This post is for voting and discussion in the 38th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats. This round adds to the ballot those players born in 1938. Rules and lists are after the jump.
The new group joins the holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full group eligible to receive your votes this round. The new group of 1938-born players must, as always, 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. The one player who appears on the most ballots cast in the round is inducted into the Circle of Greats. Players who fail to win induction but appear on half or more of the ballots that are cast win four added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Players who appear on 25% or more of the 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 ballots, wins one additional round of ballot eligibility.
All voting for this round closes at 11:00 PM EST on Monday, December 9, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:00 PM EST Saturday, December 7.
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 1938 Round 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-1938 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 15 current holdovers 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 1938 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. As we did in the 1939 round, we have one player who makes the ballot via the 20 WAR threshold without having played at least 10 seasons in the majors — last round it was Wes Parker, this round it’s Tom Tresh (only Mickey Mantle played more games as a Yankee during the 1960s than Tresh).
Holdovers:
Lou Whitaker (eligibility guaranteed for 10 rounds)
John Smoltz (eligibility guaranteed for 8 rounds)
Bobby Grich (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Edgar Martinez (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Phil Niekro (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Craig Biggio (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Ron Santo (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Dick Allen (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Roberto Alomar (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Kenny Lofton (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Eddie Murray (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Rick Reuschel (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Ryne Sandberg (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Willie Stargell (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dave Winfield (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1938, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Willie McCovey
Ron Fairly
Manny Mota
Vada Pinson
Billy Williams
Leo Cardenas
Deron Johnson
Matty Alou
Curt Flood
Ron Hansen
Tony Oliva
Johnny Edwards
Bob Aspromonte
Chris Cannizzaro
Don Mincher
Don Pavletich
Bobby Wine
Jake Gibbs
Mack Jones
Gene Michael
Rich Rollins
Al Weis
Tom Tresh
Pitchers (born in 1938, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Jim Kaat
Gaylord Perry
Mike McCormick
Steve Barber
Bob Locker
Al McBean
Ray Washburn
Whitaker
Smoltz
Martinez
Biggio, Smoltz, McCovey.
Perry, Biggio, Sandberg
Smoltz, Niekro, Winfield
Bobby Wine played 12 seasons in the majors and never cracked a 64 OPS+. That may be a record. As might be his 8 seasons of 300+ PAs with an OPS+ at or below 64.
Running the PI shows that you are right. Mick Kelleher had 11 seasons and never had more than 59 OPS+ and Bill Bergen had 11 years and never had more than 41. Rafael Belliard had 16 seasons with less than 62 OPS+ and one year of 177+ but with just 2 PA. Incidentally the PI search shows an error in that it returns 11 years for Wine with OPS+ equal to or less than 64 OPS+, not 12.
Gaylord Perry
Lou Whitaker
Bobby Grich
Alomar, Edgar, Winfield.
Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Lou Whitaker
Niekro, Whitaker, Lofton.
Perry, Santo, Alomar
Niekro, Perry, Murray
Niekro, Perry, Santo
Perry, Lofton, Allen
Phil Niekro, Craig Biggio, Gaylord Perry
Bobby Grich, Edgar Martinez, Ron Santo
Gaylord Perry, Rick Reuschel, Phil Niekro
Gaylord
Knucksie
Lofton
Niekro
Billy Williams
Dave Winfield
First thought: anyone else notice how Cub-errific this round is? Santo, Williams, Reuschel, Sandberg. Maybe, birtelcom, you should sneak Ernie Banks on here a couple rounds early, so we can vote on him, too!
A very crowded ballot! In my opinion, the top three spots are easy. But after that . . . yikes. It’s very crowded, in the group Grich-Sandberg-Martinez-Reuschel-Lofton-Alomar-McCovey-Allen-Biggio-Whitaker-Williams-Murray. It will be interesting to see how many of those (if any) ever break through and make the COG, and which one(s) it will be. Well, here are my picks:
Phil Niekro
Gaylord Perry
Ron Santo
First thought: anyone else notice how Cub-errific this round is? Santo, Williams, Reuschel, Sandberg. Maybe, birtelcom, you should sneak Ernie Banks on here a couple rounds early, so we can vote on him, too!
A very crowded ballot! In my opinion, the top three spots are easy. But after that . . . yikes. Well, here are my picks:
Phil Niekro
Gaylord Perry
Ron Santo
Wow Stretch can’t get no love, ROY, MVP, perennial All Star and MVP vote receiver, but no love. I know he has been gone a long time, Out of site out of mind im thinking, not to mention the second half of his career he was, well, very pedestrian, but his OPS + of 147 still puts him in some nice company like Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Edgar Martinez and Jim Thome, and his WAR puts him in the company of Reggie Smith and Andre Dawson. So why no love, can someone point something out to me that I am not seeing. So…with no further ado and keeping with my tradition of not voting for those on the hold over ballot I choose:
Stretch
Kitty Kaat
Gaylord Perry
John Z, I was surprised by how low Stretch ranked by my own method. But the truth of the matter is, it seems he may not have been as good as many of us would think. I have him ranked #10 on my own list (Niekro, Perry, Santo, Grich, Sandberg, E. Martinez, Reuschel, Lofton, Alomar, McCovey). He’s really close to Edgar for the #6 spot, and I could see ranking him that high. The problem with that is that Dick Allen, Biggio, Whitaker, and Billy Williams are just as close to him as he is to Martinez. I just don’t know what to say, other than the fact that I’m surprised that I have him that low, and that others may be surprised by their own rankings, too. Certainly, in their own times, McCovey would’ve been seen as the superior player to Santo. But historical analysis would disagree. Add in two-300-game-winners, and all of a sudden it gets pretty tough to find a spot, even for a player great as McCovey.
