UTK Special 11/10/23

The Plaque Deserved

Baseball Prospectus launched in 1996, which makes next year’s version the 28th edition. Very few players play close to 20 years. Sure, Nolan Ryan played 27 seasons, but he’s an outlier. Julio Franco? 23. Rickey Henderson? 25. Nelson Cruz? 19. My point is that most players don’t last close to this, so that if Baseball Prospectus was a player, it would likely have retired now and passed the five year waiting period before Hall of Fame voting.

It’s time for it to go to the Hall. Yes, Cooperstown. I said what I said.

Ok, yes, there’s not really a path. Except there is, if you squint a bit.

“The Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award is an award presented by the National Baseball Hall of Fame not more than once every three years to honor an individual who enhances baseball's positive image on society, who broadens the game's appeal, and whose integrity and dignity are comparable to the namesake of the award, John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil. There have been five recipients of the award since its inception in 2008.” That’s what the Baseball Hall of Fame says and while saying anyone, anywhere, at any time lived up to the standard of O’Neill, I won’t argue with Rachel Robinson, or any of the other four going in Cooperstown this way.

So does Baseball Prospectus as an organization qualify? I’m not sure. I think, if they wished, Cooperstown’s lords could squint and maybe MLB itself would let bygones be bygones, that it could happen.

There’s also plenty of other possibilities and if you wanted to put someone like Bill James, Sean Forman, or Dr. Frank Jobe into Cooperstown ahead of them, no argument here. But for the contribution to baseball, for ‘enhancing baseball’s positive image’, and for building a pipeline for great thought, great writing, and the next generation of baseball insiders, it’s hard to argue that Prospectus didn’t do that and doesn’t deserve recognition.

Look around any front office and you’ll likely see a Prospectus alumnus and if not, you’ll see people that grew up reading it, or reading the sites it inspired. When you see advanced stats on the scoreboard, remember that is because Prospectus stood in the lobbies of Winter Meetings, explaining to GMs that RBIs weren’t the best metric to use when looking at free agents. Prospectus predates spin rate, Statcast, and launch angle, but inspired every single one of them in ways, and is often on the cutting edge of using each of them.

*Sigh*

If not Cooperstown, why is Baseball Prospectus and the original lineup not acknowledged elsewhere? The FSGA (formerly the FSTA) has its own Hall of Fame. While Prospectus was never really about fantasy - though that’s where Keith Law started - it was always a key for serious players. Go to any draft back in the day and you could see Shandler’s book on one side of the room and BP on the other. It was more like Methodists and Baptists than any sort of holy war, but I think most of the members would acknowledge the influence. Bill James, a generation previous and no fan of fantasy baseball, is in the FSGA Hall of Fame, alongside a number of worthy names, including Shandler himself.

Aside from Shandler, I doubt anyone has sold as many books as Prospectus. Prospectus led the shift to the internet, to subscriptions, and innovated to the point that ESPN and others simply followed, copied, or partnered with Prospectus and its team. While never specifically fantasy-focused, it’s very easy to argue the influence of Prospectus on the industry is Hall-worthy.

While I think all of the people in the FSGA’s Hall are worthy candidates - not a single Harold Baines among them - it’s impossible for me to believe that the founders of Baseball Prospectus don’t belong alongside them. While many of them have left the industry they strengthened, the work they did is enough to prop up a brand twenty years after some of them left.

Gary Huckabay. Joe Sheehan. Dr. Rany Jazayerli. Clay Davenport. Christina Kahrl. Keith Woolner. Keith Law. Michael Wolverton. Doug Pappas.

Put them on a plaque.