Now that we have career and season leader records in progressive drafts I believe league Hall of Fames are a possibility. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and have an idea of how a league HoF might work. Anyway, I’d welcome feedback, better ideas, etc., from other progressive players. I’m not wedded to any point in my plan, and would scrap any or all of it if someone points out a serious flaw or has a better way of doing it.

The plan-
WHO’S ELIGIBLE – Any player who has played in your league, is not currently part of the league and has no future seasons in the sim database. MLB has a five-year retirement rule, but I don’t think that’s necessary for progressive leagues. As long as he’s retired, no matter how recently he retired, he’s eligible.

NOMINATION – Each owner is allowed to nominate one eligible player per season. This is NOT the vote, but rather the nominations of names to put on the ballot. The nomination would stay open for a reasonable amount of time, say from the start of the season to the All Star break.

VOTE – Each owner may vote for up to three players on the ballot. Those votes aren’t equal, tho – 1 vote is worth 3 points, 1 is worth 2 points, 1 is worth 1 point. For example, you may vote thusly – Babe Ruth 3, Ty Cobb 2, Walter Johnson 1. That would give Ruth 3 points, Cobb 2, Johnson 1. Owners may also abstain, or partially fill out their ballots – it’s possible to simply vote Ruth 2, giving Babe Ruth 2 points but none to any other nominees.
The highest possible vote for most leagues would be 72 points (3 points x 24 teams.) It would take 45 points to be elected to the league Hall of Fame. This may seem a low total, but it would only be possible for a max of 2 players to be elected each season.
A player would need at least 10 points to carry over to next season’s ballot. If the player falls below that number his name will not appear on the next ballot and he’ll have to wait 5 league seasons before being eligible for nomination again. This will keep the ballots down to a reasonable size, and will inject a little strategy into when you nominate a player and when you don’t.

Sounds great, Steve!

Sounds really, really cool...whenever you want to do it, sounds like a lot of fun.

I like the idea!

Talk to beernoser who founded the first ever WIS progressive - The Beer League. We had a HOF. jrny is still campaigning for Dave Kingman.

I know for our particular league, I would love the idea of beginning it on our league's 20th anniversary.

I like the basic premise, but I would want more nominees initially for leagues that have been around for a while. I could easily see electing 3-5 players a season for the first few years for leagues that have been around for a while (again, like ours). I know for sure that our league probably has at least 10 viable HOF candidates backloaded. This is what the MLB HOF did its first few years and I think it makes sense.

And I never liked the idea of the minimum number of votes rule. If we're all responsible owners we'll know not to keep nominating players that only got 1 or 2 votes. This will also keep quality players from getting disqualified automatically in seasons where there are many viable contenders.

I also like the idea, it was included in our progressive league wish list to TZ. Looks like some of those ideas have made it to the light of day. Thanks, TZ.

As far as voting on a Hall of Fame, like your idea but I would agree with flyingman, the first class into any league needs to be more than 1 or 2 players. Could be 10 or more, depending on how long the league has been around. After the initial class then 1 or 2 may be about right.

Actually, all things being equal I wouldn't mind a no-limit type HoF selection process. There are a couple of considerations I took into account when I came up with my process.

- The candidate list isn't going to be that big. Imo we needed career stats to have a league HoF. At this point in time no league is going to have more than 12 or so league season records. I don't see 10 clear cut Hall of Fame types in any of the leagues I'm with records that stretch for a dozen seasons.

- Ideally a successful HoF electee gets 75% of the vote. In a 24-team league that means his name would appear on 18 ballots. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I really doubt any league would get 100% voter turnout for a HoF election. I'm not even sure 18 out of 24 owners would vote. We could have it that a nominee only needs to appear on 75% of the ballots cast, but if only 12 owners vote - and that's always a possibility - that would mean someone made it into the league HoF although that player was only voted for by 8 of the 24 players. This would be the best and easiest method, but I don't assume everyone is going to participate.

With a weighted system like the one I mentioned it would still be an achievement to get into the HoF, but it would only require 15 owners participating. Of course, if there were only 15 voters they'd all have to cast their top vote for the same player, but at least you'd only need 2/3 of the league participating.

If you use a weighted system with a limited number of votes you need some force limiting the number of players you're voting for. Each owner has 3 votes, one worth 3pts, one worth 2pts, one worth 1pt, 6 points total per owner, 144 points total for a 24-team league. Under those conditions a ballot with 4 players is more likely to result in a successful election of at least one player than would a ballot with 10 players.

a lot of owners would not bother nominating anyone, and would not bother voting for anyone

I like the idea a lot!

I agree, I run two progressive leagues. I would like to see this for the one I start in 1901 and is currently in 1906.

Quote: Originally Posted By brygold on 10/16/2009Talk to beernoser who founded the first ever WIS progressive - The Beer League. We had a HOF. jrny is still campaigning for Dave Kingman

Vote for Jim Maloney !!!

if the Enos Cabell I had a while back ever came close to the Prog #'s he put up, he'd be at least a candidate for the Hall(I mean, the 70's & 80's did have Schmidt & Brett as benchmarks at 3rd)