Hall of Fame Indicators

This blog is oriented towards basic scouting and advanced statistics, but sometimes within these concepts the details can get a bit blurry.  Every now and then I would like to take a look at some of the advanced statistics out there and attempt to discuss them in a way that makes it easier for you, the reader, to understand them.  This week I am going to keep it light with a brief explanation and look at Hall of Fame Ink.  The reason I selected this specific stat is due to the addition of the first likely hall of famer to the Nationals roster, the recent selection of a former Expo to the Hall, and the retirement of Frank Thomas, all of which will be discussed in this post to help reinforce the explanation.

Hall of Fame Ink is advanced metric devised by Bill James that helps us understand how likely a player is to get in the hall of fame.  It does not tell us how good a player is or what he did.  It is essentially four counting numbers where points are added to the total for various statistical accomplishments.  The four categories are:



1.  Black Ink - tells you how often the player was the league leader in various categories.  A player can be given up to four points for leading the league in categories that Hall of Fame voters tend to look at most like home runs, strikeouts (for pitchers), batting average, etc.  Other categories are assigned point values from 1-4 depending on their importance to voters.  For instance, games played in is worth one point, while innings pitched is worth three points.  Average hall of fame number for black ink ~ 27.

2.  Grey Ink - same as black ink, except it tells you how many times a player was amongst the top 10 in the various categories.  Average hall of famer has a grey ink score of ~144.

3.  Standards - measures how good a player was over his career rather than single seasons.  One point is awarded each time a player reaches certain benchmarks in his career.  For example, for each 150 hits over 1500 hits a player earns one point.  For each .010 points above an OBP of .300 a player has in his career he is awarded a standards point.  Average hall of famer has standards of ~ 50.

4.  Monitor - the monitor is like standards, but focuses more on how deserving a player is to be in the hall of fame.  It awards points for a list of varied accomplishments like 3,500 career hits (50 points) or winning a gold glove (2 points at C, SS, or 2B/1 point every other position) or being selected an All-Star (3 points for each selection).  Points are also given for being apart of playoff teams, with more points given to the more prestigious games.  The accomplishments on this list are ones which are common to most of the players in the hall and are probably the best indicator of whether a player will be selected by the voters when he is eligible.  Average hall of famer ~100.

If you are interested in seeing the specific break downs of each Hall of Fame statistic then please refer to Baseball-Reference's page on the subject.

Using Andre Dawson, a recent inductee into the Hall,  as an example, let us take a look at the practical usage of the Ink/monitor scores.  The question is whether Dawson is a hall of famer.  His ratings are as follows:

Black Ink - 11
Gray Ink - 164
Standards - 44
Monitor - 118

While he is was well over the average mark for Gray Ink, he had little Black Ink to his name.  And while his monitor score was 18 points above the average for a hall of famer, his standards score was 6 points lower than the average.  Dawson was never apart of a League Championship team and many considered him simply average for most of his career (low black ink and standards), but he was an 8-time All-Star, and 8-time Gold Glover, and a 4-time Silver Slugger (reflected in his monitor score).  He was consistently an MVP candidate throughout the 80s.  The Hall of Fame ratings are consistent with what actually happened in the voting.  Voters probably thought that Dawson deserved to get into the the Hall, but just not immediately.  The Ink numbers indicate the same thing.

Now to look at another guy who joined the Nationals this season, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez.  This is where you have to understand something important about Black Ink/Gray Ink.  It does not adjust for positional differences.  Positions that typically have lower offensive output like catcher, shortstop, and secondbase suffer in these categories as a result.  Pudge never led the league in anything considered in the Gray/Black Ink and has a zero Black Ink rating as a result (37 - Gray).  In comparison, Pudge has many awards to his name, has won an MVP, has been in two World Series, and has has amassed an impressive resume of career numbers and achievements.  This is shown in his monitor/standards score of 224/56.  Pudge might not change the fortunes of the Washington Nationals, but he is a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame.

In case you are wondering, here are the current HOF scores for some of the current Nationals (displayed in this order black ink/gray ink/monitor/standards)

Ryan Zimmerman (1/22/19/16)
Adam Dunn (2/57/53/28)
Jason Marquis (0/20/10/5)
Cristian Guzman (3/14/21/19)

Keep in mind that older players that have played more seasons will have much higher numbers than players just starting out their career.  These numbers all mean basically nothing, except when trying to look at a neat little metric to determine if players are deserving of the hall of fame.  That and Pudge is the first likely HOF'er to play for the Nats (Alfonso Soriano's numbers 10/60/78/25).  These indicators are particularly relevant when considering Frank Thomas' recent retirement.  Thomas' HOF indicators (21, 200, 194, 60) tell us that he should be in the HOF and most likely on the first ballot.  The numbers also show a bias in the fact that Thomas played DH for much of his career and his lack of contribution to defense is not considered.  I believe Thomas should be in the Hall, he was one of the greatest bats of his time.  But I also believe, on that same logic, players that are the best gloves of their time (Omar Visquel) need to be voted in first ballot as well.

I hope this post helped some of you understand the HOF indicators, but also feel sorry to indicate to you Nats fans out there that these numbers will be pretty much meaningless for sometime.  I am not 100% down with the Pudge signing, but he was once a great player and a lock for the Hall of Fame.  Here is hoping to some of that rubs off on the Nationals younger guys.