Blaseball HoF week 22
SPROUT’S HALL OF FAME BLOG
Congratulations to Rigby, Uncle and Fitzgerald!
Big votes this week for both Zoey Kirchner and Henry Marshallow. I agree with the general impression that pitchers are getting treated a little harsher than batters. These players are firmly not-Elite pitchers, but I think they were really excellent for chunks of time, and pretty good the rest of their careers. I think the hall should remember those guys.
I’m fairly surprised that pitchers are having a harder go of it, since they are the ones that you see in the user interface while betting on games. I guess betting took on less importance by the end of Beta, replaced by idols as the primary day to day interaction (little good that did for James Mora’s votes!).
My 10th is Sosa Hayes and I’m pretty shaky about voting for them. Currently they are sitting right at a 20% ballot share after two weeks (after losing share this week), so don’t see a ton of hope for them to climb to 55%. I’d almost rather them fall off this week than stay on for what are likely to be crazy ballots in the next weeks and absorb votes from that. But, I don’t have a 10th I’d like beside them really and they had some pretty amazing peak seasons.
At this point in the process, I’m at peace with all of the players in tier 4 not making it (especially the lineup players, they are all below the current median Hall of Famer in a number of metrics, notably SPAWN and BARUN+, and I think the current numbers there are a pretty solid threshold for a medium sized Hall of Fame). Players with comparable cases have come and gone and the main reason this current batch of players are making my ballot is due to the extremely weak run of new players we have been getting. If I could trade all of them for a Henry Marshallow and Zoey Kirchner induction I would.
Also how wild is it that this cohort has like 3 players (Scores, Sandie and Tiana) that were all super good in the ruthlessness era and then get consumered and can’t keep up later in the game.
Links:
1st ballots post (where I include a bunch background info on the stats I use, as well as earlier takes on players that are on the ballot again): https://medium.com/@magic.yellowstone.stats/blaseball-hall-of-fame-week-1-5fa6eefef705
My website for advanced statistics: https://compendium.sibr.dev/
Spreadsheet for SPAWN and SPAWN ranks: SPAWN sheets
Spreadsheet with SPAWN and select career stats for this week’s ballot: week 22
Listen to BACo:https://blaseballanalysisco.libsyn.com
My main criteria:
I’d estimate that I’d ideally include the top 10–15% of qualifying batters and pitchers:
1 — Best of the best, airtight case for inclusion
2 — No doubt great, maybe a hole in their case
3 — Really great, missing some longevity or a truly epic peak
4 — Fringe inclusion, many holes, but something about them says Hall
5 — Not getting a vote
My guiding philosophy is to favor players that achieved greatness in multiple eras, and more closely scrutinize players with shorter careers but very bright peaks.
My Picks:
Lineup: Logan Horseman, McDowell Mason, Hewitt Best, Jode Preston, Sosa Hayes
Rotation: Henry Marshallow, Zoey Kirchner, Finn James, Lars Taylor, Jenkins Good
Tier One
n/a
Tier Two
Logan Horseman
For: One of those players that’s hard to describe how great they are because they were great at everything offensively. The headline for them is probably their Ruthlessness Era dominance, they were easily a top 5 lineup player of that era, with one of the greatest seasons of play all time in season 17. They went nuclear that season, falling one hit short of batting 0.400 at time when batting 0.250 was good. Combined with 30 Dingers and 74 Stolen Bases, it really is a legendary season, and emblematic of the all-around great they were.
Against: You haven’t heard of them?
McDowell Mason
For: The Home Run King. Their 635 career HR and 70 single season HR are both #1 all time, and they are #10 in career hits and top 20 in overall WhAT. Especially impressive on a deeper look is their consistency, only 1 in 20 lineup seasons where they were a real pox in the lineup. They have 7 seasons where they are fairly average overall, 5 where they are a rock solid plus to the offense, and 7 ranging from very good to elite. That’s a great career right there and the counting stats easily push them into my tier 2 of hall-worthiness.
Against: Also a compiler-in-chief. In the 10K PA club, counting stat accomplishments are a little easier to come by. On a rate basis, their 128 BARUN+ is significantly lower than the current median hall of famer’s (142).
Tier Three
Henry Marshallow
For: Over the outcomes that only a pitcher controls a small few could consider themselves superior to Henry Marshallow. A Strikeout Titan. 4th on the all time list, the 3 players with more Strikeouts than Marshallow pitched at least 440 innings more than them. 6th all time in strikeouts per 9 innings for players that have pitched over 2500 innings. Elite at preventing home runs, with the 7th best HR/9 all time (which drops to 4th best when looking at pitchers with 1000 IP).
