After appearing on around 40% of the ballots submitted in each of his first four rounds of eligibility, a level that had not been quite high enough to earn induction, Gaylord Perry broke though this time, appearing on over 50% of the ballots, solidly ahead of Ron Santo, who finished second in the voting. Perry becomes the 42nd player inducted into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Gaylord and the voting after the jump.
Gaylord Perry pitched for the Cleveland Indians for only four seasons, but over the first three of those seasons his Wins Above Replacement total (baseball-reference version) was 27.7 WAR (including 27.5 pitching WAR and 0.2 batting WAR). Here are the highest three-consecutive-year WAR totals by a Cleveland Indians ballplayer:
T1. Gaylord Perry (1972-1974) and Bob Feller (1939-1941) 27.7
3. Shoeless Joe Jackson (1911-1913) 26.4
4. Nap Lajoie (1906-1908) 25.4
5. Stan Coveleski (1918-1920) 24.9
6. Nap Lajoie (1908-1910) 24.1
7. Stan Coveleski (1917-1919) 24.0
8. Tris Speaker (1921-23) 22.3
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The three pitchers with the most career regular season innings pitched over the last one hundred years of major league baseball are Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry. These three combined for 73 seasons of pitching in the majors, 2,179 regular season starts and 956 regular season Wins. They faced a combined 67,205 batters in the regular season and pitched a combined total of 16,140 regular season innings. Unfortunately, the three combined for zero World Series starts, zero World Series Wins, two and one-third innings pitched in the World Series, and ten batters faced in the World Series.
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–Of the born-in-1936 guys, Harmon Killebrew (by reputation one of the nicest guys ever to make the Hall of Fame) received substantial support, quite enough to return and just enough to gain an extra round of eligibility that allows him to avoid bubble status. Meanwhile, Don Drysdale just missed getting a return invitation to the ballot, falling short of the needed 10% support by a single vote.
–Ron Santo’s support bounced up quite a bit this round, well higher than it’s been since his first appearance. Ron moves off the bubble.
–Support for Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker also bounced up this round, though not quite enough to get to the 25% needed to earn an extra round of eligibility to add to their stores.
–On the other hand, support for Gaylord Perry’s longtime teammates, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal, dropped off some this round. Apparently there was only so much room for 1960s Giants in voters’ hearts this time. And in any event, neither Marichal nor McCovey is in immediate danger.
The full spreadsheet showing this round’s vote tally is here: COG 1936 Vote Tally.
The vote summary for recent Circle of Greats voting rounds is here: COG Vote Summary 2 . An archive with fuller details of the 1968 through 1939 rounds is here: COG 1968-1939 Vote Summary . In both cases, raw vote totals for each past round appears on Sheet 1 and the percentage totals for each past round on Sheet 2.
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Here’s the Circle of Greats membership thus far, currently in order of date of birth, from earlier to later:
Brooks Robinson
Gaylord Perry
Phil Niekro
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
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Mariano Rivera
As we embark on some “heavyweight years” in the voting, here are a couple of observations on the first 42 rounds of voting:
So far exactly half of the CoG electees have been elected on their first ballot
(Bench, Blyleven, Bonds, Brett, Carew, GCarter, Clemens, Griffey, Henderson, RJackson, Jenkins, RJohnson, Maddux, Morgan, Piazza, Ripken, BRobinson, Schmidt, Seaver, Yaz, Yount).
