This post is for voting and discussion in the 60th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round begins to add those players born in 1922. Rules and lists are after the jump.
Players born in 1922 will be brought on to the COG eligible list over two rounds, split in half based on last names — the top half by alphabetical order this round and the bottom half next round. This round’s new group joins the holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full set of players eligible to receive your votes this round.
As usual, the new group of 1922-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. 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 11:59 PM EDT Friday, June 13, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EDT Wednesday, June 11. Note that, in response to a request from a West Coast-located commenter for a bit more time to vote on the last night of balloting, the end time for voting that we have been using has been moved an hour later.
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 1922 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 candidates; additional player columns from the new born-in-1922 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 12 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 1922 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 20 players born in 1922 who met the “10 seasons played or 20 WAR” minimum requirement. Ten of those are being added to the eligible list this round (alphabetically from Joe Astroth to George Kell). The ten players further down in the alphabet will be added next round.
Holdovers:
Sandy Koufax (eligibility guaranteed for 14 rounds)
Edgar Martinez (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Whitey Ford (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Kenny Lofton (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Willie McCovey (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Minnie Minoso (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Richie Ashburn (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Craig Biggio (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Larry Doby (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Harmon Killebrew (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 1922, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Carl Furillo
George Kell
Hank Bauer
Al Dark
Grady Hatton
Gil Coan
Joe Astroth
Joe Collins
Pitchers (born in 1922, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Ewell Blackwell
Joe Coleman
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasonal totals:
Martinez 41.3
Lofton 39.3
McCovey 38.9
Sandberg 38.8
Biggio 36.3
Ashburn 33.9
Murray 33.7
Killebrew 33.0
Koufax 32.3
Doby 32.2
Minoso 30.6
Ford 29.3
Kell 17.6
Martinez, Koufax, and my first vote for Kenny Lofton
Isn’t excluding negative seasonal totals kinda like excluding outs when calculating batting averages?
I use WAA instead of WAR because a measure of greatness should reflect how much more value a player provided than the average player (or some higher standard, if it were easily accessible), rather than a readily available scrub. Excluding negative seasonal totals saves a guy like Pete Rose or Craig Biggio from being punished for hanging on too long. Was Rose a less-great player because he had a few bad years at the end?
I got the idea from Adam’s Hall of Sstats, which uses adjWAA as one of its inputs in calculating Hall Rating.
Vote change: I think Koufax is deserving, and that he’ll ultimately get in. I know Edgar is deserving, and I worry about him getting in. Therefore:
Martinez, Lofton, Doby
Koufax, Biggio, Killebrew.
Koufax, Ashburn, Ford
Sandy Koufax, Richie Ashburn, Edgar Martinez
Sandy Koufax
Whitey Ford
Willie McCovey
Edgar Martinez sorry no room for DHs… yet
Koufax, McCovey, Killebrew
Sandberg
Lofton
Killebrew
Murray, Biggio, McCovey
Martinez, Lofton , McCovey
I expected Kiner to be on this ballot. I guess I’ll have to wait.
Biggio, Lofton, Martinez
Koufax, Ford, McCovey
Martinez, Lofton, Sandberg
Some tidbits on the new players on this ballot.
– Carl Furillo (1953) and Tommy Davis (1962-63) are the only post-war Dodger outfielders to win the NL batting title. Furillo missed out on a career .300 BA by the narrowest of margins – one fewer AB would have done it.
– George Kell’s 8 straight seasons (1946-53) batting .300 (min. 400 PA) are second among 3rd basemen to only Wade Boggs with 9 consecutive years (1983-91).
– Hank Bauer teamed with Mickey Mantle and Gene Woodling to man the Yankee outfield of the early 1950s. Each had 4+ WAR in the 1952 and 1953 seasons. Only 7 other teams have had consecutive seasons with the same 3 players compiling 4+ WAR while playing at least half their games at one outfield position. What are those teams?
– Al Dark played 50+ games for 5 different NL teams, starting and ending his career with the Braves. Who are the four other players to play 50+ games for 5 NL franchises from 1901 to 1960?
– Gil Coan had one of the more dramatic career peaks with a .303 BA in 995 PA aged 28-29. That was preceded by .235 in 1147 PA, and followed by .228 in 1024 PA, including an 85+ point BA change in the seasons preceding and following his two peak years. Coan is one of 16 outfielders to compile 2 WAR or less in a career of 3000+ PAs.
– Grady Hatton’s 6.3 WAR in 1946-47 is the most for a Red 3rd baseman in the first two seasons of a career. His 12.6 WAR for 1946-50 is second only to Chris Sabo’s 15.4 for Red 3rd baseman in the first five seasons of a career.
– Joe Astroth is one of only 8 players to play only as a catcher in a career of 500+ games with one franchise. How may of the others can you name?
– Joe Collins is the only player with 3 consecutive seasons (1952-54) playing 100+ games at first base while compiling 2+ WAR in fewer than 500 PA.
– Ewell Blackwell is the only Red pitcher to lead the NL in shutouts as a rookie. Blackwell was the surprise game 5 starter for the Yankees in the 1952 World Series. A late season pickup, Blackwell had pitched just 16 innings for the Bombers including two starts, one to spell the regular starters in a meaningless final game of the season.
– Joe Coleman‘s 1942 debut game was the last of 6+ relief innings by an under-21 AL pitcher. Chris Haughey is the last NL pitcher with such a debut, on his 18th birthday one season later.
2 of the catchers with 500+ GP with one franchise and no position other than catcher are Mike Scioscia and Roy Campanella.
Correct.
One other easy one. The rest are harder.
I suppose Bill Dickey is the other easy one. Jason Varitek would make it if not for the DH.
As for the more obscure, I have Bruce Benedict, Tony Eusebio, Ron Hodges, and Larry Woodall. So I’m missing one.
I note that altjhough Hodges and Woodall both had careers of more than 500 GP, neither of them had 500 defensive games as a catcher.
Miguel Montero would also make the list if not for the DH.
You have all of them.
Astroth is the eighth.
Oh. Right. Duh.
Anyone other than Tommy Davis do the following?
1) Over 150 RBI in a single season with no other season above 89.
2) 120 runs scored with no other seasons above 72 (!)
3) 230 base hits with no other season above 181.
Answers are No, No (assuming Matt Carpenter has another 73 run season) and Yes (Darin Erstad).
Thanks Doug, much appreciated!
No guesses on the the four players besides Al Dark to play 50+ games for each of 5 NL teams from 1901 to 1960. All interesting players:
Generated 6/7/2014.
Stengel is the only one of the 5 to play 100 games for each team. Dark is the only one of the 5 to play 250 games for 4 of the 5 teams.
Gil Coan was involved in one of the most lop-sided trades ever. On 2/18/54 he was traded straight up from the Senators to the Orioles for Roy Sievers. Coan played 3 more years accumulating 464 PA, an OPS+ of 80, 3 HR, 32 RBI and -1.3 WAR. Sievers, on the other hand, fared a bit better. He played until 1965 accumulating 5941 PA, an OPS+ of 131, 283 HR, 948 RBI and 25.2 WAR. He led the AL in HR, RBI and TB in 1957, and his OPS+ of 164 trailed only Williams, Mantle, Mays, Musial and Aaron..
Initial vote:
1. Kenny Lofton (6.8 WAR/162 during 1992-99)
2. Sandy Koufax (7.8 WAR/season during 1961-66)
3. Larry Doby (6.2 WAR/162 during 1948-56)
Ranking of other candidates:
4. Ryne Sandberg (6.2 WAR/162 during 1984-92)
5. Craig Biggio (5.8 WAR/162 during 1991-99)
6. Willie McCovey (6.7 WAR/162 during 1963-70)
7. Edgar Martínez (6.4 WAR/162 during 1995-2001)
8. Harmon Killebrew (5.3 WAR/162 during 1959-70)
9. Minnie Miñoso (5.7 WAR/162 during 1951-59)
10. Eddie Murray (5.7 WAR/162 during 1978-86)
11. Richie Ashburn (5.3 WAR/162 during 1951-60)
12. Al Dark (5.2 WAR/162 during 1948-53)
This in reference to doug’s tidbits. Babe ruth, earle combs and ben chapman had consecutive seasons of 4+ war as outfielders.
Those 1931-32 Yankees are one of the teams.
I cheated because my initial guesses fell flat:
-’70s Red Sox: Rice/Dewey/F Lynn never all had 4 WAR in one year
-late ’70s Expos: Dawson/Cromartie/Ellis V only did it in 1978
-early ’90s Pirates: Bonds/Bonilla/Van Slyke came very close a couple years. All three did have 4+ WAR in 1988, but Bobby Bo was still butchering third base back then and wouldn’t move to right until 1990.