Given those facts it’s entirely unsurprising they are rated as one of the best pitchers by Fielding Independent Pitching. They hold the third best career FIP, and both Pitchers above them (Hall of Famers Jolene Willowtree and Castillo Turner!) have more than 1300 fewer innings pitched. They are the FIP GOD. Jolene and Burke might have a word to say about that, both edge Marshallow on FIP- as well, but Marshallows FIP rate is held up over an incredible 3800+ innings.
Before you go ahead and tell me how FIP is fake or whatever: they also have the second most Shutouts of all time! The only pitcher that went out and just won a game for their team more was Winnie Hess. Being 2nd in a big stat to Winnie Hess should qualify for automatic induction in my opinion. Overall, they were incredibly effective at preventing runs with a great ERAAA ~ 0.6, earning over 60 WhAT during their career.
Against: So FIP is kind of fake (so is ERA to be fair). Henry is in miserable company when it comes to allowing contact on balls that stay in the park, being one of only 6 qualifying pitchers with BABIP allowed above 0.300, sharing that rarified air with the likes of Bevan Wise (the pitcher), Conner Haley (the pitcher), and Wyatt Glover (???). At least the balls were staying in the park?
Zoey Kirchner
For: Great pitcher for the Mechs and Steaks. Comes into the league and just bangs out 5 straight really great to elite seasons. They finish top 5 in Mild League for WhAT, ERA, FIP, and ERAAA in seasons 16 and 17, and have a Rookie of the Year worthy season 13 with a 2.49 ERA. They come back from the shadows and go toe to toe with peak Winnie Hess for the the Mild League ERA crown (Winnie grabs an Underhanded Ring from the Gift Shop to squeak out a lead, adjusting for underhanded Zoey takes it). Career stats shake out very well, with excellent career ERA- and FIP-. A couple of high volume seasons helps them push past 2000 IP, making those career rate stats all the more impressive.
Against: Their largest volume season is also their worst, with an ERA near 5 in 410 Innings in season 23, though I think the Mechs fielding by that point was quite poor. If they swap this season with one of their good but lower volume seasons, they’d climb quite a few steps up the list of top pitchers.
Tier Four
Jode Preston
For: Great slugger that was able to avoid strikeouts and thrive in the expansion era. They have 8 seasons where they Slug over 0.500, piling on homers and triples at a great rate and volume, and managed to blast 327 Home Runs in a 14 season career. Jode was also a top 5 lineup player in season 12 (along with 2 other Pies batters, guess how many playoff series this team won after having the best record in Mild?), further boosting their case.
Against: Have some pretty rough seasons from 21 to 23, a stretch of bad seasons hurts particularly in a career of this length. Their home run dependence makes them fairly boom or bust. If they were hitting a home run every three games they were a great player, but any less frequently and they become far less valuable.
At first glance, with a career BARUN+ around 120 and 6500 PA, I was fairly surprised to see a metric like SPAWN liking them as much as it does (they are right under the 87th percentile in SPAWN, which has been my boundary for whether the player has a strong performance case). But I think power hitters overall do well with advanced stats, and Jode is no different.
What is different is how much they benefit when looking at WhAT vs WAA. They tick down around 5 percentiles when looking at WAA based metrics compared to WhAT. This makes sense because 4 of their 5 most valuable seasons were high PA seasons during the period when the gap between WAA and WhAT was greatest (Seasons 16–20). Ultimately I don’t think much of this, Jode only got a chance to start playing after the discipline era so it’d be unfair to ding them for peaking when they did, they are still an interesting edge case to me.
Jenkins Good
For: Was Jenkins Great for long stretches of time. Not only that, but I think maintaining “Good” for many seasons and many innings is super impressive as a pitcher. Even in Jenkins Good’s weaker seasons, they still got outs, they still kept their team in the game. In their 20 seasons with at least 100 IP, they only have an ERA- above 120 twice and ERAAA half a run worse than average once (season 20 was a tough one for them). They received basically no buffs their entire career and still managed to be a useful performer for much of it. If you were randomly drawn a team to play 20 seasons with, knowing the careers that they ended up having, you would feel blessed to have gotten Jenkins, they required basically no upkeep and would do their job well the whole time. They have 5 excellent seasons mixed in there, a few great ruth-era seasons, as well as a really nice season 19.
Against: Nominatively determined as Good instead of Great. The career rate stats are fringey, and only have one truly elite season (season 6, although season 8 and 10 are both very impressive). They are mostly washed up in the late expansion era of the game, and spend more seasons than I’d like being right around average.
Finn James
For: Finn James has the 5th lowest Slugging allowed of any qualifying pitcher, with 3 of those pitchers having thrown 2000 fewer Innings or being named Winnie Hess. A great all around pitcher that could handle things on their own (88 FIP-), as well make superb use of good fielding to get outs (0.229 career BABIP, top 20 among qualifying pitchers, 8th for pitchers with 2000 IP). A top 25 ERA (adjusted for underhanded) is pretty great, considering the 3400+ innings pitched. Enough truly excellent seasons (they start their career off with 4 straight solidly sub 3.00 ERA seasons) that they will be remembered for a dominant period in addition to their career achievements.
