Predicting Today's Hall of Fame Starters, 2015 Edition

Last week, I kicked off the new year by looking way, way ahead, specifically at which active position players today might be making the Hall of Fame one day. As you probably could have guessed, today, I’m looking at the other half of the equation, the pitchers.

Again, my methods are as follows: first, I look at the median career Wins Above Replacement for Hall of Famers at each position. Then, I look at how many non-Hall of Famers (excluding active or not-yet-eligible ones) were at that mark at each age, excluding players on the ballot. Then, I take a simple percentage: number of Hall of Famers above the age-median WAR out of total players at that same mark. For pitchers specifically, I only looked at players who began their careers after 1920, due to how different the role was in the Deadball Era. Also, I made sure to only look at starters, as relievers are entirely different.

Also, the normal caveats: first, this doesn’t account for the possibility of people who missed the Hall one day making it via the Veterans Committee. Also, this doesn’t account for people who were Hall worthy but didn’t make it; this is just measuring people making the Hall of Fame, not having Hall-worthy careers. Also, keep in mind that not making these cutoffs doesn’t necessarily mean that a player won’t make the Hall (in fact, two of the three pitchers who look likely to make it to Cooperstown this year didn’t hit these marks).

Anyway, here are the median career WAR totals, the percentage of players that have made the Hall at that level, and the amount of WAR someone would need each season to stay on pace. Also, although I’ll only be covering players up through age 35, I included a little more because the numbers are interesting:

Predicting Today's Future Hall of Fame Hitters, 2015 Edition

In what’s becoming an annual offseason tradition, I decided to again look at which young and active players where on pace for the Hall of Fame. As in years past, I’ll start with hitters today and move onto pitchers in the next few days.

Just as a refresher on my methods: First, I look at how Hall of Famers were playing at each age and sort them by career Wins Above Replacement through that season. I look at the median, then see how many players were above the median at that age but didn’t make the Hall. Then, I simply see what percentage of players above that mark made the Hall.

Below is the chart with the results, including how much WAR a player would need to total at each level to stay on pace:

Age	WAR	Increase	Calculation
20	0.5	0.5	24.79%
21	2	1.5	32.21%
22	4	2	34.27%
23	7.7	3.7	40.72%
24	11.3	3.6	43.29%
25	16	4.7	49.32%
26	20.35	4.35	51.77%
27	25.6	5.25	55.73%
28	31.4	5.8	64.35%
29	35.4	4	67.89%
30	39.5	4.1	71.15%
31	43.8	4.3	74.75%
32	48.4	4.6	76.29%
33	50.9	2.5	75.51%
34	53.3	2.4	75.51%
35	56	2.7	77.08%

With that out of the way, let’s look at who made each mark this year.