New: The Hall of Merit
Jul 8, 2013 by Adam Darowski
I've long been a fan of the Hall of Merit, another alternate Hall of Fame curated by Baseball Think Factory. Each year, members of the site vote for new inductees based on (of course) merit and not fame.
The Hall of Merit (which I originally read about in an article by Joe Posnanski) provided me with some early inspiration to create the Hall of Stats. I found it interesting that a group of online stat geeks created a much better Hall than the real thing. When Sean Smith originally released his Wins Above Replacement data, I wanted to see if a mathematical formula could as well. And here we are today.
The truth is, the Hall of Merit and the Hall of Stats overlap quite a bit. There are still some interesting differences, though many can be explained by lack of playing time (for pre-1871 players or those who missed time to military service).
Today, I've added the Hall of Merit to all filters on the site. So, you can see the 219 Major League players in the Hall of Merit as well as the 59 pitchers, 28 Red Sox, etc. Enjoy!