This post is for voting and discussion in the 68th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round begins to add to the ballot those players born in 1916. Rules and lists are after the jump.
Players born in 1916 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.
The new group of 1916-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 Saturday, August 23, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EDT Thursday, August 21.
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 1916 Part 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-1916 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 thirteen 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 1916 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 26 players born in 1916 who met the “10 seasons played or 20 WAR” minimum requirement. Thirteen of those are being added to the eligible list this round (alphabetically from Jim Bagby to Ken Keltner). The thirteen players further down in the alphabet will be added next round.
Holdovers:
Kenny Lofton (eligibility guaranteed for 6 rounds)
Whitey Ford (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Craig Biggio (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Pee Wee Reese (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Ryne Sandberg (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Roberto Alomar (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Lou Boudreau ( (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Kevin Brown (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Roy Campanella (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dennis Eckersley (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Harmon Killebrew (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Minnie Minoso (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Eddie Murray (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1916, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Phil Cavarretta
Eddie Joost
Bob Elliott
Johnny Hopp
Floyd Baker
Charlie Keller
Ken Keltner
Al Evans
Elbie Fletcher
Sam Chapman
Pitchers (born in 1916, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Murry Dickson
Jim Bagby
Hank Borowy
Sandberg, Reese, Campanella
I’ll be keeping an eye on Minoso as well.
Biggio
Killebrew
Alomar
After some re-thinking (I think it was comment 187 on the last round), I’m making a change to my ballot, by dropping Lou Boudreau. After some careful consideration, I think his wartime stats are just a little too inflated. I have NO PROBLEM with counting what he did. We should act as if those things DIDN’T happen; instead, we should be realistic about the level of competition he faced. In my opinion, Boudreau benefits greatly from having played against the same competition Hal Newhouser was beating up on. Newhouser fell off the ballot. Boudreau was a better player, but TOO much, in my opinion, hangs on what he did in 1944-45. I’d still probably put him in the top 7 or so on my ballot… but 7 ain’t 3. So here are my guys:
Pee Wee Reese
Kevin Brown
Ryne Sandberg
Also want to make a shout-out to my fellow Milwaukean, Ken Keltner. He’s now most famous in these parts because of Bill James’s famous “Keltner Test.” But he WAS a good player. Bud Selig supported his Hall of Fame case, which proves that a) Bud Selig has a pro-Milwaukee bias (which I consider a positive trait, and everyone knows already), and b) that it’s a good thing that Bud Selig doesn’t get to choose who goes into the Hall of Fame.
Milwaukee’s best player Aloys Szymanski doesn’t come up for a vote until 1902. Will he be the first elected to the COG?
Dr. Doom: regarding Boudreau. If you have the time, will you consider reading this? It offers a different view about wartime years in baseball:
http://research.sabr.org/journals/wartime-baseball-not-that-bad
I enjoyed (and agreed with) the article. Thanks for sharing, bstar. It’s a good read for anyone who’s interested.
The quote that stuck out at me, though, was the final sentence of the piece:
“We maintain that a good brand of baseball was played in the major leagues during World War II without pretending to imply that it was the same without PEE WEE, THE YANKEE CLIPPER, RAPID ROBERT and THE KID.”
It WAS good baseball. I would venture to say that it was almost certainly the best baseball being played in those years (although I don’t actually know what the War did to the Negro Leagues… my guess is that their top-flight talent left, too). It’s just that saying that accomplishments during WWII are NOT the same as those accomplished outside of it.
The fact is, when you’re asking, “Who was better, Boudreau or Biggio?” you’re splitting hairs. And the acknowledgement that some of Boudreau’s best years happened during WWII is significant enough (to me) that it knocks him down ENOUGH that he still doesn’t get a spot on my ballot.
Another Boudreau issue is how defensive and offensive WAR accumulate. For players with significantly positive RFIELD, the batting requirements are quite light to accumulate WAA. This can be said in reverse too but the point is that a player adding value in multiple areas shoots up the WAA chart often without an exceptional bat. This is not shocking information but I think it’s important in Boudreau’s case when you look at the amount of RBAT he accumulated during the war and how directly that relates to his WAA.
Boudreau (with 10% off his wartime years): 40 WAA, 61 WAR.
Well, I wasn’t done, sorry. Boudreau has 40 WAA and 61 WAR.
Let’s see what we would estimate Boudreau’s value to be if he hadn’t played during the war.
I think a reasonable way to do this would be look at his three prior years to the war, his three years after the war, and then take the average of those for a decent estimate of what a player would have produced in the three wartime years.
Boudreau 1940-42: 9 WAA, 15 WAR
Boudreau 1946-48: 16.5 WAA, 22 WAR
Taking the average of those two groups of years, we get 13 WAA and 18.5 WAR as an estimate for 1943-45, had Boudreau not played. Now let’s compare that to what he actually did those years in ’43-’45 (14.7 WAA, 19.8 WAR), with 10% off the top:
estimated Boudreau production: 13 WAA, 18.5 WAR
actual Boudreau production: 13.2 WAA, 17.8 WAR
Boudreau’s actual production from 1943-45 almost exactly matches the credit we reasonably would have given him had he not played!
There is no wartime bonus here.
This study suggests that something like a 10% discount applied to the win value of guys who played during WWII might be the appropriate adjustment:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1817
Ford, Biggio, Killebrew
Killebrew, Campanella, Murray
Biggio, Lofton, Murray
Lou Boudreau, Kevin Brown, Craig Biggio
B is for Ballot.
Whitey
Campy
Killebrew
This year’s tidbits.
– Phil Cavarretta leads all players in career Games and PA before the age 20 season. Who are the only other players with 200 games in their teenage seasons?
– Eddie Joost was the first player with 3 seasons batting under .250 while walking 100 times. He was also the only player with a season (1947) of 100 walks, 100 strikeouts and fewer than 15 home runs, until Tony Phillips matched that feat in 1993.
– Bob Elliott played 600 games at third base for both the Pirates and Braves. Who are the only other pre-expansion players with 600 games at third base for each of two franchises?
– Johnny Hopp played in 5 World Series, including 4 times on the winning side. But, it could have been even better as Hopp was twice traded in the off-season from teams (1945 Cardinals, 1947 Braves) that won pennants the next year, and was released in mid-season by another pennant winning team (1952 Yankees).