That being said, on a newcomers-only ballot, I would’ve voted for Perry, McCovey, and Billy Williams. But I don’t vote that way, so that’s not how it went for me.
Doom, thanks for your feedback and opinion. I considered Williams a lot when voting for my 3, but just could not pull the lever to vote for him, on the other hand I have always felt Kaat career goes extremely unnoticed and underrated. Kaat’s WHIP Is Niekro..ish and he should have/could have won the 66′ Cy Young if it were not for this guy named Sandy Koufax.
Over a six-year period from 1965 through 1970, McCovey was almost certainly the best hitter in the major leagues: highest batting WAR, highest OPS+, highest RE24 (thanks, Doug, for reminding us about that RE24 stat — very useful). But in WAR overall for position players, he was sixth over that period, behind Yaz, Clemente, Aaron, Santo and Mays, all more multi-dimensional players than McCovey. Nothing really wrong with being behind that group, though.
Sometimes I just do not recognize how great Santo was, I mean I was into MLB since the late 60’s (1969 to be specific) when my O’s lost to those Miracle Mets, but I was an American League fan and did not follow the senior circuit as closely. But to see Santo name mentioned in the same breath as Yaz, Clemente, Aaron and Mays and yes even Mccovey is just surprising even with advanced stats. WOW…………..
I considered dropping Murray for McCovey.
Murray has a little more WAR but isn’t really close to McCovey on a WAR/G or WAR/PA measure (Murray has 4 more WAR in about 3000 more PAs).
That being said, I thought McCovey was a hang it up early type, but he actually played parts of more seasons than Murray, 22 to 21. Both started at age 21, but Murray retired at 41 while McCovey retired at 42. The difference in PAs then isn’t “age” or “season” related, but due to injuries, and McCovey had them and Murray didn’t. Both had a “partial” season in which they played extremely well and likely would have been one of their better seasons (McCovey’s ROY season when he started in late July and Murray’s 1981 strike shortened season).
And that’s why I went with Murray over McCovey – replacing 3000 PAs is a lot. Even looking just at playing time prior to age 38 (when Murray became a full-time DH), McCovey is still about 3000 PAs behind. Actually, Murray had 11,000 PAs by that time, and McCovey is way behind that in his entire career. To me, durability counts for something, especially on the margin at the level we are talking about. From 1977 to 1993 Murray had only two seasons in which he played less than 150 games – a strike shortened 1981 season in which he played 99 of 105 games and a 1986 season in which he played 137 games. McCovey played 150 or more games just four times.
Both won ROY awards, and while McCovey won an MVP, Murray did better in MVP voting (two 2nd place finishes, five straight years in the top 5, another top 5 finish in 1990 and a 6th place finish in 1980, right before that string of 5 straight top 5 finishes).
Murray didn’t have the peak of McCovey (which birtelcom mentions in post 26), but he also didn’t have the troughs in the middle of his career (look at McCovey’s 1964 and 1972 seasons).
I know people talk about the lack of second basemen in the COG, but they are all over the ballot (Grich, Alomar, Biggio, Whitaker, and Sandberg). But other than Bagwell and Thomas, and eventually Gehrig and Foxx (who should both go in easily), who are the viable first base candidates? I think Murray’s the best of the rest of them which is why I keep voting for him. I had been voting for Alomar but I’m not as convinced that he is the best of the second base candidates, and he’s not nearly as valuable as the top pitchers on this ballot (Niekro and Perry).
I’ve always thought that about 1st base, actually. People think that there are all these great hitters there, but it’s not as deep as you’d think. You did miss Harmon Killebrew, who will certainly have a shot (but probably won’t make it, and Hank Greenberg, who probably will.
A year or so ago there was a discussion about Johnny Mize as an underrated player, and I’d place him far above Killebrew, whom he outranks in OPS+ 158 to 143 and WAR by 10 points despite missing 3 years to WWII. In contention for the lifetime MUP award at his position.
Nailed it, nsb. Totally forgot about Maize. He was a half-generation after Gehrig-Greenberg-Foxx, and in the opposite league, so he slips the mind easily. Good catch.
Just for fun:
Give Greenberg 7 WAR for 1936, most of which he missed due to injury, 24 for 1941-44, when he was in the service, 3 for the first half of 1945 when he was ditto, and he ends up with a total of 91-plus career WAR.
Give Mize 18 WAR for 1943-45 when he was in the service, and 2.5 for the 1/3 season he lost in 1946 (his 6.4 ranked him second among position players, despite the fact that he missed over fifty games in August and September) and he ends up with a total of 91-plus career WAR.
BA: Greenberg .313; Mize .312
Each player led his league in HRs 4 times
Each hit over 50 HRs once
Each led his league in RBIs 3 times, runs once.
Greenberg led the AL in doubles twice; Mize led the NL in double once and triples once
Both finished with an OPS+ of 158
Greenberg SHOULD get in easily. I agree, we won’t have many first basemen. We seem to prefer middle infielders. I do feel we are screening out the great pure hitters due to defensive and positional adjustments. On one hand I agree that their total value cannot be measured in a slash line but I do shed a tear for those who were simply much better with a bat than so many for so long. Honestly though, I’d rather have Sheffield or Winfield than McCovey, McGriff, Allen, Stargell, and Murray.
