Awardstown

4/30/24 PAGE UPDATE: BROUGHT THE ALL-OBL TABLE UP TO SNUFF; NOW CURRENT THROUGH THE YEAR 2000, AND AS ALWAYS, BASED ON BEST W.A.R. PER POSITION (Note: by OBL position played; may or may not match MLB positioning for that season, but was the best fit for the OBL team).

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8/2/23 UPDATE: IT’S BEEN A WHILE, HASN’T IT? ABOUT 25 O.B.L. SEASON “REPLAYS” HAVE BEEN EXECUTED AND RECORDED SINCE THE UPDATE IMMEDIATELY BELOW (SO IT’S NOT LIKE “WE” HAVE BEEN IDLE! ). HERE’S WHAT’S NEW: 1) THE ALL-OBL TEAMS FROM 1901 THROUGH 1970 HAVE POPULATED A TABLE THAT CAN BE FOUND HERE, AND 2) THE TOP-30 OBL 100TH-ANNIVERSARY TEAM (1871-1970) IS LOCATED JUST BELOW THAT. TWO OTHER PAGES WERE UPDATED TODAY, AS WELL: Year-by-year: Open Baseball League results (Retroplay.net) and 150 Seasons of the OBL (Baseball150.com). The plan for the immediate/short-term future is to dive right back into season replays for 1971 through 1980 (first 10 of the 50 remaining). Please give “us” some time to get through those 10 seasons before the next updates are issued.

1/14/2023 Update: Completed copying content from RetroPlay.net ‘s AWARDSTOWN, RE-set HOF page. (Relax, folks, both sites are mine). This “under construction” phase for Baseball150.com is well underway, as most RetroPlay.net pages have been copied into this domain to serve — initially, anyway — as a collective backup or “mirror site.” (We did give this page its proper Baseball150.com logo, though). Hopefully, we’ll soon have full overlap and then some, because new content will also be posted here among this site’s pages. Stay tuned, check back, and bookmark as you see fit. Sorry about the temporary transitional mess, but in the end, the remodeling will be worth it, IMO. NOTE: Much of the info below has been posted for quite some time, but it’s been left intact to help any and all “get” what’s going on here. One final, timely note: The National Baseball HOF (the real one in Cooperstown, NY) is scheduled to announce the 2023 balloting results on Jan. 24; what they announce may necessitate the updating of my Cooperstown Comparison chart (PDF). We’ll see, but I think you’ll find that PDF interesting, in any case…

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1/13/2023: WITH OUR H.O.F.-TRACKER UPDATED AND CONTENT & LINKS CHECKED, THE “GOOD FOR NOW” STAMP CAN APPLY. JUMP TO THAT ACTIVE-PLAYER TRACKER RIGHT HERE

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1/9/23: HAPPENING CURRENTLY/PLANNED FOR THIS PAGE: 1) ALL-LEAGUE TALLIES FOR PLAYERS AND TEAMS FROM 1871 THROUGH 1945; 2) O.B.L. 75TH-ANNIVERSARY HONORS; 3) “GOOD FOR NOW” STAMP PENDING AS EDITS MADE

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1/4/23 UPDATE: ADDED O.B.L. ALL-LEAGUE TEAMS (SEE ENTRY POINT AT ***** BELOW). THIS IS ALL-NEW DATA RE: AWARDS EARNED THROUGH THE “REPLAYED” 1945 SEASON. (THE ALL-LEAGUE SELECTIONS BEGAN IN 1871; ONE PLAYER FOR EACH POSITION, WITH TIEBREAKERS CONSIDERED IN SOME CASES; FLEXIBILITY IN THE OUTFIELDERS: CF MOST STRICTLY DEFINED, THEN RF, LF LOOSEST/CATCH-ALL).

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1/3/23 TEXT UPDATE: FOR THE FIRST SEVERAL WEEKS OF 2023, SITE-WIDE PAGE UPDATES WILL BE TRICKLING IN WITH FINALIZED, “SET-IN-STONE” DATA. SOME PORTIONS OF PREVIOUS TEXT BLOCKS WILL HAVE TO BE REWORKED, AS YOU CAN SEE IN THE PARAGRAPHS BELOW…

IT’S FINALLY HERE: “OPENING DAY” FOR THIS PAGE

3/19/2022 Update: You can now view and download the data connected to the 300 “Inductees” in this virtual Hall Of Fame/Hall Of Achievement. Culled from the final total of 18,855 MLB/NLB qualified players in the RetroPlay system (check out the complete directories here), these Elite 300 have emerged as the very best numbers-only — and retired — ballplayers in MLB/NLB history (1871 through 2020). Unlike the positional rankings, here there were no quotas per-position to be considered; RetroPlay Ratings (RPR) determined the first cut, Career WAR was the next determining factor, and all that remained to be seen was where the top 300 separated themselves from the rest of the pack in terms of RPR and CW. For a brief recap of that process, see several paragraphs below at “Final notes of comparison, and on the process.”

