This post is for voting and discussion in the 35th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round begins to add those players born in 1940. Rules and lists are after the jump.
Players born in 1940 will be brought on to the COG eligible list over two rounds — the top half of the alphabet this round and the bottom half of the alphabet next round. The new group joins the holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full group eligible to receive your votes this round.
Because there will be, at the same time as this 1940-Part 1 balloting, a runoff election underway to resolve the tie in the 1941 round, voters will have some unusual choices to make for their ballots this round. Both Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan are listed as holdovers in the eligible list below, because as of now the start of voting neither has had been inducted. You may if you wish include either of these guys on your ballot as one of your three choices. That is a way to help support your choice if he does not succeed in the runoff. The downside of such a vote is that if your choice does win the runoff, then the ballot spot you used for him will have been used for someone who, it turns out, did not need your vote. You may want to keep an eye on how the runoff election is going during the week, and check to see if you want to change your vote in this round before the vote-changing deadline on Saturday Wednesday next week.
If you want to vote for both Rose and Ryan, on the theory that whichever one loses the runoff deserves your vote, you need not use two ballot spots to do so. You can instead cast a vote for “Rose/Ryan” or “Ryan/Rose”, which I will treat as a vote for “whoever loses the runoff”. You will then still be able to include two other names on your ballot. In counting the votes at the end of the balloting, all the votes cast for “Rose/Ryan” or “Ryan/Rose” will be added to the votes for the one of those two guys who loses the runoff. At the end of the voting this round, all votes that were cast for the guy who turns out to have won the runoff will be deleted from the vote count, all the vote percentages will be re-calculated based on the deletion of those votes, and the results will then be applied as they always are.
As usual, the new group of 1940-born players, in order to join the eligible list, must have played at least 10 seasons in the major leagues or generated at least 20 Wins Above Replacement (“WAR”, as calculated by baseball-reference.com, and for this purpose meaning 20 total WAR for everyday players and 20 pitching WAR for pitchers).
Each submitted ballot, if it is to be counted, must include three and only three eligible players (with the special exception mentioned above that one of your three votes can be cast in the form of “Ryan/Rose” or “Rose/Ryan”). The one player who appears on the most ballots cast in the round (after the special adjustment is made eliminating the votes for the winner of the runoff vote) is inducted into the Circle of Greats. Players who fail to win induction but appear on half or more of the (post-runoff adjustment) ballots that are cast win four added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Players who appear on 25% or more of the (post runoff-adjustment) ballots cast, but less than 50%, earn two added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Any other player in the top 9 (including ties) in ballot appearances, or who appears on at least 10% of the (post runoff-adjustment) ballots, wins one additional round of ballot eligibility.
All voting for this round closes at 11:00 PM EST EDT on Friday, November 8 Sunday, November 10, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:00 PM EST EDT Wednesday, November 6 Saturday, November 9.
If you’d like to follow the vote tally, and/or check to make sure I’ve recorded your vote correctly, you can see my ballot-counting spreadsheet for this round here: COG 1940 Round 1 Vote Tally. I’ll be updating the spreadsheet periodically with the latest votes. Initially, there is a row in the spreadsheet for every voter who has cast a ballot in any of the past rounds, but new voters are entirely welcome — new voters will be added to the spreadsheet as their ballots are submitted. Also initially, there is a column for each of the holdover players; additional player columns from the new born-in-1940 group will be added to the spreadsheet as votes are cast for them.
Choose your three players from the lists below of eligible players. The 13 current holdovers (including Rose and Ryan) are listed in order of the number of future rounds (including this one) through which they are assured eligibility, and alphabetically when the future eligibility number is the same. The new group of 1940 birth-year guys are listed below in order of the number of seasons each played in the majors, and alphabetically among players with the same number of seasons played. In total there were 30 players born in 1940 who met the “10 seasons played or 20 WAR” minimum requirement. 15 of those are being added to the eligible list this round (alphabetically from Jack Aker through Ellie Hendricks). The 15 players further down in the alphabet will be added next round.
