Hall of Very Good vs. Hall of Fame

It is a debate that rages on in these parts (Cincinnati) all year round, but only truly picks up steam nationally in the winter, when the new Hall of Fame member(s) are announced, and this weekend, when Major League Baseball enshrines those elite few: Who should be in the Hall of Fame, but isn't?

Pete Rose? Ron Santo? Bert Blyleven? Jim Rice? Mark McGwire? Joe Jackson? Those can be some pretty loaded questions that generate heated debate, and we have a unique way to objectively answer them.

In a manor that was originally constructed by hockey historian, Mike Wyman, for a similar debate related to the hockey Hall of Fame, we will approach this debate by trying to answer the question: "Could a team comprised of the best 25 former MLB players not in the MLB Hall of Fame (a.k.a. the "Hall of the Very Good" team) defeat a completely random team of those in the Hall of Fame?".

(Note: For clarification, we are counting all players who have been retired for five years or more as eligible for the former team—so Pete Rose and the Black Sox can get in—and only those who have been inducted for their contributions as players on the latter.)

To do this, we will perfectly mesh our SimLeague Baseball and SimMatchup technologies by building the Hall of the Very Good (HVG) roster based entirely on career player salaries from the Diamond Legends Career League option of SimLeague Baseball, and then simulating a seven-game series between the two teams 1,000 times in SimMatchup (more on this in a minute).

Disagree with our ultimate result? Want to make your own all-time teams? Check out our free Dream Teams functionality to build a team of your own or play SimLeague Baseball to compete against others to see who can create and manage the best team of historical baseball players.

Though we have chosen the HVG team in a deterministic manner, it should be noted that some great players generally in the debate did not make the cut (like Pete Rose, Andre Dawson, and Jim Rice).

While those players may also have strong cases, this is more indicative of the high level of talent that is not in the Hall of Fame—primarily in the corner outfield and corner infield positions.

It seems as though most fans often focus more on aggregate totals (e.g. how many home runs did he hit in his career?) rather than era-adjusted, ratio statistics (e.g. how many more total bases per at-bat did he generate than his peers? Or how many baserunners per inning pitched did he give up relative to his peers?) and co

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