I’d probably pick McCovey out of that list of first basemen if I HAD to.
On my list of first basemen I would have:
Gerhig, Foxx, Greenberg, Thomas, and Mize. I would not have Bagwell. In fact, the next guy I would push for would be Killebrew. I guess I’m hoping we end up with 6 first basemen.
McCovey
Biggio
Niekro
I must be a large Hall guy, there are 19 or 20 that I would love to see make the Circle of Greats. Lots from my youth…Tony Oliva, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, et al.
1.Time to get Lou Whitaker in to join fellow teammate Alan Trammell.
2.Willie McCovey one of most vicious swings all-time (Earl Wilson another).
3.Jim Kaat.
KalineCountry, I have the same problem vis-à-vis Hall size! I used to be a small-Hall guy, but then I sort of came around to thinking that it’s a lot more fun with 200-250 than with 25-30. And since I’m always thinking bout 200+ guys, I always feel guilty for skipping half the guys on the ballot. My Hall is big enough for Mark McGwire and Kevin Happier and David Cone and Sammy Sosa – and all four of those guys got one COG vote each! But then again, it is kinda fun using my baseball-addled brain a bit differently.
Allen, Perry, McCovey
Allen. McCovey. Sandberg.
For the 1938 election, I’m voting for:
-Ryne Sandberg
-Phil Niekro
-Gaylord Perry
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Alomar
-Biggio
-Martinez
-Smoltz
-Whitaker
-Grich
-Lofton
-Santo
-Reuschel
-McCovey
-Murray
McCovey, Santo, Lofton
Alomar, Niekro, Sandberg. For now, at least.
Our ballot is getting as badly overstuffed as the current HoF ballot. Have we ever had 15 holdovers before? Add to that a handful of good-to-excellent candidates from this year’s crop, and…yeesh.
I’d vote for McCovey, but he a) doesn’t seem to have much, if any, chance to win this around, and b) appears to have already garnered enough votes to join the holdover list, so why bother. I’d like to vote for Santo, but there are several guys on the bubble I’d like to keep on the ballot, while Santo at least has a *little* bit of leeway. I think Perry is CoG-worthy, but I like Niekro better. And so on.
On my spectrum of definitely-probably-maybe-no, I rate the candidates thus:
definitely: Alomar, Biggio, Martinez, Niekro, Perry, Sandberg, Santo
probably: McCovey, Murray, Smoltz, Winfield
maybe: Grich, Lofton, Whitaker, B Williams
no: Allen, Kaat, Reuschel, Stargell
That’s 11 in the definitely/probably categories, and I can only vote for 3. Ouch!
I wonder if Curt Flood will get any shout-out votes.
Niekro, Perry, Martinez
Willie McCovey
Billy Williams
Gaylord Perry
McCovey, Perry, Biggio
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasons:
Niekro 54.7
Perry 50.9
Grich 43.6
Santo 43.3
Whitaker 42.7
Martinez 41.3
Reuschel 40.6
Smoltz 40.1
Lofton 39.3
McCovey 38.9
Sandberg 38.8
Tiant 37.5
Alomar 36.8
Biggio 36.3
Allen 35.9
Murray 34.9
Williams 30.5
Winfield 30.5
Stargell 29.6
Oliva 25.9
Pinson 23.3
Kaat 23.1
Niekro, Perry, Martinez
Niekro
Lofton
Murray
Ugh, strategic votes.
What a friggin’ bloodbath this round is!
Best player on the ballot is Niekro so I will vote for him. Perry deserves to get in but I don’t need to carry him nor do I particularly want to see him accumulate years. I spit in his general direction… for now. My third best guy would be Biggio but I’m not sure he needs the support just now.
Best offensive player on this ballot is Winfield. Top 50 OWAR should be enough bat to pass all these 1B/DH type guys. I’d vote for Sheffield too if he were on here.
Of the bubble guys, I really won’t be sorry to see Lofton, Alomar, Reuschel, Murray, or Stargell go. I like McCovey and Sandberg as fringe candidates that have a chance of actually getting in. Sandberg’s had his chance to gather support though.
Niekro, Winfield, McCovey
Bloodbath for real. An interesting byproduct of the way in which we do the voting for the CoG is that -as the years pass and we accumulate more and more outstanding holdovers- it’s going to feel increasingly arbitrary why you choose certain players over others. I don’t necessarily mean Mantle/Mays types (who are, forgive me!, “inner”circle of greats). I mean more like situations we confront here. The logjam at 2B is going to start developing at 1B, OF, elsewhere.
I don’t know if anyone has already brought this up, but I wonder how elections for the CoG would have changed if we had moved through history the other way around, culminating in 1968, not beginning there. Would folks like Tim Raines and Larry Walker have made it with so many extra (and in my opinion superior) folks on the ballot? (That said, I don’t think HHS voters have selected any patently unworthy players. Except for Walker.)
For this ballot, I’m going to echo your choices mosc:
Niekro, Winfield, McCovey
(each of these guys has a counterpart I feel pretty much equally ok with: Niekro and Perry; Winfield and Williams; McCovey and Stargell or Murray)
Someone did recently bring up the question of how the CoG would look if we started at the early end of the timeline, although I don’t remember who that was. My feeling is that we’d have ended up with some players who wouldn’t quite measure up, in the long run, just because the talent is spread thinner in the earlier years. But we’ll never know, unless someone wants to run a CoG 2.0 some day…
I sometimes wonder how things would be panning out if our voting structure more closely resembled that of the HoF.