Holdovers:
Nolan Ryan (eligibility guaranteed for 12 rounds)
Lou Whitaker (eligibility guaranteed for 10 rounds)
John Smoltz (eligibility guaranteed for 8 rounds)
Jim Palmer (eligibility guaranteed for 6 rounds)
Bobby Grich (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Craig Biggio (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Edgar Martinez (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Kenny Lofton (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Pete Rose (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Dick Allen (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Roberto Alomar (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Eddie Murray (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Ryne Sandberg (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1940, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Willie Davis
Tommy Harper
Larry Brown
Danny Cater
Elrod Hendricks
Gene Alley
Glenn Beckert
John Bateman
Horace Clarke
Pitchers (born in 1940, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Woodie Fryman
Dick Ellsworth
Tony Cloninger
Jack Aker
Bill Hands
Jim Hannan
Rose/Ryan
Jim Palmer
John Smoltz
John Smoltz is winning. Let’s hope for a week-long site crash.
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasons:
Rose 44.2
Grich 43.6
Whitaker 42.7
Martinez 41.3
Smoltz 40.1
Lofton 39.3
Ryan 39.1
Sandberg 38.8
Alomar 36.8
Biggio 36.3
Palmer 36.0
Allen 35.9
Murray 34.9
Nobody new is worth a look.
Grich. Martinez. Smoltz.
Willie Davis,
3rd most games played at CF,
104 Rfield,
60.7 WAR
________
Maybe doesn’t make the cut, but certainly
worth a look.
Good call, Voomo. Davis was worth 27.3 positive WAA over 18 seasons. Probably not HoF-worthy, and certainly not CoG-worthy, but better than Jim Rice or Orlando Cepeda.
Bill James did an extensive analysis of Willie Davis in his Historical Baseball Abstract. He sees Davis as particularly punished in reputation by the effect of mid-’60s ball on his stats, which led people (including me) to regard him as “a disappointment,” when in fact he was an excellent player.
That said, James does not rank him with the HoF center fielders (except outliers like Little Poison). Vada Pinson and Cesar Cedeno, for example, rank considerably higher.
The “Rose/Ryan” option is a nice one. Thanks. It seems to me that you could have also just held both of them off the ballot for 1940.1, and applied the loser player to 1940.2 instead. But this way will work fine, I think. Actually, looking at the ballot, I’m thinking the runoff is going to end up being moot; I don’t think there’s a strong enough new candidate to be elected, so I think the loser of the runoff will probably win 1940.1, so we’ll end up with both elected, anyway. But it’s fun to finally have a tie!
Rose/Ryan
Bobby Grich
Jim Palmer (over Ryne Sandberg by a razor’s edge)
Again, sorry that I can’t vote for Ryno. These guys are all so close, it’s hard to draw a line!
Also, a shout-out to Willie Davis. Well, more specifically, a shout-out to the NBJHBA article on Willie Davis. I don’t think Davis is likely to get enough support to stay on the ballot, even. But in the NBJHBA, the article on Davis captivated me pretty hardcore. That’s the book that really got me into sabermetrics, and the article on Davis is one of the most convincing things in there. It’s convincing, both that Davis is/was/has been historically underrated, and criminally so. And it’s also convincing that, anyone with the time, energy, and interest can do sabermetric research on his/her own, even without being a math wizard. I recommend going back over that section, if it’s been a while since you’ve read it. It’s an oldie, but a goody.
Also, last round, John Autin suggested that we find a way to break the 2B logjam. I have a way. Everyone should just rank these 2B in MY order. We can all agree to that, right?
I have Grich, Sandberg, Alomar, Biggio, and Whitaker in that order. So, JA, I think that’s how we break the logjam. Any takers?
I can see Whitaker at the bottom, on the argument that he was never an offensive force.
I can see Biggio next, because he wasn’t strictly a second baseman.
But Ryno and Alomar?
So very close.
I stare at the numbers, juggling apples and oranges,
and barely come away with a conclusion.
I’ve chosen Alomar because Sandberg became an icon at age 24.
A baseball God anointed by the media frenzy of Chicago playoff baseball. And he spent his whole career there, with some tasty home/road splits.
He was a great one,
but those single-franchise white guys (that includes Gwynn)
end up a bit overrated
(once you remove the emotion).
Like many of the people here, I have a formula that I use. I take all the player’s seasons via WAR, and sort them from highest to lowest. The top season is multiplied by 1, the next season by .9, the next by .81, the next by .729 (in other words, .9^0, .9^1, .9^2, .9^3, etc.). Then I add it all together. At the end I multiply by phi (1.618) so that it gets close to their career WAR. If they had a great peak, my number ends up higher. If they had a lower peak, the number ends up lower. Here are the five 2B on the ballot, first with their WAR, and then with the number I used to rank them.
