.2   43.0    77.6
Kevin Brown       40   279   1084   107.4   45.7    76.6
John Smoltz       38   295   1019   102.0   38.2    70.1
Curt Schilling    38   301   1020    94.0   42.9    68.5
David Wells       42   142    957    94.0   33.2    63.6

Avg HOF Pitcher        205    964    95.1   43.1    69.4
BBWAA HOF Pitcher      260   1174   114.9   46.9    80.9
VC HOF Pitcher         137    705    70.7   39.6    55.1

The listed ages are as of July 1, which is the convention in dealing with baseball databases. Clemens just turned 43, but we're not too concerned about that here; he's a freak who could likely pitch another five years at some level of effectiveness, but not all of thes guys has so much in the tank. PRAA and PRAR are Pitching Runs Above Average and Above Replacement, respectively; the two give a good secondary measure of peak and career value. WARP3 is a player's career Wins Above Replacement Player total, adjusted for all-time, PEAK is his best five-consecutive year stretch, and JAWS is the average of those two numbers. The PEAK score skips over injury years in which a player misses more than 1/3 of a season; Pedro gets a mulligan for 2001, and Schilling, whose peak runs from 2000-2004, would get one for this year if his 2006 is better than his 2000 score of 7.2.

The numbers for the average scores are slightly out of date, as the WARP system has been recalibrated and will likely be recalibrated yet again this winter. I'm changing the way I handle it, but there's no sense digging in until Clay Davenport updates the system. A JAWS score of 69.4 is the average among all Hall pitchers, but as I discovered in evaluating the Veterans Committee ballot, that conceals a huge difference between those elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America (an average score of 80.9) and by the Vet Committee (55.1).

Assuming Schilling doesn't fall victim to the voodoo curses I place on him daily -- I can't take credit for the ankle, I want the fat bastard to REALLY suffer -- he'll surpass the overall average score, leaving Wells as the only pitcher below that bar. My guess as to how they'll rank in the final analysis once they're all done (taking age and health into account):

Clemens
Maddux
Johnson
Martinez
Mussina
Glavine
----------BBWAA Average
Smoltz
Brown
Schilling
----------Overall Average
Wells

I'm banking Martinez and Mussina will surpass Glavine, who at 39 is striking out 3.87 hitters per nine innings, a rather unsustainable rate. Brown is done, and Smoltz likely doesn't have another 22 WARP in him (needed to add 11 JAWS points to top the higher average). Of course, none of this takes into account awards or postseason performance. I'd imagine Smoltz, who won a Cy Young award and a World Series ring, and Schilling, who has two World Series rings, have enough hardware to get the call from the writers, Brown, with one ring and no Cys, does not. Mussina might get his candidacy downgraded over the fact that in all likelihood he'll have neither a ring (you'd have to be naive to assume otherwise at this juncture) nor a Cy to show for his effort.

Turning to the relievers, for reasons I explain here, I use a standard that's 70% of the Hall Starter average, so figure a JAWS of 48.6 to be the overall bar, 56.6 to match up to the writers' standard. Mariano Rivera's JAWS is 73.5/36.5/55.0, which is pretty close to the higher standard, and should surpass that with another season. Given his postseason success and the deserved admiration the press has for him, he is as close to a mortal lock for the Hall as Roger Clemens, in my opinion.

Trevor Hoffman comes in at 65.3/34.1/49.7. I'd say he has a case for induction, but the reality is that it's nowhere near as good as those of Goose Gossage (84.0/34.9/59.5) and Lee Smith (79.6/32.7/56.2), and since the voters haven't figured out what to do with relievers yet, he'll stand in the equivalent of a Moscow bread line. By that same token, Smoltz will get a bit of a boost as kind of a Dennis Eckersley Jr. when writers try to account for his four seasons in the bullpen. The fact that he's made a successful return to starting only adds to the uniqueness of his career path, and as in the case of Eck, uniqueness is often a good thing where voters are concerned.

Anyway, it's fun stuff to think about who will make the Hall of Fame; I always enjoy taking a look.