I’ll give a hint about the last team to have consecutive seasons with 3 4+ WAR outfielders: one of the players was a probable Hall-of-Famer-to-be playing out of position in the outfield for a couple years.
I went the same route as bstar at first with the 1970s Red Sox. But then I remembered the Cobb/Heilmann/Veach outfields. 1921-1922 Tigers.
Same wavelength. I thought of the Cobb Tigers, too, Artie, but couldn’t nail down a specific year because Tyrus often also shows up on these lists of high-WAR teammates paired with Sam Crawford/Veach/whoever in the 1910s.
They definitely qualify on the WAR aspect:
1892-1895 Philadelphia Phillies
Ed Delahanty (4.4, 6.0, 6.9, 6.9)
Billy Hamilton the Elder (6.1, 5.0, 8.2, 6.2)
Sam Thompson (4.7, 4.2, 5.2, 6.0)
These are the 8 teams since 1901 with the same outfielders repeating at 4 WAR per man.
Generated 6/6/2014.
Honorable mention to the the 1963-65 Minnesota Twins who did it 3 years in a row, but with a different set of outfielders each year.
Generated 6/7/2014.
In 1985, I saw an A’s game at Old Comiskey. Their starting left fielder was Henderson…
Steve Henderson.
Killebrew
Biggio
McCovey
Yippee, we have a new voter! Welcome, and hope you continue to participate.
Ford, Minoso and Ashburn
Lofton, Martinez, Ford
Koufax had 6.6 WAR after 6 seasons. Then 10.3 in his next two and then10.7/7.1/8.4/10.3. I just can’t forgive a 4 year dominance and a two year very good for being better than Whitey Ford’s very consistent career. I know I’m mostly alone in this and that’s fine, I fully expect him to be the next inducted member.
Biggio, Sandberg, Edgar.
I’m trying to find some rationale for casting a vote George Kell’s way. But, I just don’t see it.
– Not a power hitter at all, only average defensively.
– One batting crown and one season with each of 200 hits, 100 runs and 50 doubles.
– Only 37 WAR for his career, less than 20 other 3rd baseman who were *not* selected for the HOF
Evidently, it was the mystique of a .300 career BA (and beating Ted Williams for a batting title).
Ford, Doby, Murray
Doug;
It’s likely his success in HOF voting stemmed from his broadcasting career, as he went from 13.7% in 1967 to 36.8% in 1977. Liked him as broadcaster, though that’s my Tiger boyhood bias showing. Not certain how many still living(!) HOF members the Circle of Greats will replace, but my guess is he makes an early departure from COG eligibility.
Hall of Fame
1964 BBWAA (16.4%)
1964 Run Off ( 4.0%)
1966 BBWAA ( 9.6%)
1967 BBWAA (13.7%)
1967 Run Off ( 3.6%)
1968 BBWAA (16.6%)
1969 BBWAA (17.6%)
1970 BBWAA (30.0%)
1971 BBWAA (29.2%)
1972 BBWAA (29.0%)
1973 BBWAA (30.0%)
1974 BBWAA (25.8%)
1975 BBWAA (31.5%)
1976 BBWAA (33.2%)
1977 BBWAA (36.8%)
1983 Veterans (inducted)
Selected to HOF in 1983
by Veteran’s Committee
It never hurts to be popular. 🙂
And, it can bite you if you’re not (just ask Kevin Brown).
Koufax, Biggio, Murray
lofton biggio richie ashburn
For the 1922-Part 1 election, I’m voting for:
-Ryne Sandberg
-Edgar Martinez
-Craig Biggio
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Lofton
-Murray
-McCovey
-Killebrew
-Ashburn
-Koufax
-Ford
Lofton, Sandberg, and Biggio
Martinez, Lofton, Sandberg
Doug,
DiMaggio, Keller, Heinrich
Williams, DiMaggio, Zarilla
Stargell, Alou, Clemente
These areall top of my head guesses.
I know it wouldn’t be Otero Amaro and Braulio Castillo-this is where the Phillies are headed with Brown Revere Mayberry. Wha t would be the lowest collective WAR by an entire outfield ina single season?
Actually, none of those Paul. At least, not in consecutive seasons.
The results are shown above in comment 53, posted in reply to comment 17.
Sandberg, McCovey, Koufax
Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Craig Biggio
Ryne Sandberg
Kenny Lofton
Edgar Martinez
Vote 4 would be for Sandy Koufax.
Edgar Martinez, Kenny Lofton, Ryne Sandberg
Biggio, Koufax, Ford.
Here’s the vote according to my methodology. I take four measures of player value as a gauge of how players compare across advanced metrics that value things slightly differently. Then I give them a cumulative rank with all players on the ballot over 50 WAR, adding their ranking of each measure. Here are the measures:
WAR – is it too new to call it ‘classic’? Well, it’s the ‘classic’ way of measuring a player’s value over a player the team could have gotten to replace the player, over that player’s career, to show how ‘good’ that player was.
WAA+ – adding the wins above average players (rather than replacement) for that player’s positive seasons (ie. tossing out the negative seasons), to measure how great that player was when he was great.
JAWS – a weighted WAR score to incorporate both peak and career performance by weighting a player’s best seasons.
WAR*WAR/162G (250 IP for pitchers) – this is a fun construction I saw John Autin use on the last redemption round that takes into account peak and career performance, but using games played as a unit rather than seasons.
My hope is that ranking this will give a bit of an overall picture of player value. Here are the cumulative rankings, in order (a ’4′ would rank first in all 4 categories):
Martinez 5
Lofton 10
Sandberg 12
McCovey 19
Murray 22
Ashburn 24
Biggio 27
Koufax 33
Killebrew 34
Minoso 42
Ford 42
Doby 42
Martinez, Lofton, Sandberg
Edgar Martinez, Willie McCovey, Ryne Sandberg
Koufax, Ford, Biggio
Koufax, Ford, Biggio
Biggio, Minoso, and the namesake of the fieldgoal kicker for the Detroit Lions, Eddie Murray
Just had a really great, really short vacation. So I’m a little late to the party. Nonetheless, here are my votes:
Ryne Sandberg
Edgar Martinez (and a special “welcome to my ballot for the first time” to…)
Kenny Lofton
I just looked back a ways… it appears mine is the sixth (I think; I may have miscounted) ballot of exactly these three players. Who knew so many of us were in agreement?
Through 33 ballots cast, five guys are within two votes at the top. It seems John A.’s league parity has caught on in the COG as well.
Sandberg, Ford, Bidge
Killebrew, Biggio, Murray.
The most difficult round to date. I’ll keep two of my Board of Ed (the 3rd having been elected last round):
Eddie, Edgar, and, while I usually go for more long haul types, no one else really jumps out at me, so here’s my first vote for Koufax. Last round Duke had a peak that could come close to Koufax. This round I don’t think there’s anyone who has a 6-year peak much better than Koufax’s 4-year peak, nor do they have an 8-year peak much better than Koufax’ 6-year peak. Looking at McCovey’s best 8 seasons he’s at 48.3 WAR; Koufax’s best 6 seasons are 46.6 (or 44.2 if you take out his hitting). Biggio’s best 8 are 45.9. Lofton’s best 8 are 47.4. Even Edgar’s best 8 are only 49.1.
To make it easier:
Edgar, Eddie, Koufax
Murray, McCovey, Ford
As usual with most people born during this era a lot of these new guys lost time to military service. Since the only HOFer of the bunch is one of the relatively few who didn’t and even then is still a VERY marginal HOF pick I don’t see that any of them have a case for the COG.
Among the holdovers I have a couple of issues. First I’m still not convinced that defensive metrics have Ashburn/Lofton pegged correctly. I’m inclined to think that the either both belong or both do not and I’m not sure which so for now I’ll pass on them both.
The second is with Doby and Minoso. I have absolutely no doubt that they both lost at least a couple of years at the beginning of their careers to segregation (plus military service in Doby’s case) but I’m inclined to be a little more generous considering the circumstances. I also have to wonder in Doby’s case if it may not have been a factor in the extremely rapid end to his career. I wish I could vote for them both but there are others that I’m absolutely convinced belong so for now I’ll limit myself to just one of them.
Sandberg, McCovey, Doby
Vote:
Kenny Lofton
Minnie Minoso
Eddie Murray
Since I’m voting an all M ballot I checked to see which letter had the most inductees. M has it 10 to 8 over B. Still trying to figure out which letter’s better.
McCovey, Minoso, Murray.
Interesting. The frequency list of letters in general usage is E,A,R,I,O,T,N,S,L,C,U,D,P,M,H,G,B,F,Y,W,K,V,X,Z,J,Q. But Last Names are very different. M,S,W,B and H alone comprise close to 44% of the starting initials of all US last names. “M” clearly has the most “NAR”
and J is much more common as an initial than as a letter in general.
