I hate to be morbid, Milton, but I suspect he may have passed away. He mentioned a hospital stay and then suddenly fell off the map. Truly sad situation. I reckon we will be needing to replace him.

I'm sorry to hear that.

I am going to get extremely busy this week so wanted to put out my takes on HoF. I think Brewer should get in with 3000 hits, I could get on board with A Torres, and I am on the McKain train and thinks he should be in, but let the discuss begin. I do not see a Pitcher that is deserving. Just my thoughts.

I 100% agree with Thebigdogs here. McKain gets in for reasons I've previously argued (2nd all-time in SB), and Chuck Brewer is third, all-time, in Walks-plus-Hits at 4,549. Behind only Joaquin Jacquez (4794), and the still-playing, truly amazing Carlos Calles (4,716).

I'm more iffy on A. Torres, but open to suggestion. On the other side of the ball, I could be talked into Carl Harvey - P.

BTW, in looking through these historic stats, I was found wondering whatever happened to Cole Ruffin? https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=1440989

Shouldn't he have been on the list? I regret not getting him in in hindsight.

I could vote for RP Willis Tanner, LF Gabriel McKain, 2B John Servais and 1B Chuck Brewer

I’m good with Brewer. Not much else I see that needs to get in. I understand the McKain argument but it’s not the Hall of neat stats.

I'm stumping for 2B John Servais and SP Carl Harvey.. I’ll repeat my arguments for them from last time.
John Servais (2B) - Elite production in multiple years and consistent excellence throughout. Played an error-free2b, but didn't have range after a S36 injury, so I'd consider his defense largely a wash (useful, positive positional value, but a lotta negative plays in 2nd half of his career. 2468 hits, .300 avg, 327 hrs and 200 steals from an ok 2b is HOF for me.
Carl Harvey (SP) - Are the wins (183) low? Absolutely. But he has Juuuuuuust enough innings (2800) and they were GOOD innings. 6 seasons of sub-3.00 ERAs, five more that were right around that number, and he did it all in neutral or worse parks, so no real park assist. Gave his teams roughly 200 near-elite innings for 16 years - there's a biiiit of a Mike Mussina comp here, though Moose wasn't as good on a per-inning basis, while pitching for better teams and racking up the wins.
I don’t see how one could support RP Willis Tanner and NOT support Harvey – they put up the same stats, with Harvey doing it in 2x the innings pitched.
Regarding Brewer, sure, why not. There’s Juuuuuust enough Portland there to outweigh all the Colorado and the defensive shortcomings. And the longevity is nice.
McKain… I feel like that question has been asked and answered, and I would be loathe to revisit the subject again; kinda feel like it would harm our collective credibility and voice to do so. We couldn’t come to a conclusion, we put it to the world chat, it was argued there, and he came away with very little support (and few votes). I can’t see really revisiting that every season. Let him be a case for the Stickball Veterans Committee in Season 85.

Honestly Brewer is the only one i can get behind. I feel like the others are just lowing the standards. Torres numbers aren`t close to most 1B in the HoF and he was a defensive liability even at 1B. McKain was just fast not special. Harvey was good but 183 wins in 16 seasons and never over 17 doesn`t say HoF to me. Servais i could get behind a little because of positional value but I think we`ve done a good job of getting the back log cleared up and don`t need to recommend 4-5 players every season. I feel like the committee is better served recommending players we feel it would be a injustice not to have in and keep the standards high than recommending players we could make a argument for.

We could make Brewer the “lock” and recommend Servais and Harvey?

I'm good with that.

Ok, having seen no further discussion in almost 24 hours, going to put up something to this effect:

Thanks to the great work of everyone in this world, we've managed to clear the decks of a number of viable Hall of Famers over the past few seasons. With that in mind, the HOF committee is only listing one "lock" this season: Chuck Brewer.

Beyond Brewer, the committee thinks John Servais and Carl Harvey are viable candidates, but is not giving them lock status or officially advocating for their inclusion. Thanks to all for another great year!

The only thing that bothers me about the McKain detractors is that they say he was only fast and ignore his gold glove fielding ability.

I may have jumped the gun on calling together the HOF Committee insofar as nominating players goes. But I wanted to at least get started with an initial discussion and introduce Bruinsfan911 to the committee.

Hi all, thanks for having me! A bit of background: last season over in Addicted Users I offered to use a Wins Above Replacement formula that I have developed to evaluate the players there, which nobody took me up on in relation to Addicted Users. However, thebigdogs sent me a Trade Chat and expressed interest in using it in Stickball.


I then told him that I have a detailed version and a “back-of-the-napkin” version...but the “back of the napkin” version only works for hitters. I am happy to share the more detailed version of the formula with all of you, but that one is a fairly time consuming process so I wanted to make sure you all more or less agreed with the results that the abbreviated version came up with before you take the time to make the plunge on the elongated version. Generally speaking, I tend to group players into one of the following categories:
100+ WAR = Slam Dunk HOF Choice
70-99 WAR = Definitely HOF Worthy
50-69 WAR = Worthy of Strong Consideration
49 or fewer WAR = Needs a lot of help from other statistics/circumstances

I agree that we should start with those who have been on the ballot the longest and therefore have the fewest remaining chances to be elected. Does defense play into the formula at all? We are very heavy on power hitters. I'm guessing that WAR would also focus on power numbers. For example. Where would Brooks Robinson fit in the WAR formula? Please give us the formula for hitters and pitchers.