Vote change:
From: Niekro, Winfield, McCovey
To: Stargell, Winfield, McCovey
Niekro won’t need the help to get elected. Stargell definitely deserves to stay on the ballot.
Sorry, the deadline for vote changes was last night. New votes can still be made through tomorrow night.
Shucks! Missed that.
Ok, Stargell was never going to make the minimum anyway…
McCovey, Biggio, Reuschel
Dick Allen
Willie McCovey
Billy Williams
Gaylord Perry, Willie McCovey, Ryne Sandberg
I could vote for 10 players on this ballot without even flinching. This is going to get interesting.
Rueschel whitaker santo
Biggio, Lofton, and Perry
Grich, McCovey, Biggio
So many old favorites and so many deserving.
I love Jim Kaat because he said “After 2 hours, my fastball turns into a pumpkin.” which is something that every MLB pitcher should take to heart.
Tony Oliva might be the surest “If only…” player ever. Another 2 or 3 healthy years probably would have landed him in the HOF.
Billy Williams is a clear Hall of Famer but for me he falls just short of the COG.
I’m taking Niekro over Perry because Phil had the balls to throw that knuckler to 22,677 batters and while Gaylord gets extra points for owning a mule he loses points for cheating. They both belong however.
McCovey is the toughest call for me. He missed out on a lot of plate appearances early in his career because the Giants had both Bill White & Orlando Cepeda as well and couldn’t figure out what to do with the 3 of them. He is next in line to the guys that I am absolutely certain belong. But it looks like he’s got enough votes already to make it thru to the next round so I’ll defer having to make up my mind until then.
Niekro, Sandberg, Santo
Initial vote based solely on merit:
1. Ron Santo (7.0 WAR/162 during 10-yr peak of 1963-72)
2. Gaylord Perry (5.9 WAR/162 during 13-yr peak of 1964-76)
3. Kenny Lofton (6.7 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1992-99)
Ranking of other candidates:
4. Willie McCovey (6.7 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1963-70) — Manual override (originally ranked #9)
5. Bobby Grich (6.6 WAR/162 during 12-yr peak of 1972-83)
6. Dick Allen (6.6 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1964-72)
7. Ryne Sandberg (6.2 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1984-92)
8. Craig Biggio (5.8 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1991-99)
9. Lou Whitaker (5.5 WAR/162 during 15-yr peak of 1979-93)
10. Eddie Murray (5.7 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1978-86)
11. Edgar Martínez (6.4 WAR/162 during 7-yr peak of 1995-2001)
12. Willie Stargell (6.4 WAR/162 during 6-yr peak of 1969-74)
13. Rick Reuschel (5.5 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1973-80)
14. Tony Oliva (6.0 WAR/162 during 7-yr peak of 1964-70)
15. Roberto Alomar (6.0 WAR/162 during 6-yr peak of 1996-2001)
16. Vada Pinson (5.9 WAR/162 during 7-yr peak of 1959-65)
17. John Smoltz (5.8 WAR/162 during 5-yr peak of 1995-99)
18. Billy Williams (5.4 WAR/162 during 10-yr peak of 1963-72)
19. Dave Winfield (5.3 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1976-84)
20. Curt Flood (5.0 WAR/162 during 5-yr peak of 1963-67)
A lot of intriguing candidates and definitely some tough ranking decisions in there!
OOPS! I forgot Phil Niekro is still on the ballot. I had him with an identical peak to that of Perry (5.9×13) but ranked him above Santo last round and as such he, Santo, and Perry are my top three.
Initial vote is actually Niekro, Santo, and Perry.
Niekro, Perry, Santo
I’ve watched with interest as various voters have come up with methodolgy for ranking the players. I’ve been a bit more scattershot in how I pick the greats. This time I went through all of the hitters on the ballot and looked at their peak seasons, how many seasons they have above 5.0 WAR (All-Star level), and what their WAR per 600 plate appearances was.
Santo’s 1967 was the best single season at 9.8 WAR.
Biggio’s 1997 was next with a 9.4 WAR. Both players finished fourth in the MVP voting.
Edgar Martinez has eight seasons with a WAR of 5.0 or above.
Grich, Santo and McCovey have seven seasons.
Bobby Grich’s 5.18 WAR per 600 plate appearances is easily tops.
Dick Allen 4.81, Martinez 4.72, Santo 4.51 and Whitaker 4.5 all fare well by that measure. None of those guys has 10,000+ plate appearances. Guys like Murray, Winfield and Biggio really get dinged for having careers that just kept going. How many plate appearances does a great need. My guess is 7,500 or 8,000 is probably enough. Should players have their late career fades count against them?
I’m still not sure how I’m going to vote after all this especially since I think Perry and Neikro are probably better candidates than all of the hitters.
McCovey, Santo, Billy Williams
Alomar, Niekro & Kaat
Two interesting things (at least to me) I learned looking at this ballot. Billy Williams was a terrible outfielder and Ron Santo was two different players, a HoFer at home and so-so on the road. I didn’t remember either of these watching them growing up.
Was Billy the greatest Cubs hitter ever (hitting alone, setting aside defensive value)?
Billy Williams may be the most _consistent_ Cubs hitter ever, but I’d rank them:
Sosa/ Banks/ Billy Williams/ Santo.