Grich……71.0……72.0
Sandberg…67.7……71.2
Alomar…..66.8……67.8
Biggio…..64.8……66.7
Whitaker…74.8……66.5
Basically, the Alomar/Biggio/Whitaker triad is really, really close. But Grich and Sandberg are a cut above, and the strength of better peaks. If you changed the coefficient from .9 to a higher number, it’d value peak less; to a lower number, it values peak more. I felt like .9 was the best place. Anyway, you see that Whitaker gets hammered for having the weakest peak of the bunch (basically the same as Biggio’s, but Biggio’s best season was MUCH better than Whitaker’s best). I like this system, and that’s what it came out with, so that’s how I voted. It’s not really any sort of strategic bias to overrate Sandberg, other than any biases inherent in rWAR that might overrate his contributions. I didn’t even get into the subjective, although your suspicions were interesting to read. If anything, I’d probably bump Biggio up a spot or two, simply because of his ability to catch, and the fact that it’s possible that some of the wear-and-tear of catching hurt his production later in his career. But I’m not convinced, so I just presented them as my own formula ranked them.
Doom:
I like it. It makes sense – but, in the same sense that by the eye test I would probably rank them somewhat similarly:
Sandberg, Grich, Alomar, Biggio, Whitaker. I just believe that Sandberg was, at one point in his career, the best player in the NL. In light of the 5-tool thing, I would put Whitaker last. Biggio got HBP’ed a lot and that was a big part of his “skill set”, but that big plastic thing on his elbow should have been “outlawed”….
Voom:
Re “single franchise white guys” in my lifetime:
2B Biggio
RF Kaline
CF Mantle
3B Schmidt
LF Yaz
1B Bagwell
C Bench
SS Ripken…or Yount
OF Gwynn (reserve)
The pitching staff deteriorates after Palmer…. 🙁
If Mantle and Kaline make it chronologically, then for pitchers how about how Koufax and Drysdale, and Whitey Ford (gets extra credit on this list for his nickname)?
I agree with birtelcom.
Batting included, the WAR per inning pitched is
Koufax: .02108
Drysdale: .01958
Ford: .01810
Palmer: .01757.
Using pitching WAR only, Koufax leaps way ahead, and Drysdale, Palmer, and Ford are all at .017+ in that order.
A nice rotation, to my way of thinking, two righties, two lefties.
Speaking as a old white guy, of course.
Grich, Whitaker, Palmer.
Seems kind of unfair to the Ryan/Rose pair that the loser doesn’t get to directly go against this new crop. This is a weird method of tiebreaking – why not just do the runoff and push everything back a week? I don’t want to vote for Rose, I would want to vote for Ryan.
If I understand correctly you can vote for just Ryan, but if he wins the run-off then only two thirds of your ballot will be counted, with the Ryan bit being ignored.
RJ @12. Yes, that’s right.
Ah, vote change then. Thanks!
Grich, Whitaker, Ryan.
My sense is there would have been a lot of opposition to putting off the 1940 vote and spending the whole week just on Rose vs. Ryan. You are right that that would have been the easiest and fairest to the Rose and Ryan candidacies, but especially now that the real baseball games have ended till April I think there are few COG participants who would have wanted to put off the 1940 voting. Instead, I’ve tried to set up a system that is fair to the Ryan and Rose candidacies. Simply knocking them off the 1940 part 1 ballot would not really have been fair to them (why should they lose a strong chance to be inducted, which would instead go to others, just because they tied at the top of the last round?). But by giving voters a few different ways to vote for Ryan and Rose here in this round, I’ve tried to preserve their opportunity here while also doing the runoff at the same time. It’s a compromise, but I think it’s reasonably fair.
Excellent job handling this, birtelcom.
BTW, I take full responsibility for this mess. After Jason Z tied things up by casting his first ballot in 4 months, I was prepared to untie things with my first ballot in many months. Unfortunately, I stupidly thought the voting ended at midnight….
I don’t think of it as a mess — I’m actually intrigued to see how it plays out in the ongoing experiment that is the COG. But, hey, you should vote regularly in any event — you’re a thoughtful commenter and your voting participation would be a positive contribution to the COG.
Thanks! I was waiting to make my comeback for when my vote could make a difference but I screwed that up!!!