Names don’t tell you a lot in a small sample. Smith is still the most common name in the U.S., but not in the baseball hagiology. Johnson, the second most common, fares a little better. One Ozzie to Walter and Randy. Williams, third in popularity, provides us with Ted and maybe Billie. Robinson comes through with Jackie, Frank, and Brooks even though it is 27th most common.
A Rose by any other name would smell like Pete.
Just for the record here are the 8 most common last names in ML history, in order. Smith, Johnson, Jones, Miller, Brown, Williams, Wilson and Davis.
I would imagine in the future, ten or twenty years, a last name like Martinez might crack the top ten?
@92: According to my reference book, as of 2009, the most common Latino names are Hernandez and Perez, each with 18. On my list in comment 70, there are 66 players named Davis.
According to this quiz on sporcle:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/TwoSheds/ballnames
the most common Hispanic last names are Martinez, Hernandez, and Rodriguez. I make no promises about the accuracy of this list; at the very least, it’s a little out of date.
Searching bb-ref for various names and then counting by hand, I come up with:
Martinez 44
Rodriguez 43
Gonzalez/Gonzales 40
Hernandez 40
Garcia 35
Perez 32
Ramirez 28
Lopez 22
Cruz 21
None of these are top 10 – yet.
@94: My reference book is The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac 2nd Edition, edited by Bart Randolph Sugar. The 3rd edition does not have the list of Latino names, now I know why.
Yes, it’s a rapidly changing list.
I also found 22 instances of “Sanchez” – my list @97 isn’t comprehensive, although I checked several other likely suspects.
Hah, when I searched for Martinez it included Reginald. I believe he would, of course, want to be counted there too?
Heh. To keep things simple I ignored all matronymics, middle names, other names played under, and whatever else.
In case anyone’s still interested, here’s revised list of the most common Hispanic names:
Martinez 44
Rodriguez 43
Gonzalez/Gonzales 40
Hernandez 40
Garcia 35
Perez 32
Ramirez 28
Lopez 22
Sanchez 22
Cruz 21
Pena 21
@158 Not only is Gonzales a rare variation of Gonzalez, it’s also not a particularly successful one. The two pitching Gonzaleses have a combined 33 IP, and two of the three hitting Gonzaleses combine for only 28 PA. Utility infielder Rene Gonzales is the only “s” with a meaningful career.
I would also like to point out the existence of both a Germán González and a Gonzalez German Germen, the latter owning my favourite name amongst current major leaguers.
Martinez, McCovey, Sandberg
Which, assuming everyone who’s already voted before Voomo is on the spreadsheet is correct, puts us at:
Martinez – 16
Lofton – 15
Biggio – 15
Sandberg – 15
Koufax – 14
McCovey – 12
Ford – 11
Wow.
Therefore, through 41 ballots, nobody has more than 40% of votes… whoa…
Does anyone know if the new inductee must be elected with a majority of votes, or is a plurality acceptable?
And why does Larry Doby have only three votes? He is certainly at least just as good as most of these players…
A plurality is enough – we’ve had plenty of players elected with less than 50% of the vote before.
The candidate with the most votes wins induction. No minimum number or percentage is needed. We’ve had many elections with the winner under 50% and a few with the winner under 40%.
Ford, Koufax, Martinez
Three time all-star Hank Bauer’s name is not on the list of highest WAA shown above but he was an important member of the great Yankee teams of the 50s. His WWII heroics and his gritty hustling style of play made him an immediate fan favorite at the Stadium.
A good word here for Joe Collins. On 8/2/1955 when the Yankees defeated Early Wynn and the Indians 2-1, he hit two solo HRs to account for all the Yankee runs with the second one being a walk-off. There are only 11 other such games.
Ewell Blackwell is the only MLer with a stat named after him. 🙂
Ewell Blackwell never did lead the league in WHIP, though he did lead the league in FIP three times — apparently his nickname was slightly off.
Your comment mentions Early Wynn and then says that Blackwell is the only MLer with a stat named after him.
That’s a good point.
Through age 29, Early Wynn was:
83-94
1.441 WHIP
0.87 SO/BB
92 ERA+
_______
Who guessed he would win 300,
and retire 12th all-time in Wins?
So, through age 29, there have been 1,066 pitchers with
W/L% 1.4 (1.441)
SO/BB< 1 (0.87)
ERA+ < 95 (92)
18 pitchers with at least 100 decisions.
Wynn's 83 wins is #1
83 Early
81 Herm Wehmeier
68 Alex Kellner
63 Orval Grove
55 Elmer Myers
55 Buck Ross
52 Dick Coffman
50 Ownie Carroll
47 Lil Stoner
Only one (eventually) good pitcher.
Plenty of good names.
Something went terribly wrong ear the beginning of that last post. Have no idea why.
It should read:
W/L% 1.4 (1.441)
everything else is right…
Okay, I know for a freakin’ fact that I did not write the word “ear” instead of “at”.
Is the internet finally broken?
Hey! And my correction at post 100 did not correct, either.
It again failed to post the information about Won and Loss Percentage.
Won Loss Percentage under 475
(early was at .469)
Yeesh. Hope this works…
Voomo re: “ear” — Did you use greater-than or less-than symbols? Those can cause problems in comments.
JA,
That is exactly what I did.
Thought I was being all fancy.
@100 I thought you meant near the beginning of the post.
Koufax. Ford. McCovey.
Welcome to the voting, Steven!
Thanks. Not to be confused with Steve, although baseball-wise, at least, we have the same voting preferences. I’ve been waiting so long for Sandy Koufax to get in, I decided to perform my civic duty and throw (although a little sidearm, since I am 56) my support to him and a couple of others in my baseball card collection.
Koufax, Martinez, Biggio
Koufax, McCovey, Ashburn
Edgar Martinez, Minnie Minoso, Larry Doby
A statistical favor request from one of our bbref knowledgeable guys. Can you pull the top 100 individual pitching WAR seasons in the liveball era with their PPFp (park factor customized for the parks pitchers threw in) and maybe their innings pitched? I think there’s a correlation with pitchers being able to showcase their skills more in hitters parks than pitchers parks. I think if you averaged those 100 individual seasons, you wouldn’t get the expected PPFp of 100, you’d get something around 105. I think this shows error in the value of runs as they are calculated and explains what I see as an incorrectly low pitching WAR for Koufax during his peak years.
For anyone attempting to respond to mosc, the single season WAR cutoff from 1920-2014 is in the 8.4 (96 pitchers) to 8.3 (109 pitchers) range. Using the 8.4 cutoff there are 61 different pitchers.
The average IP is around 285 – I say “around” because the data has 0.1 and 0.2 listed for partial innings rather than 0.33 and 0.67. The correlation between WAR and IP is 0.267, again with the caveat about the partial innings.
I’m working on the park factors through plug and chug.
Artie Z.: My PI run shows 103 pitchers with WAR at 8.4 or higher and 111 pitchers with WAR at 8.3 or higher. And there is a simple way to calculate the 0.1 and the 0.2 into innings. It involves using the text-to-column feature on an Excel sheet toolbar.
I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy – my search terms were pretty basic, 1920-2014, WAR greater than or equal to 8.3 (or 8.4) in a single season. I can get 111 pitchers at 8.3 if I run the search from 1919-2014, and I can get 103 pitchers at 8.4 if I use 1917-2014.
The list I got from the original search (1920-2014, WAR greater than or equal to 8.4) is in post 88.
I ran my PI search sorting by WAR but did not use a cut-off of 8.3 or 8.4. That accounts for the discrepancy because when I used the cut-offs I got the same results that you did. Could have something to do with rounding off.
The average park factor for those seasons is 101.7. The median is 101.6. The lowest is Dean Chance in 1964, 90.3. The highest is Fergie Jenkins in 1971, 114.4. The correlation between PPFp and WAR is 0.000941. All the PPFp data is hand collected, so there may be errors (I originally had a Maddux season as 120.4 rather than the 102.4 it was supposed to be).
