BBWAA Hall of Fame Standards for Hitters, Part II

So, I've been thinking about my last post, and I had some problems with it. First, it definitely weighted career length way too highly. So, I was trying to think of a remedy. I though, "should I square the decimal (generated by averaging batting average, secondary average, and R+RBI/AB), or should I take the square root of playing time?" I wound up doing both. This definitely weights production much more heavily than career length, and should give some relief to some of the odder choices the first system made. Then I multiplied the whole thing by 100, just to make the numbers friendlier. Here are the highlights from each position.

For example, I assumed the lowest scoring catcher would be Roy Campanella. He was. But I was surprised to see that Mickey Cochrane scored as low as he did. However, with the new system, the catcher who scores lowest is actually not Campanella, but rather Gary Carter. I suspect that, if you ask most baseball writers who they would rather have in the Hall, Carter or Campy, they would pick Campy. The system now reflects that. The old system left Hank Greenberg out in the cold. The new version ranks him behind only Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx, in spite of his short career. The new system ranks Jackie Robinson near the middle of the 2B crowd, rather than at the end. The old system didn't like Wade Boggs - the new one ranks him above Brooks Robinson. Keeping in mind that my system (obviously) only ranks players as hitters, this makes total sense. At SS, Rabbit Maranville and Ozzie Smith move behind Lou Boudreau. In LF, Ted Williams comes in first (as it should be), while Ralph Kiner gets an unexpected bump. I don't think he's the worst LF the BBWAA selected, so this probably makes much more sense. CF is where we see the biggest changes. DiMaggio, for example, moves ahead of Duke Snider and Andre Dawson, instead of being only above Puckett (who remains the least qualified CF in the Hall). Interestingly, Mantle moves from 4th to 1st, followed by Mays, Cobb, and Speaker. Finally, the only player within 30% of Babe Ruth at any position is Ted Williams (which I think is more or less how people see things in baseball - at least the writers). Other than a big jump by Harry Heilmann, it's pretty much the same list, although I must say I'm a little surprised Mel Ott leapfrogged Hank Aaron. Anyway, here's the complete list, by position. If you don't like long, boring lists of names and arbitrary numbers, go ahead and skip it. Here it is:

C:
Yogi Berra, 38.94; Mickey Cochrane, 38.90; Carlton Fisk, 38.57; Gabby Hartnett, 38.55; Bill Dickey, 37.34; Johnny Bench, 37.14; Roy Campanella, 32.58; Gary Carter, 32.10
1B:
Lou Gehrig, 76.19; Jimmie Foxx, 72.39; Hank Greenberg, 55.53; Harmon Killebrew, 53.89; Willie McCovey, 51.84; Eddie Murray, 41.95; Tony Perez, 37.62; Bill Terry, 34.78; George Sisler, 31.69
2B:
Rogers Hornsby, 59.44; Joe Morgan, 49.41; Eddie Collins, 48.91; Charlie Gehringer, 45.79; Nap Lajoie, 38.29; Roberto Alomar, 36.51; Jackie Robinson, 35.81; Frankie Frisch, 34.25; Ryne Sandberg, 32.63; Rod Carew, 32.62
3B:
Mike Schmidt, 55.79; Eddie Mathews, 47.71; George Brett, 41.42; Wade Boggs, 34.87; Pie Traynor, 30.65; Brooks Robinson, 27.60
SS:
Honus Wagner, 46.17; Joe Cronin, 43.19; Ernie Banks, 38.15; Cal Ripken, 35.31; Luke Appling, 32.95; Robin Yount, 32.76; Lou Boudreau, 27.55; Ozzie Smith, 24.60; Rabbit Maranville, 22.01; Luis Aparicio, 21.96
LF:
Ted Williams, 86.23; Rickey Henderson, 59.78; Stan Musial, 57.81; Willie Stargell, 47.57; Carl Yastrzemski, 45.92; Al Simmons, 45.73; Ralph Kiner, 44.40; Billy Williams, 39.22; Jim Rice, 36.50; Joe Medwick, 35.29; Lou Brock, 31.66
CF:
Mickey Mantle, 63.57; Willie Mays, 59.94; Ty Cobb, 59.57; Tris Speaker, 51.78; Joe DiMaggio, 49.48; Duke Snider, 48.94; Andre Dawson, 37.49; Kirby Puckett, 28.30
RF:
Babe Ruth, 105.29; Mel Ott, 61.99; Hank Aaron, 57.70; Frank Robinson, 57.38; Reggie Jackson, 48.29; Harry Heilmann, 44.68; Al Kaline, 44.06; Dave Winfield, 43.13; Paul Waner, 39.54; Tony Gwynn, 33.95; Roberto Clemente, 32.04; Willie Keeler, 31.80
DH:
Paul Molitor, 37.92

Now doesn't that all look better? I think so. It really "feels" like how the BBWAA voters think about players. Sure, there are some wild inconsistencies, but most of those can be explained away. And, as our series continues, you'll see how the Veterans' Committee stacks up (let's just say this: the writers don't miss too many, even by their own "unusual" standards - there's a reason the Vets committee has a bad reputation). And we'll look in the 4th part at the some players who are favorites for people to talk about as possible Hall of Famers. Finally, in Part V, assuming I keep this up another few weeks, we'll look at some current players and not-yet-eligibles who have already met the standards for the Baseball Hall of Fame.