The rest of the electees and the number of ballots it took for them to get elected:
2nd ballot: 6 (Bagwell, Boggs, Carlton, Fisk, Niekro, Rivera)
3rd ballot: 2 (Rose, OSmith)
4th ballot: 1 (Thomas)
5th ballot: 1 (Perry)
7th ballot: 2 (Molitor, Palmer)
8th ballot: 2 (Mussina, Schilling)
9th ballot: 1 (Ryan)
10th ballot: 1 (Larkin)
11th ballot: 1 (LWalker)
13th ballot: 2 (Glavine, Raines)
14th ballot: 1 (Trammell)
15th ballot: 1 (Gwynn)
CoG by position:
P: 15 (Blyleven, Carlton, Clemens, Glavine, Jenkins, RJohnson, Maddux, Mussina, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Rivera, Ryan, Schilling, Seaver)
C: 4 (Bench, GCarter, Fisk, Piazza)
1B: 2 (Bagwell, Thomas)
2B: 2 (Carew, Morgan)
3B: 4 (Boggs, Brett, BRobinson, Schmidt)
SS: 5 (Larkin, Ripken, OSmith, Trammell, Yount)
LF: 4 (Bonds, Henderson, Raines, Yaz)
CF: 1 (Griffey)
RF: 3 (Gwynn, RJackson, LWalker)
U: 2 (Molitor, Rose)
Center field reinforcements on are on the way….
I originally read the list of second-ballot COG members as five players instead of six…
Heh. Yes, I saw that fortuitous conjunction of names, wondered if anyone else would notice.
By the way, if we continue to elect pitchers at the current rate, we’ll end up with 41-42 pitchers by the time we’re done, which I think is a few too many.
But the rate will likely drop, since we’ve (mostly) worked our way through two great generations of pitchers, the Clemens/Maddux generation of the ’90s, and have just a few more to sort out from the Seaver/Carlton generation of the ’60s and ’70s. After that there are far fewer notable pitchers in the birth years from 1890-1930.
Perry Wins? I guess I expectorated that…
My only “disappointment” was that Grich fell one vote short of picking up an extra ballots eligibility. Things are going to get pretty crowded for the next few votes.
The COG is doing a good job of being more selective than the Hall of Fame… although now we have 3 more slots, I think.
By my count, we, the COG voters, have dropped 13 Hall of Famers from the active ballot so far. Here they are in order of birth year. Unless otherwise noted they only lasted one round on the ballot:
Alomar (40 rounds!)
Puckett
Dawson
Eckersley (2 rounds)
Rice
Gossage (2 rounds)
Winfield (8 rounds: 6 + 1 Redemption Round victory + 2 more)
Hunter
Sutton
Stargell (4 rounds?)
Brock
Billy Williams
Drysdale
Not that it matters, but I seem to remember from memory that Dawson lasted 2 rounds; he just got zero votes the second round. Anyone else remember this?
Good memory, bells. Andre got five votes in his debut appearance on the ballot, which would not normally get him asked back. But that 1954 round was the one time we’ve ever dropped below 50 total ballots cast, so Dawson eked out a return engagement. And then got zero votes in the 1953 round.
thanks for noticing, bells, and birtelcom for recounting the record. it makes me feel better about COG voting, too, since I think Dawson’s career was certainly better than Puckett’s, or Rice’s, for example.
25 man roster and lineups (17 guys get cut):
S1: Clemens
S2: Johnson
S3: Seaver
S4: Maddux
S5: Carlton
LRP: Ryan (rubber arm)
RP1: Palmer
RP2: Schilling
RP3: Blyleven (need a lefty)
CP: Rivera
Vs RHP
1) Henderson LF
2) Bonds DH
3) Boggs 3B
4) Griffey CF
5) Brett 1B
6) Jackson RF
7) Morgan 2B
8) Ripken SS
9) Fisk C
Vs LHP
1) Henderson RF
2) Bonds LF
3) Thomas DH
4) Bagwell 1B
5) Schmitt 3B
6) Bench C
7) Molitor 2B
8) Griffey CF
9) Larkin SS
Cut: Glavine, Jenkins, Mussina, Niekro, Perry, Piazza, GCarter, Carew, BRobinson, OSmith, Trammel, Yount, Raines, Yaz, Gwynn, LWalker, Rose.
Starting pitchers I think the only tough spots are SP5 and LRP. Perry and Niekro respectively make good cases but the thought of Ryan cranking it UP to come out of the bullpen is just scary and I think Perry’s spitter would be watched much more closely in our mythical battlegroud.