Peak:
Hack Wilson, Bill Nicholson, Derek Lee
honorable mention: Frank Chance/ Gabby Hartnett/ /Kiki Cuyler/ Stan Hack/ Sandberg
Sosa beats out Banks on peak, even after taking the air out of Sosa’s stats. Banks was never the same quality of hitter after 1961 that he was before; I assume this has to do with a recurring knee problem that forced him to move from SS to 1B. This makes it hard to evaluate Banks by career stats only; 1953-61 and 1962-71 are like the careers of two different players.
Wilson’s Cub career is just too short to rank in the first group. Rogers Hornsby may have been the best Cubs hitter ever, but the equivalent of two full seasons isn’t what this list is about. I’m leaving out 19th century greats such as Anson and Jimmy Ryan.
Ok, who else did I leave out? (I make no claims towards being a Cubs expert…).
Riggs Stephenson is practically a clone of Kiki Cuyler, check their stats with the Cubs.
Some interesting candidates to consider here.
Kaat holds the record for longest time between two World Series appearances (with none in between) and was the last active Senator (Minnesota).
Perry was at one time the only pitcher to win both Cy Young awards during the one-award-per-league era.
Manny Mota was 150 for 500 as a pinch hitter with 4 HR, 115 RBI, 63 walks (14 intentional) (.300/.375/.368/.743). His last game was a September 1982 pinch-hitting appearance in the 13th against St Louis, who brought in Jim Kaat to induce a groundout.
McCovey retired in a tie for 8th/9th on the all-time homerun list.
Holdovers:
Biggio.
Murray.
PNiekro.
Whitaker, DAllen, Sandberg, Winfield (who only played 10 games of infield in his career; 3000 H and he’s probably a better fielder than hitter).
My vote:
Biggio, 2b
Kaat, lhp
Mota, ph
Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Willie McCovey
Sorry to have leave off Edgar Martinez…
McCovey’s career line: .270/.374/.515
Martinez’s career line: .312/.418/.515
But wait… parks! eras! Ok, let’s try neutral stats:
McCovey: 147 OPS+, 484 batting runs
Martinez: 147 OPS+, 529 batting runs (more O in that OPS)
But wait… McCovey played the field! Ok, let’s look at defense:
McCovey: -80 fielding runs, -122 positional adjustment, 64.4 WAR
Martinez: 17 fielding runs, -128 positional adjustment, 68.3 WAR
McCovey’s home runs don’t quite close the gap Martinez creates with on-base ability. McCovey didn’t provide any extra value with his glove.
McCovey’s getting a lot more votes than Edgar this round. Anyone care to make an argument that McCovey was better?
It’s interesting that the Fangraphs version of WAR, unlike the b-ref version, ranks Stretch a bit ahead of Gar on a career basis. Fangraphs gives McCovey 3 or 4 more WAR for his hitting than b-ref gives him, and Fangraphs penalizes Martinez about two more WAR on the position adjustment side than does b-ref.
I don’t have a system like many voters here, but I’m surprised at how much I’m having to consider McCovey, who I assumed would be an automatic selection for me. I won’t argue that he or Martinez are better than the other, but Martinez has four rounds of eligibility, whilst McCovey has none, so that’s probably a large factor in Willie’s voting edge this round.
It’s true that new names on the ballot tend to get higher vote totals than they get later on, in part because a new name is automatically on the bubble for his first round. It’s also true though that Edgar has never in all his times on the ballot topped about 27% of the vote, and McCovey is currently around 37%. A turnaround from John Z’s early comment @22 above observing how few votes McCovey had received to that point (that comment itself may have helped motivate the turnaround).
@67/Bryan,
Peak for McCovey (1968-70).
I know that the “most feared hitter” schtick was terribly mis-used to bolster Jim Rice’s HOF case, but in those years McCovey was truly one of the scariest batters in MLB.
Good point, Lawrence. McCovey’s peak was a little higher than Edgar’s (’95-97). If we extend it to seven years, McCovey’s ’65 to ’71 vs. Edgar’s ’95 to ’01, McCovey still has a 1.5-WAR advantage. McCovey was really bad in the post-Padres portion of his career.
On the other hand, Adam’s Hall Rating, which reflects peak and longevity, still has Edgar ahead, 135 to 126, even though the adjWAA component ignores the six straight below-average years that ended his career.
Lawrence A #75 / Bryan O #104:
McCovey was the best hitter in the NL for that period 1968 – 1970 and that, to me, trumps the Edgar story. Literally, when McCovey played/stepped on the field, from 1968 -1970, he was the best. That is huge…..and when you think about all the little kids that wanted to grow up and be the best, the Mickey Mantle or Jackie Robinson of their time – McCovey got there.
By the same token, if the Mariners would have given Edgar the chance he deserved earlier in his career, he would have ended up with 2,600 hits, 1,500 BB’s, 4,500 total bases and 1,500 runs and RBI. I don’t know how badly playing in the field every day would have beaten him up, but those numbers compare pretty well with Chipper Jones (at the least) and maybe even Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, and Boggs. Alas, they didn’t give him the shot. Management makes mistakes in every industry-why would MLB be any different?
But, yeah, that “most feared hitter” thing means an awful lot and can not be underestimated. The reverse is true as well. Ozzie Smith, Andruw Jones, Brooks Robinson all forged reputations with their gloves just like McCovey, Allen, Sheffield, etc…did with their bats. Edgar was a great hitter in the steroid era and kind of takes a second seat, AT LEAST BY THE EYE TEST, to Albert Belle, Juan Gonzalez, Bonds, McGwire, and Frank Thomas
WAR batting (also known as Rbat) has McCovey as the most productive hitter in the majors over the three-season period from 1968-70 (166 Rbat, to 162 for Frank Howard), and has Edgar as the most productive hitter in the majors over the three-season period from 1995-1997 (186 Rbat, to 185 for Frank Thomas).
BIRTLECOM #106:
Thanks for the update. For the period 1968-1970 McCovey was first in OPS+ 188 (Frank Howard is next at 173) while Edgar was fifth behind McGwire, Thomas, Bonds, and Piazza. The distance between McCovey and Howard is about the same as the distance between McGwire (1st) and Edgar (5th) at 186 – 172.
Birtelcom #106
Actually McCovey was 1st in WAR batting for the 6 year period from ’65-’70, 16 runs ahead of Frank Robinson.
Martinez was 2nd for the 6 year period from ’95-00 (16 runs behind McGwire) and 2nd for the 7 year period from ’95-01 (65 runs behind Bonds).
@ Birtlecom 106 & Ed 108 :
Based on Runs Created x 27/Outs Made/AIR from baseball-reference, for the three year periods discussed initially we have:
McCovey 10.49
Edgar 9.85
….and I’m not going to do the work necessary to compare either to their peers 🙁
Interesting that except for one brief mention by Hartvig, Perry’s ostensible long-time cheating hasn’t come up in the discussion, though it might be suppressing his vote count some: he and Niekro are currently in an exact tie for the lead in the voting — each has appeared on precisely half the ballots.
Given what I think was probably more confusion than is desirable arising from the runoff round we had with Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose, I’m tempted to adopt mosc’s suggestion as to resolving all induction tie votes going forward. That is, in lieu of runoffs, a tie would be resolved by eliminating the latest vote cast the elimination of which would break the tie. Not only would this be an efficient method for breaking ties, it might offer some incentive to avoid voting late, perhaps counteracting some incentive to vote late that arises from the open balloting process.
Confusing?
I bet if you polled the field, most of us would vote for More voting, more often.
I think that with open voting your idea (to throw out the last ballot in the event of a tie) is probably the right thing to do. With a dozen Hall of Famers coming up in the next 4 birth years things are going to get complicated enough on their own.
I would be in favor of just throwing out the last vote, because I HATED how the timing of the simultaneous elections worked out last time. It was very confusing. I think just throwing out the last vote is easy, and much “cleaner.”
…what if the last vote doesn’t have one of the top two? Are you addressing that by saying ‘the latest vote cast the elimination of which would break the tie’? I’m not clear from the wording. Like, if I vote for Perry and not Niekro a day early, but 5 more people vote for only bubble candidates after me (ie. not Niekro or Perry), you’ll count their votes but not mine (even for my second and third candidates)? That doesn’t seem fair, to me or the other two candidates I selected. It also doesn’t seem fair to just toss away my Perry vote and keep my other two, as the rules of this exercise allow for three votes and three votes only. Also, what if the last 5 voters vote for both Perry and Niekro, do you toss all their votes? Or count all their votes and toss the one before them? That also seems weird.
I think, all things told, a runoff is better, and that method of tiebreak works better for the runoff. But perhaps we can have a runoff and an election for the next birth year in the same thread? So, in the last one, I would have said: Rose for the runoff, and then something like Rose/Ryan, Palmer and Edgar or something. The runoff would end before the regular vote, so it would give me time to switch if I hated Rose and he lost the runoff, but all under one roof. People who cast a ballot for one are encouraged to cast a ballot for the other at the same time. Just an idea, I think you guys might get the picture by now that I like tossing out ideas. Your house, your rules though.
I’ll throw an idea out there: the runoff takes place before the next round of voting, but only lasts for 3 days or so.
The runoff featured virtually no back-and-forth discussions between voters. Most of the debate happens in the regular rounds; people have usually made up their minds by the time it comes to the runoff. By my count only 11 of the 64 votes in the last runoff took place after 3 days, and only 7 voted after 4 days. Some or most of these voters would have voted earlier if the deadline demanded it.
This way there is no confusion when it comes to the next round of voting, and the process is delayed minimally. Thoughts?
Hey RJ! I was thinking that idea in my head as well, but I was already saying enough so I didn’t mention it. 3 days seems like plenty, especially for a 1-on-1. I do like the opportunity for more discussion, and people explained their choices more than they often do for ballots, but you’re right, there wasn’t a ton of back-and-forth.
I’ll throw an idea out there: the runoff takes place before the next round of voting, but only lasts for 3 days or so.
The runoff featured virtually no back-and-forth discussions between voters. Most of the debate happens in the regular rounds; people have usually made up their minds by the time it comes to the runoff. By my count only 11 of the 64 votes in the last runoff took place after 3 days, and only 7 voted after 4 days. Some or most of these voters would have voted earlier if the deadline demanded it.
This way there is no confusion when it comes to the next round of voting, and the process is delayed minimally. Thoughts?
I think that would be a good solution, RJ, but birtelcom really didn’t seem to like the idea of not starting the next round right away, so I wasn’t considering that. But it’s probably the best solution.
I think RJ has the ideal solution. In general, I think holding a runoff is best since many voters either a) do not vote strategically (and therefore there would be many who voted for both of the tied candidates and would be forced to declare a preference by a runoff) OR b) vote so strategically that they may ignore the race for the actual COG slot in favor of voting for 3 favorite candidates who are on-the-bubble, or in some other way have voted for neither candidate.
The only way to make this work fairly without a runoff is have each voter declare his/her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd preferences when voting but only apply those weights to votes in the event of a tie. However, I still think an actual runoff is better since it best represents whom the voters want to induct into the Circle and would be less of a hassle.
