2025 Hall of Merit Discussion Thread

Can we please have a thread added for russell martin and brian mccann??

Thanks!!

I don't remember the schedule but believe this is a vote 3. Does someone have that?

There are a lot of newcomers this year that I'm going to need to review further - really, the only guy who is sort of plug-and-play is Sabathia. But still, want to make an official prelim before I actually start fiddling around with these guys.

I actually think this is one of the strongest sets of newcomers in years. Six guys are in my top 20 as it stands, and another not too far off. PLus a guy in Pedroia who I don't have anywhere close atm, but I can see a case for. Perhaps the top end is underwhelming - there might not be an above average HoMer in here, but the depth is outstanding.

1. CC Sabathia - He's the best newcomer by a fair margin, and a perfectly solid middle-tier HoMer.
2. Tommy John - As he's nearing election, I need to review deeper. He's survived all my attempts at balance out the 60s/70s pitching group, but it can't hurt to take a deeper look.
3. Babe Adams
4. Ichiro Suzuki - With 4 years of NPB credit. I'll probably end up with at least 5, so a good chance he moves up.
5. Mickey Lolich - The other survivor of my work on his era's pitching. He's starting to get some longer looks, so perhaps I'm not insane for having him here.
6. Tim Hudson
7. Ron Guidry
8. Bob Johnson
9. Russell Martin - Tenatively here. I've looked at a few methods to handle catcher defense and have seen him as high as fourth and off ballot.
10. Felix Hernandez - Another pitcher to fill up my ballot with
11. Roy Oswalt
12. Orel Hershiser
13. Bert Campaneris
14. Don Newcombe
15. David Wright
16. Kevin Appier
17. Ben Zobrist - This is with credit for utility value.
18. Buddy Bell
19. Kiki Cuyler
20. Ian Kinsler - Good discusion on him so far, looking forward to more.
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21. Jerry Koosman
22. Jim Sundberg
23. Willie Davis
24. Roy White
25. Hurley McNair
26. Brian McCann - He's got less of a range as Martin does, but still could be easily on or off ballot.
27. Mark Buehrle
28. Robin Ventura
29. David Ortiz
30. Larry Jackson

34. Thurman Munson
62. Sal Bando
63. Urban Shocker

170. Dustin Pedroia - He does not impress in my system at all. Close to Gil McDougald, who seems like a reasonable point of comparison to me though.
249. Curtis Granderson - On the one hand, I think he could make for an interesting candidate, and I'd love to hear a case. On the other hand, no one made that case for Ellis Burks either.
300. Hanley Ramirez - This is typically where I make a comparison to someone similar in my evaluation and in style. But the best I can do in this case is Larry Doyle. Iron gloved slugging infielders are a rare commodity.
315. Troy Tulowitzki - Like Granderson, he's not my cup of tea, but I'd love to hear from someone who does appreciate him.

I am curious how you are defining era representation.  I have 1920-1940 and 1940-1960 both as eras that are over-represented in HOM.  While I'm on the topic, I would love someone to post a breakdown of era representation for us to discuss.

Glad to have inspired some conversation. My ballot will almost certainly change by the time of the vote, so I appreciate the various feedback. One by one:


"I am curious how you are defining era representation. I have 1920-1940 and 1940-1960 both as eras that are over-represented in HOM. While I'm on the topic, I would love someone to post a breakdown of era representation for us to discuss."

As @chriscobb covered this a subsequent post, when you look decade-by-decade, the 40s and 50s stand out as having fewer inductees than the preceding and succeeding decades. The 30s, by contrast, are over-represented, both in the HOM and in my personal Hall. Although I understand the logic of it, I don't think I agree with allotting fewer slots to the 40s and 50s due to the collapse of the Negro Leagues, as the number of good baseball players in the world presumably did not change when the number of teams did. 


"I'll get the easy comment out of the way, correct on Bob Johnson, but he also was a capable player once he left PCL ball for the AL, he's an MLE credit candidate for a year or two."

I am aware of this and noted it on my 2023 ballot. He isn't far off for me, and if anyone has done any analysis of what that MLE credit might amount to, I would be happy to see and consider it. 