Against: Being a beneficiary of the Crabs legendary defense means you ought to be a little skeptical of the ERA/WHIP/BABIP numbers.
For Rebuttal: but ERAAA and WhAT do that skepticism for you and they say that Finn was good for preventing half a run a game all on their own, earning over 50 WhAT along the way.
Lars Taylor
For: Lars is well, Lars. I think they were a very important player to the community, starting largely because of how they performed on the field. They were very bad at blaseball, except when they weren’t. I generally don’t vote for a player like Lars, but I think they cross the line from “funny bad” to “famously funny”. Season after season, new fans would come to the game and be shocked that Lars was shutting down their opponents one game and getting absolutely rocked the next few games, ultimately capping in an inexplicable* season 14 to cherish. Is it variance? Is it clutch? Is it the heart of the cards? Who can say, but they were surely one of the most memorable players in the first half of the game.
Against: Gave away home runs like candy. Highest HR/9 of any player with 1000 IP.
*it’s the one season they didn’t give away home runs like candy
Hewitt Best
For: All time great baserunner, 7th all time in Stolen Bases, wSB, and BsR. Notably 6th in many of those is Forrest Best, who they share a lot of qualities with. Trade a bundle of Forrest’s base criminality for some ability to reach base, and you basically have Hewitt Best. At the point of their incineration in season 18, they had the second most career stolen bases as well, with changes after the Ruthlessness era allowing far more stolen bases.
They were super consistent, collecting at least 30 Stolen Bases in 15 straight seasons (and 40 SB in 14 straight!). I think a lot of that consistency was driven by opportunity, they were able to consistently reach base, most seasons they were at least average to well above average at reaching base, giving them lots of chances to make plays on the basepaths and get in position to score.
Against: Pretty lacking in power (slugged under 0.400 in six seasons), they were an alright homerun threat, but couldn’t really back it up with a great ability for other extra base hits. They were only good overall at getting on base, which caps their upside. Also more of a consistency rather than peak performer when it comes to base stealing, they top out with a few seasons in the 70’s (which is excellent! But less than one a game). But their best single season is only 12th best among seasons 3–18.
Sosa Hayes
For: Another neat baserunning first case. They spend the Discipline Era as a maybe-average lineup player, pitch for a while as an overall average pitcher, then come back to the lineup and go nuts in the later expansion era.
I’m aware some of you readers may react to late expansion era performance with the biggest of shrugs, but I think shrugging off a season of 1.20 OPS and 130 SB is a commitment to imperception too far. Sosa stole over 45 bases every season from 19–24, averaging 80 SB a season in that period. They hit for good power in that period as well, mixing in a variety of extra-base hits at a good rate, with a capstone being a 54 HR season 23 (albeit with over 600 PA). Sosa performed well enough to drive up their career stats into impressive levels; career BARUN+ over 130 is very good, and their career BsR is 9th all time.
Against: Shrug, only great during the period when the game was bonkers. Their time as a pitcher wasn’t impressive (they have a 6 ERA season!) and were nothing special as a discipline era batter. Even in their so-called breakout era, they have an abysmal season 20, where they bat under 0.200!
-The Cut-
Leach Ingram
Basically impossible to do a traditional Pro/Con for a player like Leach. They were the Mints’ funny pitcher (who batted for a while too). A similar case to Lowe Forbes for me, were they funny enough that they contributed significantly to the experience of Blaseball? I have definitely enjoyed seeing the Leach moments being shared and consider them a viable candidate. Still not sure if they pass the smell test for me on this.
Basilo Mason
For: Compiler King, #1 in PA and top 10 on Hits, Strikeouts, Walks, Doubles, Sacrifices, Caught Stealing. Managed to come out as an average player in the wash as well.
Against: Average players are not typically inducted into the Hall of
Tier Five
Tiana Wheeler
The ROTYOAT — Rookie of the Year of All time*. Their season 14 ranks as the greatest performance by a lineup player that had not played at all previously. They slashed .298/.310/.570 for the Magic after getting the call up from a foreshadow will. That was great for any environment, but in season 14 it was good for a wRC+ of 163 and 4.8 WhAT, beating out much-hyped prospect Zephyr McCloud (127 wRC+, 2.6 WhAT) that season. Huber Frumple (the 46 HR rookie campaign!), London Simmons, Riley Firewall, Kit Honey (their season 20 was no joke), and Alston Cerveza all had great rookie seasons at other points as well, but Tiana’s WAA and BARUN+ stands above them all, while having played a standard ~400 PA season.
