Voters had no problem spelling Yastrzemski, or something close enough, to easily make Carl the 37th inductee into the Circle of Greats. More on Yaz and the voting after the jump.
Most Wins Above Replacement In A Season, By A Position Player, in AL History (b-ref version of WAR):
1. Babe Ruth (1923) 14.0
2. Babe Ruth (1921) 12.9
T3. Carl Yastrzemski (1967) and Babe Ruth (1927) 12.4
5. Babe Ruth (1920) 11.5
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Most Regular Season Games Played for a Single Franchise:
1. Carl Yastrzemski, Red Sox 3,308
2. Hank Aaron, Braves 3,076
3. Stan Musial, Cardinals 3,026
4. Cal Ripken, Orioles 3,001
5. Brooks Robinson, Orioles 2,896
6. Willie Mays, Giants 2,857
7. Robin Yount, Brewers 2,856
8. Craig Biggio, Astros 2,850
9. Al Kaline, Tigers 2,834
10. Ty Cobb, Tigers 2,806
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Our two most recent inductees into the Circle of Greats, Pete Rose and Carl Yastrzemski, played in more major league games than anyone else in history. They were also contemporaries, born about 20 months apart, with their careers in the majors overlapping from 1963 through 1983, a 21-season span. The only games in which they both participated (not counting exhibitions such as Grapefruit League games and All-Star Games) were the seven games of the dramatic 1975 World Series (Rose was voted the MVP of that Series). Hank Aaron is third all-time in games played. There were only 22 games in which you could have seen both Yaz and Aaron play.
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–Yaz appeared on about 78% of the ballots in this round of the Circle of Greats voting and his induction was never in doubt. But Phil Niekro was also embraced by voters, appearing on an impressive 57% of the ballots and earning a full four rounds of guaranteed ballot eligibility, if he needs it.
–Among the holdovers, Luis Tiant fell short of the support needed to keep him on the ballot, so he drops off, after just one round on the holdover list, and will not appear on next round’s ballot. Most pitching WAR by a Red Sox pitcher over the period of Yastrzemski’s career: Tiant (36.4 WAR), Dennis Eckersley (21.6), Bob Stanley (20.4), Bill Lee (18.8), Dick Radatz (18.3).
–Roberto Alomar has been on the ballot for all 37 rounds we’ve conducted, and will remain. But it was a close thing this time, as Alomar appeared on only 10.3% of the ballots, barely over the 10% level required for a player on the bubble to remain on the ballot. Kenny Lofton didn’t make the 10% level and thus loses the one round of cushion that he had built up — he’ll be on the bubble next round, along with continuing bubble guys Alomar, Sandberg, Stargell, Eddie Murray and Dick Allen.
–John Smoltz and Bobby Grich also fell short of the 10% of ballot appearances required to avoid losing a round of guaranteed eligibility, so Smoltz will drop from 9 to 8 rounds, and Grich from 6 to 5 rounds, of a guaranteed spot on the ballot.
–Lastly, Dave Winfield and Rick Reuschel received the two highest levels of support in the third Redemption Round vote, which we held simultaneously with the 1939 voting. Reuschel finished just slightly ahead of Kevin Brown and Dwight Evans for that second-highest spot. By finishing in the top two in “Redemption Round 3” ballot appearances, Winfield and Reuschel earn a place back on the main ballot next round, where they will join the rest of the “on the bubble” group.
The full spreadsheet showing this round’s vote tally is here: COG 1939 Vote Tally.
The overall vote summary for all Circle of Greats voting rounds 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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Here’s the Circle of Greats membership thus far, now in order of date of birth, from earlier to later. Thank you to commenter David Horwich, who posted a comment recently that included, among other things, all the COG inductees listed by birth year. That list served as the base layout for the current ordering below of COG inductees:
Carl Yastrzemski
Pete Rose
Ferguson Jenkins
Joe Morgan
Tom Seaver
Steve Carlton
Rod Carew
Jim Palmer
Reggie Jackson
Nolan Ryan
Johnny Bench
Carlton Fisk
Mike Schmidt
Bert Blyleven
George Brett
Gary Carter
Ozzie Smith
Robin Yount
Paul Molitor
Alan Trammell
Wade Boggs
Rickey Henderson
Tim Raines
Tony Gwynn
Cal Ripken
Roger Clemens
Randy Johnson
Barry Larkin
Barry Bonds
Tom Glavine
Greg Maddux
Curt Schilling
Larry Walker
Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas
Mike Piazza
Mike Mussina
For age 27-30, Yaz’s 4-year total of 37.7 WAR is 2nd all-time for that age span (less than 1 WAR behind T.Williams). For any age span, that WAR total has been topped by only 10 players: Cobb, Mantle, Mays, Ruth, Gehrig, Wagner, Hornsby, Williams, Joe Morgan, and Bonds.