– Floyd Baker is the only live ball era player to have a 2500 PA career with a .250 batting average and a slugging percentage below .300.
– Charlie Keller’s 151 home runs for 1940-46 ranked third in the majors for that period. His home run rate as a percentage of hits was second only to Hank Greenberg among players with 100 home runs. Keller was also the first Yankee with a season (1946) of 100 walks and 100 strikeouts (Babe Ruth’s highest strikeout total was 93 in 1923).
– Ken Keltner is the career leader in Games, Hits, Extra-Base Hits, Runs and RBI among Cleveland third basemen. But, who is the career leader in WAR for Indian third basemen?
– Al Evans succeeded HOFer Rick Ferrell as Washington’s primary catcher, with the two compiling surprisingly similar results with the Senators, each producing single-digit WAR totals in 2000+ PA by walking in over 10% of PAs and having an OBP higher than SLG, dubious achievements that no Senator or Twin catcher has since matched.
– Elbie Fletcher is the only player to thrice (1940-42) lead his league in OBP while batting under .290. Who are the only other live ball era players to do so twice?
– Sam Chapman was the first player with 5 seasons of 20 home runs, but none with more than 25. Who are the only other players active before 1990 to match that feat?
– Jim Bagby is the first Indians’ pitcher to lead the AL (1942) in starts and most home runs allowed in the same season (his father, Jim Bagby Sr., is the last Indians pitcher to surrender no home runs in a season of 30 starts). Who is the only Tribe pitcher since to match Junior’s feat?
– Hank Borowy won 21 games in 1945, including double-digit win totals for both the Yankees and Cubs. Who is the only other pitcher since 1901 to win at least 10 games for two different teams in the same season?
– Murry Dickson led the NL in losses three straight seasons (1952-54), each time with at least 19 defeats. Who is the only other live ball pitcher with 3 straight seasons of 19 losses?
– Tex Hughson (who should be on this ballot) is the only Red Sox pitcher to lead the AL in Wins, CG, SO and IP in the same season (1942). Hughson is also the only Red Sox pitcher with 4 or more seasons of 5+ WAR, but none exceeding 7 WAR.
Elbie Fletcher – Mike Schmidt and Eddie Yost. Couldn’t find others, but I’m working without a PI subscription here, so that means manual checking and a high probability of missing one.
Jim Bagby – Jim Perry in 1960.
I gave one guess at Murry Dickson: Phil Niekro. It was wrong – he didn’t lose 19 three times, but he DID lose 18 four times (and in a row at that, to lead the league each time). I feel like that’s partial credit. 🙂
I might try some of the others later, but that’s a start.
Bonds did it in his last two seasons, though he needed ghost PAs to win the OBP title (he didn’t quite qualify but still won assuming 0 times reaching base for all PAs needed to get to 502).
Bonds also almost did it twice early in his career, in ’91 (.292 BA, .410 OBP) and ’95 (.294, .431).
Correct, bstar.
Partial credit is definitely in order on the Murry Dickson question, Dr. Doom. Another knucker, Wilbur Wood, lost at least 19 games in 1973, 1974, and 1975 (after losing 17 in 1972).
Pedro Ramos matched Phil Niekro in losing 18 games in four consecutive seasons (1958-61). Unlike Niekro or Wood, though, his losses surpassed his win total in each of those years.
Good manual checking, Dr. Doom. Those are the only two to do so in a qualifying season (Topsy Hartsel and Gavvy Cravath each did it twice before the live ball era).
Possibly there are others like the case of Barry Bonds who led in OBP despite falling short of qualifying PAs.
Doug, Bonds still won the OBP title both those years because of the ghost PAs rule. He’s got the black ink, not second-place Pujols in ’06 or Helton in ’07.
Oops, sorry, missed your confirmation @20.
What the hey. I’ll get the ball rolling on the Cavaretta question, as well. I know Mel Ott and Robin Yount to be two of the players, but I’m not sure if that’s all. I’ll let someone else finish the work on that one.
There’s one more.
Ed Kranepool is the other.
Hank Borowy question: I thought Big Unit did it in ’98, but he only won 9 games for Seattle before going 10-1 in Houston.
It’s Bartolo Colon, with matching 10-4 slates for CLE and MON in 2002.
Oh, I’ve got a doozy of a question:
Who are the only two pitchers since 1901 to win 20 more games after switching teams mid-season?
You’re welcome to this one, Doug.
Red Barrett is the only one to do this in the live ball era. Went 2-3 for the Braves and 21-9 for the Cardinals in 1945.
Going back to 1901, Bob Wicker was 0-0 in one appearance for the 1903 Cardinals, then went 20-9 for the Cubs. Patsy Flaherty almost matched him the next season with 1-2 for the White Sox followed by 19-9 for the Pirates.
You got it, Doug.
Other tidbits:
Bob Elliott led the majors with 903 RBI in the decade of the 1940s.
I believe that Murry Dickson is the oldest pitcher to hit a walk-off HR. He did so on 5-26-58 giving the A’s a 5-4 win over the Orioles.
For Charlie Keller’s first five seasons 1939-1943:
1st in BB
3rd in OBP
5th in SLG
5th in OPS
4th in OPS+
3rd in R
2nd in 3B
3rd in HR
5th in RBI
Johnny Hopp was sold by the Pirates to the Yankees on Sept. 5,1950 while he was currently second in the NL in BA. He had only 318 AB at the time but with 30 games remaining he could have gotten 400 AB. He was batting .340 at the time and Musial led the league with .346.
Those RBIs by Bob Elliott weren’t necessarily a product of ample opportunities alone.
Elliott career tOPS+
ducks on the pond: 112
DISP: 109 (ducks in scoring position?)
Elliott was a true-talent Circle of Very Good player. And a team leader to boot.
The career leader in WAR for Cleveland Indians third basemen is Bill Bradley (1901-10).
Bob Elliott question:
So far I have found two such players, Larry Gardner (Red Sox and Indians) and Home Run Baker (A’s and Yankees).
If we can include the 1900 season, Harry Steinfeldt also has 600 games for two franchises (Cincinatti and Chicago).
Jimmy Dykes and Pinky Higgins were both within 25 games of doing so.
Sam Chapman question:
George Hendrick and Vada Pinson
Good find. I overlooked Pinson – and apparently I wasn’t breaking any news when I reported finding Hendrick. ;o)
For the Sam Chapman question, one of the players is George Hendrick.
