Stacked Ballot: Hall of Fame Week 23
Hosted by SIBR, written by BNN contributors
Scratch Deleuze
Scratch Deleuze is a fantastic Blaseball player. Scratch Deleuze is a fantastic opossum. Scratch Deleuze deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
Scratch is the fulfillment of the promise that is the Ohio Worms. When the Worms arrived they looked to be horrible at playing Blaseball… and indeed, their first full season was historically losing. But the Worms had a special modification called “Bottom Dweller,” which boosts each player whenever the team finishes last place in its division. And that potential drove Worms fans into a frenzy.
Scratch was not the player most expected to skyrocket into stardom. That might have been Vessalius Sundae (who became an all-star), Augusta Chadwell (incinerated in their first season), or Huber Frumple (never played a game for the Worms). But with a measly 1.5 stars in batting, who would ever imagine Scratch would one day achieve greatness?
Well, us Worms used both of our braincells to dream, and now Scratch is a banger. They hit .380 in season 24 and sat near the league lead in slugging categories. Scratch is also a thieving genius. Frankly, I expect Scratch to steal at least one base every time she gets to the plate… unless they hit a homer, of course. That’s what 7.4 stars in Baserunning (7.8, if you count their item) will do for you!
As pointed out by Discord user deafhobbit, Scratch’s 52.8 WhAt compares favorably with the 53.9 WhAt of York Silk – and Scratch managed it in about 500 fewer plate appearances. It’s been improvement after improvement for Scratch ever since that first 1.5-star appearance, and the future is bright for our Worms legend.
Scratch is varyingly depicted as a team mom, teenage dirtbag, giant opossum carrying the team on their back, and tiny little possum resting on Ephraim Ladd’s shoulder. Scratch is always depicted as adorable. Let’s be real – it’s time to bring an opossum to the Hall of Fame.
-Patronus
Mcdowell Mason
Leader.
This one word summarises the long time captain of the LA Unlimited Tacos so well. Mcdowell, who had been with the tacos through their lows, whether it be the party time speed run or losing six players to the pods was also the most important player for their highs being a core member of the team for the season 13 and 14 internet league finals runs as well as the season 17 championship.
The other reason the word “leader” is most fitting for McD is because Mcdowell Mason is the league leader in career home runs, triples and total bases. Do you love the long ball? I know I do and there is no player who has provided the league with more long balls than Mcdowell Mason.
-DeeJay (@BlaseballACo)
Finn James
This week marks the second anniversary of Finn James’ pitching debut. Two years ago, Finn James began pitching for the Crabs, swapping places with beloathed pitcher Tillman Henderson in the Season 4 Election (paving the way for Henderson to later go up in flames and for fans to drag his corpse up and down the Idolboard in the name of Hall Star Science). It’s Season 5 and Finn’s rookie pitching season. The Crabs are about to top the Evil League with a regular season record of 65-34 and Finn James will lead the Crabs’ pitching staff in ERA and in pitcher wins. One week on in Season 6, Finn James will be top of the Crabs Rotation by ERA once again and the Crabs will take their first championship, stomping the entire League with a season record of 80-19. Vote for Finn because Finn James Wins Games.
Lou Roseheart
Lou Roseheart is one of the best players in the league in any position, and has been for most of their career.
Career stats:
2.53 career ERA, 7th lowest all time, and 3rd lowest among pitchers who never had underhanded.
.817 career OPS, with only 2 seasons below .740 OPS, seasons 3 and 9.
634 career stolen bases despite spending 5 and a half seasons as a pitcher (as well as being on a lineup that was never shorter than 9 players until the season 22 elections and longer than 9 players for over half of the Expansion Era).
Here’s the seasonal leaderboards that Lou Roseheart has been on:
Season 5
#9 Doubles Hit
#2 Hits with Runners in Scoring Position
Tied #2 Triples Hit with Nagomi McDaniel
Season 7
Tied #7 Triples Hit with Conner Haley and Justice Spoon
Season 8
#10 Stolen Bases
Season 16
#5 lowest ERA
#5 HR/9
Four way tie at #6 Walk Percentage of 0.001 with Elvis Figueroa, Sixpack Dogwalker, and Tiana Takahashi
Tied at #8 Walks/9 with Elvis Figueroa
Season 19
#2 Lowest ERA
#5 Hits/9
#2 HR/9
#7 Strike Percentage
#8 Strikeouts/9
#8 Walks/9
Season 20
#8 Slugging Percentage
Tied #6 Stolen Bases with Paula Turnip
Tied #3 Walk Percentage with Coolname Galvanic and Jolene Willowtree
#5 Strikeouts/Walks
Season 21
#5 Stolen Bases Tied
#6 Triples with Engine Eberhardt, Kathy Mathews, Mcdowell Mason, and Rivers Clembons
Season 23
#7 Stolen Bases
#7 Triples
Season 24
Tied #8 Triples with Joshua Watson
Vote for a player who can do it all. Vote for Lou Roseheart for Hall of Fame.