"I see an additional 19 guys that could have a real candidacy for the HOM, along with Phil Rizzuto and Leon Day...apologies if I am misclassifying any Negro League guys, but here goes: Ramon Bragana, Harry Brecheen, Barney Brown, Bill Byrd, Bus Clarkson, Leon Day, Luke Easter, Bob Elliott, Lonny Frey, Tommy Henrich, Johnny Pesky, Phil Rizzuto, Schoolboy Rowe, Lazaro Salazar, Vern Stephens, Bucky Walters, Marvin Williams, and Wild Bill Wright.

I had Bus Clarkson on my 2024 ballot, and if I am prioritizing, I think Bill Byrd, Luke Easter, Lonny Frey, Johnny Pesky, Tommy Henrich are 95% to a HOM career or better. You could make arguments for other Negro Leaguers as well. Rizzuto and Day struggle for me to stand out in the crowd, even allowing for significant war credit. Do you have other players from the 1940s you like?"

I looked at many of these players.

Let's start the AL/NL players, since those cases are simpler: Rizzuto can reasonable claim about 15 WAR in war credit, bring his total on B-Ref to about 57, with a five-year peak in this alternate reality of about 28 WAR. That career total is more than each of the eight other AL/NL players you mention, many of whom played through the WAR and therefore deserve a modest debit. While some of players might have slightly stronger peaks than Rizzuto's, I don't believe any of them have him beat by too much.

Frey has a similar case to Rizzuto's, except that he missed two years instead of three, and they came at an age when he would likely have been showing signs of decline anyway. Pesky is one of few players who warrant more war credit than Rizzuto does, but he starts from a lower place. I don't particularly see the case for Henrich, though I don't doubt there is one.

I feel solid about having Rizzuto as the best of this group.

When it comes to Negro Leaguers, the conversation is certainly more complicated, and I'm sure my rationale won't satisfy everyone. Basically, in a world where the available MLEs are gospel, Day would not be my first choice and would fall behind several of the players you mention (although surely not all of them). However, we know the MLEs are merely rough estimates, prone to fluctuations as more data comes in, and so it's my philosophy to consider a player's reputation among contemporaries and historians in a way I wouldn't with AL/NL players for whom we have a complete statistical record.  

With this in mind: Day has about 56-58 MLE WAR after adding war credit, but he also was named as part of the Pittsburgh Courier's poll of the greatest players in Black baseball, was one of about two dozen players on the first ballot when the Hall of Fame began considering Negro Leagues players, was named to the Negro League Museum's centennial team, on and on. It's qualitative evidence but evidence nonetheless.

Of course, none of that alone makes Day an HOM candidate (I'm not arguing for Judy Johnson or Ray Dandridge, who received similar plaudits), but combined with the statistical case, it makes him a compelling one to me. Especially when compared against someone like Bragana or Salazar for whom MLEs are essentially the whole case.

Of the other Negro Leagues players you mention, I find Clarkson, Byrd and Easter the most compelling, in that order, and I would be open to voting for any of them. It is unfortunate that the combination of war and the slow pace of integration into the 50s deprived us of knowing with more certainty how good the Black players of this generation were. 

Thanks, that makes sense. I figured he must score well in a system I'm not as familiar with, because he's not there on B-Ref, FanGraphs or BP.

Forgive my relative ignorance about Player W-L and other contextual stats, but I'd think playing for great teams would offer a pretty significant boost, right? From a quick search of dynasty-era Yankees, all seemed to have higher pWORL totals than bWAR totals, while players from tough-luck franchises (Richie Ashburn, Ron Santo, etc.) seemed to be the opposite. But that was far from a scientific study, so please set me right if I'm off base.  

That said, I really appreciate that this site has a comprehensive postseason stat, and I'm going to start using that number in place of the B-Ref WPA I'd been using. Good news for Bernie Williams.

I switched to Tom Thress for postseason credit a while ago and think it is a big improvement on WPA.

Got it, I appreciate the primer!

HOM 2025 Prelim Ballot

For each player I took their career bWAR and fWAR, double counted the top 5 seasons in each to give a boost to peak, and added it all together to get a final score, that I then sorted the players by.

I do give war credit by averaging the WAR of the two previous and subsequent years together, and then applying that to the missing years.

For catchers I give a boost to their score due to their typically shorter careers and less playtime. This bonus can be up to 25%, depending on how much of their career they played at C. Generally if they were over 90% of their games at C, I gave them the full bonus, otherwise I decreased it by the percentage of games they played at other positions, though there's some wiggle room there, especially if their value is not evenly distributed across the positions they played.

For 19th century pitchers I decrease their score by 10%, due to the huge numbers bWAR gives their best seasons.