The current plan is to make available all of the site-wide download opportunities for free as we (that is, I) proceed with all 150 birthplace-based season-simulations (historic “replays”). After that is accomplished and all of the results are ready to be released, a book/books may be published, so at that time, the free downloads will probably cease (when I finally ask for token remuneration for all of my work). But between now and then, I’ve got a lot of replayin’ on my plate, so explore this site for all its worth.

**1/4/23 EXPRESS LANE NOTIFICATION: FOR OUR FINALIZED “GALLERY” OF (300) HALL OF FAME HONOREES, SCROLL DOWN BELOW THE “RetroPlay RE-set Hall Of Fame” GOLDEN PLAQUE ICON TO VIEW THE TEN 30-MAN (VIRTUAL) PLAQUES
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FIRST THINGS FIRST. ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR THIS VIRTUAL, NUMBERS-ONLY H.O.F. —

“RetroPlay RE-set Hall Of Fame” or… the “20/20 Hindsight Hall Of Fame”

As stated below, the formula that determines who makes this virtual HOF (or whatever it’s called) is very straightforward: RetroPlay Rating (RPR) = Career WAR (to 1 decimal point) times WAR-per-162-games (full season) rate (to one decimal point, as well); if a player’s (Career WAR) X (per-162 rate) = 225 or more, and he meets the PA/IP minimums, that player is automatically  “inducted” upon retirement. And we say “players” because this is a players-only Hall; no managers, executives, or “pioneers” in this virtual gallery of the players who had the most career impact on the field.

Other things to keep in mind:

1. The RPR formula is set up to reflect BOTH a sufficiently lengthy career (counting stat of Career WAR) and a career that has been consistently productive (rate stat of average WAR-per-162-games-played, indicating that the player had All-Star-type seasons — WAR of 5+ — year in and year out); it’s also designed to bypass the voting foibles of fans or veterans committees, such as cronyism and/or bias for or against contemporaries or direct rivals;
2. If a player gets to a healthy Career WAR total of 40 or 50 or so, but his per-162 average is only about 2.5 (indicating a starter, but not an All-Star, on average), well, his RPR total will be only 100 or 125, and he’s been exposed as someone who merely accumulated those career numbers over the course of a long career, and has not been consistently dominant or a true, virtually-annual All-Star (rhetorical question: is that a Hall-of-Famer in your book?);
3. a) We’re looking objectively at the metrics only, and not trying to assess character/morality/off-field behavior in any of this, and b) only regular-season performance is being weighed in the scales (subject to change if post-season data can be normalized, supplied, and added in somehow)

A preliminary event in the “lobby” before we enter the gallery of the greats…

Here is a teaser list in two parts; A) those still-active players who are already qualified (locked-in) and just need to retire to make it all official, and B) active players who are the most “on-track” to gain admission to this HOF (if not necessarily the real one):

First, those who are already qualified and merely have to retire so the final numbers can be etched in stone;

1. Mike Trout 82.4 CW x 9.5-per-162 = 782 RPR (6159 PA meets minimum); born in New Jersey
2. Albert Pujols 101.6 CW x 5.3-per 162 = 538 RPR (13,041 PA); born in the Dominican Republic
3. Clayton Kershaw 75.9 CW x 6.5-per-162 = 493 RPR (2581 IP meets minimum); born in Texas
4. Mookie Betts 56.4 CW x 8.2-per-162 = 462 (5064 PA); born in Tennessee
5. Justin Verlander 77.6 CW x 5.5-per-162 = 426 RPR (3163 IP); born in Virginia
6. Max Scherzer 71.7 CW x 5.7-per-162 = 408 RPR (2682 IP); born in Missouri
7. Zack Greinke 76.5 CW x 4.9-per-162 = 374 RPR (3247 IP); born in Florida
8. Paul Goldschmidt 58.5 CW x 5.9-per-162 = 345 RPR (6951 PA); born in Delaware
9. Joey Votto 64.3 CW x 5.2-per-162 = 334 RPR (8504 PA); born in Canada
10. Robinson Cano 68.1 CW x 4.9-per-162 = 333 RPR (9550 PA); born in the Dominican Republic
11. Nolan Arenado 52.2 CW x 6.1-per-162 = 318 RPR (5831 PA); born in California
12. Manny Machado 52.0 CW x 5.8-per-162 = 301 RPR (6273 PA); born in Florida
13. Evan Longoria 58.1 CW x 4.9-per-162 = 284 RPR (7969 PA); born in California
14. Miguel Cabrera 67.7 CW x 4.1-per-162 = 277 RPR (11,426 PA); born in Venezuela

