[Mick]

This was a discussion about the irrelevancy of catcher Range Factor, which you disputed and doubled down on, not about the criteria for Hall of Fame election. It was never disputed that Pierzynski is nowhere near serious HoF consideration.

But to answer your question, the objective inputs for evaluating a catcher's HoF candidacy (acknowledging that subjective inputs are legitimate as well) are the obvious ones: the player's net offensive and defensive contributions. The issue is what metrics are the most accurate at capturing what a player's net value is/was. Specifically for catcher defense the best publicly available metric is the BIS version of DRS. There's a reason why both versions of WAR (B-Ref and FanGraphs) use DRS as the catcher defense component. bWAR uses DRS while fWAR uses DRS as well as a proprietary metric for blocking. FanGraphs uses Ultimate Zone Rating for non-catchers but not for catchers since it was never meant to be applied to that position. Range Factor was considered obsolete years ago and in any case was never intended to be used for catchers either, since over 95% of the inputs are external to a catcher's influence.

As you pointed out Pierzynski's DRS Above Average was -57, meaning that he was a poor catcher to the point that his below average offensive performance is not outweighed by superior defensive contribution. But ZR and RF are irrelevant metrics for catchers whether you believe me or not, and there's not a single front office analyst who uses anything akin to those calculations in their evaluations or projections. Of course front offices don't use publicly available models at all but the base defensive modeling that they use for catchers is essentially a proprietary version of DRS. Referencing any versions of Zone Rating or Range Factor is just unnecessary noise that shows a misunderstanding of how to evaluate catcher defense.

I think JAWs (Jaffe WAR scoring system) is a good, one-size-fits-all assessment tool career total WAR with the total WAR from his seven year peak, consecutive or non-consecutive).  Will Leitch called it the "definitive statistical measure" in evaluating Hall of Fame cases, Craig Edwards of FanGraphs described JAWS as "the standard-bearer for Hall of Fame analysis over the last decade."  It doesn't account for post season performance or awards, and it probably undervalues individual outstanding seasons.  But it seems worthwhile.

Hall of Fame ballot: Explaining Jay Jaffe's JAWS stat - Sports Illustrated

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_C.shtml

Top 11 are in the HoF (except Mauer, not eligible until 2022), Skips Munson and Tenace, Posey not eligible for a while, Buck Ewing is in, skips Freehan (11x all-star in 15 year career), then Campanella.  Schang and Posada, not in.  Former Giant Bresnahan is in.  Skips a bunch of good eligible catchers not in HoF (Kendall, Porter, Sundberg, Parrish) then Josh Gibson, Ernie Lombardi and Ray Schalk who are members.  Skips a whooooole lot of good catchers, including Del Crandall, Javy Lopez, Mickey Tettleton, Manny Sanguillen and others, but Rick Ferrell (41st on the list), then skips a bunch more including Bob Boone to Biz Mackey, #60 and last on the list save for Al Lopez (#129), Connie Mack (#232), and Wilbert Robinson (#249) who made the hall as managers.

[Mick]

This was a discussion about the irrelevancy of catcher Range Factor, which you disputed and doubled down on, not about the criteria for Hall of Fame election. It was never disputed that Pierzynski is nowhere near serious HoF consideration.

But to answer your question, the objective inputs for evaluating a catcher's HoF candidacy (acknowledging that subjective inputs are legitimate as well) are the obvious ones: the player's net offensive and defensive contributions. The issue is what metrics are the most accurate at capturing what a player's net value is/was. Specifically for catcher defense the best publicly available metric is the BIS version of DRS. There's a reason why both versions of WAR (B-Ref and FanGraphs) use DRS as the catcher defense component. bWAR uses DRS while fWAR uses DRS as well as a proprietary metric for blocking. FanGraphs uses Ultimate Zone Rating for non-catchers but not for catchers since it was never meant to be applied to that position. Range Factor was considered obsolete years ago and in any case was never intended to be used for catchers either, since over 95% of the inputs are external to a catcher's influence.

As you pointed out Pierzynski's DRS Above Average was -57, meaning that he was a poor catcher to the point that his below average offensive performance is not outweighed by superior defensive contribution. But ZR and RF are irrelevant metrics for catchers whether you believe me or not, and there's not a single front office analyst who uses anything akin to those calculations in their evaluations or projections. Of course front offices don't use publicly available models at all but the base defensive modeling that they use for catchers is essentially a proprietary version of DRS. Referencing any versions of Zone Rating or Range Factor is just unnecessary noise that shows a misunderstanding of how to evaluate catcher defense.

I think JAWs (Jaffe WAR scoring system) is a good, one-size-fits-all assessment tool career total WAR with the total WAR from his seven year peak, consecutive or non-consecutive).  Will Leitch called it the "definitive statistical measure" in evaluating Hall of Fame cases, Craig Edwards of FanGraphs described JAWS as "the standard-bearer for Hall of Fame analysis over the last decade."  It doesn't account for post season performance or awards, and it probably undervalues individual outstanding seasons.  But it seems worthwhile.

Hall of Fame ballot: Explaining Jay Jaffe's JAWS stat - Sports Illustrated

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_C.shtml

Top 11 are in the HoF (except Mauer, not eligible until 2022), Skips Munson and Tenace, Posey not eligible for a while, Buck Ewing is in, skips Freehan (11x all-star in 15 year career), then Campanella.  Schang and Posada, not in.  Former Giant Bresnahan is in.  Skips a bunch of good eligible catchers not in HoF (Kendall, Porter, Sundberg, Parrish) then Josh Gibson, Ernie Lombardi and Ray Schalk who are members.  Skips a whooooole lot of good catchers, including Del Crandall, Javy Lopez, Mickey Tettleton, Manny Sanguillen and others, but Rick Ferrell (41st on the list), then skips a bunch more including Bob Boone to Biz Mackey, #60 and last on the list save for Al Lopez (#129), Connie Mack (#232), and Wilbert Robinson (#249) who made the hall as managers.