Yaz is one of 11 players with at least two 10-WAR years, and one of 16 with at least three 9-WAR years.
Good points, John. The top three AL “age 27 to 30” totals since Ruth are all Red Sox: Yaz, Ted Williams and Wade Boggs.
Babe Ruth probably would’ve surpassed Yaz for age 27-30 WAR, if he hadn’t been suspended the 1st six weeks of the 1922 season for barnstorming after the 1921 WS (he had 35.5 WAR).
Anytime you’re listed in a ‘best-of’ with Ruth, Cobb, Mays, Williams, etc… it’s mighty impressive.
It’s been a few rounds since one of my COG recaps, in which I analyze the total votes players have received. I’ll just give one quick update, and that’s on the all-time COG votes leader race. Then I’ll get to something different. John Smoltz is the all-time votes leader with 464 votes, and that in 35 rounds of voting (he was not eligible the first year) – a fairly impressive 13 votes per round. Although he was well short of that in 1939, he was right around there in 1940.2, and well above that level in 1940.1. Roberto Alomar is still number two all-time, and cracked 400 this round, now with 401 total votes in the 36 rounds in which he’s been a candidate (yep, as birtelcom mentioned above, that’s all of them). But second place is now a race: Craig Biggio started two rounds later than Alomar, but has 389 votes in the COG. In the last 12 rounds, Alomar has received 99 votes; Biggio has received 111 – that’s exactly one vote more per round! And while it would take Biggio a long time to overtake Alomar at that rate, Biggio has three rounds of eligibility stored up, while Alomar has only one (actually, this strikes me as oddly fair, since Alomar started two rounds earlier). WAR sees them as very close; apparently, so do the COG voters!
I had another thing planned for the rest of this post, but it didn’t work out. Perhaps another time. Anyway, thanks to birtelcom for all the fun that this exercise provides; it’s enlightening and something I look forward to each week.
For those who like to follow or check the history of the COG voting, I know that the summary spreadsheet I’ve been using to keep a record of the votes has gotten rather unwieldy, with 37 rounds complete and 179 different players having received at least one vote over those first 37 rounds. And if I keep trying to record everything on that same sheet, it’s just get harder and harder to use.
So going forward, I’ll use a fresh sheet for the next bunch of rounds, while carrying over the most relevant ongoing data from the old sheet. You can see the new sheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AklDUJiangSrdGkxNmUtcHBKV0Z0eEkyU0Q5OTlvQWc&usp=drive_web#gid=0. The new sheet will start with rows for all the current holdovers and all the inductees to date. The voting records for guys who have dropped off the ballot as of the 1939 round will still be viewable on the old summary sheet, which will continue to be available anytime you want to look at it — it just won’t be added to anymore.
The new sheet carries over some summary information from the old sheet: the first three columns show how many rounds each player was on the ballot over the first 37 rounds, the specific years of those rounds, and how many total votes each player received over the first 37 rounds. This data is intended to provide a base that will then be added to with the full voting record for the rounds going forward.
Wait, we don’t have time of birth during the day to put Bagwell and Thomas in order? We are slacking as a research community.
It probably says something disturbing about me, but I actually did do a quick Google search when I was drafting the post, to see if anyone did have a birth priority for Bagwell and Thomas. I am just sane enough to not have looked too hard when I didn’t find anything right away.
frontrunner for most HR’s by a specific birthdate?
Not that it matters but Yaz is one of only 4 players to lead the league in hits and walks in the same year. In 1963 he had 183 H and 95 BB. The other 3 players are Rogers Hornsby, Richie Ashburn and Lenny Dykstra.
Is 68 votes the most for any round so far?
68 is the most ballots cast in a round since March, just before the start of the 2013 regular season. We had higher totals during the off-season, then dropped down to the low to mid sixties and high fifties during the season.
I was just remembering that 1957 ballot with 81 votes, and that had to be my favorite. I just remember there were 4 holdovers sitting with 8 votes and I had the 80th vote with a few hours to go. I remember wondering what would happen, because something had to give, and then when I got up the next morning John Autin had voted #81, and not for any of the holdovers. I believe it was Brown, Lofton and Martinez that got tossed to redemption hell from that one vote (I suppose I could check the spreadsheet but, well, I’m typing this now).