Murray, Campanella, and Alomar.
Killebrew (for the early lead), Alomar, and Murray.
Biggio, Ford, Sandberg
Kevin Brown, Craig Biggio, Pee Wee Reese
Craig Biggio, Ryne Sandberg, Dennis Eckersley
Lofton, Brown ,Alomar
Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Ryne Sandberg.
Lofton, Brown, Biggio
I posted this last week.
One way of looking at the Boudreau question.
How to value his shorter career.
This is Plate Appearances, divided by Wins Above Average.
Calculated through the season in which each player passed 7300 PA
(Boudreau’s total)
158.8 … Keller (4604)
166.4 … Boudreau
207.7 … Lofton
209.9 … Sandberg
218.1 … Biggio
245.5 … Pee Wee
246.7 … Minoso
250.5 … Eddie Murray
255.3 … Killer
262.4 … Alomar
334.5 … Bob Elliot
435.3 … Keltner (6312)
497.9 … Fletcher (5826)
665.6 … Joost (6789)
988.0 … Cavaretta
For Pitchers.
IP divided by WAA:
80.3 …. (3256) Kevin Brown
107.4 … (3286) Dennis Eckersley
109.3 … (3170) Whitey Ford
112.2 … (3827) Bob Feller
218.0 … (3052) Murray Dickson
Vote:
Lou Boudreau
Kevin Brown
Kenny Lofton
This should be a very interesting round, especially compared to the last few, which haven’t had much suspense. I won’t be able to watch it unfold, as I’ll be on vacation and offline the next week, but at least I have time to get my vote in:
Alomar, Campanella, Murray
Lofton, Sandberg, and Killebrew. Also a shout-out to Eddie Joost, the player so awesome they couldn’t decide whether to name an energy drink or a malt beverage after him.
Whitey Ford, Craig Biggio, Dennis Eckersley
Ford, Campanella, Minoso
Okay… I double-checked all the votes so far (through RonG at 47) and, through 21 ballots cast, we have a leader. And it’s… Craig Biggio! Whoa… the all-time COG vote-getting champ is, for once, leading his round (with 9 votes). Harmon Killebrew is a surprising second with 7. Sandberg, Ford, Campanella, and Brown have 6 each; Alomar, Lofton, and Murray are at 5 apiece; Pee Wee Reese is (surprisingly, in my estimation) at 3, Eckersley and Boudreau are at 2, and Minnie Minoso got his first (and thus far only) vote courtesy of RonG.
New standings:
12 – Biggio
10 – Sandberg & Ford
9 – Brown
8 – Killebrew, Campanella, Alomar, Lofton, Murray
7 – Reese
5 – Boudreau
3 – Eckersley, Minoso
I guess I spoke too soon in regards to Killebrew’s and Reese’s support. As soon as I mentioned Reese’s surprisingly low support through the first 21 ballots, he immediately picked up 4 votes. Meanwhile, Killebrew has stalled over the last 11 ballots cast. This round is going to be fascinating.
If Biggio manages to hold on for the win, the next round would be our first round sans Biggio since 1966 – our second ballot. I can’t wait to see what happens.
A couple of things I noticed about Biggio:
In his first ballot he got a very respectable 32 votes and was on over 40% of the total. The following year Barry Larkin came on the ballot and for the next 5 ballots Biggio’s vote totals were identical to or slightly more than Larkin’s. Then for the next 5 years Larkin pulled ahead for a couple before Biggio rebounded for a single ballot and then fell back again for the next 2, finally being outvoted 32 to 6 in the round that Larkin was elected. By that point Sandberg and Whitaker had joined Biggio and Alomar on the ballot.
In the NBJHBA James lists Biggio as the 5th best second baseman ever, behind Morgan, Collins, Hornsby and Robinson but ahead of Lajoie. In his “Last Minute Notes” section at the end of the book (which was written over several years time) James says “Oops.” about that. He also ranked Sandberg ahead of Gehringer.
I agree that this race is going to be fascinating. I could easily see 6 or 7 guys in it to the very end and I admit that I’m surprised by the level of support that a few have had so far including the seeming lack thereof- at least until just the past few ballots- for Reese. I do think he’ll be in the mix at the end however.
Killebrew, Campanella, Eckersley
Brown, Biggio, Reese
Sandberg, Reese, Campy.
Lofton, Ford, Reese
(at least 45% of games at SS)
Wins Above Average Leaders, Shortstops:
82.2 … Honus
58.7 … Alex Rodriguez
53.1 … Ripken
47.3 … Arky Vaughan
42.2 … Boudreau
42.2 … Larkin
41.6 … Ozzie Smith
41.5 … Appling
40.2 … Trammell
37.0 … Yount
35.9 … Cronin
31.7 … Pee Wee
31.4 … Jeter
_____________________
Okay, same guys…
Plate Appearances divided by Wins Above Average.
Calculated through the season in which they passed 7300 PA
(Boudreau’s total)
105.2 … Honus
132.4 … Alex Rodriguez
160.0 … Arky
161.6 … Ripken
166.4 … Boudreau
171.6 … Larkin
200.9 … Trammell
235.1 … Ozzie
245.5 … Pee Wee
261.0 … Appling
268.7 … Jeter
I hear the arguments against Boudreau because of WWII.
That darned war seems to screw everybody, whether they were in it or not.
Knock a couple of WAA off his total for those years, and Boudreau was still one of the great shortstops, with the bat and glove.
And he had his best seasons after the war.
And he did it while Managing his team.
And I say that an 8.5 WAA season, leading the Cleveland Shufflefoots to their last WS title, that cancels out his war-stat-bonus.
Voomo: Boudreau, with 10% off his wartime years*, is around 40 WAA/61 WAR. I found two other careers with a similar ratio:
39.4 WAA/61.5 WAR
40.3 WAA/62.3 WAR
Those two players are Jackie Robinson and Shoeless Joe. To be fair, though, I don’t want to put Lou in that class because each of these two did it in fewer than 6000 PAs. But, still…
*http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1817
oops, Boudreau actually had 7024 PA.
Alomar Reese Sandberg
Lofton Sandberg Boudreau
Ford, Murray, Alomar
This round will be a real dog fight- polar opposite of the last 2 rounds.
Kevin Brown
Ryne Sandberg
Lou Boudreau
Biggio, Ford, Murray.