Here’s the list (if it lets me post something this long):
PPFp WAR Year IP Player
90.3 9.3 1964 278.1 Dean Chance
90.8 10.3 1966 323 Sandy Koufax
93.1 8.9 1953 265.2 Warren Spahn
94 8.6 1998 257 Kevin Brown
94.1 10.7 1963 311 Sandy Koufax
94.3 8.4 1975 323 Jim Palmer
96.1 10.4 1924 308.1 Dazzy Vance
96.6 9.6 1978 273.2 Ron Guidry
96.7 11.2 1968 304.2 Bob Gibson
96.9 10.6 1923 322 Dolf Luque
97 9.9 1946 371.1 Bob Feller
97 8.8 1933 308.2 Carl Hubbell
97.1 9 1971 312 Vida Blue
97.2 9.3 1939 296.2 Bob Feller
97.2 9.4 1937 278.1 Lefty Gomez
97.2 9.5 1947 289.2 Warren Spahn
97.6 9.9 1940 320.1 Bob Feller
97.6 8.6 1969 305.1 Larry Dierker
97.9 12.1 1985 276.2 Dwight Gooden
98.3 8.7 1941 300.1 Thornton Lee
98.5 8.9 1966 314 Jim Bunning
98.5 11.3 1921 330.2 Red Faber
98.5 10.1 1971 286.1 Tom Seaver
98.7 10.4 2009 229.1 Zack Greinke
98.8 9 1954 336.2 Robin Roberts
98.9 9.6 1936 304 Carl Hubbell
98.9 9.1 1974 265.1 Jon Matlack
98.9 9.8 1953 346.2 Robin Roberts
99 10 1928 280.1 Dazzy Vance
99.1 9.7 1989 262.1 Bret Saberhagen
99.1 9 1997 241.1 Pedro Martinez
99.2 11.9 1997 264 Roger Clemens
99.5 8.4 1927 307.2 Tommy Thomas
99.7 8.6 1974 322.1 Gaylord Perry
100 10.6 1973 290 Tom Seaver
100.1 10.4 1969 314 Bob Gibson
100.1 9.6 1922 352 Red Faber
100.5 8.4 1968 258.1 Luis Tiant
100.5 8.5 1996 265.2 Pat Hentgen
100.6 8.6 2011 232.2 Cliff Lee
100.7 8.9 1986 254 Roger Clemens
100.8 9.3 1993 257.1 Jose Rijo
101 8.4 2011 251 Justin Verlander
101.1 8.5 1994 202 Greg Maddux
101.2 8.5 1920 315 Stan Coveleski
101.3 9.2 1999 271.2 Randy Johnson
101.5 9.7 1995 209.2 Greg Maddux
101.6 9 1932 291.2 Lefty Grove
101.6 8.6 1995 214.1 Randy Johnson
101.6 8.9 2011 233.2 Roy Halladay
101.7 9.5 1947 273 Ewell Blackwell
101.9 9.5 1930 291 Lefty Grove
102 9.6 1937 262 Lefty Grove
102.1 8.9 1948 233.1 Harry Brecheen
102.1 10.7 1972 376.2 Wilbur Wood
102.2 11.7 2000 217 Pedro Martinez
102.2 12.1 1920 363.1 Pete Alexander
102.3 9.4 1987 281.2 Roger Clemens
102.4 9.2 1992 268 Greg Maddux
102.6 10.3 1965 295.1 Juan Marichal
103 8.6 2004 228 Johan Santana
103.2 9.6 1944 352.1 Dizzy Trout
103.3 9.9 1973 325 Bert Blyleven
103.3 11.7 1971 334 Wilbur Wood
103.5 9.4 1986 248.1 Teddy Higuera
103.7 9.1 1966 307.1 Juan Marichal
103.8 8.9 1970 294 Bob Gibson
103.8 10.1 1931 288.2 Lefty Grove
103.9 9.5 1946 292.2 Hal Newhouser
103.9 8.7 1993 256.1 Mark Langston
103.9 12.1 1972 346.1 Steve Carlton
104.1 9.7 1999 213.1 Pedro Martinez
104.5 11.2 1945 313.1 Hal Newhouser
104.5 11.1 1936 253.1 Lefty Grove
104.5 8.4 1942 278.2 Mort Cooper
104.5 8.5 1991 246.2 Tom Glavine
104.7 10.6 1990 228.1 Roger Clemens
104.9 11 1972 342.2 Gaylord Perry
105 8.5 1934 311.2 Dizzy Dean
105.2 9.1 1952 279.2 Bobby Shantz
105.3 9.2 1993 238.2 Kevin Appier
105.4 9.5 1935 273 Lefty Grove
105.5 10.2 1980 304 Steve Carlton
105.8 8.6 1971 376 Mickey Lolich
107.3 9.6 1976 250.1 Mark Fidrych
107.7 8.8 1992 246.2 Roger Clemens
108.2 10.2 1963 290.2 Dick Ellsworth
108.3 8.5 2004 245.2 Randy Johnson
108.7 8.8 2001 256.2 Curt Schilling
109.2 10 2001 249.2 Randy Johnson
109.8 9.4 1977 252 Rick Reuschel
111.5 10 1978 334.1 Phil Niekro
112 8.9 1977 330.1 Phil Niekro
112.2 10.9 2002 260 Randy Johnson
112.7 8.7 2002 259.1 Curt Schilling
114.4 10.3 1971 325 Fergie Jenkins
Artie, thanks again for the assist! 101.7 is not quite as high as I thought it would be but to me it’s still significantly out of whack. You can clearly see Koufax’s best two years at the bottom of that list. I think if calculated correctly his 1965 year would slip in as well (8.1 WAR by current math)and the only year in between he just missed too many starts to show up. Rate wise it was much the same.
Just for kicks, I took Artie’s list and removed the park factor adjustment from WAR back-calculating (dividing by the park factor). Koufax goes from being listed #13 and #21 to #9 and #10. That’s too extreme. Assuming 101.7 is the exact “over-correction” (hand picked 100 player-seasons is clearly an incomplete sample), park factor is correct, it should just be de-weighted by 101.7. I can do that to some extent by adjusting the park factors so that the average on this list comes out to 100 yet still maintains the spread.
Deducting 1.7 from each player’s PPfp gives a new, lower number that averages out correctly. Then multiply the WAR by the % change in their PPFp gives a rough correction. Koufax’s 1966 with 90.8 would then be 1.7/90.8 boosted, or 1.9% too low. Similarly, Jenkins 1971 season with 114.4 would get 1.7/114.4 or 1.5% lower. Doing this raises Koufax about 0.3 WAR in 1966 and 1963 combined. I imagine for his whole career it would be around 1 WAR.
So, I guess I do believe there is inaccuracy but it’s not that substantial. That said, Koufax at his peak was still unmatched.
1962 Koufax wins the ERA (and FIP) title with a qualifying ERA+ of 143 in 184.1 IP. Looking for other qualified ERA+ seasons of 143 gets you quite a few, but Koufax got a scant 4.4 WAR for a rate of only 0.215 WAR/9IP. Last guy I could find qualifying with that ERA+ was Sabathia in 2011. Rate? 0.284 WAR/9IP. 32% higher with a PPFp of 107.6. I know there are other factors involved but are you following my suspicion?
Park Factor is over-correcting because it’s linear and the value of a run in a lower scoring environment will increase. Put another way, the value difference between an ERA 0.9 and 1.0 pitcher is far higher than the difference between a ERA 9.0 and ERA 10.0 pitcher. Most of the time this doesn’t matter because although park factors have significant adjustment, we’re still only talking a few percentage points. When it doesn’t hold up though is when offense or defense are too dominant and the era gets out of whack. I think it does not handle the very high and very low park factors well. Koufax is over-punished and Booger isn’t punished enough.
But are park factors symmetric around the 100 mark? I know 100 is supposed to be neutral, but there are some EXTREME hitter parks and I don’t think anything remotely resembles that on the pitcher park end of the spectrum.
Picking one guy – Pedro Astacio had PPFps of 122.8, 121.7, and 124.5 when pitching for the Rockies from 1998-2000. I think Coors in the mid-late 1990s may be the most extreme hitter’s park ever.
Are there any offsetting pitchers who had PPFps around 80? When I think of “pitcher’s parks” I think of those 1960s Dodger teams, and Koufax has a 90.8. The lowest ones I can find are for Peavy from 2006-2008 (90.1, 89.8, 88.8) and even those are “offset” by park factors of 110 or 112 (though I’m not even sure if that logic is correct), so it’s not quite on its end of the spectrum as extreme as Coors is on its.
It’s certainly possible that at both extremes (say 90 for pitcher parks and 120 for hitter parks) the methods aren’t quite adjusting for everything properly.
That’s my argument essentially, yes. The further you get from 100, the more those non-linearities matter.
Koufax, Ford, Doby
Here’s a heretical thought:
No one among the new candidates on this ballot comes close to the level of serious consideration, leaving the carryovers to be fought over for the COG. I’ve just spent some time looking at the records of those carryovers, not that my judgment is necessarily the last word in penetration, but—the real problem here is that they are, all of them, pretty much on a par. I’d include Duke Snider in this group, too, but they all had excellent careers in overview, but they all also had points against them, not the same points, but trying to decide among them which three, much less which one, stand out is nearly impossible.
What if none of them belong, or all of them belong? Only one is going to make it one this round of voting—a slight to the rest, in my mind, that is unlikely to be rectified in future rounds when some bigger guns show up to dominate.