So those are your “locks” according to (regular-season) career impact, as measured by RPR. Now, on to those who are apparently “on track” among players still active as of 2022;

1. Jacob deGrom 43.8 CW x 7.1-per-162 = 310 RPR (1326 IP, needs 1600 to qualify); born in Florida
2. Josh Donaldson 46.7 CW x 5.7-per-162 = 266 RPR (5667 PA, pending career-finish); born in Florida
3. Chris Sale 45.5 CW x 5.5-per-162 = 250 RPR (1678 IP; pending career-finish); born in Florida
4. Carlos Correa 39.5 CW x 7.2-per-162 for 284 RPR, but only 3813 PA so far; a long way to go…
5. Buster Posey 44.8 CW x 5.3-per-162 = 237 RPR (retired after 2021); born in Georgia

See how this works now? 14 of these 19 have already rolled up a 50+ Career War total (and all but our longest-/most-future- shot have amassed 40+); and 15 of 19 have average full-season WAR rates (“per-162” [games]) of 5.0 or better. So these are the guys who have not only been around awhile, but have consistently put up dominating seasonal numbers (solid, all-star-type production over the years). It’s possible that some of those who are still active will drop off the “on track” list as their career-ending seasons prove to be less productive, and that’s only natural. But that’s why we’re only willing to call those who are so far above 225 RPR the “locks” that even if they’d have horrendous seasons after 2022, it would be mathematically impossible to fall below 225 (and what team would continue to play them when they’re falling flat on their faces like that?).

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*** 2/25/22 NOTE: The following section has been “grandfathered in” in order to explain how the RetroPlay system treats relief pitchers with regard to H.O.F. consideration.

Admittedly, something had to be done to accommodate the relief specialists, since WAR smiles on the innings-chewers, and not even one RP met even the original (experimental) threshold of 200 points, with the final cutoff settling in around 220. Even Mariano Rivera, the Gold Standard by which all relievers can be measured, came in short at 191 (career WAR of 56.2 multiplied by WAR-per-162-games of 3.4). Since we all should be able to agree that at least a small, representative contingent of the Relief-Specialist variety belongs in the Hall of Fame or a “Hall of Achievement,” if you prefer, some different criteria had to be developed to correct any across-the-board injustice at the hands of WAR and/or my use of it for all other players. So here’s what I hit upon, called the Relief-Specialists Index (RSI):

1. Set Rivera’s totals of Saves (652), Career WAR (56.2), and WAR Per 162 Games (3.4) at the 100th percentile in each of those 3 categories (RSI of 300);
2. Looked at each Relief Specialist inducted into Cooperstown and all relievers in MLB history with 300+ saves to compare their numbers with Rivera’s in each of the 3 categories (expressed as a ratio and resulting percentile; e.g, 326 saves would be 326/652, or 50% — for a total of 50 points in that category);
3. Worked through the numbers, added ’em up, and the top 8 were named RRHOF members in good standing (picked 8 because there were 8 official HOFers who had made the Hall primarily as relievers to that point). This way, apples are compared with apples, and ultimately with the “Golden Apple,” the only HOFer to go in with unanimous backing (100% of the vote).