It occurred to me today that segregating Rose & Ryan in a run off would be grossly unfair to the loser.
Very clever way you have come up with to handle it.
Smoltz, Whitaker, Palmer
Jim Palmer, Edgar Martinez, Bobby Grich
___________
Rose / Ryan
Kenny Lofton (a bit better than Willie Davis)
Eddie Murray
Same as the last two rounds
2B Craig Biggio
2B Roberto Alomar
2B Ryne Sandberg
Rose/Ryan, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio
Rose/Ryan, Palmer, Whitaker
Biggio, Lofton, Alley
Donburgh, I’d never heard of Gene Alley until I just looked him up. He had some very good seasons, but I’m curious to hear what enticed you about his candidacy.
Alomar, Murray, Sandberg
Alomar, Smoltz, Palmer
Palmer, Grich, Biggio.
birtelcom, I hate to ask for a rule change at the 11th hour (later, actually), but wouldn’t it make sense if we allowed changes to the ballot until 11:00 on Saturday, and kept the ballot open until Sunday? Then, the people who really wanted to could wait until the results of the runoff were complete, and THEN change their votes if necessary. It would only give one day to do that, but at least people would have the chance, particularly for those who would vote for one of the two on the runoff, but not the other. I know that gets messy/confusing, but what would you think?
Actually, that’s a good idea, thanks. I’m not sure it would have worked initially, as it might have encouraged everybody to wait to the last day, but now that we are up and going, extending the deadline out a little bit seems like it would be useful. I’ll make the change in the post.
Before this ballot expires Daylight Saving Time will have ended in the US. So the times mentioned should be 11:00 EST (or midnight EST if you prefer).
Very good point. I’ll fix it.
Rose/Ryan, Jim Palmer, John Smoltz
Rose, Palmer, Biggio
Tony Cloninger has more career hitting WAR (3.0) than he does pitching WAR (2.1). That has to be quite rare for someone of his career length and someone who at least had superficial success (back to back seasons of 19-14 and 24-11 with a career winning percentage of .538).
Great catch, Ed. I’d bet that the 0.9 difference or more is entirely attributable to one month (June 16 – July 14, 1966), 26 PA, when Cloninger became one of the most fearsome hitters in the game (.423/.423/.962), surrounding his double grand-slam 9-RBI game on July 3. (He was a .173/.208/.218 hitter in 91 PA the rest of that season; and .181/.202/.247 in 647 PA lifetime over 12 seasons, apart from that super stretch)
EPM – I’d actually extend Cloninger’s hot streak out till August 2nd which adds an additional 5-13 with 1 BB, 1 HBP, a double and a homerun.
BTW, years ago, I worked at a university with a relative of Cloninger (a cousin if memory serves me correctly).
My thought was to catch the highest-density WAR (the good kind) with a chance of rising above 0.9; it may be that the extra three weeks are necessary for that, and they do constitute the Complete Cloninger Hotstreak History.
I imagine the cousin was tenured on the strength of a string of articles all published in one year.
It’s comments like this one that make me miss the “like” button we used to have. “Like.”
Thanks, Doc. (How’s the Dr. thing going for you?)
Carl Scheib had a batting WAR of 3.0 and a pitching WAR of 0.2. He had an 11 year career with a 45-65 W-L record. He had 14 wins in 1948.
Tony Cloninger, meet Adam Eaton. (The pitcher, that is.) Also Carl Scheib, Micah Owings, Blue Moon Odom, Erv Brame and Tim Lollar.
Those are the 7 modern pitchers with at least 2.5 offensive WAR, and more offensive WAR than pitching WAR.
Erv Brame went 52-37 in a short career with the Pirates, including 33-19 in 1929-30. He also batted .306, with 75 RBI in 396 ABs.
Blue Moon pitched the last 4 innings of a no-hitter for the White Sox, the last one for the Sox before Joe Cowley no-hit California 7-1.
Brame’s 75 RBI in 396 AB is the second highest career total for a player with less than 400 AB. Only Mandy Brooks with 78 RBI in 397 AB did better.
Lou Whitaker
Jim Palmer
Bobby Grich
Ed, it was John Z not me.
You confused your Z’s.
It is true that I haven’t voted since the Larry Walker election.
It is also true I may jump back in.
Not yet though.
Oops apologies Jason Z! 🙂
Sandberg, Whitaker, Palmer
Biggio, Smoltz, Palmer.