-LaserMessiah (@ChiBlaseball)
Dunlap Figueroa
Dunlap Figueroa is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. There’s a lot I could say about them: how they were one half of the Dunlap-Hiroto duo that gave the Tigers 16 straight winning seasons, both being top pitchers for pretty much day 1 up until S20 for Hiroto and S22 for Dunlap, when they were both alted with disastrous consequences. Talk about Dunlap’s ridiculous S21, Dunlap’s single Underhanded season and the nadir of their career, when put up one of the best Underhanded seasons ever, one of very few to rival Michelle Sportman’s, carrying a completely battered Tigers team on their and Dudley Mueller’s back all the way to finals. I could also talk about their ridiculous all time counting stats (#1 in innings pitched, #1 in strikeouts, #1 in wins, #2 in quality starts, #9 in shutouts). Or, about many of their absolutely bonkers moments, like when they pitched for both teams at the same time in Season 14 following a Feedback with NaN, or when they entered the Semi-Centennial with the Fourth Base and a dream to stop the end of the world. But I’ll just say this.
Dunlap Figueroa has pitched over 5000 innings. They have a 76 career ERA-, meaning they were 25% better than league average during all of them. The only players with more than 2500 IPs and a better ERA- are Winnie Hess, Elvis Figueroa, Burke Gonzales, Gabriel Griffith, Qais Dogwalker, Wyatt Pothos, Yosh Carpenter, Theodore Cervantes, Yummy Elliott, Alexandria Rosales. All of them are, or are hopefully going to be, Hall Of Famers – and Dunlap is right there with them, with double the playing time. But let’s exclude Dunlap’s alternation, and take only their career from when they were generated to when they were Alternated. The only player with more IPs and better era- than S4-S21 Dunlap is Winnie Hess, generally agreed to be the greatest pitcher of all time. If Dunlap had died in S22 instead of being Alternated, Winnie would be their only comparison.
-Dargo4
Basilio Mason
Basilio Mason does not like blaseball. This is a wild sentence for a player who had not missed a game until being reverbed to the rotation in season 18 and has not missed a game since returning to the lineup in that season’s election.
Even when elsewhere, Basilio only stayed for a game, returning with the lost shell containing Basilio Fig to the team. This is the player who has played the most blaseball and eventually, got great at it.
The steady progress from being one of the worst players on the worst team in the league, to being the Tacos best hitter in Season 24. This consistent growth has led to BMase being a top 50 hitter of all time by WhAT and only behind Nagomi Nava in career walks.
Consistent growth and patience.
-DeeJay (@BlaseballACo)
Sosa Hayes
Last week Sosa Hayes gained 16% of the vote share. That’s incredible!!!! It also means they only need 5% more of the vote (~10 more people than last week) to keep them on the ballot for their final week (where the underline will give them another HUGE BOOST)! Here’s a reminder of all the reasons Sosa deserves a spot on your ballot:
1. With a BsR of 116.4, Sosa Hayes is the 9th best baserunner of all time.
2. Sosa is one of the best 2 way player of ALL TIME, being 1 of 11 with more than 2000 plate appearances/batter faced to have an ERA- less than 100 and a OBS+ of over 100!!!! This puts Sosa up there with Castillo Turner, Burke Gonzales, and new nominee Lou Roseheart.
3. Sosa pitched incredibly well with very little stars, especially in season 11 where they with 0.97 pitching stars pitched 1-2 stars better than expected! This helps them become an above average pitcher (as seen by ERA- less than 100 and a career FIP+ of 121). This is despite maxing out at just 2.9 pitching stars during their pitching time.
4. Sosa was one of the best batters of the late expansion era with OPS+ of 140 and SLG+ of 134, with 2 top 10% seasons.
5. Sosa’s season 23 was the 10th best season by BsR EVER, at 29.9. This means Sosa’s best baserunning season was better than Beck Whitney’s, Richardson Games’, Rigby Friedrich’s, Forrest Best’s, and Hewitt Best’s (and also all the ppl on the ballot rn)
6. Sosa killed hype train, is the only player to have to stat caps effect their visible stars, feedbacked for Soibhan Chark twice, and has 3 selves batted in.
I know the ballots stacked right now but even the most popular strategies leave a few slots open. PLEASE throw a vote to Sosa Hayes, I think they deserve a spot in the hall and if we all believe it we can get them in.
-AKAFishy
FRYDEHHM
Here’s a humble suggestion for your ballot. Include all of these players. Yes, all of them:
Finn James
Richardson Games
York Silk
Dunlap Figueroa
Elvis Figueroa
Howell Franklin
Henry Marshallow
McDowell Mason
Or, FRYDEHHM. 🍳 for short. Time to fry these eggs.
Yes, that only leaves you with 2 free spots. Yes, this is a lot. But this is the most stacked HoF ballot ever, and I truly believe this is the best way to induct as many players as possible. Some players left out are better than some players on the list, and some players left out are more well known than players on the list, but those picked have a specific combination of performance and notoriety and are at a much higher risk of falling off than anyone at 5%. Finally, all of them have considerable team support, which has historically been a great indicator of who has an easier time getting in: Finn from the Crabs, Games and Howell from the Thieves, Henry and Elvis from the Pies, Dunlap from the Tigers, Mason from the Tacos, York from…well, basically the entire league.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty of other deserving players. The idea is simply to vote for the players most likely to make it in, and thus induct as many of them as we can. You may feel bad about leaving someone off your ballot, but if this works, you will be able to vote for them next week.
🍳
-Dargo4
Peanut Bong
-DeeJay (@BlaseballACo)