All of which makes this a particularly interesting round. Although you may be underestimating the chances of some of those who don’t win this round being able to win a subsequent round, sooner or later.
As to whether no one at all on this ballot belongs in the COG — I think most people would be hard-pressed to find a way to end up with another 58 or 59 deserving COG members from the remaining rounds without at least one of the current ballot group (remember, we are not including players who played a majority of their careers in the 19th century).
Just looking at players born from 1900-1921 (ignoring 1922 part 2) who have 40+ WAR, I see 3 pitching locks (Grove, Feller, and Spahn), another who will probably be a lock (Hubbell), and then Ted Lyons and Newhouser as the only pitchers over 56 WAR. Red Ruffing clocks in at 55.4 WAR – slightly higher than Koufax, but in about 1800 more innings. The only real “wild card” potential I see is from Dizzy Dean. Call it 5 pitchers.
I’ll toss all the hitters over 70 WAR into the “lock” category – Musial, Williams, Gehrig, Ott, Foxx, Gehringer, DiMaggio, Appling, Vaughan, Waner, and Mize (11 of them). I’m putting Jackie Robinson, Dickey, Hartnett, and Cochrane in there too, so now we are up to 15. Add Greenberg due to war years for 16, and Campy (though I’m not sure about this one – he doesn’t make the 40 WAR cutoff) due to integration and there are 17.
That’s 22 total players (counting Campy) for 22 years – which of course doesn’t count the double dip years.
And then the list is guys like Al Simmons, Joe Cronin, Pee Wee, Goslin, and Boudreau, along with pitchers like Newhouser and Ruffing – I think some of our holdovers will beat out some of these players, especially since I see two of our current holdovers likely being in the COG in the next two rounds (I don’t see Kiner or Wilhelm making that big of a dent in the voting for whoever doesn’t win this round), which should give stronger support to the remaining holdovers (and whoever comes back from the redemption round).
Going back to the 1880-1899 years gives us another 20 birth years. Those years are SUPER top heavy – Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby, and Eddie Collins all over 120 WAR for hitters, and Johnson, Alexander, and Mathewson all over 95 WAR for pitchers. But after Eddie Collins the 6th best WAR for a hitter is by Sam Crawford, with 73.1. And the 19th and 20th players from those birth years have 59 WAR, and I doubt we will be adding Sherry Magee or Jack Quinn to the COG. While there are some interesting possibilities below the 20th spot, I don’t see this crowd overly blown away by George Sisler or Bill Terry.
There’s plenty of room for the guys currently hanging around as holdovers, and even some room for some redemption guys (c’mon Robbie Alomar!)
Apologies to Sam Crawford – I forgot to change the years of the search from 1901-present. He’s still in 6th place among hitters born between 1880-1899 but with 75.1 WAR.
Sam Crawford…
309 career triples, 1st.
12 inside the park homers in one season, 1st.
51 career inside the park homers, 2nd.
Edward Barrow who discovered Honus Wagner and
decided to convert Babe Ruth to an outfielder,
managed Crawford during his first two seasons
with Detroit.
Barrow is quoted in Sam Crawford’s obituary, “there never was a better hitter.”
http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Obits_C/Crawford.Sam.Obit.html
First time I locked in on Wahoo Sam’s BBRef page. Quite a career with fairly steady “mid range” war totals without a high peak. 9th in gray ink and no support in the HOF voting.
I’ve got Satchel Paige and Monte Irvin on my list (6 years and 8 years respectively). I think they had enough major league time to fall into this process but clearly peaked in the negro leagues. I’m also sticking with Doby.
I think Irvin actually gets listed because he broke 20 bbref WAR? Not bad for a guy who didn’t get his 100th plate appearance before his age 31 season.
nsb @ 90 –
I agree with you that the players on the current holdover list fall within a similar range of value. Personally I think most of them belong in the CoG, though not all of them. I don’t think all of them are going to make it, but most of them probably will, albeit almost certainly not the same “most” that I have in mind.
There are at least a dozen other players, maybe even two dozen, who fall in that same range of value and aren’t even on the ballot right now. By the time we’re done with this exercise, there will for a certainty be some 5-10-20 players outside the CoG who will have as good an argument to be as the 5-10 guys at the “bottom” of the CoG.
I don’t see how it can be otherwise – I don’t think it’s really possible to meaningfully distinguish between the 115th and the 116th best player, or the 114th and 117th. We can and will draw a line somewhere, but it will an abritrary line determined by the collective wisdom of this particular crowd.
The players on the current holdover list are all what I think of as “Tier 2” players – Tier 1 players being the no-doubters, the inner circle Hall of Famers. Tier 2 is composed of players who are easy HoF’ers/HoF quality; Tier 3 ranges from marginal HoF’ers to the Hall of the Very Good.
There are somewhere around 50 Tier 1 players eligible for the CoG; they’re all making it in easily, and I’m sure we won’t miss any of those who remain. There are anywhere from 75-125 Tier 2 players, by my reckoning. They won’t all fit in the CoG, so we’ll have to leave some out. I don’t think we’ll elect any Tier 3 players (although the Hall certainly has a number of them).
So inevitably we’ll leave some players out who “deserve” to be in, but I don’t see any way around that; we’re going to draw a big thick line through a very finely graded continuum of talent. The tools we use to measure such things are much improved these days, but they’re still far from perfectly precise.
It’s an interesting thought, nsb. The thing is, what if the reason these guys don’t stand out is that they all rank in the 80-140 range in terms of where you’d rank players all-time? They may all SEEM the same, but some of them probably belong, while others probably don’t. The top-25 (or so) players of all-time are SO clearly head-and-shoulders above the rest, that it makes it look like if you’re not a part of that group, you’re the same as everyone else. The truth is that there ARE degrees of difference. And it MAY be true that there are 10 or so guys who are all equal, but only 5 of them will get in, because they rank 110-120, and we only have 115 slots. So it goes!
I’ve been thinking something fairly similar recently. I’d LIKE to just sit down and write out a list of the 115 guys I’d like to see inducted. But there are two factors conspiring against that. The first is pure, unbridled laziness; I don’t want to take the time to do it. The second is that I’m really enjoying just voting on each round as it comes to me, rather than “planning” years in advance and executing a preconceived strategy. I guess I’m enjoying it because it makes me feel more like a regular Hall of Fame voter, who has (or SHOULD HAVE) no other thought for any other year but the one at hand, and no thought for any other candidates than the ones in front of him/her.
Hard to find a clean cutoff. You could use George Brett as a cutoff. Brett and better are just clearly superb players. That’s 45 guys with ARod and Puhols already exceeding that but far too young. It’s notable no catchers are anywhere NEAR that level. I think below that you can at least discuss the rest, though some shouldn’t need much discussion (ex: Bench).
Koufax Lofton Biggio
Post 109, a reply to post 1, changes the vote at post 1
Eddie Murray, Kenny Lofton, Edgar Martinez
Koufax
Lofton
Murray
The ballot @ 5 hasn’t been tallied, it appears.
I think it may be tallied under Steven rather than Steve- same 3 names
I was assuming the ballot @ 81 was a different one. I could be mistaken, certainly.
No, you appear to be right as usual- I just thought 1 line apart/same 3 names but it appears that Steve/Steven have both voted
And both votes are now reflected on the spreadsheet.
Edgar, Biggio, Sandberg
Martinez, Lofton, Biggio. All long-time ballots guys for me, I guess.
Simultaneously with the next round, which will start this weekend, there will also be a redemption round. Because the number of holdovers seems to be trending down, I would propose to bring back to the main ballot the top three vote-getters in this next redemption round, rather than just the top two as we’ve done in the past. Comments are welcome on that proposal.
That sounds fine to me. There’s already a big group of mostly similar players up for voting, and adding a few more seems reasonable now that the backlog has been cleared up some. There also seems to be along-term trend toward voting to keep players on the main ballot (which is helped by the relative indistinguishability of the candidates), especially late in the process.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
I’ll take that as a yes.
Yes. Count me as one for three, too.
I like that some of our holdovers look like they’re finally going to pick up an extra ballots security in this round. I’m not sure however that adding 3 redemption round candidates at this point will have a lot of impact long-term. Killibrew, Ashburn & Doby are already struggling to hang on and the first ballot the redemption round candidates will be on will have 3 serious COG contenders (Spahn, Newhouser, Campanella) then you have Musial plus 2 HOFer’s (Wynn & Lemmon) then Jackie Robinson & Monte Irvin then Williams, Feller, Reese and Bobby Doerr.
I think it’s possible that by the time we get to the relatively weak class of ’17 (Boudreau, Rizzuto) is that not only will the 3 new redemption round candidates already be gone but a couple from our current holdover list might be as well. After that however we pretty much get only 1 serious candidate each year- if that- until we get to 1907.
