Since its inception (more than 2 years ago), I have been participating in a project for an alternative baseball Hall of Fame, known as the Hall of Merit. A collection of baseball sabermetricians (about 50 of us) hold an election every two weeks, representing another year in baseball history. It is hosted on the Baseball Think Factory site. The first election was for players retiring 1892 and before. Then every two weeks we have an election for the players becoming eligible for the next year. Consideration is given to players who spent considerable time in other leagues. The most obvious example is the Negro Leagues, but there were also a number of players who played professionally before what we consider the major leagues (the National Association) became official in 1871.
I thought it might be interesting to post here, from time to time, my proposed selections for the Hall of Merit, because although I get a vote, it is only one of 50. Often the players I believe should be elected are not (although many times they are elected eventually). That's true for all of the voters, of course. Most of us keep track of our Personal Hall of Merit, or PHoM for short.
One word about the Hall of Merit system. There are a specified number of players elected each year. In the first election, since we were covering 21 years of baseball, there were 4 electees. In most years there are 2, but in some years there are 1 and when we get to the modern years it will be 3. The numbers were determined by the baseball "population" for the given years, and the final number elected should approximate that of the actual Hall of Fame.
When I post my PHoM selections here, I will post two lists. One will use the quota system of the HoM (call it PHoM-Quota Method) and the other will list those who meet 75% of my standards for induction (call it the PHoM-Open Method). Almost everyone on the first list will be on the second, but not necessarily vice versa. For that reason, I will give brief descriptions of the elected players only for the Quota Method, along with a link to their baseball record.
The PHoM posts will happen periodically. I also will post a guide to my methods.
