HOF Voting Predictions Recap: Who'd We Miss?

By Bill

So last week, The Common Man and I took on the daunting and ultimately pretty silly task of predicting how the next 25 years of BBWAA Hall of Fame voting would go. The five-part set of summaries is right here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and now, you can see all the results together in an ugly little spreadsheet here.

I picked 52 inductees, and TCM picked 51. Forty names appear on both of our lists, which you could look at a few different ways -- either 77.7% of the total names matched (80/103), or 63.5% of the players picked were picked by both of us (40/63). The second way is probably more meaningful, but either way, it seems to me like quite a lot of agreement for something this wide open. On the chart linked above, the players who were picked by only one of us are highlighted in red.

On the other hand, there are 18 players (28.6% of the total players or 35% of all our picks) who we not only both picked, but both picked to go in in the same year. These come primarily in the first several years, as you might guess -- Biggio, Maddux, and Griffey are the easy ones -- but there were some pretty random agreements down the road, too. Most notably, we both have Mauer and Sabathia going in in 2026 somehow, and we both picked Buster Posey for 2032 and Jason Heyward for '35. All those perfect matches are highlighted in yellow.

Here's a look at some of the key players we disagreed on, followed by some players we skipped completely:

Predicting the Hall of Fame Votes, Part 5: 2032-2036

By Bill

And so here we are, at the end of our epic, week-long, five-part series in which we try to guess at the BBWAA voting results for the next 25 years. And this is the part in which you really see exactly how hard this is, because things completely stop making sense. But it sure is fun!


 For the rules, such as they are, check out Part 1 here. And here is part 2, part 3, and part 4.  And here's our series wrap-up.  And away we go!

Predicting the Hall of Fame Votes, Part 4: 2027-2031

By The Common Man

As you probably are aware from the title, this is part 4 of our attempt to project the BBWAA Hall of Fame voting out for the next 25 years.  This installment covers 2027-2031.  Parts 1, 2, and 3 are here, here and here.  Part 5 is here, and here's our wrap-up.

Just so Bill knows, The Common Man plans to over throw his space-regime in 2027, with the help of a robot butler named Ken Phelps Jr., the sage advice of the still-living head of Joe Torre, the strength and daring of unfrozen Evan Longoria and the gumption and inspiration instilled by the ghost of Marvin Miller.  We will install a space-theocracy, based around the divinity of the Great Mauer, and make all unbelievers shag fly balls.  Praise be the Mauer.  The Mack and Stieb Leagues will continue uninterrupted, except that half the DHs will be shot.

We continue to cleave very closely to each other in the players, if not the years of selection here:

Predicting the Hall of Fame Votes, Part 3 (2022-2026)

By Bill (with able commentary from The Common Man)

It feels weird to even type those years in this post's title. By the time this comes to pass, I plan to be the mostly benevolent (but very volatile) dictator of a small planet in the Alpha Centauri system, and I'll start my own damn baseball organization. It'll have two eight-team leagues, the Mack League and the Stieb League, with the DH and replay everywhere. It will be glorious.

But while we're all still tethered to this particular orb, we might as well look at what Hall of Fame voting might be like 11 to 15 years from now. We're covering the next 25 years of the writers' HOF voting, just like Bill James did back in '94. You can see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The Common Man and I each came up with our own separate (and very different) lists, and the middle fifth of those lists is dissected below. (Here are the other entries in our series, Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, and Part 5, as well as our wrap-up.)

Predicting the Hall of Fame Votes, Part 2: 2017-2021

By The Common Man (undermined at every turn by Bill)

Yesterday, Bill kicked us off with the first installment of this series, in which we're picking the BBWAA Hall of Fame voting results from the next 25 years. Yesterday, out of 13 players mentioned, we agreed on 10 of them going in in that five year window, though our order was somewhat different. As we move further out though, we're going to start to see a lot more distance between Bill's predictions and The Common Man's. (Here are the other entries in our series, Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5, as well as our wrap-up.)


Here's our methodology, as outlined by Bill yesterday,

"James picked two inductees for every season, which makes sense; historically, there have been either one or two BBWAA inductees in virtually every year, and since it's almost entirely guesswork anyway, why not make it uniform? But on the other hand, there are a ton of worthy candidates coming up, and you do see three in a class about once every ten years (see 1984, 1991, 1999). So we decided to limit ourselves to two candidates (or fewer, though I chose never to pick fewer) in every year, with the exception of two seasons, in which we could name three. For a 25-year stretch, that seems reasonable."

We both used up our three-man ballots yesterday, so those are off the table. The Common Man is handling the main commentary this time, with Bill piping up whenever he feels like it. And away we go:

Predicting the Hall of Fame Votes, Part I: 2012-2016

By Bill (with special guest snarking from The Common Man)

You might remember that a little over a month ago, I wrote about Bill James' 1994 predictions for the BBWAA Hall of Fame voting covering the next 25 years: 1995-2019.

I had a lot of (respectful) fun pointing out James' hits and misses, in what was essentially an impossible exercise, so TCM and I thought it only fair to try the same impossible exercise ourselves. We've each made our own lists covering the next 25 years of BBWAA voting -- 2012-2036 -- and as you'll see, our lists are very different, even as to players who have already retired (I can't wait to see what happens when we're dealing with guys currently in their early twenties). We'll be unveiling and discussing our lists in five five-year segments in the coming days and/or weeks. Today, the immediate next five years, 2012-2016, which covers the first ballot for every player who has already retired (2010 retirees will be eligible in 2016). (Also, here is Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5, as well as our wrap-up).

A word on methodology. James picked two inductees for every season, which makes sense; historically, there have been either one or two BBWAA inductees in virtually every year, and since it's almost entirely guesswork anyway, why not make it uniform? But on the other hand, there are a ton of worthy candidates coming up, and you do see three in a class about once every ten years (see 1984, 1991, 1999). So we decided to limit ourselves to two candidates (or fewer, though I chose never to pick fewer) in every year, with the exception of two seasons, in which we could name three. For a 25-year stretch, that seems reasonable.

So, onward. I'm handling the main commentary this time, with TCM injecting comments as he sees fit, and we'll switch next time. Here's hoping that in fifteen years, someone will care enough about us to come back to this list and have a good laugh at our expense: