Circle of Greats (COG) Round 32 Results: Guten Morgan! |

Joe Morgan was not the favorite baseball broadcaster of the High Heat Stats community. But as most of us recognize, the same sabermetric analysis that Morgan denigrated when speaking into a microphone shows that he was likely the greatest modern second baseman of all. Though some COG voters declined to look past Joe’s television shtick, a large majority were able to use their evaluative mute buttons and view Morgan’s playing career in its own right, voting Little Joe in as the 32nd inductee into the HHS Circle of Greats. More on Morgan and the balloting results, if you click on this RTROTE underline thing:

Since 1930, there have been seven seasons by a major league second baseman with a Wins Above Replacement total (“WAR”, baseball-reference version) over 9.0. Four of those seven seasons belong to one guy, Joe Morgan:
Highest Season WAR, Second Basemen, 1930-2013
1. Joe Morgan (1975) 11.0
2. Jackie Robinson (1951) 9.7
T3. Joe Morgan (1976) and Jackie Robinson (1949) 9.6
5. Craig Biggio (1997) 9.4
6. Joe Morgan (1972) 9.3
7. Joe Morgan (1973) 9.2

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Most Career Regular Season Walks in MLB History, Not Including Games As A Corner Outfielder
1. Joe Morgan 1,865
2. Jim Thome 1,747
3. Frank Thomas 1,667
4. Eddie Yost 1,605
5. Darrell Evans 1,575
6. Mickey Mantle 1,560
T7. Lou Gehrig and Mike Schmidt 1,507
9. Eddie Collins 1,495 (approx.)
10. Willie Mays 1,458

Collins played in seven games as a corner outfielder in 1908 (the only games of his career as a corner outfielder). Box scores are not currently available that far back. His career walks total is 1,499, so his walks total excluding those seven games is likely within a handful, more or less, of 1,495.

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Players With Over 40 Career WAR Who Are Listed On B-Ref With a Height of 5’7″ Or Less:
1. Joe Morgan 100.4 WAR
2. Billy Hamilton 63.1
3. Yogi Berra 59.3
4. Willie Keeler 54.0
5. Joe Sewell 53.7
6. Dolf Luque 47.7
6. Tommy Leach 46.9
7. John McGraw 45.8
8. Hugh Duffy 43.1
9. Rabbit Maranville 42.8
10. Mike Griffin 40.8
11. Phil Rizzuto 40.5

Dolf Luque is the only pitcher on this list.

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–Nolan Ryan has been on the ballot for seven rounds now. He’s finished second in the voting five times and third in the voting two times.
–All the players who have finished ahead of Ryan are COG inductees, except for one, Jim Palmer, who received three more votes than Ryan in the 1945 round, which was Palmer’s first appearance on the ballot. Since then, Ryan has been receiving seven to ten more votes each round than Palmer.
–Only one, measly vote this round for any non-holdover over five feet seven inches tall.
–What seems to have evolved into a sort of cooperative effort to keep our base core of holdovers in place continues: nine holdovers received support in the range between 10% and 25% that maintains their status quo. Palmer and Ryan again topped 25% and earned an extra round of eligibility for their store.

As usual, you can check out the complete voting record for this past round at Google Docs. The link is here: COG 1943 Part 2 Round 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.

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The Circle of Greats membership thus far (currently being displayed in order of major league regular season games played):
Rickey Henderson, 3,081 games
Cal Ripken, Jr., 3,001 games
Barry Bonds, 2,986 games
Robin Yount, 2,856 games
Reggie Jackson, 2,820 games
George Brett, 2,707 games
Paul Molitor, 2,683 games
Joe Morgan, 2,649 games
Ozzie Smith, 2,573 games
Tim Raines, 2,502 games
Carlton Fisk, 2,499 games
Rod Carew, 2,469 games
Wade Boggs, 2,440 games
Tony Gwynn, 2,440 games
Mike Schmidt, 2,404 games
Frank Thomas, 2,322 games
Gary Carter, 2,295 games
Alan Trammell, 2,293 games
Barry Larkin, 2,180 games
Johnny Bench, 2,158 games
Jeff Bagwell, 2,150 games
Larry Walker, 1,988 games
Mike Piazza, 1,912 games
Greg Maddux, 744 games
Steve Carlton, 741 games
Roger Clemens, 709 games
Bert Blyleven, 692 games
Tom Glavine, 692 games
Tom Seaver, 656 games
Randy Johnson, 618 games
Curt Schilling, 569 games
Mike Mussina, 537 games

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Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Best title ever!

Also interesting to me is the fact that of the “short” players, Morgan is far and away the most recent. He’s so much more recent than the others, that his career and Berra’s (the 2nd most recent on the list) almost didn’t overlap. Both were only active simultaneously in 1963 & 1965. I wonder how many players as recent as Morgan (or more recent) show up as >40 WAR if we increase the height to 5’9″. How about 5’10”?

Reply to Dr. Doom

Players listed at 5’8” amassing 40 WAR or more since 1962: Tim Raines, Kirby Puckett, Jimmy Rollins.

Rafael Furcal presently falls just, uh, short and Dustin Pedroia should make the list next year.

Raising the bar to 5’9” lets in Ivan Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, Omar Vizquel, Chuck Knoblauch, Davey Lopes and Placido Polanco. Another inch and we get another 10 players, including Mays and Henderson.

Richard Chester

There are 895 players listed as 68″ or less. Only 130 of them began their careers 1957 or later.

David Horwich

It might be interesting to list the pitchers by IP rather than by games, e.g. Glavine and Blyleven have the same number of GP, but Blyleven pitched over 500 innings more than Glavine.

Hartvig

I wonder if that evenly divide support for the holdovers is because we have a large number of people who believe that all or at least most of our holdovers belong in the COG or if the support is just relatively evenly divided among the holdovers. As for myself, of our 11 holdovers I am absolutely certain that 5 belong and and fairly sure that 4 others do as well. Of the remaining 2 one is a maybe and 1 is a no. For the past 15 or 20 ballots I have limited my votes to those that fall in… Read more »

mosc

Maybe I will do this regularly, I enjoy it for some reason… Starters: Roger Clemens Randy Johnson Tom Seaver Greg Maddux Steve Carlton RP: Bert Blyleven Curt Schilling Mike Mussina Tom Glavine Vs RHP: 1 Ricky Henderson CF 2 Wade Boggs 3B 3 Barry Bonds LF 4 George Brett 1B 5 Reggie Jackson DH 6 Larry Walker RF 7 Joe Morgan 2B 8 Carlton Fisk C 9 Robin Yount SS Vs LHP 1 Ricky Henderson CF 2 Barry Bonds LF 3 Frank Thomas DH 4 Jeff Bagwell 1B 5 Mike Schmidt 3B 6 Mike Piazza RF 7 Johnny Bench C… Read more »

By the way, since I think this is fun to check in on once in a while. All facts through the 32nd round, obviously. John Smoltz is, far and away, the most prolific vote-getter in COG history. 415 votes for Smoltz. His next-closest competition is Roberto Alomar, at 359. This is despite the fact that Alomar appeared a round earlier than Smoltz, AND Alomar garnered a very healthy 18 votes in that round. Alomar is catching up, though. The current 66 vote gap was 68 votes two rounds ago, but Alomar has outpolled Smoltz by one in each of the… Read more »

Great stuff Doc, but you can you convert all that into Votes Above Replacement? 🙂

Regarding the number of voters, it wouldn’t surprise me to see an increase in participation during the offseason.

Reply to RJ

Ha! VAR! That’s classic stuff, RJ. I suppose you’d have to adjust for the quality of the ballot… no. No, I’m not going to lose a whole day of work to this idea, as much fun as it sounds. 🙂

I find it interesting; thanks for the data.