Why 538 is wrong about Verlander and the Hall of Fame

I strongly disagree with this 538 article saying "Everyone Thinks Justin Verlander Belongs In The Hall Of Fame. So Why Don’t The Stats Agree?"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everyone-thinks-justin-verlander-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame-so-why-dont-the-stats-agree/?

It says he is a bit below the average for starting pitchers in the Hall in JAWS rating

Here is the comment I left there

You have a couple of guys, Walter Johnson (164.3) and Cy Young (163.6) that make that average JAWS very high. Then Clemens is at 139. So we need to take that into account.

Then if you look, Verlander is actually 36th all-time in JAWS with no revision. That seems like a pretty high rank, maybe good enough for the Hall.

At Baseball Reference he is 30th in career WAR for pitchers while having had 3 first place finishes, a 2nd and a 3rd. And this year will be 1st or 2nd.

He is a definite Hall of Famer

Here are 3 guys who Verlander is ahead of in JAWS and their vote % in their first year of eligibility. They all made it in easily

Palmer 92.6%
Hubbell 87%
Marichal 83.7%

Update: My friend Jerry Miller pointed out that Marichal got in his 3rd year. He got 58% in his first year. Hubbell got voted in in 1947 with his last year in baseball being 1943. Here is what it shows at his Baseball Reference page. It seems like the voting schemes were going through some changes then.

1945 BBWAA ( 9.7%)

1946 Final Ballot (28.5%)

1946 Nominating Vote (50.0%)

1947 BBWAA (87.0%)