Biggio, who played in a World Series on the south side of Chicago
Minoso, who was in Cleveland when the White Sox went to the Series in 1959
Murray, who won the ALCS in Chicago to advance to the Series
Lofton, Brown, Boudreau.
Ford, Alomar, Minoso
ere’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 – 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 awhile ago 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):
Brown 5
Lofton 13
Sandberg 13
Boudreau 17
Alomar 21
Murray 23
Reese 26
Biggio 31
Eckersley 32
Killebrew 39
Ford 45
Minoso 46
Bob Elliott 51
Campanella 56
I’ve convinced myself in the last two rounds that Reese, all things considered, is superior to any of the holdovers, so I’ll move him up from his stats-based position. I like the discussion about Boudreau, a player I’ve known little about, but I would still drop him below Alomar and Murray on my list due to the small advantage he would have gotten from playing in the war years. I like the possibility of Biggio winning, as he’s ahead right now, I think he ultimately belongs, and he’s been on the ballot forever. I may consider changing a vote if it looks like he’s going to get in. But for now, I’ll stick with who I think are the three best.
Reese
Brown
Sandberg
Ford, Alomar and Campanella.
Brown, Eckersley, Lofton
Sandberg, Boudreau, Minoso
Whitey Ford; Roy Campanella ; Harmon Killebrew
With presumably more than half the votes in, this is a completely wide open ballot. Three-way tie at the top. One candidate is one vote back, another is two votes back, three more candidates three votes back and another two are just four votes back. That’s ten guys who are well within reach at the moment — and that’s not even including the guy on this ballot who got the most votes last round!
Lofton ford biggio
There’s not a clear-cut “Best” player to me in this ballot, so I’m voting for 3 bubble boys whom I wouldn’t mind being inducted.
Murray
Killebrew
Boudreau
I lost a long screed when my internet connection timed out. In short…
Charlie Keller was probably better than Hall of Famers named Kell, Kelly (x2), and Kelley. I like him for the HoF, but not the CoG. Lofton and Campanella are close enough that I could be convinced to vote for them this round, but I’m going with…
Brown, Boudreau, Reese
Bryan, you and I agree on most of these votes. I understand the Boudreau support he’s a very peak oriented short career case of a complete player. I think WAA gets a particular boost from his inflated wartime batting stats and his total value is hardly more than borderline but I get it. What do you make of Campanella? Think you’d ever vote for him? Sorry if that’s in your long post that got lost. I know how much that sucks. Consider this a prod for some of that information though because there are those here like me that appreciate it!
I may vote for Campanella someday. Before this exercise, I considered Campanella somewhere between the third and fifth-best Major League catcher, behind Bench and Berra and grouped with Rodriguez and Piazza. I always thought of him as the ultimate high-peak, short-career guy.
WAA certainly disagrees. In his three MVP years, he was worth 3.3 to 4.9 WAA (5.2 to 7.1 WAR). He didn’t have another year worth more than 2.4 WAA (4.4 WAR). Gary Carter had eight 3-WAA seasons, including three in a row over 5. Ted Simmons had four 3-WAA seasons. Bill Freehan had three. Three of Joe Torre’s five came when he was a catcher.
Campanella missed time on both ends of his career, due to segregation and injury, and during his career, due to the demands of his position. But he was a Major Leaguer for his peak years, and even without much of a decline phase, his career OPS+ was less than Don Mincher’s or Oscar Gmable’s.
To support his CoG candidacy, one has to believe the MVP voters were seeing something in his defensive ability or leadership that doesn’t show up in the advanced stats. Or was it just being a catcher who hit .300 with 100 RBI?
Gah
Reese, Ford, Campanella
The thought of Biggio winning is appealing, I think he’s above the bar. If my not voting for him makes him loose out to lofton or boudreau I will be upset but I think Reese or Ford has a real shot to win too so I’ll stick with this vote.
I am never voting for Kevin Brown, just not going to do it.
The egg creams and Spaldeens ballot: 1950s NYC.
My personal bias for baseball in that time and place is clearly not coloring anything. Sigh.
Lofton, Reese, Sandberg.
Combined 53 defensive wins above replacement up the middle, and all three in the top 20 all-time for dWAR at their positions (Lofton and Reese are top 10).
And I agree with mosc. I don’t care what the numbers say, I will never log a vote for Kevin Brown.
Ford, Murray, Killebrew
Reese, Eck, Sandberg
Killebrew, Eckersley, and Boudreau
Boudreau…
___________
WAR Leaders, 6000 – 8000 PA
78.2 … Joe DiMaggio (7673)
72.9 … Arky Vaughan (7722)
71.0 … Johnny Mize (7370)
63.0 … L. Boudreau (7024)
62.8 … HomeRun Baker(6666)
62.0 … Mark McGwire (7660)
61.7 … Chase Utley (6192)
60.3 … Jim Edmonds (7980)
59.4 … Mike Piazza (7745)
58.7 … Dick Allen (7315)
57.9 … Miguel Cabrera (7648)
57.5 … Hank Greenberg (6097)
57.1 … Joe Gordon (6537)
______________________________
WAA Leaders, 6000 – 8000 PA:
54.6 … DiMaggio
47.3 … Arky
44.8 … Mize
43.4 … Utley
42.2 … Old Shufflefoot
37.1 … Joe Gordon
37.0 … Greenberg
37.0 … Home Run
37.0 … Big Mac
35.7 … Piazza
34.9 … Edmonds
32.9 … Dick Allen
32.7 … Cabrera
31.8 … Bill Terry (7108)
31.6 … Bill Dickey (7065)
______________________
The above players, PA divided by WAA:
140.5 … DiMaggio
142.7 … Utley
163.3 … Arky
164.8 … Greenberg
165.2 … Mize
166.4 … Boudreau
176.2 … Gordon
180.2 … Baker
207.0 … Bic Mac
216.9 … Piazza
222.3 … Dick Allen
223.5 … Bill Terry
223.6 … Bill Dickey
228.7 … Edmonds
233.9 … Miguel Cabrera (ya gotta run and field)
_________
I’m not sure what this concludes about Boudreau,
but we’ve discovered that Chase Utley is as good as Joe DiMaggio.