Now with this RE-set HOF in place, all of the ensuing controversy can begin (if that’s your thing). In any case, what you’ll find here (all of this is IMHO, you understand, right?) is a more objective, numbers-only (and players-only) gallery of the very best diamond achievers; call it a “Hall of Achievement,” if you will, rather than a Hall of Fame. Admittedly, I’m leaning very heavily on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as the best one-figure measure of seasonal or career performance (with any apology due to Bill James cheerfully offered; the fact is, WAR numbers are just so readily available and fairly-well standardized, even if the Win Shares system of Mr. James should prove to be a truer measure). I started out way back at the tail end of the 20th Century with the Batter-Fielder- and Pitcher- Wins system (Palmer and Thorn, et al, as seen in the Total Baseball encyclopedia series), but since I had to put the whole birthplace-based historical replay project on the shelf for almost two decades — as life took me in other directions — WAR came roaring in and supplanted previous systems. So I cast my lot with WAR as the most readily-available-yet-quite-accurate stat, and I’m sticking with that, building upon that statistical base.

Hence, the whole RRHOF “selection” process hinges on only two WAR figures, multiplied by each other. If a player’s career WAR total (__._) times his “per 162 games” average WAR (_._) equals or exceeds 225, he’s in (automatically, upon retirement; all questions of character, PED-usage, etc. are irrelevant here as factors, though I do have my opinions on how relevant they should be with regard to THE National Baseball HOF in Cooperstown). I think that when you see the “new” (RE-set) roll call of superior players (only, and according to less subjective criteria), the overall picture will be improved. But by all means, check out my claims, compare the numbers of the “ins” and the “outs,”and form your own opinion. Even controversy can be fun, right?

FORMULA, R.R.H.O.F. : RetroPlay Rating (RPR) = CAREER WAR (__._) X WAR AVG. PER 162 GAMES (_._). TOTALS OF 225+ EARN AUTOMATIC INDUCTION WHEN FULL CAREER IS “IN THE BOOKS” [NOTE, HOWEVER: RELIEF-SPECIALISTS GAUGED BY SEPARATE RELIEF-SPECIALIST INDEX (RSI)]

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Not to take anything away from those making the Top 300 list here in this virtual HOF, OR… from those who have been inducted into the real one at Cooperstown, but a few disclaimers are probably in order here, right at the top;

1. While many observers have been questioning for decades — with good reason, IMO — the validity of the National Baseball Hall Of Fame’s ever-changing balloting procedures and some — okay, several — selections that have resulted from those inconsistent procedures and the personalities involved, the reality is that it is what it is; it’s all actual history, the way things did happen, and nobody can change the past.
2. While I have no desire to try to “rewrite” history (truth be told, I despise that sort of thing), it seems to me that some (many?) players who are NOT honored with a plaque in Cooperstown are actually more deserving of that recognition than some who “reside” there; that, if things were less political and subjective, and more objectively considered, there would be a justifiable “swapping-out” of the luckier sorts with those who actually accomplished more on the field, only to be shortchanged well after the fact when it came to the ultimate honor for a baseball player (read: due to cronyism and voting foibles).
3. For me, a player’s career has two overarching benchmarks: TOTAL production/contributions for his teams and CONSISTENT DOMINANCE (compared with his contemporaries in his own leagues and eras). It’s my opinion that the RetroPlay Rating (RPR) does a good job of combining both aspects into a single number, so that’s our HOF measuring-stick.
4. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: A) Probably the major difference between “Halls” is that here, ONLY regular-season performance has been measured and rated; no post-season accomplishments are factored in, and I’ll readily admit to this weakness in my system (I’m saying, “Uncle!” on that one); and, B) As I’ve mentioned in other places, while I do have my opinions on how much a “moral” component should play a part in the actual HOF (Cooperstown) voting, in this system — for better or worse — we’re looking at the numbers only.
5. MOST importantly, nobody is going to come to me and ask me to overhaul THE Hall; what is offered here is merely a virtual, alternative, what-if-things-had-been-different-all-along gallery of baseball greats, where the idea is more to give overdue recognition to some truly excellent players, than it is to diminish the reputations of others; if this is a “re-set” Hall at all, the whole effort is aimed at more objective justice in the arena of career-impact recognition.