For pre-integration black players, I'm using the MLEs from Dr. Chaleeko's site. However, for now, I'm being conservative on the value of the remaining players under consideration and decreasing their score by 10%.

For Pitchers in general, I do consider their hitting WAR... as a quick and dirty method, I simply tack their hitting WAR on to their career. It does not factor into their peak years. There's probably a better method, but for many pitchers it's a small enough component that it doesn't make a big difference.

This is the same system I used for 2024. I've been thinking about tweaking it in various ways, but so far I haven't done so. If I don't, this will probably be (or, at least, be very close to) my final ballot. One change I've considered is adding in eWORL from Tom Thress' site. My hesitation is that, from what I can tell, his system seems to value fielding less highly than bWAR and fWAR. That's not a problem, in and of itself; it would hurt candidates who get a high percentage of their value from fielding, like Buddy Bell, who would almost certainly drop off my ballot if I incorporated eWORL, but so be it. However, since Thress' system is only available for years Retro Sheet has play by play data, that means Buddy Bell would be hurt by using eWORL but, say, Joe Tinker wouldn't be. I haven't decided yet if that's acceptable.

If a player isn't listed here, I haven't evaluated them.

1. Ichiro Suzuki (236.4) Without NPB credit, he'd be on this ballot, but outside an “elect me” spot, probably about 7th. With NPB credit (I give him credit for 6 years, from 1995 to 2000) he's easily the best player eligible.
2. Tommy John (192.4) Not a ton of peak value, but a loooong career gets him enough value to be here.
3. CC Sabathia (190.9) Better peak than John, but fWAR likes John's career to the tune of almost 12 wins more, which results in him sneaking in above Sabathia. Sabathia had a long career too, if not as long as John's, but he didn't generate much value in the last 8 or so years of it.
4. Buddy Bell (189.4) TZ loves his defense... one weakness of using just bWAR & fWAR is that both use TZ for the defensive component pre-2002, so for defense first pre-modern players there's not much diversity of opinion in my calculation. Nevertheless, he did have a good defensive reputation in his day (6 Gold Gloves), and hit pretty well for a 3B.
5. Jim Kaat (183.3) fWAR really likes his career, but bWAR is much more bearish, such that they're about 25 WAR apart, a huge amount. In fWAR he looks like a sure fire HOMer, while he's pretty borderline in bWAR. Taken together he ends up here. Seems to have been a pretty good hitter.
6. Russell Martin (183.3) 94% of his games were at C, so he gets the full catcher bonus. Since he gets the benefit of generating Framing Runs for most of his career in fWAR I considered only applying the bonus to his bWAR and early fWAR seasons, but (so far, at least) I haven't done that. While Framing runs are a potential source of value that earlier Cs can't get credit for (or, for matter, be penalized for), that doesn't necessarily do anything to address how hard catching can be on a player's offensive value.
7. Sal Bando (183.0) Very good peak, good career value, but a little bit lacking, especially in fWAR which is a little bit lower on his offense. Possibly the best 3B from 1969 to 1973, but less consistent after that.
8. Jim McCormick (180.8) In 1884 he started the year with the Cleveland Blues, posting a 6.7 WAR in 342 innings in about half a season, if you accept bWAR's take on him. He then jumped to the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the UA, where he pitched another 210 innings and lead that league with 7.8 WAR. His combined WAR total was 14.5 (14.8 if you add in .3 WAR of hitting value). That's good for the 11th best bWAR season of all time, and everyone above him was a fellow 19th century or Deadball pitcher. I'm willing to accept that he had a great year, but this seems a bit much, and is a good example of why I adjusted the totals for 19th century pitchers down a little bit.
9. Bus Clarkson (178.6) Long career on the left side of the infield, and hit well later in his career in the minors. Only a brief stint in MLB when he was 37. Seemed to provide steady value without a big peak, but that may be an artifact of the MLEs.
10. John Olerud (178.0) Great years in '93 and '98, along with some other strong years. Career value is a bit weak.
11. Dwight Gooden (177.9) Had a monster year pitching in 1985, and even hit well that year. bWAR has him at 13.3 total which is good for 20th all time on their rankings. Only betters years in the 20th century were 2 years by Walter Johnson and Ruth's 1923, and there have been no better years in the 21st century, so this would be the best year by any player since WWII/integration. But, in bWAR's estimation, he never came close to duplicating it, and career numbers are a little lacking. Interestingly, even though fWAR doesn't see his 1985 as quite that historic (but still worth 8.9 fWAR, which is great) it likes several of his other years quite a bit more, sees his 1984 performance as close in value to 1985, and likes him better overall, and his career total is more HOM worthy in that system.
12. Hurley McNair (177.9) Best NgL pitcher I looked at, Gave war credit of 3.9 WAR for 1918 and 1919. 1912 looks to have been his best year.
13. Thurmon Munson (176.6) Short career, for obvious reasons, though it's not clear how much he had left if he had lived longer. Decent peak value, lackluster career value. But, since he played over 90% of his games at catcher, I gave him the full catcher bonus I discussed above, and he ended up here.
14. Brian McCann (173.6) Similar case as Russell Martin's, but not quite as good.
15. Mickey Lolich (173.4) Great year in '71, some good to excellent years around that, not much value outside of his 1969 to 1975 stretch, according to bWAR. fWAR, though, likes the start of his career better and he looks like a more solid HOMer in that system.
16. Eddie Cicotte (172.2) Looks like a viable candidate with a strong peak in bWAR, but much less so in fWAR. Great years in bWAR for 1917 and (ironically) 1919. Bit of a short career, for obvious reasons.
17. Robin Ventura (171.9) Didn't expect him to be on my ballot, but decent career and peak value. bWAR and fWAR are very close on him. No MVPish years (1999 is probably the closest) but provided very steady value from '91 to '99.
18. Bill Byrd (171.6) Just a bit worse in career and peak value than Hurley McNair, according to the MLEs.
19. Heavy Johnson (171.0) Good peak, pretty good career. From 1920 to 1924 had a very strong run, not as much value before and after. The MLEs have him only playing catcher for the first two years of his career, so I didn't give him any bonus for that.
20. Willie Davis (170.9) Best year was probably '64. Pretty good peak and career in bWAR, less so in fWAR.



