Improving the Hall of Fame Process

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Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#1 Post by Board of the PEBA »

With the induction of Conan McCullough, the PEBA welcomed their fifth Hall of Fame Class, and with that I've some thoughts about where we are in the process:

- Six pitchers, four hitters, and two non-players have been inducted.
- 34 ballots were sent this year (JR and Duane receiving ballots along with all 32 current GMs). 7 GMs failed to vote.
- 33 ballots were sent in the 2034 election and there were 8 non-votes.
- The best result was the 2032 ballot, where we had just 4 non-votes.

I was chatting with NJ Mike and he had some ideas as to ways to possibly improve voting and/or increase interest in the process. They included:

1) possible league wide CP bonus if we reach 29 of 32 votes (just over 90%, maybe 5CP or 10CP)
2) find a way to provide the previous years votes to you so that you have a quick starting point to improve a quick response
3) maybe 2x CP for a HOF specific article at year end to help push awareness of players and who people think others should vote for.

I think there are some intriguing ideas there - and I'm sure that there may be others out there as well, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on how we can improve our voting efficiency - of the process as a whole!
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#2 Post by Hitmen »

I keep a screen shot of my year-to-year voting, so I have a starting point then adjust on a yearly basis if someone got in or removed and so forth. Rationale being if I did the research originally, I still want to see certain players make it next year, so I will keep voting. But I adjust for anyone new that should realistically be a first ballot or if anything changes.

This helps cut down on the needed research, as I don't remember otherwise my original rationale a season later.

I would recommend this for everyone but didn't know if there was an easier way.

Then just overall participation, or at minimum more open discussion around the time the list gets posted, till the voting is due. Hall of Fame voting should be more exciting and discussed in general. This is our league's history even if you haven't been here since the beginning and a lot of these guys are deserving.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#3 Post by Arroyos »

I think the HOF process is too restrictive. We only elected one player this year and there were a dozen or more who were, in my opinion, qualified. I fear we are falling into the same trap the defunct MLB fell into (before its inevitable demise and dissolution): we are leaving highly qualified players out of the Hall. The Hall should be inclusive, not exclusive. Let's find a way to make it easier for players to get inducted.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#4 Post by Hitmen »

Improved participation (would love 100%) should help. But other ways to alter as Bob mentioned, to maybe adjust the entry requirements is a possibility.

If we adjust the criteria from 75%:
- Dropping to 70% would only have impacted 2031 and had +2 more individuals
- Dropping to 65% would have added the 2 from 70% (above) and +1 more in 2031. The rest impacted in 2032-34 would have then been covered from the add in 2031 (Conan was the lone guy fluctuating year to year).

So a 10% drop and all we have is 3 more guys. Maybe more as that would free up more votes in following years you could argue. I worry though if we keep dropping the entry requirement we would potentially (in the long run) dilute the HOF.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#5 Post by Claymores »

Don’t count non-votes as part of the overall percentage needed to get in.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#6 Post by Arroyos »

Why are we limited to ten votes per year? Some years, like the most recent one, there are more than 10 qualified candidates. Why shouldn't we be able to vote for every single player we feel is qualified? I wish I could have voted for 15 this year.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#7 Post by Hitmen »

Claymores wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:36 pm Don’t count non-votes as part of the overall percentage needed to get in.
Was thinking the same as well, and had to go check quickly. But it seems they already do that.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#8 Post by Borealis »

Hitmen wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:43 pm
Claymores wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:36 pm Don’t count non-votes as part of the overall percentage needed to get in.
Was thinking the same as well, and had to go check quickly. But it seems they already do that.
The percentages are based on the total people voted.

The 10-votes seemed a fair number - I'll add that there are GMs who do not use all 10; I don't think an unlimited (or larger limit) is necessarily helpful - though I'll agree with Bob about a restrictive Hall - not that that is the intent.

I wonder if a Rank Choice Ballot would provide a different result? I'm not sure how to manage it with our current setup, but something to consider...??
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#9 Post by Sandgnats »

I agree with all of these ideas. Lowering the threshold to 70% is a good one.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#10 Post by JayA »

I was talking with Mike this morning and mentioned the same thing, when he came up with the idea of tying voting to CP.

It started with me being quite surprised at how small these Hall of Fame classes seem to be. I'm of the Rich Eisen mindset of "can you write the history of the league without including this player?" If you can, then they don't deserve a spot in the Hall. If you can't, then put them in. So in that sense, I have a tendency to support every player who won an MVP or Cy Young award. Not all should be first balloters, obviously, but that was what the conversation was started from. Then Mike mentioned that a lot of guys in the league don't vote at all. A couple ideas here that I think are worth talking about:

1) Make the voting essential to the mandatory GM check-in at the end of the season. If a GM feels that nobody is worthy, they could simply abstain from voting.