Looking at season 1 stats (when most players were rookies), Jacob Haynes led the pack with an OPS+ of 145 (Blaseball Early Seasons Performance Stats, credit to Dargo), which Tiana easily eclipsed with an OPS+ of 165. The only other consideration would be to include players that made the switch from pitching to batting. In that case Goodwin Morin (0.975 OPS and 87 SB) and Gerund Pantheocide (203 wRC+) have stronger debut lineup seasons, but to me that isn’t a rookie.
Unfortunately, Tiana got hit by consumers in season 15 and had some pretty tough seasons in the late expansion era post-redaction. They had perfect attribute shape for O-No, but overall low stars which made that consumer attack particularly painful.
*Recent Inductee Rigby Friedrich is the greatest Rookie pitcher of all time (and probably the actual rookie of the year of all time), with their season 13 effort (2.3 ERA, 50 FIP-, 8.1 WhAT) edging out Hall hopeful Zoey Kirchner’s splendid season 13.
Sandie Turner
Known mainly for their rip-roaring spicy season 15, Turner has one of the sharpest peaks of any player with the career length they had. In 21 seasons in the lineup, they are an above average contributor less than half the time, and earn around a third of their career WhAT in that single season 15. 53 HR and 43 SB while OPSing 1.20 in the middle of the Ruthlessness era is just one of the best seasons of all time, full stop. They are very good in the seasons leading up to it, and still solid in season 16, but by then 3 consumer chomps in 2 seasons have taken their toll, and they never post an above average batting season after.
Scores Baserunner
Broke blaseball-reference.com, that’s pretty cool. A great performer during the ruthlessness era, a top 20–25 player on a rate basis. Very good at getting on base during this period — top 10 OBP (Continuing the trend of the Flowers having a collection of weird little guys that were very good at one thing but hidden on a 15 player lineup). Gets taken down (by consumers I assume) and has a pretty bad late expansion era.
Logan Rodriguez
The Yellowstone Magic Funny Pitcher. Being of pure spite. Responsible for my first content created for Blaseball, a scorebook transcription of season 2 game 97. They suffered an epic meltdown in the 8th inning, allowing 7 runs and squashing all hopes of the Magic making the playoffs. Ever since they have embraced their charge as Magic’s resident chaos agent. Beloved only for being so beloathed, they are the archetype of pitcher that puts runners on base and manages to squirm out of the jam often enough to give you a faint crease of hope.
Paula Reddick
Pulls off the Beams’ Trick in season 22 with an OBP>SLG. 3x 100 Walk seasons, and 2x 0.400 OBP seasons in a short career is pretty nice. Unfortunately 3x sub-600 OPS seasons at the beginning of their career tanks this case.
Peanut Bong
Peanut Bong LMAO
Tot Clark
For: Went absolutely ballistic on offense in seasons 22 and 23, with good baserunning and wRC+ well over 200 in both. Back to back 40 HR, 0.350 BA seasons is absolutely insane no matter what era or conditions. If you consider Gerund Pantheocide a very worthy induction, Tot Clark fits a similar bill, a short but electric batting career, with a longer but mediocre pitching career.
Against: So they had bugged modification that helped drive those historic back to back batting seasons. I personally don’t think that disqualifies them, or even really counts against them. Blaseball is weird and wild and stuff happens, I only see how they play on the field. For me, 2 insane seasons is not really enough to be inducted, nor is a pitching career that has 2 excellent seasons, but 10 below average or bad ones.
Peanut Holloway
For: 10 seasons with a wRC+ or OPS+ above 120 is pretty great. I love a consistent bat in the lineup and with only 3 seasons (min PA>200) in 18 where they are a below average bat, Holloway was that. They have a couple of really elite seasons in there too (once again a reminder that the season 9 Pies had 3 of the top 5 lineup players by WhAT in Mild league, and Elvis Figueroa, but went nowhere in the playoffs).
Against: Bad baserunning holds them back from being a very valuable offensive contributor in the seasons where they weren’t amazing at the plate. Their median season is a little too mediocre for me to consider them a real strong candidate.
Randall Marijuana
An early discipline era star that gets incinerated early. A walks-and-dingers type that had a trifecta of great seasons and one average one. Career OPS of 0.862 is not very impressive over that span of seasons. Over seasons 3–6 collected fewer WhAT than many names that were summarily rejected from the HoF (Ren Hunter, Antonio Wallace, Moody Cookbook, Francisco Preston, Oliver Mueller). Even their career rate stats aren’t particularly noteworthy.
Igneus Delacruz/Greer Gwiffin
Totally solid contributors for a long time. Love to remember these kind of guys. Greer is a solid early ruth era bat, while Igneus was a nice cog in the late discipline era beams. They have only like 4 really bad (<-1 WAA) seasons among the two of them.
Wyatt Quitter
Please tell me/the SIBR community about them!