That’s that’s the best argument I’ve seen against the “drop the last vote”, avoid-a-runoff method — the argument being that without a runoff, voters who included both of the tied players on their ballots are effectively disenfranchised in the decision between the two.
My only concern about a “snap” three-day runoff before starting the next round is that there may be a group of voters who only have periodic access to the site and might find it difficult to participate.
@70 Birtelcom, I was just about to raise the spitter. I find it disqualifying (for me, at least). Niekro, McCovey, and Sandberg. There’s a lot of talent, but I find that the more I revisit the same people, same stats, the less enamored I am of the long time bubble folk.
Whitaker
Stargell
McCovey
Niekro, Perry, and…Curt Flood. My third vote is typically a throw-away, so I may as well use it for someone who made a lasting impact on the game by helping to end a practice that is unheard of in any other industry.
Martinez, McCovey, Niekro
Perry and PNiekro were teammates with Atlanta in 1981.
Career hits allowed, 1901-present
1. PNiekro, 5044
2. GaPerry, 4938
3. WJohnson, 4913
4. PAlexander, 4868
5. Spahn, 4830
6. John, 4783
7. Maddux, 4726
8. Sutton, 4692
9. Carlton, 4672
10. Rixey, 4633
11. Blyleven, 4632
Clearly, giving up lots of hits is the sign of a HOFer!
On the hits/9-inning career list:
34 WJohnson
108 Sutton
134 Carlton
226 Spahn
240 GaPerry
275 Blyleven
283 PNiekro
300 PAlexander
327 GMaddux
722 John
794 Rixey
So it isn’t simply a matter of these guys having long careers. Maybe they weren’t flustered by hits, baserunners, all the things that worry sabermetricians. Maybe they just, well—pitched.
Saber guys have been pointing out for a while: the greatest keys to pitching successs are high Ks, low BBs and low HRs, not so much hit prevention. The idea of of FIP and stats like it is that good pitchers don’t prevent hits much more effectively than mediocre pitchers, so good pitchers with lots of IP will rack up a lot of hits.
Phil Niekro, Dick Allen, Kenny Lofton
Stargell, Reuschel, and Biggio
Ryno. Steady Eddie. Mr. May.
McCovey, Alomar, Perry.
I do think there are players here more deserving than my Alomar pick, but I do see him as a HOFer, so hoping he survives another round.
Niekro, McCovey, Edgar
Your vote made me wonder if anybody voted sometime for three guys, who were never in the majors at the same time.
You would get pretty close this round if you voted for Alomar or Smoltz, Reuschel & Flood (others would qualify from this round as well but Flood is probably the best player on the ballot who’s career was over by 1972 when Reuschel started.)
actually Hartvig, you could achieve that feat on this very ballot if you voted for Alomar (started 1988), Grich (1970-86) and (what would of course be a shoutout vote) Tom Tresh (1961-69).
Lofton, Murray, Reuschel
Niekro, Perry, Grich
Alomar, Whitaker, Tony Oliva.
Niekro, Allen, Sandberg
The all Keep-The-Bubble-Guys On-the-Ballot ballot (wishful thinking involved):
– Dick Allen
– Roberto Alomar
– Eddie Murray
Of the new candidates, I’d choice Perry over McCovey and Williams, with Kaat, Oliva and Pinson getting honorable mention.
Niekro, Grich, Murray
Please change my vote from:
Alomar, Niekro, Sandberg
to:
Alomar, Murray, Niekro
Minor recording error – my vote currently shows Alomar, Murray, Sandberg.
It should be Alomar, Murray, Niekro.
Thanks.
Actually, the spreadsheet shows four votes for you, somehow the elimination of the Sandberg vote that I did on my tablet yesterday didn’t take. I’ll fix that now.
Perry, Niekro, Alou
Since 1921, 158 guys have batted .300 with at least 3,000 career PAs. The lowest career OPS numbers among those 158 guys:
Matty Alou .726
Eddie Brown .736
Homer Summa .742
Manny Mota .744
Ethan Allen .745
Matty’s career BA was .307. You can go down as low as a .297 batting average (192 hitters), and Matty’s .726 OPS is still the lowest since 1921 among those with 3,000 PAs.
Niekro, Reuschel, Lofton
Everyone who enjoys the COG should really head over to Graham Womack’s site to vote for the 50 greatest players not in the Hall of Fame. It’s an awesome project that’s running for the 4th year in a row. Go here to vote, and tell as many people as you can!
http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2013/12/07/vote-50-baseball-players-hall-fame-version-4-0/
Top career WAR since 1901, not in the HOF, retired before 2000:
Hitters: Rose, Whitaker, Grich, Trammell, Nettles
Pitchers: Reuschel, Tiant, Tommy John, Jack Quinn, Frank Tanana.
The are four Hall-type pitchers on the ballot. I liked all of them when they were active (maybe Kaat best, which may also be the only reason I’m calling him a Hall-type pitcher). Here are their WAR/ 9 IP figures:
Kaat .090
Perry .158
Neikro .162
Smoltz .172
Not that the difference between the last three figures is particularly meaningful – I see it as pretty much a wash: Perry & Neikro have far more IP & WAR, and Smoltz seemed to me a much better pitcher on the mound than the other two. . . . [Long discussion omitted.]
Smoltz, Santo, Whitaker
Sandberg
Reuschel
D. Allen
STRATEGIC VOTE CHANGE!
