Cybermetrics is a blog by Cyril “Cy” Morong, professor of Economics at San Antonio College. Early in December he took a look at some Hall of Fame cases using four criteria, one being WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) from Sean Smith’s site. Yesterday we reviewed Don Mattingly’s Hall of Fame chances. To balance it out I wanted to take a look at Hernandez, whose Hall candidacy has been discussed before on the show.

I count about eight of his 17 seasons being “Hall Worthy”, and I had to take defense into account for a couple of them. He falls short versus others at his position, like Mattingly, but does have similar numbers to Puckett, an argument we discussed in the Mattingly piece. As much as I love Keith, his leadership intangibles, and would love to include him in the Hall, I have to be consistent and say no. The defense is what makes it close, but Hernandez struggled early in his career offensively, and broke down after 1987. Those years robbed him of what could have been a Hall of Fame worthy career.

WARP is no different than WAR, which puts a value on a player, like Hernandez, comparing him to an average replacement. I don’t know how WAR vs. WARP is any different, but Smith combines offense, defense, and base running to assign a value per player. I am using this just to see how Hernandez shakes out.

If you look at the enclosed Top 500 Positional WARP Players in baseball history, Hernandez is just outside the top 100 at number 102. To give you perspective, this metric states that Keith Hernandez was more valuable than Hall of Famer’s such as Billy Williams, Willie Stargell, and Dave Winfield. Other first baseman such as Hank Greenberg and Billy Terry, are ranked below Hernandez. Looking for Mattingly? He is number 279 behind non Hall of Fame players such as Darryl Strawberry, Julio Franco, and Steve Finley.

If you take Smith’s WARP seriously, then Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez, and Barry Larkin should be inducted in the Hall this Wednesday. The issue with using such a metric is that is values the overall career numbers, and doesn’t take into consideration number of “Hall of Fame” seasons. Consistency should be a big determining factor when making a Hall decision. It was one of my main reasons to exclude Mattingly and Hernandez.

It’s interesting how well Keith Hernandez stacks up against the all time great first baseman. I don’t believe we will see him in the Hall of Fame, even though his defense deserves a plaque. For the record, Prof. Morong’s analysis had Hernandez ranked very well in three of the four categories, and believes he should have been given more of a consideration. In case you’re interested, Kostya Kennedy of Sports Illustrated joined me on the show last spring and made his case for why Hernandez should be included in the Hall of Fame. You can listen to the short 15 minute interview below.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com

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Tags: Barry Larkin, Billy Terry, Darryl Strawberry, Don Mattingly, Edgar Martinez, Hall of Fame, Julio Franco, Keith Hernandez, Kostya Kennedy, New York Mets Don Mattingly, Sean Smith, Sports Illustrated, Steve Finley, Tim Raines, WARP