21. Tommy Bond (170.1) bWAR sees him as having a monster 5 year peak, but fWAR is predictably less bullish on him. Funnily enough, in bWAR his peak value is more than his career value, as he was a net negative outside of those 5 years.
22. Tetelo Vargas (169.9) Long career, not a huge peak. Top year, by far, according to the MLEs was 1943 when he was 37. I don't know if the Negro Leagues were weakened to the same extent as MLB by WWII, but that's concerning, and I could see the case for adjusting him further downward, but, so far, I haven't penalized any MLB players for putting up big numbers during the war years either.
23. Chuck Finley (169.3)
24. Jason Giambi (169.0) Not that far off the ballot, and with very good peak value, but career falls a bit short.
25. Tony Mullane (168.9)
26. Jerry Koosman (168.6)
27. Lazaro Salazar (167.7) Used the hitting MLEs. Good peak from '21 to '24, pretty good career.
28. Jorge Posada (167.4) Only 87% of games came at C, but a large chunk of the games at other positions were in his last year, when he had a negative WAR, so I didn't reduce the catcher bonus. Still not quite enough though.
29. Ron Cey (167.2)
30. Bob Johnson (167.1) Late start, short career. Peak is pretty good, but not great. I haven't given him any minor league credit. I'm not necessarily opposed to doing that, but I'm wary of doing it haphazardly. In a perfect world I honestly think every minor league season ever should be counted via MLEs (or at least years that give positive value, maybe a poor year in A ball shouldn't hurt a player, though if it was applied to everyone it would at least be consistent)... but of course we're a long way from that being practical, and if I give him credit, who else should get it?
31. Fred McGriff (166.4)
32. David Wright (166.3) Good peak value but career value is a bit too low.
33. Urban Shocker (166.1) Pretty good hitter for a pitcher, and if fWAR liked him as much as bWAR does he'd be a top 10 player on this ballot... but it's really down on him, comparatively. Doubled WAR in 1918 for war credit.
34. Brian Giles (166.0)
35. Félix Hernández (165.8) Pretty good peak, but career value is relatively low, especially in bWAR. Still, very good run from 2009 to 2014.
36. Cesar Cedeno (165.5)
37. Gene Tenace (164.3) Only 57% of his games at C.
38. Orel Hershiser (163.8) Some great years in the late 80s, and a good hitter, but not enough career value and fWAR seeing his 5 year peak as worth about 6 wins less than bWAR really hurts his case.
39. Chet Lemon (163.8)
40. Babe Adams (163.8) Late start to his career, and odd mid career stint in the minors. Possibly deserving of minor league credit for 1917 and part of 1918, but then again, he did pitch quite poorly (and was injured, I believe) in 1916, so him being sent down was defensible... though it probably shouldn't have lasted as long as it did.
41. Roy Oswalt (163.7)
42. Tim Hudson (162.8) Strong start to his career, but a lot of mediocre to subpar years to end it. Peak was OK, but not strong enough to get him on the ballot.
43. Kevin Appier (162.7) Outside of 1993, his peak wasn't that great (and fWAR rates that year quite a bit lower than bWAR). Doesn't stand out from the pack of Hershiser, Oswalt, Hudson, and Buehrle.
44. Phil Rizzuto (162.1) I've given him 4.3 bWAR and 4.1 fWAR in '43, '44 and '45 as war credit and he's still not that close to the ballot. Career and peak value still fall short. TZ would need to be really underestimating his defense for him to get in, I think.
45. Norm Cash (161.7)
46. Mark Buehrle (160.7)
47. Joe Tinker (159.9)
48. David Ortiz (158.9) Late bloomer, career numbers lacking, and peak wasn't good enough. Some great hiting years and overall very good OPS+, but provided nothing else. bWAR likes him a little more than fWAR, but either way not close to the ballot.
