I honestly like that part of the Wall of Fame.  Giving relatively-unknown indies from lesser-popular genres an honest shot to rank among the most high-profile titles of the year seems like a godsend for them.  I think that's where I first heard about Balatro.

Both are trash. Reducing it to a number so fanboys can war over it. A number says nothing.

Nah, it does vehicle something, but it's highly an unreliable metric to rely on. 

Best example I could think of are the reviews done by IGN, when they could legitimately blast a game and end up giving a decent 7-8 score which feels just weird when the written portion didn't portray this kind of opinion.

Balatro did start off with only a few reviews, but it now has over 50, so I feel like it's earned its place on the Wall of Fame fairly. There's a game on there currently with just four scored outlets contributing to its score, yet it gets a place on the Wall of Fame next to games that managed to maintain the same average score across 100 reviews (average scores on OC trend down as more critic reviews are added). If no additional outlets review it, it'll likely be on the final Wall of Fame. That's not what I'd call an honest shot really - the sample size is far too low and score too easily skewed. It also happens to be bumping down another indie title that has over 50 reviews (Animal Well); I think the latter deserves the spot more at the moment. 

7.8: Too much water.

That's fair too.  Balatro has netted way more scored reviews from Top Critics since then. 

I guess you're alluding to The Crimson Diamond, then?  Okay, that's a better example.  Even then, I still think there's something valuable to its presence in the Hall of Fame, even if it doesn't maintain its place like Balatro.  It reminds of an adventure game called The Excavation of Hob's Barrow: a modest spot on that year's Wall of Fame before eventually going down to the mid-80s.  I don't think I would've given that a closer look had it not caught my attention as that month's hot new thing.

Or their classic NSMBU review. 

9.1/10 for what they called an uninspired experience.

For the sake of clarifying that infamous review: her criticism there is in the repetitiveness of fighting water-based Pokemon during a big stretch of the game.  I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't insert the "too much water" insert at the end either. 

Imagine what an ‘inspired’ game could’ve gotten.