Baseball’s Best: The TRUE Hall of Famers
Title:
BASEBALL’S BEST: The TRUE Hall of Famers
Author:
Michael Hoban, Ph.D.
Formats:
PDF (ebook) | Paperback
Pages:
223
Bill James’ WIN SHARES system is the ultimate baseball statistic currently available to judge exactly how good a season a player had. That is the view of Dr. Michael Hoban -retired mathematics professor and serious baseball analyst. And that is why the professor has used WIN SHARES in his new book to create a new Hall of Fame monitor. The NEWS monitor tells us which players (whether in the
Professor Hoban has been a baseball fan for over 60 years and a serious baseball analyst for the past ten years (he is a member of SABR – Society for American Baseball Research). He has previously written two books devoted to the task of ranking players.
1. Baseball’s Complete Players (McFarland: 2000) was an attempt to put the numbers together (both offensive and defensive) to see who were baseball’s best all-around players at each position.2. Fielder’s Choice: Baseball’s Best Shortstops (Booklocker: 2003) was an attempt to rank the shortstops by defensive skills and then by overall excellence.
The professor says that the publication of the book WIN SHARES in 2002 changed the face of baseball analysis where the comparison of baseball players is concerned. WIN SHARES is the most comprehensive tool available since it takes into account virtually every phase of a player’s contribution to his team – and adjusts for such things as different eras and different ballparks. And that is why Hoban has used the WIN SHARES system to create the NEWS Hall of Fame Monitor.
If you want to see a serious but somewhat different approach to ranking the best baseball players of the 20th century, this is it. Every fan with an interest in baseball’s Hall of Fame will want to examine this new ranking of the TRUE Hall of Famers.
Here is a sampling of some of the conclusions of the book.
1. From 1901 to 2006, only ninety-one (91) position players and forty-nine (49) pitchers had TRUE Hall of Fame numbers (a total of 140 players).
2. There are sixty-eight (68) position players who are in the Hall of Fame who have
3. There are thirty-seven (37) pitchers in the Hall who have the numbers (71%) and fifteen (15) who do not (29%).
4. Of the players who have TRUE HOF numbers, eight position players and five pitchers were still active in 2006.
– Barry Bonds is the #3 best position player of the century.
– Roger Clemens is the #5 best pitcher (Greg Maddux is #9).
– Alex Rodriguez is the #2 shortstop of the century.
– Mike Piazza is the #3 catcher.
– Frank Thomas is the #3 first baseman.
– Craig Biggio is the #5 second baseman.
– Mariano Rivera is the best true reliever of the century.
– Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine are the other two pitchers.
– Gary Sheffield, Ken Griffey Jr and Manny Ramirez complete the group.
5. The NEWS monitor shows that some players who had short but great careers (e.g., Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg) still were able to post Hall of Fame numbers.
6. There were only thirteen (13) megastar position players during the 20th century. Here they are in order: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Honus Wagner, Willie Mays, Tris Speaker, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Eddie Collins, Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig.
About the Author
Michael Hoban, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus (mathematics) of the
1. Baseball’s Complete Players ( McFarland: 2000) was an attempt to put the numbers together (both offensive and defensive) to see who were baseball’s best all-around players at each position.
2. Fielder’s Choice: Baseball’s Best Shortstops (Booklocker: 2003) was an attempt to rank the shortstops by defensive skills and then by overall excellence.