49. Dave Bancroft (158.9)
50. Kiki Cuyler (158.4)
51. Jose Cruz (158.2)
52. Sam McDowell (158.0)
53. Mickey Welch (158.0)
54. Cliff Lee (157.8)
55. Ron Guidry (157.7)
56. Ben Taylor (157.5) Seems to have lost momentum as more stats have come to light.
57. Jason Kendall (157.1) 98% of games at C. The fact that he had an extended offensive slump for what should have been his prime seasons of age 27 and 28, before rebounding somewhat for a couple years, is basically what's keeping him out. The framing data from 2008 to 2010 isn't good either, but it is at the end of his career... does framing ability decline with age like other defensive skills typically would?
58. Ian Kinsler (157.0) OK peak, but not great, and short career. fWAR really doesn't like his defense compared to bWAR.
59. Dustin Pedroia (156.7) Quite similar to Kinsler. Slightly better peak, slightly worse career, fWAR dislikes his defense compared to bWAR, but not to the same degree as Kinsler. Overall it balances out.
60. Vic Willis (155.5) As a 19th century pitcher (even if just barely so) he's dragged down by the adjustment I make. Since the bulk of his career was in the 20th century, I considered not including him in the adjustment, but his IP are still quite high. In 1902 he pitched 410 innings. Walter Johnson debuted only a few years later and never pitched 400 innings in a season. For that matter, no one has since Ed Walsh in 1907. I believe this was during the transition period from three man to four man rotations, so that may account for work loads decreasing soon after.
61. Dale Murphy (155.5)
62. Bob Elliot (155.4)
63. Jim Fregosi (154.5)
64. Dizzy Dean (153.9)
65. Wally Schang (153.6) 86% of his games were at C.
66. Nomar Garciaparra (153.2)
67. Kirby Puckett (152.4) His peak wasn't good enough for such a short career.
68. Toby Harrah (152.0)
69. Mark Teixeira (152.0)
70. Jack Clark (151.5)
71. Jim Whitney (151.4)
72. Harry Hooper (151.3)
73. Luis Aparicio (150.9)
74. Sam Rice (150.4)
75. Jim Sundberg (150.4) Full catcher bonus, but still not very close.
76. Curtis Granderson (150.3) Two great years ('07 and '11), but peak and career are both a bit lacking.
77. Bert Campaneris (150.2)
78. Matt Holliday (150.1) Just not enough peak or career value.
79. Charlie Smith (149.6) Looks like he was a great hitter, but unfortunately his career was just too short.
80. Tommy Bridges (149.1)
81. Ben Zobrist (148.6)
82. Bobby Veach (148.5)
83. Tommy Leach (148.0)
84. Jack Morris (147.8)
85. Bernie Williams (147.4)
86. Johnny Damon (147.2)
87. Tony Phillips (146.8)
88. Don Newcombe (145.7) Gave him 2.6/4.2 bWAR/fWAR for '52 and '53, but still not that close. Very little peak value, especially in bWAR. fWAR likes him significantly better, but it's not enough. Haven't given him any credit for his age 18 and 19 NgL seasons, but I suppose he might deserve some kind of minor league credit.
89. Schoolboy Rowe (145.6) Gave war credit of 2.5 bWAR and 2.1 fWAR for '44 and '45. Also, I never knew how good a hitter he was for a pitcher. Career 88 OPS+, with a total hitting bWAR and fWAR of 8.2. For comparison Wes Ferrell had a 100 OPS+ and 11.3/11.9 bWAR/fWAR for hitting value. Still, not enough to get him close to inclusion.
90. Bartolo Colon (145.0) Underwhelming peak, especially in fWAR.
91. Brian Downing (144.5) Less than 30% of games were at catcher, so didn't assign any C bonus.
92. Tony Oliva (142.5)
93. Bucky Walters (142.2)
94. Hilton Smith (141.3)
95. Albert Belle (140.9)
96. Don Mattingly (140.8)
97. Troy Tulowitzki (140.4) Good peak, according to bWAR, less worthy in fWAR though. Not enough career value either way.