Whitaker, Smoltz, Palmer
Edgar, Alomar, Murray …
Rose/Ryan
Palmer
Smoltz
Allen
Alomar
Sandberg
Biggio, Lofton, and Rose/Ryan.
There was a radio show in the Los Angeles area that had sports trivia contests in the late eighties. Call in, get it right and win a prize.
The question was about Tony Cloninger’s two grand slams. Who was the only player……
I called in and answered it. As they asked me how I knew the answer, I realized I had previously won a prize within the time frame where you can’t call in and win again, so I answered. ” I am Tony Cloninger!” and hung up. Oops.
Ryne Sandberg
Dick Allen
Bobby Grich
Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Nolan Ryan.
Rose/Ryan, Whitaker, Smoltz
According to WAR…
Nolan Ryan had his best season in 1977, 7.8.
Bill Hands had his best season in 1969, 8.4.
Reg’lar ol’ pitcher wins:
Bill Hand, 1969: 20
Nolan Ryan, 1977: 19
Hand was one win ahead, so he’s (roughly) one win ahead by WAR.* Makes sense.
*Obviously, it doesn’t actually work that way; I just thought it was interesting.
Palmer, Grich, Biggio
Ryan/Rose, Whitaker, Santo
1940 is a split ballot and Ron Santo isn’t on Part 1.
Thanks Hartvig, I just was looking over my spreadsheets of votes and thought to myself, “I doubt Ron Santo was in the first half.” As such I’d like to change Santo to Eddie Murray.
Rose/Ryan, Palmer, and Smoltzie.
Grich
Lofton
Rose, specifically, understanding the 2/3 ballot thing.
As the dates are now set up, if it turns out Rose wins the runoff (which ends a week from tonight), you will still have next Saturday to change your Rose vote to someone else if you like. Same goes for Ryan voters here — if Ryan wins the runoff, you’ll still have next Saturday to change your vote to someone else if you like.
Ryan/Palmer/Biggio.
If Ryan wins, which seems unlikely, I’d want it changed to Smoltz.
Biggio
Grich
Allen
Smoltz, Alomar & Palmer
Here I go with my usual “why don’t you include these guys?” thing:
1. Kenny Lofton (6.7 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1992-99)
2. Bobby Grich (6.6 WAR/162 during 12-yr peak of 1972-83)
3. Jim Palmer (5.9 WAR/162 during 10-yr peak of 1969-78)
Ranking of others:
4. Dick Allen (6.6 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1964-72)
5. Ryne Sandberg (6.2 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1984-92)
6. Craig Biggio (5.8 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1991-99)
7. Lou Whitaker (5.5 WAR/162 during 15-yr peak of 1979-93)
8. Pete Rose (5.5 WAR/162 during 12-yr peak of 1965-76)
9. Eddie Murray (5.7 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1978-86)
10. Edgar Martínez (6.4 WAR/162 during 7-yr peak of 1995-2001)
11. Roberto Alomar (6.0 WAR/162 during 6-yr peak of 1996-2001)
12. John Smoltz (5.8 WAR/162 during 5-yr peak of 1995-99)
13. Nolan Ryan (5.6 WAR/162 during 6-yr peak of 1972-77)
14. Willie Davis (5.6 WAR/162 during 5-yr peak of 1969-73)
How does Kenny Lofton beat Bobby Grich? Because 6.7 > 6.6? If that’s the case, how does Jim Palmer beat Dick Allen? If you’re multiplying the peak out in terms of total WAR or something (5.9×10 ~ 6.6×9), Whitaker jumps way out front not 7th. Your ranking does not seem directly determined by the numbers of WAR/162 over a given period.
Mehh…it’s complicated. I have tiebreakers and things that I may have explained somewhere in the past involving WAA, how many times longer player A’s peak is than player B’s, etc…admittedly Lofton and Grich are almost interchangeable, it doesn’t really matter when they’re both above all the others, and it’s all going to be forgotten when shoo-in candidates start becoming an annual thing in the 1930s rounds. Yaz, for example, edges out both of them with 6.7 WAR/162 over 12 years (1962-73).
Ryan/Rose
Murray
Palmer
Edgar Martinez, Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker
Martinez, Lofton, Rose/Ryan.
Allen, Lofton, Martinez
Ryan/Rose
Martinez/Allen
Alomar/Sandberg
Nah, just kidding.
Ryan, Martinez, Alomar.