Instead of adding a candidate to the next redemption round could we maybe add another redemption round say in 1916 instead? That might also work better the following decade in ’06 after a ballot with Foxx, Appling & Dickey in ’07 and then 3 really weak ballots until ’03 (7 HOFers including Gehrig, Dickey, Hubbell, Gehringer & Paul Warner). Basically do 2 redemption rounds a decade (every 5 years) of 2 players instead of just 1 of 3?
Good points, However, none of Ford, Ashburn, Minoso or Doby have yet had had to compete with the top guys on the redemption list. Those recently added holdovers are becoming an increasing percentage of the total holdover list. To heighten the fairness of the process to all players, a comparably-sized contingent of redemption returnees to face-off with the recent holdovers might be appropriate. You may be right that only a small number of holdovers/returnees will survive, but at least it will have been a fair fight for survival.
The vote this week suggests to me that having a ballot full of comparables is terrific. Why not layer on Hartvig’s suggestion and redempt three players every five years?
There are three dozen guys sitting in purgatory who would get some votes. And as many who would add to the conversation. I’d say trust the voters to make the right choices and give them more choices to make.
I guess if this round and the next can add a few ballots eligibility to some of our holdovers maybe they and a redemption candidate or 2 can survive the class of ’18 ballot. My concern was mostly with 3 strong COG candidates (Williams plus Feller & Reese- all of whom lost 3 or more prime seasons to military service) in 1 year that having a bunch of players on the bubble that season could cull several of them- and that would be right before we would be going into a decade long talent drought.
My guess is that any of our current holdovers and redemption round candidates that DO manage to hang on until ’17 will then at the very least be able to build several ballots of eligibility for the future.
I definitely see that point – It’s true that this potential logjam is coming up, but my take on it is that this process has always been managed with an eye on just that, the process, and without concern for specific players and when their birth year comes up. We didn’t have any special adjustment for the talent-rich 30s to give extra protection to those facing Robinson/Gibson/Kaline/Clemente/Mantle/Mays/Aaron etc, and those rounds were some entertaining carnage that lost tons of eligibility for long-term holdovers and dropped a few off. Generally though, I think we can all see that the talent isn’t as deep going back in time, so to me it makes sense to make this adjustment in the big picture. It would have been more timely 5 rounds ago, but that wasn’t really how the schedule worked.
All this is to say that I’m in favour of increased rounds and increased candidates redeemed. Redemption rounds have been pretty fascinating in the sense that there is such a variety of talent that it’s hard to compare – kind of like the current ballot for election, actually. So more of them, and more candidates, is good by me.
Sounds good to me. I already think we’ve made a mistake in letting Kevin Brown fall off twice. I can’t see Robbie Alomar as tremendously different from the other 2B on here. Really, I’m just for more voting and fun. More players. More rounds. More COG!
I’m definitely on board with this. Each redemption round adds 10 more rounds worth of candidates to all the candidates from the previous redemption round, so allowing for more redeemed players is certainly a good idea.
Although it’s ten more rounds of candidates, how many new legitimately redemption-worthy candidates there are is another question. Since the last redemption round, only two players who have fallen into redemption-land, Gil Hodges and Nellie Fox, have gotten more than two votes when they did have their chance on the main ballot. No holdovers have fallen off since the last redemption round — Hodges and Fox were also one-and-dones, each getting four votes — so it’s not like there have been many near-misses in recent rounds. The main reason for increasing the redemption winners to three is to test the current holdover list — which has morphed quite a bit lately, just not via drop-offs — against a good contingent of the most popular of the redeemed.
So for Redemption Round 1921(2), we will vote for three and three will return for 1920 ?
Simultaneously with the 1922 (part 2) regular vote, we will also have a Redemption Round 5. The plan is to have the three highest vote-getters in Redemption Round 5 then join the regular ballot for the 1921 round.
Adding 3 players next redemption seems fine to me.
I guess it will cost current holdovers some votes and rounds of protection. I don’t like redemption rounds much for this reason. That said, I can’t see bringing 3 back instead of 2 as much of a difference to worry about.
Killebrew, McCovey, and Ashburn.
Doby, Minoso and Killebrew
Sandy Koufax, Eddie Murray, Craig Biggio
Another interesting observation of this close race:
Through Francisco’s vote @141, the top four candidates are each one vote apart:
Martinez – 22
Koufax – 21
Biggio – 20
Lofton – 19
I’m probably going to change my vote, but not just yet…
Given that John Smoltz recently made up a five-vote deficit in the last hours of voting, it is not even slightly exaggerating to say that, with around 20 or so votes likely still coming in between now and Friday night, any of these four could easily win this round. Makes it interesting trying to prepare a results post.
OK with extra choices / exemption rounds though whatever the HHS management decides is fine with me. Edgar should be offering the final voters cash money at this point.
Koufax, McCovey, Minoso
Koufax, Sandberg, Ashburn
With Arsen’s vote, Koufax takes the lead over Martinez 23-22. Behind them are Biggio (20), Lofton (19), Sandberg (17) and McCovey (16). All 6 are over the 25% mark and Ford is only 1 vote shy (14 votes out of 57 cast). Killibrew, Ashburn, Minoso & Doby all have 7 votes & Murray has 12.
Of the last 21 elections:
The most votes were 72 in the 1935 election, second most was 69 in 1932.
The fewest votes were 62 in the 1927 election, second fewest was 63 in 1929.
All of the remaining 17 elections saw between 64 & 67 votes cast. We have picked up 1 new voter in this election and (I think) 1 in the last so we could see those numbers rise some.
lofton, martinez, mocovey
Lofton
Murray
Martinez
Whitey Ford, Richie Ashburn, Minnie Minoso
Edgar Martinez.
Willie McCovey.
Craig Biggio.
Apologies to Koufax, as I sense he’ll get in.
Martinez for the win, the other two to stay on the ballot:
– Edgar Martinez
– Harmon Killebrew
– Larry Doby
Martinez has a 4-0 run against Koufax since Hartvig’s comment @156.
Plus every holdover except Sandberg got at least 1 vote and I’m not sure what that signifies either- I suppose the votes for the 4 guys with 7 votes might have been insurance so they stay on the ballot and the votes for McCovey & Ford & maybe Murray were to either get them to or keep them over the 25% mark (which is something that I’m generally in favor of at this point). After paget’s vote @ 166 I think the outcome as far as who the eventual winner will be is still very much up in the air but beyond that the only remaining question seems to be if Ford and possibly even Sandberg with stay over the 25% mark.
Koufax (for the win)
Ford
McCovey
______
Can’t help but look ahead and marvel at one of the many Hoyt Wilhelm facts:
He was the oldest player in the league
for the last EIGHT years of his career.
During which time:
6.4 H/9
156 ERA+
Vote change, please.
Koufax, Minoso, Ashburn
Everybody is safe, and all my top 3 are contenders, so I’m going with them:
Martinez, Lofton, Sandberg
I still don’t like the fact that voting tallies are being added up as votes come in (I have mentioned it previously). I understand that this is a process that happens in all voting but in this case you can clearly go back and change a vote whereas traditional voting elections you can’t. I think voters are being swayed by seeing who’s trailing/leading and it changes their vote. This is purely my opinion but I stand firm in believing this statement has some merit.
I think it’s less of an issue than you think. By my count the last 13 voting rounds have seen a grand total of 12 vote changes.
JH @ 172 –
I agree that having open ballots probably influences the results of the voting. But is that necessarily a bad thing? If so, why?
That’s my thought, too. Part of the point of having an open ballot count is so that it does affect the voting — otherwise, there would be no point to it. But arguably, the idea is that the open ballot further enfranchises voters. That is, the open ballot empowers voters more fully than would casting a vote into an unknown void. In a similar way to saving a top bullpen pitcher for high-leverage late-game situation, a voter can cast his vote in a way that best advantages his preferences given the actual tally situation. Of course, there is also the risk of waiting too late. Like a manager who holds his best reliever back only to find that the game is already practically decided before he has used his best asset, later voters can end up having their votes cast in elections that are already effectively decided. Many voters here choose to vote early when they can still influence the initial shaping of the race, and then there is just not enough to be gained for them by changing later (especially as we stop allowing changes over the last 25% or so of the voting period). Thus the very limited vote-changing we have seen.
So there are various strategies for voters to use, but they are up to the voters themselves to choose, which I think makes for a more powerful and interesting voting opportunity than a secret ballot.
The considerations are different in real elections for government officials, where the ideal is to give every citizen equal voting power, with as little gamesmanship as possible, and there I support a closed tally, where the progress of counting is secret until all have voted. But in the COG elections, where the three-name ballot and the 10%/25%/50% level issues add to the complexity of voting, giving voters information they can use to optimize the power of their votes seems like a good thing, to me anyway.