If Chase Utley retired now he probably wouldn’t get into the Hall of Fame because of his counting stats. If he plays long enough to get some stronger counting stats all these amazing rate stats will start coming back to earth. If his knees start acting up and he couldn’t play another game, it seems like he’d be a cinch for the Circle of Greats when his year comes.
Another quick take on Boudreau … I play around with a number that I still can’t find a catchy name for, but it’s just the product of a player’s career WAR and his rate of WAR per 162 games — a simple effort to balance longevity and peak. Let’s call it WARproduct. So …
Boudreau rates 51st among all position players in WARproduct, between Harry Heilmann and Hank Greenberg. Even if we applied a big 30% discount to the WAR earned in his three wartime seasons, docking him a full 6 WAR, Boudreau would still rank 88th all-time in WARproduct — right behind Pee Wee Reese and Derek Jeter (through 2013).
One other thing: Even if you don’t count his wartime seasons, Boudreau had two seasons of at least 5 WAA (8.5 in ’48 and 5.6 in ’47). Only eight other modern shortstops have two such years. He had a huge peak.
Leaders in PA/WAA, minimum 2000 PA:
84.4 …. Babe Ruth
97.2 …. Rogers Hornsby
102.1 … Barry Bonds
103.0 … Mike Trout
104.0 … Ted Williams
113.5 … Willie Mays
123.1 … Lou Gehrig
125.7 … Mikey Mantle
127.7 … Honus Wagner
128.5 … Ty Cobb
132.6 … Albert Pujols
135.8 … Tristram E. Speaker
137.3 … Mike Schmidt
138.9 … Red Ruffing
140.5 … Joe DiMaggio
141.3 … Joe Jackson
142.7 … Chase Utley
146.6 … Alex Rodriguez
147.3 … Jackie Robinson
150.7 … Hank Aaron
152.8 … Eddie Collins
153.8 … Napoleon Lajoie
153.8 … Jimmie Foxx
JA, my stat has a cool name: PaWaa
Say it like you’re in a kung fu movie.
Wow, that’s a sh!t ton of PaWaa for Mantle’s kid brother.
PaWaaaaaaaah. It is kind of infectious.
“Fight the PaWaaaaa!!!”
PaWaa for Pitchers, minimum 700 PA:
103.0 … Mike Hampton
105.1 … Wes Ferrell
108.7 … Earl Wilson
109.8 … Don Newcombe
114.8 … Red Lucas
117.3 … Bob Lemon
118.1 … Carlos Zambrano
120.6 … Schoolboy Rowe
121.2 … Jim Tobin
125.0 … Gary Peters
126.7 … George Mullin
126.8 … Fred Hutchinson
128.5 … Doc Crandall
130.3 … George Uhle
Only 86 PA, since he was a reliever, but:
Terry Forster PaWaa: 39.1
That’s what a career 146 OPS+ will do for you. I wonder if being built like Kung-Fu Panda helped Forster hone his PaWaa skills…
Yup, turns out the best hitters of all-time are relief pitchers.
All Time PaWaa Leaders, minimum 80 PA:
39.1 … Terry Forster
51.0 … Ken Tatum
58.2 … Donnie Moore
64.5 … Greg Harris
66.4 … Micah Owings
69.2 … Renie Martin
70.0 … Dave LaRoche
71.8 … Brandon Backe
73.4 … Bob Trice
73.6 … Bill LeFebvre
75.0 … Brad Woodall
75.5 … Roger McDowell
76.0 … Jesse Orosco
80.0 … Jim Gott
Biggio, Murray, Boudreau
Four guys I want to keep on the ballot, and since Killer seems be doing alright I will go Mineso, Alomar and Boudreau
Craig Biggio
Lou Boudreau
Kenny Lofton
Murray.
Brown.
Reese.
Wow, through 50 votes, 11 players have received between 10-15 votes. Probably only about 15-25 votes left. I’ll definitely be waiting till the last minute to cast mine. 🙂
Five viewers at once checking in on the vote count spreadsheet at the moment — I think that’s some sort of COG record.
With 5 guys at 25%+ and 4 more just 1 vote shy this could also be a bonanza for an additional round of eligibility for several players as well.
What do we do if more than 2 are tied at the end?
A tie of more than two at the top would be handled the same way as a two-player tie: a runoff with all the tied players as candidates, ballots submitted in the runoff to include only one name instead of the traditional three names. Ties in the runoff would be resolved by re-counting the ballots but excluding the last ballot (or possibly ballots, in the case of a more than two player tie) submitted before the deadline as needed to break the runoff tie.
At last glance WFord and CBiggio were tied. It would be interesting if those two were to have a runoff (and are we still doing runoffs, or just throwing out the last vote that created the tie?).
A runoff is the next step after a tie. The tiebreaker system, that looks at all but the last vote counted, is only applicable if there is a tie in the runoff election itself.
A tie (maybe even more than a two-way tie) and a runoff certainly seems a plausible potential scenario in this particular round at the moment.
I guess it’s conceivable that you may have to even discount more than the last single vote too if we have a three way tie breaker round. Should still work the same in concept though, eventually you get out of a tie scenario in a runoff that people can only name 1 guy on just dropping votes from the bottom. Worst case you drop off the number of players – 1 ballots
Yes, if we actually end up with a more than two-way runoff at some point, I’ll describe some more specific rules following that general approach to tie-breaking in such a runoff.
Pee Wee, Kevin Brown, and Murray
Reese, Sandburg, Killer
Sandberg, Killebrew, Keller
This is the best round since the mid-20s. I’m checking back multiple times per day. It’s only a coincidence that I’m making popcorn right now, but a fitting one.
For the Win:
– Ryan Sandberg (would this be the most voting years someone stayed on the ballot before _finally_ winning??)
for an extra round/ cushion:
– Harmon Killebrew
to stay on the ballot:
– Minnie Minoso
I may be overlooking or forgetting someone but Smoltz got in on his 57th time on the ballot. If I’m figuring correctly this is Sandberg’s 59th time and Biggio’s 65th. Alomar was on the first ballot but of course later fell off for 20? rounds.
Yes, this is Sandberg’s 59th round, Alomar’s 47th (he was off the ballot for 21 of the 68 rounds) and Biggio’s 65th. Eddie Murray’s on his 49th round.
Pee Wee Reese, Eddie Murray and Ryne Sandburg
In case you’re reading comments and don’t feel like clicking over to the spreadsheet, here are the standings as of JamesS’s vote @119, assuming everything is entered correctly in the spreadsheet:
55 ballots cast.