And to think that only last night I was sort of regretting my vote for Whitaker instead of Martinez because Edgar only had 3 votes and he had been on my ballot for the last dozen or more elections where he has been eligible. Now it’s Sandberg who has me (a little) worried.
I do think that 1940-2 is where we are going to start to see either some accumulated eligibility or holdover players themselves start to disappear. Not only will the Rose/Ryan (or possibly Palmer) loser still be on the ballot but I’d guess that Santo will either join them or get in plus I’m fairly certain that Joe Torre, Luis Tiant and Pops Stargell will see some support and wouldn’t be surprised at all to see 1 or 2 of them join the holdovers.
But even this round in addition to Sandberg, Murray and Allen still are not in the clear and depending on how much vote shuffling goes on once the Ryan/Rose outcome is decided there may be others as well.
And then come the 30’s.
I´ve voted a few times for Whitaker, because I think he could make a good HOFer. When Ryan appear on the ballot, I had to drop one of my favorites.
Palmer, Grich, Smoltz
Haven’t read up on how this vote reconciles with the runoff, so I’ll just keep Ryan and/or Rose off. So: Alomar, Palmer, Edgar (back in the news, sort of, after Ortiz’s World Series—my contention is that Ortiz will not go into the HOF unless Martinez goes in also).
Dick Allen, Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich
Two things I find mind boggling about the 1940 Ballot Part 1. First, that Willie Davis WAR is second only to Ron Santo and more then his peers Willie Stargell and Joe Torre? Second is why were the ballots split like this with the likes of Ron Santo, Stargell, Torre, for position players and Luis Tiant and Mickey Lolich the pitchers of note born in 1940? But anyway, no more questions. My Ballot:
Ryan/Rose
Grich
Murray
“Second is why were the ballots split like this with the likes of Ron Santo, Stargell, Torre, for position players and Luis Tiant and Mickey Lolich the pitchers of note born in 1940?”
I believe if you take another look at all of the players eligible on Part 1 of 1940 the answer will soon become apparent: Aker-Brown-Clarke-Davis-Ellsworth-Fryman….
John Z @86: The split rounds occur every 3rd birth year and are always split alphabetically — I count the total number of guys who qualify for the birth year as a whole and then put the top half of the group alphabetically in round 1 and the bottom half in round 2. The idea is to let the rounds develop with a natural randomness, no editorial or statistical judgment about who belongs in what round. The randomness I hope promotes both fairness of a sort (no outside influence crafting the ballot choices to any particular end or goal) and an ongoing variety and unpredictability to the voting rounds. Some rounds will have a surplus of major new talent to consider, while some will tend to be more focused on the holdovers. Got to keep you guys on your toes.
Now that I think about it the split rounds should keep the ballots from getting over-crowded during most of the 30’s so it might not be as tough on our holdovers as I had first imagined- at least until the Class of 31 comes along. I would say that anyone who is still around after that is a fairly safe bet to get in at least at some point.
Although tempted to vote Fryman, who had ERA/ERA+ of 1.88/187 in 1981, I’ll go with
[x] Craig, Lord Biggio, earl of Doubles
[x] Dick, Lord Richie, viscount of Allen
[x] Eddie, Lord Murray, Baronet of Sinister and Dexter
I am feeling a little noble tonight. I also considered Lord Sandberg of Wrigleyville, but I figure that others were more likely to vote to keep him on the ballot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats
For the 1941 (Part One) election, I’m voting for:
-Roberto Alomar
-Ryne Sandberg
-Edgar Martinez
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Ryan (Voted for Previously. Hopefully only temporarily off my ballot.)
-Biggio (Voted for Previously. Hopefully only temporarily off my ballot.)
-Smoltz
-Whitaker
-Murray
-Grich
-Lofton
-Palmer
-Rose
Edgar Martinez, Ryan, Rose
If you wish you can consolidate your Ryan/Rose vote into one (whoever loses the runoff election) and add another name to your ballot
Ryan/Rose, Lofton, Smoltz
I noticed that Jim Palmer “started” at DH three times in 1980.
Each time he was pinch hit for before his first at bat.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=palmeji01&t=b&year=1980#batting_gamelogs::none
______________________________________________________________
What was that?
http://prestonjg.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/how-earl-weaver-changed-the-dh-rule/
Palmer also pinch-ran in the 1983 ALCS. I believe it was in Game 3, for the DH.