Final notes of comparison, and on the process: When I recently consulted the official tally coming out of Cooperstown at the HOF site, the number of inductees voted in as players (to date) is close to 300 (out of 340 total, with the others going in as managers, executives, or pioneers). Since we don’t include any of those other categories here, it seemed appropriate to match those nearly-300 with the RetroPlay 300. Oddly enough — and I love it when things work out like this — the RPR cutoff that I’d chosen that seemed to be the most fair (225 or more “points”) drew a line that separated out almost exactly 300 players as Hall-worthy. But among those, 18 are still active (through 2021), and two (Dobie Moore and Charlie Keller) lacked plate appearances to qualify, so they’re tossed out. And when our Top 8 Relief Pitchers were added in (SEE ABOVE UNDER THE “2/25/22 NOTE”): Rivera, with 300 points in the separate Relief-Specialist Index (RSI); Eckersley (256 points in that computation); Wilhelm (200); Gossage (200); Hoffman (195); Lee Smith (180); Wagner (179); and Nathan (171), the RetroPlay RE-set HOF list came to include 284 retired players.

Feeling especially good through “self-confirmation bias” (delighted that my 225-point cutoff was fairly spot-on), I “generously” dropped the qualifying line to include exactly 300 retired players (remember once again, I’d included those still-active players in my rankings, and all of the close-to-300 players currently in Cooperstown are retired; in the interest of comparing apples with apples, there is now — by dropping the cutoff just a tad — something approximating a one-to-one correspondence (roughly 300 to 300) between the two “honor rolls”). [It should also be mentioned here that there’s a nice symmetry in the 300 being extracted from 150 seasons, or an average of 2 standout representatives per year; another one of those things where I’m just sayin’…]. As a result of these adjustments, the next 16 (retired) players in the RetroPlay Ratings could be granted admission (and probably, justifiably so). All in all, then, here’s who made the Top-300 cut, displayed via ten 30-player virtual plaques:

THE RETROPLAY.NET RE-SET HALL OF FAME GALLERY

To those who are veteran HOF-watchers, around 90% of the names will look quite familiar, as they appear in both “galleries.” In other cases, the new names might provoke some head-scratching, puzzled expressions, scrambling for statistical records, cursing, or even — just maybe — some more-positive commentary along the lines of, “Yeah, I thought so! I thought that [so-and-so] deserved to be in the Hall, and here are some reasons why he should be there!” I must say, putting as much weight on W.A.R. data and formulas as I do, I still ran across some real surprises. But after cross-checking the math, the same players emerged as worthy candidates, and unless extreme and arbitrary gerrymandering would be employed to subjectively bar certain players or types of players, these candidates could justifiably step across the threshold and into the elite gathering. For me, that was the lion’s share of the fun: I knew — we all knew, didn’t we? — that some Hall “residents” were there UN-worthily, if truth be told, but what about those who should be there, if the selection processes had been conducted more fairly and consistently? Ah,… there’s the real satisfaction: finding the largely-unrecognized diamonds of the diamond, and giving them their overdue moments in the sun.

COOPERSTOWN COMPARISON

More may be added to this page in the coming days, but for now, we’ll leave things at session’s end with this “Cooperstown Comparison” chart/scroll. It’s fairly intuitive, and at a glance, it should be apparent that it’s a position-by-position comparison between “our” humble, virtual “RetroPlay RE-set HOF” (new) inductees and the actual, Cooperstown, New York inductees that don’t make the cut in this WAR-based, numbers-only system. In the wide, far-right column, comments try to help to explain either why so-and-so is included here, but NOT in Cooperstown, or what was keeping him out of this virtual HOF. Red-letter players have actually qualified at more than one position (500+ game appearances there, in most cases); they’re listed under the position at which they appeared most frequently during their MLB careers. [NOTE: under “RANK” please find the player’s ranking among the top players at that particular position, though that number in the list may change slightly with a more precise deep-dive/revamping; either way, it can give a pretty good idea how players compare to each other within the rankings]. I think you’ll get a kick out of this, even if you take issue with my methodology or how things landed. Here we go (Excel-type scrolling chart first, PDF second):

It probably goes without saying that a lot more could be done in this HOF-comparison area, and maybe down the road, the selection-processes of others will be imported and included here for further comparison. But for now, on Saturday night, March 19, 2022, that’s your ballgame, folks.

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All-OBL Teams (1901-1970)

***** Table of OBL All-League Teams (1901-1970); Best players by WAR, observing positional integrity in the context of where they played for their OBL team, and not necessarily for their MLB/NLB team that year. Hint: Use the slider to facilitate a widescreen view as needed.

O.B.L. 100TH-ANNIVERSARY TEAM (TOP 30 [37 WITH TIES] BY ALL-OBL SELECTIONS, 1871-1970)

ALL-OBL SELECTIONS FROM 1971 THROUGH 2000 (POSTED 4/30/2024)