18 – Ryne Sandberg
16 – Pee Wee Reese
15 – Craig Biggio, Whitey Ford, Eddie Murray
14 – Kevin Brown, Harmon Killebrew
12 – Lou Boudreau, Kenny Lofton
11 – Roy Campanella
10 – Roberto Alomar
6 – Dennis Eckersley, Minnie Minoso
1 – Charlie Keller
Just about anyone’s ballgame still, besides Eckersley and Minoso, who are still in keep-them-on-the-ballot territory (each will need another 2 votes to be safe, but that shouldn’t be a problem). I don’t think the guys at 14 and down are a threat to win it at this point; but Reese, Biggio, Ford, or Murray could easily unseat Sandberg at the top of the heap.
Unrelated, but I find it fascinating to see what’s happened to Robbie Alomar. In the early rounds, there were some supporters wanting him in against VERY stiff competition. Then, remember the Great 2B Logjam? Grich, Whitaker, Sandberg, Biggio, and Alomar – I think it was just those 5, though I may be missing someone – were stuck. And, somehow, Alomar got shuffled to the bottom. That has, basically, remained the consensus opinion of our electorate. Fascinating. At least it is to me. I wonder how that happened. I, admittedly, had him either at the bottom of that heap or just above Whitaker – I can’t remember which. But it’s interesting to see what’s happened, considering the passioniate defenses he was getting early in the process.
It is a weird dynamic with Alomar. IIRC, the reason Alomar dropped off the ballot was because a couple people who were voting for Robbie every round forgot to vote that week, or forgot about him specifically. It was more of a fluke thing than his support truly dipping.
Now contrast that with Edgar, who fell off the ballot, got back on, and then GAINED momentum. I still don’t really get that one.
Edgar should never really have fallen off in the first place. He, Stieb and Lofton fell off the ballot whilst receiving 8 votes, the only time that figure has not been sufficient for survival. 81 votes were cast.
Ahhhh, excellent, RJ. I had actually forgotten Lofton had spent some time in purgatory also.
My take was that Alomar had a small and vocal core of support, and although many recognized him as deserving enough to be on the ballot, it just became to hard to justify in the insane 1930s birth rounds. Now I think he firmly fits, and his day will come sometime, making him the 5th electee from the 1968 round.
Edgar probably wouldn’t have fallen off if anyone had really thought we’d get beyond 80 votes – I’m sure there’s someone that would have tossed him their vote if they thought early on that he was in danger.
@ 120, 123, 128 –
Alomar fell off the ballot in the 1937 part 1 election (as did Winfield). There was only one strong new candidate on that ballot (Marichal, who tied for 2nd just 2 votes behind the winner, Rivera), but the holdover list was 15 deep.
Of those 15 holdovers and Marichal, 9 are in the CoG (Grich, Marichal, Martinez, McCovey, Perry, Rivera, Santo, Smoltz, Whitaker), 5 are still on the ballot (Alomar, Biggio, Lofton, Murray, Sandberg), and 2 are in redemption land (Allen, Winfield).
Anyway, Alomar had been on the bubble for about 10 rounds – he never built up much eligibility – and in the ’37 Pt 1 election he came up 1 vote short because there were a pair of late vote changes away from him – one of which was mine, which is why I recall the circumstance, although I had to look up the year:
http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/12/circle-of-greats-1937-part-1-balloting/
Speaking of Stieb…let’s compare him to Whitey Ford for a moment.
Stieb: 2895.1 IP, 57.0 WAR
Ford: 3170.1 IP, 53.9 WAR
Obviously Ford lost some time due to the war or he’s likely have more WAR than Stieb, though in even more innings pitched.
And Stieb had a much higher peak than Ford.
Ah, the benefits of name recognition and too many Yankee fans….
Ah, the naivete of those who believe in WAR as the Philosopher’s stone.
NSB – You use WAR. You just don’t realize it.
Whenever you’re ranking one player against another, you’re using WAR.
The question is what WAR are you using? Are you using the WAR developed by BR or Fangraphs? Or are you using your own personal WAR?
As Tom Tango points out in the link below, there’s nothing wrong with using your own WAR. Just make sure you have some set of parameters you’re using and that you’re applying them consistently. Of course, chances are you’re not doing that. Which is why, despite the flaws with BR and Fangraphs’ WAR, they’re still far superior to anyone’s personal WAR.
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/everyone_has_their_own_war/
Fangraphs WAR does have Ford higher than Stieb, even on a per inning basis.
133 vs 122. I don’t find those numbers particularly close.
True Birtelcom but as far as I know, no one thinks that Fangraphs WAR should be used to evaluate a pitcher’s career. It’s fine for predictive purposes but not much else.
@135 mosc: Yes but, whilst I don’t want to rehash the same discussions from previous ballots, a defense adjusted ERA+ for Ford brings him down to 124. However, doing the same for Stieb reduces his figure to 117, so it’s closer, but still a clear lead for Ford.
I’m no fan of fWAR for pitchers, but it and bWAR broadly agree on Ford. There’s a 10 WAR disagreement on Steib though, which is odd, because his RA9 and FIP are basically identical.
WAA at b-r likes Steib, by a lot.
IP divided by WAA:
92.8 … Steib
109.3… Ford
______________
With a minimum of 2000 IP,
07 pitchers with an IpWaa under 65
20 pitchers with an IpWaa under 80
38 pitchers with an IpWaa under 95
56 pitchers with an IpWaa under 110
78 pitchers with an IpWaa under 125
98 pitchers with an IpWaa under 140
114pitchers with an IpWaa under 155
133pitchers with an IpWaa under 170
David @133: so your personal WAR doesn’t include credit for postseason accomplishments?
If you read Tango, you probably know his personal WAR does include that.
Has there ever been a good to great basketball/football/hockey player whose play in the postseason was completed ignored in evaluating his career? Why does this idea persist in baseball analysis?
And we’d probably have to consider some sort of seasonal leverage multiplier for postseason play, if we were aiming for accuracy.
How much more is a playoff game worth compared to a regular-season game? I think the absolute floor here would be twice as valuable. You could easily argue for 3, or 5 times more valuable. Isn’t the game LI in a World Series Game 7 almost immeasurable in comparison to a regular season game?