98. Hanley Ramírez (137.0) Good start to his career, but faded pretty fast. Was basically done as a star player after age 25, something injuries no doubt played a part in, excepting one bounce back year at age 29.
99. Gil Hodges (136.2)
100. Jose Bautista (133.5) Good peak, no value outside of it.
101. Jose Reyes (132.2) Disappointing end to his career.
102. Adrian Gonzalez (130.5) Not close to being a serious candidate.
103. Al Rosen (128.9) Late start to his career, and he faded early due to injuries, but monster year in 1953, when he was probably the best player in MLB. Still, even with that, his five year peak isn't that impressive as he only had three excellent/great years, and his career value is seriously lacking.
104. Lance Parrish (127.8)
105. Dave Concepcion (125.5)
106. Kirk Gibson (123.0)
107. Ned Williamson (119.8) Haven't quite figured out what to do with him. I suppose I should be adjusting his value upward somehow to compensate for the short seasons of his day, but just multiplying his WAR figures by the ratio of 162 over the max games for each of his seasons, without any regression, would seem to possibly over value the smaller sample sizes. Maybe next year, when the question of what to do with the 2020 season will probably come up, will give me some ideas.
108. Gavvy Cravath (119.7) See Johnson, Bob.
109. Victor Martinez (113.7) Only about 44% of his games were games at catcher. Not enough value to be close to consideration.
110. Harold Baines 109.2
111. James Shields (107.1) There's probably a 100+ guys I didn't evaluate that are more worthy.
112. Adam Jones (101.8) OK player, but peak isn't near HoM level and career value isn't much better.
113. Sal Maglie (100.7) Odd career, to say the least. Really just here so that I don't lose track of him. He would need Mexican League and minor league credit to get anywhere close to the ballot. Apparently he spent '43 and '44 working in a defense plant and while I do provide war credit, not sure I'd be OK with giving it for that, especially since he hadn't reached MLB yet. There's also some evidence he didn't really become a MLB caliber player until he got post war coaching from Dolf Luque.
114. Carlos Moran (99.7) Voted for way back when, but current MLEs don't support him having a HOM worthy career.
115. Martín Prado (85.8) The lowest ranking newly eligible player that I bothered to evaluate. Sorry Kendrys Morales.
116. Billy Wagner (79.1) RPs aren't going to do well in my system, since I don't use WPA or other contextual stats... even though bWAR and fWAR do factor in context for RPs somewhat. Anyway, that's fine, I'm skeptical when it comes to the value of RPs.

Hmm, yeah, not sure how I got mixed up there. I went back to my spreadsheet and I did evaluate him using Dr C's hitting MLEs, so his ranking is right, but obviously the comment is wrong. Thanks for catching that.



I haven't, no. Perhaps I should, but then I run into the problem of how. Just multiplying, say, his '94 WAR values by 1.4 (the product of 162/the 115 games the Royals played that year) is certainly the simplest method, but without any sort of regression for the smaller sample size, I'm not sure it's the correct one. For a somewhat similar case, for Urban Shocker I did just double his 1918 WAR values, but now I'm wondering if that isn't a mistake. Looking at Ned Williamson got me thinking along those lines, for shorter seasons in general, though it would apply to strike seasons too, but I haven't come to any conclusion. I mean, at the extreme end I don't give the guys who played in 154 game seasons any extra credit, but it could make a difference in some very close cases.

There's probably lots of discussions about this on the old site, but I'm not sure where to look. I am open to suggestions though.