Niekro doesn’t have this clinched yet, and I’m supporting him over Perry (although they are both fantastic candidates), so I’ll keep my vote for Niekro and drop my other votes to help save two guys who I want to keep on the ballot. Based on my list @56 cross-referenced with the voting spreadsheet, Willie Stargell most needs one of these two votes. I’ll toss the other to Eddie Murray because I’m a huge Eddie Murray fan and there is the potential for him to drop off the ballot as well if he doesn’t get an 8th vote, which he now has.
Final vote: Niekro, Stargell, Murray.
I’m a bit surprised by the love Willie McCovey is getting around here. A great player, no doubt, but I believe there are many better hitters on the ballot – Grich, Whitaker, Santo, Alomar, and Sandberg.
My votes:
Phil Niekro
Bobby Grich
Gaylord Perry
Wow, I don’t know how you could make the claim that any of the folks you bring up here (Grich, Whitaker, Santo, Alomar, and Sandberg) were better *hitters* than McCovey. Personally, on my team, I’d rather have McCovey than any of the players you mention above. But as a hitter McCovey is operating in stratospheric territory compared to these guys. 484 Rbat puts him like 200 to 300 runs better for his career than all of them. Career 147 ops+. And McCovey happened to have his peak during the worst period for offense since the dead ball era.
The only hitters on the current list that are McCovey’s rivals in terms of peak are Dick Allen and maybe Stargell. In terms of career, you can add Winfield and Murray to that list. Personally, I think McCovey trumps them all.
It may be that in using the term “hitters”, comment @122 was simply referring to “position players” and not necessarily to a comparison based solely on batting value to the exclusion of value from defense, base-running, etc.
McCovey, Stargell and Murray
I don’t understand how little support Stargell gets. Tough to leave Winfield off, but at least he should make it to the next round.
Is it REALLY that hard to understand? By all accounts, he was a great person and was the soul of a team that won two World Series; you’ve got to give respect to anyone who plays their entire career for the same team; and there’s always sentiment for somebody who dies at a relatively young age after spending his entire adult life in baseball. But if an All-Star-caliber season is 5+ WAR, Stargell had four All-Star-caliber years in his career (to be fair, Smoltz only had three, and I’ve voted for him in CoG ballots many times, but besides being a Braves die-hard, you don’t make it to 5+ WAR as a reliever), and he only ranked in the top 10 in WAR among National Leaguers twice. Other sabermetric data doesn’t show him comparing to his fellow candidates particularly well. He was a bad fielder and wasn’t speedy, even by positional standards. His peak was neither particularly long nor particularly consistent. Never playing in even 150 games (even including the playoffs and All-Star Games, he only broke 150 in 1973) doesn’t strike me as someone who was a bastion of durability. His playoff batting was nearly par with his regular season batting- that is to say, great but not unbelievable.
Keep in mind, I wasn’t alive when he played- all I can go on are stats and games I’ve seen on ESPN Classic (which are probably few, if any), and my argument can’t adequately take into account, say, his impact on the clubhouse. Still, there are no less than ten other players on the ballot whom I would unquestionably support before I got to Stargell.
147 ops+ over the course of 9000PAs? That should buy more respect in my book, too. Parenthetically, I’m curious as to how Edgar Martinez has generated as much consistent support as he has when Stargell is going to fall off after just a couple of rounds. they’re very similar sorts of players; personally, I’d take Stargell over Martinez. As far as the sluggers on our list, as overall players, I’d rate them:
1. McCovey
2. Winfield
3. Stargell
4. Murray
5. Allen
6. Martinez
I’m finding it virtually impossible to choose between the various bubble candidates, so I’ll save myself a job and vote for:
Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Edgar Martinez.
Murray, Smoltz, Niekro
The releases I’ve seen for the members of the veteran’s committee that just elected Torre, LaRussa, and Cox to the HOF:
Players/managers:
Rod Carew,
Carlton Fisk,
Whitey Herzog,
Tommy Lasorda,
Paul Molitor,
Joe Morgan,
Phil Niekro,
Frank Robinson;
Major League executives:
Paul Beeston of the Blue Jays,
Dave Montgomery of the Phillies,
Jerry Reinsdorf of the Sox,
Andy MacPhail, formerly of the Twins, Cubs and Orioles
historians:
Steve Hirdt of Elias Sports Bureau,
Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle,
Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the BBWAA,
Jim Reeves, recently retired from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
These were the people who voted.
The HOF web site says that Torre, La Russa and Cox were unanimous choices, appearing on all 16 of the ballots cast, and that no one else received more than 6 votes (12 votes were needed for induction). Marvin Miller, who seems to me an obvious choice, may have received fewer votes from his own supporters as a result of his family’s request that he not be considered (a request I would have ignored if I had a vote). That everyone except the three managers who were elected received only half or less of the support needed doesn’t seem to bode well for any of the also-rans in the long run, but I’m not sure how many names voters were allowed to include on their ballots, so it’s hard to tell if the broad support for Torre, La Russa and Cox simply squeezed everyone else out this time.
According to an article on sportsline.com, voters could vote for 5 candidates. So once the Torre, LaRussa, and Cox votes are accounted for, that only leaves 32 votes to be spread amongst the rest of the candidates. Though some may not have used all 5 of their votes.
Hmm, less than four hours to go and if we get two more votes without any bubble candidates, there are 3 sitting on 7 votes that could be in trouble. Down to the wire…
With Mo Griffey and Juan Robinson the next two years some bubbles are bound to burst without shenanigans.
If I already voted, please ignore, as I have the flu, but:
Grich, Biggio, McCovey