And an open ballot like this is an instant recount, as comments 189-190 below demonstrate.
I think Jeff @172 makes a legitimate point about the potential influence of knowing what the vote is and vote changes, but it’s the system we’ve been working with, and if RJ is correct, it doesn’t seem to have that much of an impact.
Regarding adding more redemption rounds, I’m not enthusiastic. Many of the holdovers we have right now are already hanging on the ballot for decades. They have benefited from consistent, even if somewhat low level support, for many rounds in a way that some of the newer (read, “older”) players won’t. That means they’ve been able to wait for an opportunity in a weak year or stretch of years.
Finally, the Vote
Sandberg, Ford, Koufax
Except that Ford, Minoso, Ashburn, and Doby are all from the 1920s, and Koufax, Killebrew, and McCovey are from the 1930s. I believe Edgar and Lofton (and maybe Murray?) are redemption round winners. That leaves Biggio and Sandberg who have been hanging around forever, and part of that is likely because there were some people who were voting for Whitaker and Grich (who were also on the ballot forever, because there were 4, or 5 if you count Alomar, really good but difficult to distinguish between second baseman who came on the ballot rather closely together – or I guess 6 if one wants to count Willie Randolph, though no one seemed to miss him) rather than Sandberg or Biggio.
It’s no guarantee we will add 3 guys born from the 1960s – Jim Bunning, who had a pretty good peak (30.2 WAR from 32-35) and also put up 29.5 WAR before the peak, never really had a chance given his birth year (1931). I’m not sure what happened with Graig Nettles (OK, it looks like he was Seavered and Carltoned) but he probably deserves another look. Not to mention someone like Kevin Brown, who was probably as good as Marichal, or Robbie Alomar, who is pretty much indistinguishable from Sandberg and Biggio. I’d take every one of those players over Killebrew for COG, and most of them over Ashburn. But we’ve never had a chance to express our opinion on Alomar vs. Killebrew, or Kevin Brown vs. Ford vs. Jim Bunning.
The worst thing that happens with adding another player from the redemption round is that the player falls off the ballot quickly. Maybe a vote or two is spent on that player that could have been spent on another player, but that’s a choice each voter gets to make.
Woah, woah, woah. Mr Nettles’ first name is Graig, not Greg?! The American pronunciation of Craig confused me enough, and now this…
In regards to Nettles, I would suggest checking out his defense
in the 1978 World Series against the Dodgers.
Here is a small sample.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uid-nqb9SAU
I never saw Brooks play until his last season.
Nettles was the best I ever saw.
A Hall of Fame without Graig Nettles is just silly.
Agreed, although we did in fact vote on Alomar vs. Killebrew in the last redemption round. That said, the voting format of few votes but many candidates, means that you can’t really infer too much from the ballot in terms of one candidate versus another when they are close. One problem with the redemption voting is that so many players are so close together that people have a tendency to spread their votes around a lot, and some of the strategy is about figuring out who the masses are voting for and thus has a chance to win among the 10-15 candidates that I ultimately want to see back on the ballot. Killebrew and Murray won the last redemption round. HK wasn’t even on my top 10 list, and Murray was behind a number of other guys. It turns out I had Alomar in my top 4, and he had a shot so he got my vote, but there were a lot of players with a shot. If you had one at #5 and the other at #10, then you aren’t really choosing between them.
birtelcom, I would like to request a complete list of redemption-round-eligible players. Perhaps a spreadsheet containing career WAR and number of seasons played, as well, if possible. It’s just so difficult to figure out who should get my vote, especially without a comprehensive list of candidates. Sorry for the tough request, but it’d be a HUGE help!
I believe anyone who (1) appeared on a COG ballot is eligible provided (2) they are not currently in the COG or on the ballot, eliminating things like Lefty Grove getting HOF votes 13 years after he had already been elected to the HOF. And he got 6 of them, 3 more than first year man Ralph Kiner. I wish I was making that up, but either it actually happened or bbref is providing misinformation. I’ll take the former.
But because there are so many potential candidates I’ll help you out a bit: Kevin Brown, Alomar, and whoever you want for the third guy 😉
Also players who were eligible but shut out, such as Johnnie LeMaster (to pick a random 1954 [selected randomly] with no votes not even mine… somehow I missed that vote), would be eligible for a redemption round ballot.
From the first Redemption Round instructions:
For the RR-1922b, that would change to 1922 (Astroth through Kell)-1969.
Here’s a list I’ve been using. I don’t claim it is complete, but it is a good start:
Rafael Palmeiro
Rick Reuschel
Don Sutton
Kevin Brown
Graig Nettles
Don Drysdale
Roberto Alomar
Luis Tiant
Dwight Evans
Buddy Bell
Willie Randolph
Reggie Smith
Andre Dawson
Dave Winfield
Billy Williams
Ken Boyer
Dennis Eckersley
David Cone
Mark McGwire
Sal Bando
Gary Sheffield
Jim Bunning
Keith Hernandez
Bret Saberhagen
Dick Allen
Darrell Evans
Sammy Sosa
John Olerud
Willie Stargell
Dave Stieb
Orel Hershiser
Will Clark
Jim Wynn
Luis Aparicio
Jeff Kent
Kevin Appier
Fred McGriff
Larry Jackson
Norm Cash
Wilbur Wood
Jim Kaat
Kirby Puckett
Jamie Moyer
Ted Simmons
Orlando Cepeda
Jimmy Key
Mickey Lolich
Jim Fregosi
Ron Guidry
Jim Rice
Bob Friend
Gene Tenace
Dale Murphy
Willie Wilson
Omar Vizquel
Lou Brock
Gil Hodges
Bill Freehan
Don Newcombe
Don Mattingly
Fernando Valenzuela
Rich Gossage
Catfish Hunter
Andy Van Slyke
Jim Gilliam
Gil McDougald
Danny Darwin
Dave Parker
Frank White
Trevor Hoffman
Rollie Fingers
Dan Quisenberry
John Franco
Red Schoendienst
I’d really like to see the redemption round ballot include every eligible player with over 50WAR, 30WAA, 100 hall rating or some such similar cutoff, not just everyone who received at least a few votes. The problem is that players whose birth year is loaded or came onto a stocked holdover ballot sometimes got the shaft for initial votes relative to other players who came up in more depleted years where there seemed room to vote for people “to give them further consideration.”
I think unfortunately, that getting fewer than 4 votes or whatever your cutoff is, tends to be the seal of death, and there are a few players from the 40s-60s birth years that didn’t make it onto the listed redemption round ballot who are better than many of the people on it, may belong in the COG, and may generate some support now that we are seeing what lean years look like.
My understanding is, there is no cutoff other than the basic criteria for CoG eligibilty – to retiterate what oneblankspace mentions @184, anyone who’s eligible for the CoG is eligible for a redemption round vote, even if they received no votes at all. So the only cutoffs are, 10 years in the majors, or 20 WAR.
MJ’s list @183 looks to be a list of the most plausible candidates, but it’s very far from being a complete list of who’s eligible for redemption – such a list would run into the hundreds by now, I would think.
My vote: Martinez, Ford, Murray
As oneblankspace and David Horwich have pointed out, the stated rules have been that anyone who has previously fallen off a ballot, is not on the current regular ballot and has not been inducted, is eligible for redemption, no matter how many votes they received in past ballots. I haven’t even enforced the “fallen off the ballot” rule, though — as a practical matter I’ve allowed anyone who’s played in the majors to receive redemption votes, even with less than 10 years in the majors and less than 20 WAR, as long as they fit in the birth year range, are not on the current ballot, and are not inducted.
In the past, for convenience, I’ve listed, in each of the redemption ballot posts, guys who have previously gotten a few votes in a regular ballot, on the theory that if a player hasn’t gotten a few votes when he’s been on a regular ballot he’s unlikely to be seriously competitive in the redemption round. But I’ve tried to be clear that such lists are just for convenience and are not intended to limit your redemption ballot choices.
Because the list of players who are eligible to receive your votes in a redemption round has become enormous, there’s no practical way to truly fulfill Dr. Doom’s request at comment 180. However, I have put together a spreadsheet with some stats for a selection of 167 non-pitchers who fit the basic redemption criteria: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NU2UNLAhwgeVSqVGmoqSHek_cUJyLycD0lqHMEvkfrA/edit#gid=0
I created this list by looking for non-pitchers with the applicable birth years who had at least 10 years in the majors and at least 32 career bref WAR. Again, it’s not intended to be limiting, just a matter of convenience. It’s possible I’ve missed somebody who belongs here, or included somebody who doesn’t — if you find an error, point it out. And if you want to vote for someone who is not on the list — by all means have at it. I’ll try to do a similar selection of redemption pitchers and post it shortly.