You could look it up…
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1983/B10070CHA1983.htm
I’ve just noticed there are a couple of minor errors in the instructions for this round: 1) the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph mentions “the vote-changing deadline on Wednesday next week”, but that deadline has been pushed back to Saturday; 2) the penultimate paragraph refers to “the new born-in-1943 group”.
Also, a question: are we allowed to change our vote just once, or are multiple changes allowed?
You can change your vote as many times as you want, up to the vote-change deadline. And thanks for the corrections, I will fix them.
As of this moment Arsen’s vote at 106 is the 49th for the COG. At the same time there have been 63 votes in the runoff election. I’m thinking there will be a fairly large flurry of last minute voting on Saturday and Sunday.
My guess- and this is just based on my feeling that the arguments in favor of Ryan in the runoff have been a little more impassioned- is that if Ryan loses the runoff there will also be a lot of vote changing as well.
Murray, Allen, Lofton
Murray, Martinez, Palmer
Alomar, Palmer, Ryan/Rose. I’ve been voting Alomar forever. I find myself wondering what would the ballot look like if we had voted going forward instead of backwards. If we had started with 1870 or something and were working our way up is there a 19th century second baseman I would have voted for 40 straight years?
I wonder that myself, Arsen, but I would not have put it so well… nor can I claim to have voted that steadfastly for anyone who is not in the COG so far.
I’m not going to look for 19th century second baseman yet, but if Alomar/Biggio/Whitaker/Grich etc. etc. keeps going like this another 40 years, I just don’t know.
If there is such a critter it would most certainly have been:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcphebi01.shtml
I kind of doubt he would have lasted however.
My guess is that like Morgan that Lajoie, Collins and Hornsby will go in within a year or 2 of their being eligible (and only 2 if there’s a Mantle/Mays type situation that occurs).
But if/when all of the rest run into our current holdovers I will bet that only Gehringer and possibly Robinson go in before everyone else. As for Frankie Frisch and Joe Gordon and Nellie Fox and Billy Herman and Bobby Doerr and all of the rest they’re in for a bare-knuckle, last-3?-4?-5?-6?-men-standing slugfest.
How different was baseball when Bid McPhee played second base? According to his SABR biography, McPhee didn’t use a glove until he was 36 years old and in the later stages of his career. Here he is quoted on that subject:
“No, I never use a glove on either hand in a game. I have never seen the necessity of wearing one; and besides, I cannot hold a thrown ball if there is anything on my hands. The glove business has gone a little too far. It is all wrong to suppose that your hands will get battered out of shape if you don’t use them. True, hot-hit balls do sting a little at the opening of the season, but after you get used to it there is no trouble on that score.” http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/8776babf
I checked Collins and Lajoie the other day as I was looking at “pre-Hornsby” second basemen. Eddie Collins is born the same year as – Shoeless Joe, The Big Train, and some guy named Grover.
Shoeless Joe might not even get the Pete Rose treatment when he comes on the ballot because there are three all time greats born the same year.
Lajoie is born the same year as some guy they called The Flying Dutchman. I’m guessing Lajoie goes in second.
I doubt McPhee would hang around that long, mainly because none of us saw him play, and I doubt we’ve even seen the parks he’s played in, so it’s kind of difficult to make an argument for or against him that doesn’t rely on the numbers. Most of us have watched Alomar/Biggio/Grich/Sandberg/Whitaker and feel strongly about them one way or another (by the way, poor Willie Randolph doesn’t even get in this mix). That, and plus looking at the first 30 years of MLB history (1871-1900), McPhee ranks 7th in batting WAR (behind Anson, Connor, Brouthers, Glasscock, Hamilton, and Delahanty). If we run it out another few years (to 1915) he falls to 24th, and he falls out of the top 25 during the 1871-1919 span (Shoeless Joe knocks McPhee down to 26th after the 1919 season).
I’m guessing if we started “at the beginning” McPhee would have gotten in based on the scarcity of candidates (even if we took all candidates born pre-1871 on the first ballot). OK, maybe not 1870 – maybe starting with everyone born before 1861.
I think McPhee deserves his spot in the HOF. He clearly was not only the best 2nd baseman that the game had prior to Nap Lajoie but one of it’s best position players period.
Your post made me think of something else as well- and that’s how talent seems to come in waves and move around the field for position players.