Of our right handed only positions (SS, C), high tOPS+ vs RHP was considered. Fisk is 99, Ripken is 97. Yaz’s bat beats Reggie’s but one played right field the other did not. Against LHP, there was nobody who could justify a defensive and offensive value to line up with henderson who did play right field a little and has a very small platoon split. Also, rbase doesn’t care who the pitcher is. If anything, henderson is more dangerous against a LHP because third is up for grabs. I only carried 10 pitchers instead of the more customary 12 but I don’t think an extra two relievers are gunna be missed much with that crew. I’d rather platoon first base and DH to squeeze George Brett and Reggie Jackson in to destroy some RHP.
Frank Robinson would probably replace Reggie Jackson, starting regardless of pitching (97 tOPS RvR) and put Griffey on the bench against LHP.
Here’s a single season peak player list in honor of Koufax (Spoilers, he didn’t make it):
C Bench 1972
1B Gehrig 1927
2B Hornsby 1924 (tempted to take Morgan in 1975)
3B Al Rosen 1953
SS Ripken 1991
LF Yaz 1967
CF Mantle 1956
RF Ruth 1923
DH Bonds 2001
And the more interesting pitching:
SP1 Gooden 1985
SP2 Carlton 1972
SP3 Clemens 1997
SP4 Martinez 2000
SP5 Gibson 1968
LRP Wood 1971 (77 Relief appearances the previous year, 2 that year, I’m calling that perfect long relief)
RP1 Sutter 1977
RP2 Quisenberry 1983
RP3 Rivera 1996
CP Gossage 1975
Besides not having Hornsby, Gehrig, Ruth for a while yet we’ll be pretty close to this list soon but without the peak years of Gooden, Rosen, and Wood. They should get a closer look considering how great those years were.
John Hiller’s 8.1 WAR as a reliever in ’73 might deserve a mention.
Oiy. I guess Mo looses out!
Just for comparison, here is Koufax’s last 4 years on the road (randomized with gibson’s 1968 mixed in, see if it stands out for you.
14W 4L 1.96 ERA 20 GS 14 CG 2 SHO 141.1 IP 157 SO 0.982 WHIP
12W 5L 2.72 ERA 21 GS 13 CG 2 SHO 165.2 IP 127 SO 1.008 WHIP
12W 3L 0.81 ERA 16 GS 15 CG 7 SHO 144.2 IP 121 SO 0.906 WHIP
14W 4L 2.31 ERA 23 GS 10 CG 5 SHO 167.1 IP 162 SO 0.992 WHIP
7W 3L 2.93 ERA 14 GS 03 CG 1 SHO 95.1 IP 72 SO 1.122 WHIP
Yup, that 0.81 Road ERA really sticks out. Gibson was pretty good.
birtelcom, have you decided what is happening when you’re gone soon? I seem to remember Hartvig offering to step up and cover a round or two of the CoG, but I don’t recall any resolution. I mean, the CoG is your baby, so you can do what you wish, but obviously in the off-season it’s an exciting thing to talk about, and these ballots have been quite interesting lately, so as a fan of the site and contributor to the threads it would be great to see some continuity. So I’m just curious (and of course I enjoy Hartvig’s writing and it would be fun to see him make a few posts like that).
So far as I know, our fearless leader Andy is the only one who can authorize new writers on the site, and I haven’t heard anything on this from him. What I could do before I go off on my travels (I’ll be gone most of February, starting Feb 1) is I could create an “open thread” post for all COG-related discussion, and to the extent Hartvig or others would like to use the thread to conduct one or more voting rounds via the comments while I’m gone, please feel free to do so. It’s probably not the ideal way of running a voting round — for example it may not be as simple to kick off a round in a comment as it is for me in a full blog post. But the hard core COG voters probably don’t need as much of the stuff I put in the full blog posts at this point anyway.
