Circle of Greats 1953 Results: Voters Live By Brett Alone |

George Brett was an overwhelming favorite this round, appearing on a dominating 93.4% of the ballots on his way to induction as the 18th player in the Circle of Greats. That’s the highest percentage we’ve had for anyone yet. No need for a pine tar protest this time, George. More on Brett and the voting after the jump.

Let’s divide the last 100 or so years of American League baseball into four quarters and look at the top Wins Above Replacement totals (baseball-reference version), for everyday players, over each quarter-century slice:

1915-1939: Babe Ruth 163.1 WAR, Lou Gehrig 112.6 WAR

1940-1964: Ted Williams 116.5 WAR, Mickey Mantle 97.9 WAR

1965-1989: George Brett 83.5 WAR, Carl Yastrzemski 81.6 WAR

1990-2013: Alex Rodriguez 115.7 WAR, Frank Thomas 73.6 WAR (active: Derek Jeter 72.2 WAR)

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On the other side of the ledger from Brett’s big vote, two of the four candidates with no eligibility to spare this round, Dennis Eckersley and Andre Dawson (who received not a single vote this time) had their bubble burst, and now drop off the ballot. Roberto Alomar and Ryne Sandberg each appeared on 18% of the ballots, enough support to remain eligible, but not enough to move off the bubble. They will be joined there by Eddie Murray, who appeared on only a single ballot this round and used up his remaining spare eligibility. Ozzie Smith, on the other hand, again received solid support in his second round on the ballot and is starting to pile up the rounds of guaranteed eligibility.

The next round will be one of our split-year ballots, with half of the 1952 birth-year class joining the ballot while the other half waits for the following round. That may mean a strong opportunity for one or more of our holdovers. Could be interesting.

As always, you can review the complete voting record for this past round at Google Docs. The link is here: 1953 Vote Tally

If you would like to review the history of the COG voting, a spreadsheet summary of the voting is here: COG Vote Summary , with a summary of the raw vote totals on Sheet 1 and a summary of the percentage totals on Sheet 2.

The Circle of Greats membership thus far:
Jeff Bagwell
Wade Boggs
Barry Bonds
George Brett
Gary Carter
Roger Clemens
Tom Glavine
Rickey Henderson
Randy Johnson
Barry Larkin
Greg Maddux
Mike Mussina
Mike Piazza
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Curt Schilling
Frank Thomas
Larry Walker
Robin Yount

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Dr. Doom

10 years ago

COG vote totals spreadsheet hasn’t yet been updated for 1953, just so you know. I only noticed because Smoltz is inching up on teammate Glavine for the most total votes in COG history. Glavine (elected) has 262; Smoltz (unelected) is listed at 238, but received 6 last round for a total of 244. Mussina (238, elected) is third. And Curt Schilling (elected, 224) is next. But thereafter (both still eligible but unelected and gaining fast) are Alomar (226 including last round) and Gwynn (217). I’m thinking that it’s likely that only two of these three (Smoltz, Alomar, and Gwynn) get… Read more »

Reply to Dr. Doom

Also, I forgot to mention, birtelcom, that your headline actually made me laugh out loud. Great stuff.

bstar

birtelcom is batting 1.000 on the headlines as far as I’m concerned.

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birtelcom

Reply to bstar

Thanks, I’m glad you guys enjoy the headlines! But as they say in the commercials, don’t try this at home.

So, I can’t help it. I’ve been looking these vote totals for a while, and thinking about them a lot. It’s surprising to me that our voting seems to be that a player’s first year on the ballot is his greatest number of votes. Only three players (Mussina, Schilling, and Walker – maybe Jeff Bagwell, but he only appeared on two ballots, and so I’m not sure that can count) have any argument that they gained support as the ballots went on. The much more typical pattern seems to be that of Alomar, Biggio, Molitor, Gwynn, Raines, Trammell, Whitaker, Murray,… Read more »

Part of the “high support for the new guy” phenomenon may be an artifact of the holdover system. That is, a guy on his first appearance on the ballot is automatically on the bubble, so some of his support may be less “this is the best guy on the ballot today” and more “let’s get this guy an esablished place on the ballot so we can vote him in some day, even if he isn’t the best on this particular ballot”. As a guy like Smoltz piles up a secure backlog of guaranteed eligibility, there is less need to vote… Read more »

Brent

It is a pretty amazing coincidence that these results are posted on May 15, 2013, which just so happens to be George Brett’s 60th birthday. And yes, nothing makes a man feel old like having his childhood hero turn 60. But anyway Happy Birthday to George Brett!!

Reply to Brent

Hey, great catch, Brent — I certainly hadn’t noticed that. Now that you mention it, it’s also John Smoltz’s birthday — Happy 46th Birthday to John, and maybe by his 60th he’ll be in the Circle of Greats too!

BryanM

I believe that Albert should make your list for the 1990-2013 period

Reply to BryanM

The list was AL-only, Bryan.

Thanks , going out for new glasses

Fireworks

I think a big part of it is that in subsequent ballots new “more deserving” candidates siphon votes away from the previously “most deserving”. There are other factors, but that’s the biggest. Another is that in general the list of “worthy” candidates expands gradually until it becomes unsustainable or there is less “confusion” amongst voters about which candidates are greater and which are lesser. Which relates both to receiving feedback on whom the community prefers and that knowledge influencing your future voting as well as the act of voting being both a form of debate as well as subject to… Read more »