First basemen and shortstops plus maybe outfielders ruled the roost prior to 1900.
Then first base takes a big drop until the late 20’s but second base has it’s best run ever and third it’s best until the mid-50’s.
Shortstops remained pretty well represented until the Dutchman started to slip and then there’s a big gap until the 30’s come along and an even bigger one from the end of the war until about 1980.
Catchers probably have their best stretch from the mid-20’s to the mid-30’s and again from the late 40’s to late 50’s until their golden era arrives in the late 60’s and all thru the 70’s.
You could go on but to me it all kind of brings back memories of the biorhythm fad with considerably more irregular wave patterns.
Would there be any relatively simple way to maybe look at something like WAR per position per season and from there how evenly distributed the WAR was among the players at the position? I don’t know that it would show or prove anything important so it’s probably not worth a lot of effort.
Palmer, Sandberg, and Ryan (but not Rose)
Birtel,
Just noticed that the spreadsheet doesn’t seem to include in the totals Aaron Blower’s votes. Haven’t checked the other spreadsheet yet.
You are right, MJ, that’s a very good catch. Aaron was added at the very top of the spreadsheet (as Hammerin’ Hank knows, Aarons tend to go to the top of lists — though Dave Aardsma has now taken Hank’s alphabetical primacy). With the addition coming at the very top of the spreadsheet, automated summing of the votes didn’t include him. I fixed this in the runoff spreadsheet, but apparently forgot to do in the 1940 spreadsheet. Thanks to you, that is now corrected.
Clearly, the simultaneous voting this week is testing the limits of my vote recording skills.
One of our favorite bits o’ trivia to recite in Wisconsin is that the first player alphabetically in the NFL, basketball, and pro baseball Halls of Fame started his career in Wisconsin: Herb Adderley (long a Packer), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (famously, a Buck because a coin-flip didn’t go Phoenix’s way), and Hank Aaron (a Brave; also later a Brewer, though that’s not relevant to this particular piece of trivia). Hockey is omitted, of course, as there’s no NHL team in Wisconsin. But if ever there were, I’m sure some fella named Adam Aardvark would start out there and end up in that Hall, too!
Does KAJ still make the cut if you with Alcindor?
Indeed he does! Nate Archibald is second on the list, so there’s “room” to spare for him enough that Alcindor is first. Good catch!
The Ryan Express. Gar. Sweet Lou.
Now that Ryan got in, my vote changes to Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich and Edgar Martinez.
The deadline to change votes is Saturday at 11PM EST. With Nolan Ryan now a COG inductee, after his victory over Pete Rose in the runoff, those like MJ @ 118 who wish to switch out their vote for Ryan to someone else can use Saturday before the late night deadline to do that (or to make any other changes you wish). If you voted for “Rose/Ryan” or Ryan/Rose”, those votes are now automatically counted as votes for Rose, so if for any reason you don’t want those to count as Rose votes, you should make a change before the Saturday night vote-change deadline.
Please change my vote from:
Alomar, Murray, Sandberg
to:
Martinez, Rose, Sandberg
On the spreadsheet, I’ve consolidated the votes for Rose and for “Rose/Ryan” into a single column for Rose. The top six in the vote count are currently Jim Palmer with 25, Pete Rose with 20, Bobby Grich with 16, Edgar Martinez and John Smoltz with 12 and Craig Biggio with 11.
Birtelcom – Might be a good idea to update the instructions, eliminating any reference to “Rose/Ryan”. And to take Ryan off the list of eligible candidates for this round.
I have to say that I’m more than a little surprised that only 1 of the “Ryan only” votes actually appears to have been switched. It’s entirely possible though he’s already in the COG he could still get enough votes in this round to technically qualify for the next ballot.
Smoltz, Martinez, Sandberg
Yes, good idea, will do.
Palmer, Rose and Murray
Rose, Edgar, Smoltz
Murray, Rose, Alley
Rose, Smoltz, Murray
Rose, Lofton, Biggio
Wow, a little under an hour left and one more Rose vote will result in another runoff!
and I suppose 2 would win it. Palmer doesn’t need votes, just for Rose not to show up on the ballot. I guess a vote by any other name would smell just as sweet for Palmer fans…
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Grinch, Sandberg, Lofton
You’re a mean one…
Palmer, Smoltz, Whitaker.
A vote for Rose would have meant much more work for birtelcom this week.
I smell collusion… 🙂