Even if we ignore the fact that postseason pitchers are likely pitching against better-than-average opponents in postseason play, which would boost their WAR even more, I’ve got Ford’s 140 IP of 2.70 ERA worth about 3 regular-season WAR. Multiplied by 2, that’s 6 WAR. Feels low, actually. And Stieb’s postseason accomplishments are negligible.
Sure, Whitey had more opportunities in the postseason than most. But it happened on a baseball field, and the games are much, much more important than regular season games. Is completely ignoring these games as if they never occurred the best way to be as accurate as possible in evaluating careers?
Now factor in the missed years for wartime service, and Whitey is almost surely past Stieb at this point.
Bstar – Questions deserve to be answered with questions. 🙂
Do you really think that the divide between Ford and Stieb is so great that one of them should be flirting with election and the other should off the ballot entirely?
One can certainly construct an argument that Ford was better than Stieb. But I don’t see how a rational argument could put him that far ahead.
BTW, you forgot a key factor in your analysis. Stieb’s peak was much higher that Ford’s. That should be factored in as well.
If we look at Adam’s Hall of Stats, which uses both peak and total, he has Stieb ahead of Ford 114 to 104. Now that doesn’t include any postseason bonus or any bonus for lost War time. Including both of those MIGHT put Ford ahead. But I doubt it would put him far enough ahead to account for the great difference in voting patterns.
David, I often phrase things in the form of questions to not sound too forceful, but my zealousness likely overrides that anyway. 🙂
Sure, I would agree Ford and Stieb are not as dissimilar as their voting patterns suggest, but I think you’re likely reading too much into voting patterns.
COG voting is a binary process (YES or NO), so someone who falls just above the YES line (Ford, perhaps) is going to look like he’s completely dominating someone just below the NO line (Stieb, probably). If instead we used a score on a scale from 0 to 100 in electing players, maybe the YES line is 80 and the NO line is 75. Just because Ford maybe would score a 81 and Stieb a 71 doesn’t mean we collectively think Stieb’s career was worthless. It just means he’s a “just barely, but no” kind of guy.
Stieb and Ford share this much–in eras where literally no pitchers were putting up huge ERA+ or WAR numbers, both Stieb and Ford stand out as possibly MLB’s best pitchers over their respective time periods (Stieb in the ’80s led baseball in WAR and Ford did the same in his career).
I challenge your assertion that Stieb’s peak was “much” higher than Ford’s. I prefer WAA to single-season WAR measurements, so by my book Stieb’s non-negative WAA of 34.1 (I cannot exclude his -1.9 WAA in his age 28 season) exceeds Ford’s 29.4 by 16%. That’s not enough to call it “much”, at least by my standard, especially considering we’re not even counting the WAA Ford likely would have garnered in his missed wartime years.
But, sure, I can concede the point that Stieb was a bit filthier than Whitey. He wins on peak, but again if we give Ford even a conservative estimate for his wartime years, the WAA gap almost disappears.
But, at the end of the day, I’m not really a guy who needs convincing on the worth of Stieb’s career:
http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/03/circle-of-great-1957-ballot/#comment-53533
Here’s a link to Ford’s first appearance on the ballot, for those interested in reviewing some of the lively and interesting initial COG discussion about him. http://www.highheatstats.com/2014/03/circle-of-greats-1928-part-1-balloting/#more-20348
One of his issues for Ford in WAR, discussed in the earlier thread, is that the “American League excluding the Yankees” during Ford’s time seems to have been a comparatively weak league to pitch against, with the Yankees and the faster-to-integrate NL grabbing a lot of the talent. WAR seems to dock Ford for that, as compared to others with comparable numbers.
Thanks for your thoughts Btar. Much appreciated. A few follow-up comments.
1) I’m not clear why you’re conceptualizing the voting process as binary (yes/no) when clearly it’s not.
2) When I mentioned Stieb having a much higher peak, I was talking about the best 5-7 years (in which case Stieb is about 30-35% higher, depending on how you look at it).
Oops….Bstar, not Btar.
Thanks, David, and same to you.
1. Here’s what I meant, and “binary” was likely the wrong word.
A “yes” vote is a 100% yes. An exclusion from one’s ballot is an implied 100% no. There’s no gray area. The 4th guy on your ballot gets a zero, but so is the 20th guy on your ballot. It’s like horseshoes, you don’t get credit for being close.
Basically, compare HOF voting with MVP or CY voting. HOF is either yes or no, while MVP/CY is a weighted points system.
If instead of 3 yes votes, we used a 10-man ballot with a 10-9-8 etc. points system, the difference between Stieb and Ford’s voting totals would likely not be as severe. (I think if HOF voting used a weighted system, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens might already be in Cooperstown, because they’d get a lot of 8s, 9s, and 10s to offset their zeroes.)
2. Picture a tattered cloth masquerading as a white flag being raised skyward. Can’t argue over Stieb’s higher WAR peak.
OK I am actually going to concede the whole “better peak” point, no matter what. I realize now that giving Ford a couple 2.5 WAR seasons for his wartime years is only going to boost his WAA by about a point. This would make Stieb’s non-negative WAA of 34 13% higher than Ford’s 30.
And your WAR7 method has Stieb around 33% better. So averaging the two would get us between 20-25%, which is enough for a reasonable definition of “comfortably better”.
Bstar – I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on what a binary voting system is.
Though it would be interesting if that’s how the voting was set up. Basically, for each candidate, you’d vote Yes/No/Keep on Ballot. The person with the most Yes votes would win. And anyone over a certain threshold (say 25%) of Yes + Keep on Ballot votes would stay on the ballot.
Granted, with that sort of process we’d likely have 30-50 holdovers on the current ballot and Birtelcom would have died a premature death from all the record keeping.
I don’t know if we have to agree to disagree, David, because I really don’t know what your definition of binary voting is or what word(s) you would use instead to describe our process. But the word choice doesn’t matter. It’s a really simple point.
The COG voting system was specifically designed to have some significant level of what may be called a “zero-sum” aspect to it, that is, one candidate’s gain is another candidate’s loss. So rather than just an unbounded list of players a voter thinks belong in the COG, by limiting you to three names the system forces you to make choices among a bunch of players all of whom may be qualified. You are forced to use your limited resources to pick those you most want to vote for, despite the fact that you may think more than three are qualified.
