Dreams Take Root: Hall of Fame Week 8
Hosted by SIBR, written by BNN Staff et al.
Margarito Nava
If you’re not a Wild Low fan, you may have never heard of Margo Nava. Buried deep in the long lineup of the Boston Flowers, Margo has quietly and consistently put up incredible numbers, season after season. Nava is often considered the heart of the team, as well as the leader and Fire-Eating protector. When a wimdied Season 17 election placed the captain in the Shadows, the Flowers had one of their worst seasons in the Expansion Era. When the Will of the Fans brought Nava back the very next chance they got, Boston made it all the way to the ILB Championship. If that isn’t the story of a Hall of Famer, nothing is.
– Cat
Theodore Cervantes
The story of the underdog is a common one in splorts. The dregs of draft improving over time to become top athletes is a time-tested narrative, and Theodore Cervantes is a quintessential example of one. Beginning in Season 1 on the New York Millennials, Cervantes was a 0.5 star pitcher, and arguably among the worst pitchers in Blaseball. Season 2’s Elections found the Millennials striking a bargain: Soul Swap.
Alongside Richardson Games, Fynn Doyle, Winnie Mccall, and Conrad Vaughan, Theodore Cervantes had some of their stats rerolled. Our poet rerolled into a ~3.5 star pitcher, soul swapping with a pitching machine as the story goes. Season 3 kicked off a solid start for who used to be the worst pitcher in the entire League; 4.20 ERA (nice), 13-7 W/L, 127 strikeouts, 7 quality starts, 3 shutouts. Theodore Cervantes tapped into a new power: that of terminal velocity. One of the most ruthless pitchers the League has ever seen, Theodore Cervantes continued to thrive as the Millennials were shifted from Chaotic Good to Wild High to Mild High.
Cervantes’ form would begin to improve, with the addition of Siphon during the Season 9 Forecast: Blooddrain Decree. During the Coffee Cup, Theodore Cervantes as pitching co-captain would help Inter Xpresso win the entire tournament, gaining the Perk modifier for itself and the rest of the active roster.
Season 15 would be a hallmark performance for the soul-swapped pitcher; 16-1 W/L, 1.49 ERA, five shutouts (two of which were perfect games), 198 strikeouts, 0.461 walks per innings pitched, and 66 strikeouts per walks. Cervantes would be attacked by a Consumer near the end of a career best season, but would recover in time.
Throughout a 24 Season career as a Millennial (a brief trip in the Shadows in the later end of the Expansion Era aside), Theodore Cervantes achieved a 3.1 ERA, 54 shutouts (three of which are perfect games), 3441 strikeouts, 250 quality starts, 0.843 WHIP, and 20.01 SO/BB. A proud parent of Lil’ Pitchy (Season 22 Millennials Birth Pitching Machine), Theodore Cervantes is without question an all-time pitching star and one of the greatest stories of improvement seen in our fine splort. I humbly ask you to give Theodore Cervantes its flowers by inducting it into the Hall of Fame, and with terminal velocity.
Sixpack Santiago
Over the past few weeks I’ve championed various pitchers who might have otherwise been given short shrift on the ballot. Sixpack Santiago is next on that list.
A one-team player for the Miami Dale, Santiago was reverbed into the rotation in Season 5, and has been a dynamite pitcher ever since. How does a career FIP+ of 139 strike you? It’s pretty killer to me. They’ve also put up 63.9 career WhAT, including a league-leading 6.6 WhAT in Season 9. Through 19 seasons, they’ve never had a FIP+ below 90, with only three seasons below 100 (their first few in the rotation). Apart from the early growing pains they’ve been a consistently above average arm, with five seasons where their FIP+ was above 160, meaning they were 60% better than the average pitcher (by Fielder Independent Pitching, which ignores defense).
Curry Aliciakeyes, another pitcher I’ve advocated for in these periodicals, and who is gaining a fair amount of Hall of Fame traction, has exactly the came career FIP+, and a slightly worse career ERA- and FIP-. Curry’s peaks are higher and more frequent, but both players have outstanding consistency and longevity.
Some career totals for you: 8th all-time in innings pitched, 6th all-time in Quality Starts, 7th all-time in Strikeouts. You won’t find them on the wins leaderboard, but such is the curse of playing for a Miami franchise that didn’t have any real success until deep into the Expansion Era.
With a lots of inductions last week, there’s a good chance you’ve got a fair amount of space on your ballot. Consider using it on Sixpack Santiago, one of the league’s most consistent and under-rated arms.
Francisca Sasquatch
What’s up #SquatchGang bros, it’s time to clutch up. Francisca Sasquatch has only two weeks left on the ballot, and you don’t want her to be a last round loser like Michelle Sportsman. #Vote now and #Squatch hard, because did Jessica Telephone ever have a .400 batting average after falling down into the Immaterial Plane from a peanut-related abduction? No, she got alted and sucked instead, but Fran did. Yet they’re in the Hall, but Fran isn’t, so #KeepSquatching. Did Knight Triumphant ever follow up their mediocre batting career with ridiculously solid Expansion Era performance, showing fantastic loyalty to a single team and sticking with them through thick and thin? No, but Fran did. Yet they’re in the Hall, but Fran isn’t, so #KeepSquatchingUntilYouCantSquatchNoMore. We will #Squatch on to the end, we will #Squatch in the Blaseball Discords, we will #Squatch on the seas and oceans, we will #Squatch with growing confidence and growing strength in our case, we will #Squatch for our Fran, whatever the cost may be, we will shall #Squatch on Twitter, we will #Squatch on your timelines, we will #Squatch in the fields and in the streets.
– Dargo (Dargo4#2798)
Jacob Haynes
As long as Jacob Haynes is around, no purely-statistical ballot is complete without him. #5 among HoF-eligible players in batting average, #8 in OBP, #14 in slugging, #2 in recorded games played. The only reason you wouldn’t consider him one of the best hitters in Blaseball is if your metric of choice happens to particularly value stealing, but even in ones like Wins Above Average that do, he’s #11, despite the fact that WAA is a counting stat and he was batting 13th in a lineup of 13.
He’s flown under the radar a lot thanks to his just-a-guy persona and having played all but one of his 24 seasons for the Flowers, but he’s arguably the best hitter on the ballot right now (inarguably so if your metric of choice is career OPS+, where he sits above everyone else at 159, or wRC+, 156). And even if you don’t care for numbers, you have to acknowledge how funny it is that one of the best hitters around is so bad at stealing that if replaced by an average player on the basepaths, his teams would’ve gained 60 runs over the seasons – that makes him the second-worst base thief of all time, beaten only by Rat Mason.
– May (Mаy#9290)
Pudge Nakamoto
<This is a hole in the shape of a Pudge Nakamoto blurb. It appears this blurb has roamed out of this article. If you see this blurb in an article on another site, do not approach, it should be considered armed and dangerous>
– Panda