Ah, yes. Perhaps we don’t “need” it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t “read” it every time! Perhaps an open forum is far from ideal, but it may be better than nothing if you’re going to be gone a whole month. On the other hand, absence does make the heart grow fonder. So if we just postpone a few rounds of voting, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I will miss it though.
p.s. Next time, remember to take your major vacations during the summer, when we actually have baseball being played. 😉
Yeah, I love the full blog posts. I suppose another workaround, if people were amenable, would be for someone to volunteer to write the main post and email it to someone who is authorized to post, and they could copy/paste (and maybe fill in the links to players etc). I don’t know how easy or practical it is, but it would allow for a full blog post for each voting and results thread. Just throwing it out there, of course it’s fine if it just takes a hiatus too.
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No COG.
No problem.
We’ll just spend all of February analyzing A-Rod’s urine.
I don’t know much about advanced metrics for urine analysis.
I would imagine that any advanced analysis is showing A-Rod as crushing the league in Whining Above Replacement in the last 6 months, though.
I may have to withdraw my offer to try and run the election anyways. I’ve just had something dumped into my lap that may keep me busy thru the first week of February and possibly beyond.
Sorry ’bout that.
birtelcom,
I can do the elections in February, if you’d like.
By all means, Doug, you are completely welcome to do so. And feel free to do so in whatever style, format frequency, etc. you feel comfortable. I’ll run the 1934 Part 1 election to its conclusion, including a results post. Then it’s all yours till I get back in late February. Of course, by then the fans may be clamoring for the relief pitcher to stay in the game.
Got it.
The hard part will be the “punny” headline for the Results post.
Um, birt, we follow baseball rules around here. You exit the game once, there’s no coming back. 😉
Let’s just say that Doug will be a courtesy writer (players were once allowed to leave the game for a courtesy runner and then return to the game).
I see this as more in the line of a “hands man” brought in to defend against the onside kick. He’s not there to replace the swift and graceful flash of muscle and sinew offered by the return man. Just to fall on the ball and make sure possession is not lost. And, if the course of recovering it, he happens to see an opening, he dashes for the finish line….
Has the courtesy runner rule ever been stricken? Or can you still do that, only no one requests it anymore?
Here’s some history on courtesy runners, from Retrosheet: http://www.retrosheet.org/courtesy.htm.
Cy Young Award, both leagues:
G.Perry 1972 AL, 1978 NL
Pd.Martinez 1997 NL; 1999, 2000 AL
Ran.Johnson 1995 AL; 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 NL
R.Clemens 1986, 1987, 1991, 1997, 1998, 2001 AL; 2004 NL
R.Halladay 2003 AL; 2010 NL
For 16 years after he retired, Perry was the only pitcher with a Cy Young in each league.
Not to belittle the accomplishment, but very few, as in hardly any, top flight pitchers spent their quality years in more than one league prior to the free agency revolution. Offhand I can’t think of any except Perry, who migrated from the Giants to the Indians in 1972. How did he get waived out of the league? Anybody know the story?
They didn’t need waivers for an off-season trade.
Pretty sure of that.
The Giants sure got the short end of that deal.
Perry’s first three years with the Indians:
11.0 WAR
7.9
8.6
McDowell with the Giants:
-0.4
-0.1 , and sold mid-season for a case of Gatorade
Better than Gene Tenace not being able to throw the ball back to the mound because it was too greasy:
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from chicagonow.com:
There are several anecdotes about Perry’s poor hitting and his first home run, but the story goes that in Perry’s second season with the Giants in 1963, his coach at the time, named Alvin Dark, is said to have joked, “They’ll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run.”
Funny he mentioned that… Because, it was at at 20:18 Greenwich Mean Time on Sunday, July 20, 1969 that American astronauts landed on the moon as a part of Apollo 11.
Later that day, Perry played against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in a game that was said to start at 1:00 pm Pacific Time. Within about an hour of the game’s start time, Gaylord Perry hit the first home run of his career, validating his coach’s claim.
Some pitchers who had success in both leagues, pre-Gaylord:
–Jim Bunning
–Waite Hoyt (released by Connie Mack in 1931, he went on to pitch in the NL through 1938)
–The knuckleballers Dutch Leonard and Hoyt Wilhelm pitched all over the place.
But you are right, nsb, it was uncommon for top pitchers to switch leagues.
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