THANK YOU!!! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for! It’s just tough to figure out for whom I’m supposed to vote when it’s SUCH a daunting list. You’re the best, birtelcom! (I’ll probably look up the pitchers myself, but if someone wants to post a similar list of those, I won’t complain…
Here is the twofold problem I have with the votes algorithm:
1. Whether a player gets 4-5 votes or whatever your cutoff is in their first year, has a almost as much to do with what the ballot looks like when they come on as with how strong their candidacy is. So there are many players who got 5+ votes as a shoutout in a lean year that have absolutely no real case for COG, while other players that really deserve a second look got hosed by coming onto a stacked ballot and only got 2-3/no votes while in another year they might have gotten 10% or even 25%.
2. Having a list on the ballot post, tends to favor players on that list. Yes, we all know that officially we can vote for any eligible player, but realistically, it’s *very* unlikely for players not listed in the post to ever actually win a redemption round, because many voters will look at those choices and not go anywhere else.
I understand that we don’t want to make this the circle of WAR or hall rating, but those are some of the best single stat easy cut approximations of one’s case.
So far we have not elected a single player with less than 50 WAR and with the possible exception of catchers or peaky guys who also get a big WWII/negro league credit, I suspect that will continue to be true. We’ve also elected every single elegible player so far with >70 WAR except for one Rafael Palmeiro. The second part may not hold up as we get into the 19th century birth years (I’ve supported every candidate that’s made it so far, but there are a few >70 guys from pre-integration that I don’t think belong). That tells me, that realistically, you have to put up enough WAR to get real consideration, and 45-50 is a pretty good number.
But unlike a 20 WAR or 32 WAR cutoff which leads to a *giant* list of HOVG players, a 50 WAR cutoff is much more manageable.
I get 76 position players and 33 pitchers with >=50 WAR birth year >= 1922, and not already in COG.
Realistically, I don’t think we will be electing anyone who doesn’t meet the >50 WAR criteria with the possible exceptions of Campy, Kiner and Gossage. Those are the only players I think have a *chance*.
For my part, I’d rather have *no* names on the ballot, and just a pointer to the spreadsheet above and a similar one for pitchers, than have a bunch of names on the ballot by previous vote support and other candidates either not listed, or in a separate place.
At a minimum if you plan to keep the current ballot format, I hope that redemption ballot votes count toward votes to get you on the next redemption ballot, so that if enough of us dig deep and put up a few good candidates who’ve been overlooked, they will show up in future redemption rounds on the ballot post.
You may well be right that the best way to handle the redemption post itself from here on would be to dispense with the “past votes” list and just point to the new spreadsheet, now that it’s been done (along with a comparable one for pitchers).
Do I read this right that Satchel is eligible through redemption but not on his birth year ballot?
Yes, that would be consistent with past practice. I know you’ve raised the Negro Leagues issue in the past, mosc, and I think this may be a reasonable way to handle it. But I think that if a primarily Negro Leagues player (or for that matter any player who doesn’t meet the 10-year or 20 WAR requirement) both gets on to the main ballot via redemption and then achieves induction, my suggestion would be that such a result would increase the number of players we would induct into the COG rather than coming out of the planned number of inductions. That way such an induction would not compromise our goal of comparing our results head-to-head with the BBWAA’s results based on a comparable set of candidates.
Birtelcom – How would that be consistent with past practice? Have people done that in the past (i.e, voted for someone in a redemption round who was never on a ballot).
As you wrote in #188 “the stated rules have been that anyone who has previously fallen off a ballot, is not on the current regular ballot and has not been inducted, is eligible for redemption.” Paige can’t meet the first criteria of falling of the ballot since he won’t be on the ballot in the first place.
By “past practice” I merely mean that I have never really checked the many nominated names that have come up on ballots in the redemption rounds to make sure that they meet the 10-year/20 WAR standard, and I have in the past made broad statements about being able to vote for “anybody” in the redemption rounds without referring back to the original stated rules. Note that this has never really been anything but a theoretical issue, because there was no realistic chance that anyone who didn’t meet the stated rule would win redemption. With the Negro Leagues issue, the question may become more than theoretical, and I’ve been wrestling with how to deal with that. Expressly allowing redemption round votes for MLB short-termers would be one way to deal with that issue.
Tally erratum:
The ballot @ 160 was for Lofton, Murray, Martinez, but was tallied as McCovey, Murray, Martinez.
Thanks! Fixed.
Vote: Martinez, Lofton, Miñoso.
My reasoning is the same as Bryan’s @109.
The redemption round can’t come soon enough for me; Martinez, Lofton and Koufax are the only guys presently on the ballot who I’m certain belong. I’m all for redeeming an extra ex-ballotee.
Meanwhile I’m certain Koufax doesn’t belong. 🙂
So in that spirit:
1) Martinez
2) Murray – trying to get him over 25%.
3) Doby – who in a “just” world would have as many, if not more, votes than Koufax.
And in the home stretch….
30 Edgar
26 Sandy K
23 Lofton
Is Edgar Martinez a “bubble” guy for our top 120 players?
Career ranks:
126 Total Bases
110 WAR
94 BA
21 OBP
70 SLG
34 OPS
44 OPS+
30 Adjusted Batting Runs
42 RE24
180 PA
80 Times on base
Equivalent of 4 seasons playing the field.
1.262 OPS in 4 Division Series.
0.474 OPS in 3 LCS
One-team player.
No suspicion of illegal enhancement.
_______________
Part of my approach to this voting is to play GM.
And to imagine I’m building a team, and I can pick three guys off the list in my expansion draft.
I can see the argument for Edgar,
but I want players on my team that are the total package.
Players who excel at every aspect of the game.
Take the extra base, make all the plays with the leather, AND thwack it.
Edgar shares his 147 ops+ with three other “hitters”
McCovey, Stargell, and Thome.
And also Mike Schmidt.
________
Nice guy Edgar doesn’t finish last on my ballot.
Just a 9th place tie with Killer and Stretch.
Koufax, Sandberg, Lofton
Murray, Koufax, Ford
And that is vote #70- a level that we have topped only once (1935) in the past 45 elections.
I’m half rooting for Sandy to catch Edgar, but the more I look at, the more Sandy looks over hyped. Yes, the World Series record is a huge plus. His truly atrocious hitting a bit of a minus.
But I think he get too much credit for “what might have been.”
There are plenty of guys who put up several 10WAR seasons, and had a longer career than Sandy, who don’t get a fraction of the recognition.
Red Faber
Wilbur Wood
Hal Newhouser
Dazzy Vance
Dick Ellsworth (okay, not quite)
Of the players you listed, I think Vance has the best case to be made if Koufax gets in.
The voters have already spoken on Wood & Ellsworth-altho the redemption rounds could change that.
Faber benefits from the ban on the spit ball and Newhouser benefits from having his biggest seasons during the war.
But Vance is Koufax only in reverse, plus he put up his best seasons when the performance of most pitchers are in decline and he didn’t it for longer.
I can’t think of any rational justification of voting for Koufax but not Vance.
Frankly, I don’t think a vote for Koufax is particularly rational. I support Koufax’s eventual election, but I’m willing to admit that the argument for him is largely emotive.
Note that I don’t support Koufax for COG, but I can think of a rational justification.
Vance played entirely pre-integration, and probably faced a much weaker replacement level than Koufax.
He also pitched during a very high scoring era, while Koufax pitched mostly in a very low scoring era, which makes it harder for both pitchers and hitter to distinguish themselves from the pack. Not sure how much difference this last makes, but I think it is a legitimate question.
That said, I can also see the *irrational* justification, which is that his raw numbers look so much better. Which is primarily a result of playing in a low-scoring era in a pitcher’s park.
One reason I want to be careful about my second adjustment above is that seeing those raw numbers above tends to make us overweight pitching candidates from low-scoring eras, and I believe that explains at least some of the hard-core support for Koufax vs. relative to other similar peaky candidates, who didn’t have his air of dominance, largely because they did not play under conditions as favorable to their raw numbers, not because of big differences in their results relative to baseline.
That said, I think for position players, it’s more likely to be legitimate to life some guys who played in low scoring eras above their WAR. Nobody is irrationally picking those guys up for having gaudy raw numbers. This tells me we maybe need to seriously consider some low 60 WARish hitters from the 60s and 70s that we haven’t given much play (Bell, Bando, Boyer, Allen, Randolph, Nettles), and some guys from the deadball era as well. My baseline for the deadball era will be higher (pre-integration, very weak talent baseline relative to the 60s). But there should be a few guys to pull out over players with similar WAR patterns in the go-go 20s and 30s, that got way more support from the BBWWAA.
Koufax, Lofton, Ashburn
McCovey, Murray and Killebrew