Mets360’s inaugural Hall of Fame class

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. is a wonderful place, which every fan should go to at least once in their life. The exhibits are great and you’d be hard pressed to find a more picturesque place than Cooperstown. Of course, we hear most about the Hall around the annual selection of players who the writers induct. From a marketing standpoint, having the writers make the picks was a home run. What better way to insure publicity for the place than having the people who write about the sport make the picks? And at one point, they likely were the most knowledgeable people, too.

But a lot has changed since the 1930s. Still it was something that I looked forward to each year, going so far as to create my own ballot based on the actual eligibility rules. But everyone has a breaking point and this year I reached mine. The Joe Morgan letter, where – assumingly with the Hall’s blessing – he wrote a letter to voters imploring them to ignore steroid users was the straw that broke this camel’s back. At that point, I decided to do what others before me had done – give up caring about which players were inducted into Cooperstown and instead start my own Hall. And that decision was further justified when Jack Morris was recently elected. Prior to this year, that selection would have outraged me. Now it was just a confirmation.

So, along with 19 other people, here’s a virtual Hall of Fame starting from scratch. The unique twist is that we’re going to start voting from the 1950s. The advantages to doing that are that it’s different from how others have done it and it also allows us to start with a class filled with all-time greats that even casual baseball fans will recognize. The initial ballot of 22 players, based on fWAR totals from the period 1950-1959 included the top dozen hitters and the top 10 pitchers.

We have the same 75% threshold for induction, meaning candidates will have to receive 15 votes to gain election. All candidates who receive 20% of the vote will appear on a future ballot, although not the next one, as we will continue to go by decades at least through the 1990s. It doesn’t make any sense to include those who reached the 20% threshold immediately, as they will just get lost in the numbers then, too.

Voters can pick as many guys as they want with the following guidelines:

1. Votes should be based on who you would pay money to see not for one game or one season but over a span of 10 or more years.
2. There is no character clause and you should treat PED users no different than gamblers or racists or any other undesirables.
3. The only thing that matters is what they did on the field.

Here was our initial ballot:

Mickey Mantle – A lifetime .977 OPS and retired after putting up a 143 OPS+ and thinking he had lost it.
Stan Musial – Three-time MVP winner who missed his age-24 season due to World War II
Willie Mays – Appeared in 24 All-Star games and won 11 Gold Glove Awards
Duke Snider – In 149 lifetime PA in the World Series, he had a .945 OPS
Eddie Mathews – Perhaps the greatest young player ever, he had 6 AS appearances by age 27
Yogi Berra – Amazing how the Yankee dynasty fizzled once Berra left
Ted Williams – His lifetime .482 OBP is tops in MLB history and a record that will never be broken
Minnie Minoso – Cuban native’s career lasted from 1949-1980
Richie Ashburn – Put up a .424 OBP at age 36 for the 1962 Mets
Larry Doby – Has a lifetime 136 OPS+ in one of the game’s most underappreciated careers
Ernie Banks – Won back-to-back MVP Awards then led the league in IBB the next two years
Jackie Robinson – Broke MLB’s color barrier in 1947 at age 28
Robin Roberts – Won 20 games in six consecutive seasons
Warren Spahn – After the age of 35, he won 20 games seven times
Billy Pierce – 5’10 LHP won 211 games in his career
Bob Rush – A stalwart for some mediocre and worse Cubs teams of the 1950s
Mike Garcia – Has a lifetime .594 winning percentage in his 14-year career
Early Wynn – Came back at age 43 in 1963 to win his 300th game
Bob Friend – Pitched for both the Mets and Yankees in 1966
Curt Simmons – Played key roles for both the 1950 Phillies and 1964 Cardinals in 20-year career
Harvey Haddix – Won 20 games and had a .749 OPS in 107 PA in 1953
Don Newcombe – Won both the MVP and Cy Young Award in brilliant 1956 season

Our 20 voters selected the following guys – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Banks, Robinson and Spahn. Not a bad initial class! Four guys – Mantle, Mays, Williams and Spahn – were unanimous. Seven players will be on a future ballot but Rush, Garcia, Friend, Simmons and Haddix have been eliminated from future consideration.

Here are our voters and who they selected:

Joe Barbieri – Williams, Mantle, Berra, Mays, Banks, Robinson, Spahn, Snider
Dan Capwell – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Doby, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Simmons, Newcombe
Brian Cartwright – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Williams, Robinson, Spahn, Mathews
Robert Chaban – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Williams, Berra, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn, Newcombe and Ashburn
John Coppinger – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Berra, Williams, Mathews, Robinson, Banks, Spahn, Snider
Scott Ferguson – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Ashburn, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Pierce, Wynn
Paul Festa – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Berra, Williams, Banks, Robinson, Spahn, Mathews, Minoso, Doby, Ashburn
Chris Flanders – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Williams, Berra, Snider, Banks, Robinson, Spahn, Wynn, Newcombe
John Fox – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Minoso, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn
Todd Gallagher – Mantle, Musial, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Mays, Banks, Spahn
David Groveman – Williams, Robinson, Mantle, Mays, Snider, Berra, Musial, Newcombe, Spahn, Wynn
David Jordan – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Williams, Robinson, Spahn, Wynn, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Banks, Roberts
Brian Joura – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Minoso, Ashburn, Doby, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn
Ray Kuhn – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Ashburn, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn, Newcombe
Bob Lowe – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn
Tim Mester – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Williams, Banks, Spahn
Brian Mullen – Mays, Williams, Mantle, Banks, Robinson, Spahn, Newcombe
Matt Netter – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn, Pierce
Doug Parker – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Mathews, Berra, Williams, Banks, Robinson, Spahn
Chris Walendin – Mantle, Musial, Mays, Snider, Matthews, Berra, Williams, Minoso, Ashburn, Doby, Banks, Robinson, Roberts, Spahn, Wynn

Up next will be our vote on the top performers of the 1960s