2) Have the forms pre-populated with last year's votes--this would make it easier for GMs to update and submit year-by-year.

3) As already mentioned by others, making it such that there's a small CP reward as long as everybody submits their ballot. This should incentivize everybody to get it done. If you make it public who has and hasn't submitted, we can also peer pressure the guys who haven't submitted yet. I do think it should be all-or-none here.

4) Also as mentioned already, only count the ballots that are counted. So if only 20 people vote, only 15 votes would be needed to get a given player in.

Either way, love that this is a discussion that we're having. Thanks for bringing it to the table, Mikes. :grin:
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#11 Post by Thoroughbreds »

This was my first year voting and it was a little tedious going through all the players, but also enjoyable at the same time. Now that I have a baseline it should be much easier next year.

I personally think I may have a bit higher standards than most, so I don't see that 10 or 12 of these guys should be in the hall, but I think I did vote for 4 people in the end..
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#12 Post by Apollos »

I think for a lot of the long-time GM’s a significant portion of this debate is focused around the players present at the league’s inception, i.e. those players who had an abbreviated career but were dominant. Their numbers don’t necessarily suggest “dominant, HOF caliber player” but the context is important and I think there’s a divide between a lot of GM’s who were present for some of those players’ careers, and the GM’s that maybe saw just the tail ends or none.

I’m an admitted small hall guy, and wrestle with it myself - but every year when that ballot comes I’m wrestling with whether or not to include the likes of Nelson Anderson for that reason.

What if we separate the groups into Big Bang players (I think the no doubters are basically the ones already in), and those who are spending a full career in the PEBA? I don’t have a ballot handy, but if you did that, and restrict the voting on Big Bang players to GMs with 10+ seasons in (or some other semi-arbitrary number) I think both camps may be happy? My guess is the bulk of those players with the requisite credentials get in and we move the broader league vote towards guys who provide a better baseline we can compare them against.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#13 Post by Borealis »

If my memory serves me, I don't think we have 'big bang' players on the ballot - yes, players who were there in 2007, but had full careers (Steve McDonald comes to mind).

My one hesitation about a CP tie-in (was) is this: shouldn't you want to vote for the HoF?? Just like shouldn't you want to vote for the ASG and End of Season Awards - which people don't, even though they lose CP.

As for Jay's comments, I like the Rich Eisen approach - an excellent way of viewing a players value! To some others - pre-populated ballots?? That's way above this Commish's pay grade! And as I mentioned upstream, percentages are based only on cast ballots.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#14 Post by Apollos »

Borealis wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:06 am If my memory serves me, I don't think we have 'big bang' players on the ballot - yes, players who were there in 2007, but had full careers (Steve McDonald comes to mind).
I went back and checked since I didn’t do the research prior to my first post. All of the following (with 2007 season age in parentheses) were Big Bang guys and received over 20%:

SP Conan McCullough (26)
SP Dean O’Monahan (23)
C Jeff Cline (29)
SP Nelson Anderson (27)
LF Yoshino Miyata (25)
1B Octavio Pexego (24)
SP Victor Matos (29)
Rp Merlin Peters (26)
SS George Riley (27)
RP Jorge Aguilar (24)

I don’t want to overrate the significance of the time missed, because tough to say if some of them would have been any good during these missed years, but excluding McCullough since he’s already in, I think there’s very likely 5 more HoFers on that list if they had full careers.

Guys like Gunner are likely to get in as time passes since he’s already close, but in reality his numbers left him as a fringe guy anyway.
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Re: Improving the Hall of Fame Process

#15 Post by Lions »

I have lot of thoughts on HOF voting... so I'll try to organize this a bit.

What Do We Want?
It's not clear to me that we've defined what the problem is in order to fix it. I think there are two things:
  • Not enough people are voting
  • Not enough players are getting in
Is that it?

Large/Small Hall
I think once a group of people gets beyond a certain size, say 5 or so, it's very hard to find consensus on opinions. It should be no surprise that we're going to have some folks who want to see a large hall with many players getting in and some who want a small hall with just a handful.

Personally, I've historically been small hall, but I think I'm realizing over time that's not exactly it. What I really want is to see a restrictive hall that only allows the best in, but I still want to see a good number of players in it. I was personally disappointed to see only Conan get elected this year. What I'm starting to realize is that what I really want is to see a limited number of players get in each year. I would hate to see a single class of like 8 players. IMO, 3 or 4 should be the max that can get in annually.

Increasing Participation & Technical Aspects of Voting
I think tying CP to something is always valuable for participation, but you're never going to get everyone. So I'm in favor of CP for it.

I think the email balloting part is potentially problematic for some? Maybe it's not quite as front of mind as some other options may be. I do think it'd be very helpful for GM's to have their previous ballot information. Like Mike, I save off a copy of my votes from year to year, but I'm sure that's not something everyone does.

There is a HoF voting module in StatsLab, although I don't think it meets some of the requirements that we have. That said, it does track year to year voting and can be adjusted. The other nice thing is that you can see stat comparisons of players in it.

Big Bang Players
I actually rate Big Bang players more harshly for the missed time. The seasons they missed represent opportunities they didn't have to get injured or to have development turn negative on them. It's also a general OOTP thing that Big Bang players have a higher talent level than ones who've gone through the entire process. So I need these guys to be quite dominant before I'll consider their short careers to be comparable to a less player who came along later. I don't think it's fair to the full lifecycle players to project the Big Bang players to have played at the levels they did during the missed years.

Generating HoF Hype
Years ago I did Keltner List articles for every HoF candidate in another league I was in. They were a lot of work, but once published, they were a great reference for new GM's. They also were a nice tribute to each player regardless of their HoF status. Really, being on the ballot is. already a recognition of a great career, so it's worth really giving them their due. The Keltner List is pretty subjective, and doesn't definitively answer if a player should be in the Hall, but it's a great way to contextualize a player's career.

I'm not saying we need to do Kelter Lists specifically, but something to that effect, where as a league we really take some time for each player on the ballot could really give folks a chance to get excited about players that came years before. The one nice thing here is that once you've got the ballot documented, however you're going to do it, you really only have to do new articles for the added players.

I'd be open to contributing to this, or if other folks have other formats they like for this (maybe just a general article of their own), I'm cool with that, too.

Pitcher Bias
There seems to be a historical bias towards voting for starting pitchers. We've never had less than 4 SP in the top 6 vote getters. I think the reason for this is that we tend to have a wider talent curve for pitchers. The top end stands out from the rest of their peers more than hitters do. Bringing awareness to this, and highlighting career achievements of hitters should help to get some more hitters elected.

We're currently at 6 pitchers and 4 hitters in the HOF. The elected balance is only off a bit right now as we aren't that far along yet, but it seems to me that those percentages should be reversed based on typical roster distribution.

What Should We Do?
I think we can increase participation and excitement by addressing some of the things I talk about above. Like I said, though, we'll never get everyone. I thought 27 ballots out of 34 was a pretty good response rate of about 80%. If we can get that up to 90% I think we'll be golden.

I'm not convinced that lowering the ballot threshold to 70% gets us what we want... The only players to have finished over 70% and not gotten in were Pat Lilly and Conan, both of whom have now been elected. I also expect that the more GM's that vote, the more likely it is that we'll spread some of the votes around. Including Conan, only 4 players got even half the vote this year.

To me, that says there's too much disagreement about the players that are on the ballot, or people are restricting votes from players they think are worthy because they only have 10 votes. I have no idea how many people submitted 10 players and would have added more if they could have, but even a few people voting that way would increase the tally on some of these guys. I don't think I've ever been inclined to vote for more than 10, but others perhaps have.

Since I like to complicate numbers, I would personally try the following:
  • Allow unlimited ballot size
  • Elect anyone over 70%
  • Consider electing the Top X players with over Y% of the vote if the number of players over 70% are fewer than X players.
The last bullet point would come into play when we have a lot of disagreement at the top end and few players reach the 70% threshold. For example, if we want to put in the top 3 vote getters over 60% of the vote, then Gunnar McGruder would've made it this year in addition to Conan.

My last point here would be that doing all 3 of the above might be a big change to the process, so maybe we start with one or two of them and see how things go.


Celebrating Electees
Ok, one more thing that I think would be an interesting thing to add...

When the election results are announced, it's a fun thing at the Winter Meetings and there's a post about it here in the forums.

I would love to see a special Hall election article come out as well. Maybe we can give the player's plaque team GM a chance to write an article at double CP for the player in particular. Maybe we have an induction weekend in the summer where someone writes an article about the induction ceremony to generate some hype for the Hall at other times of the year. Just throwing out ideas...
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