I set it up that way to create hard decisions, which tend to be the most interesting and provocative ones. It’s one thing to just make a long list of who you think the top 120 players are; it’s a whole other thing to have to choose who’s more deserving, Snider or Smoltz, and to have to make a different set of decisions like the latter one every week. So I did try to set up some of that zero-sum aspect.
At the same time though, I also tried to incorporate a bunch of safety valves to soften the zero-sum aspect, to help assure that the system does produce some sort of coherent view of the top 120 or so eligible players, and not just an arbitrary set of zero-sum results. Voters get three votes, not one; it only takes 10% support to stay on the ballot; and the redemption rounds give the most popular losers in the zero-sum battle a chance to return. All there to make the system more than just a zero-sum game, although there are intentionally some important zero-sum aspects.
In his New Historical Abstract, Bill James ranks Ford #22 all-time among pitchers and Stieb #74. Perhaps not coincidentally, B-ref’s ELO rater has Ford at #25 and Stieb at #75.
@166 birtelcom: The tough choices aspect is, I think, the most important part of this process. If I’ve learnt anything from this, it’s that my own personal Hall would be built on the philosophy of “throw them all in”: Stieb, Ford, Brown, Reuschel, Newhouser… the lot. But that’s not nearly as interesting or thought provoking as, “well, if I could only pick a few of them…”.
Dr. Doom @120: I just ran a full double-check on the voting spreadsheet up to now, and I made one correction — a vote @112 that I had down for Murray should properly have been listed for Killebrew. So the corrected tally through @119 has 15 for Harmon and 14 for Eddie. And when you add in the vote @122, Killebrew is up tied for second with Pee Wee.
Alomar, Miñoso, Killebrew.
Alomar, Sandberg, Eckersley.
Pee Wee Reese, Kevin Brown, Kenny Lofton
Just noticed birt’s correction @127, and since two new votes have come in, I’ll again update for those who don’t want to have to click the spreadsheet. New (corrected & updated) totals:
58 ballots cast:
19 – Ryne Sandberg
17 – Pee Wee Reese
16 – Harmon Killebrew
15 – Craig Biggio, Kevin Brown, Whitey Ford
14 – Eddie Murray
13 – Kenny Lofton
12 – Roberto Alomar, Lou Boudreau
11 – Roy Campanella
7 – Dennis Eckersley, Minnie Minoso
1 – Charlie Keller
These are the only sure-fire candidates I see from 1916.2-1909: Joe DiMaggio, Arky Vaughan, Johnny Mize, Hank Greenberg, Mel Ott.
These are some guys that will likely get a little consideration, but I’m not sure how we’ll come down on them: Enos Slaughter, Joe Gordon, Joe Medwick, Dizzy Dean, Billy Herman, Dutch Leonard, Stan Hack, Ernie Lombardi.
There are a couple others that might get some token support, as in “more than one vote,” like Wes Ferrell and Lefty Gomez, but it’s not looking good for them. That’s 10 rounds with five great candidates, six 50-60 WAR guys, and four in the 40s (that’s basically how I grouped them, although I bumped Lombardi and Dean up a group because of their position and peak, respectively). Backlog-cleaning time, friends. Hope we know whom we’d like to elect! If this round is any indication, it’s going to be a messy, messy ride into the COG.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t see Greenberg as sure-fire. I mean, he’s clearly a legit candidate, close to the WAR line already but missed three years to the WAR, and has good seasons both before and after, so it’s reasonable to figure he missed out on at least 12 WAR and 6 WAA. That gets him into the high end of holdovers if we give it to him. OTOH, I dock pre-integration guys a bit, which gets him more middle of the pack of holdovers.
I’m planning to vote him in of course (as a tiger fan, I’d have to kill myself otherwise :)), but I don’t have a ton of guys in after him and he probably won’t be in my top 3 when he comes on the ballot, so I don’t think of him as a “sure-fire”, but maybe name recognition and the crazy raw numbers he has from so much time played in the 30s will mean other voters do.
I have to say it’s really odd to me how much offense gets discounted in the standard narrative from guys who played in the 90s and 2000s, but players who put up similar raw numbers in the late 20s and 30s are sacrosanct, despite mostly having a better offensive context than just about anyone else in the history of the game.
MS: if you look more closely you’ll see that Greenberg missed not three years but almost four and a half due to military service, plus a full year due to injury. He was drafted early into the army, inducted in May of 1941, released briefly late that year, but after the attack on Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the air force and served until June 1945. He missed most of 1936 due to a broken wrist.
Plus 4 WAR per season is being REALLY conservative. The fewest he put up in any full season between 1934 & 1946 was 5.5 and the next lowest was 6.2 as a 23 year old. Even 24 WAR and 12 WAA for the missing years (wartime only, not injury) would not be overly generous by any means.
And that would put him on par with the best of anyone not named Gehrig or Foxx (or Pujols, I guess but it’s going to be a long time before we vote on him).
In addition, he came right out of the service and practically stepped up to home plate. It wasn’t like he was rehabbing an injury down in Florida. That 1945 half season is pretty impressive – his 166 OPS+ would have easily bested the 145 by Stirnweiss, and his HR total was 7th despite playing only a half season.
I would say a really conservative estimate is 16 WAR over his missing 4+ years. He was basically a 7 WAR player before WWII and a 6 WAR player after it for two seasons. 16 WAR for the missing 4 1/3 to 4 1/2 seasons seems really low, and that 24 WAR doesn’t seem unreasonable in the least.
My only quibble is that one Mr. Johnny Mize might argue a bit about being “lumped in” with the likes of Greenberg (not that it’s a bad thing). He’s already at 70+ career WAR, and he’s missing 3 seasons, at basically the same age as Greenberg. Mize was putting up 6 WAR a year like clockwork before and after the war. I could see Greenberg being a 75-80 WAR player, but Mize I could see being an 85-90 WAR player.
Sandberg, Brown, Boudreau
I’m enjoying this toy…
IP divided by WAA (IpWaa)
Minimum 1000 IP:
39.3 … Mariano Rivera (1284)
46.0 … Pedro Martinez (2827)
47.3 … Clayton Kershaw (1325)
52.0 … Roger Clemens (4917)
54.6 … Lefty Grove (3939)
57.4 … Brandon Webb (1320)
60.0 … Walter Johnson (5915)
60.3 … Curt Schilling (3261)
60.6 … Randy Johnson (4135)
62.7 … Johan Santana (2025)
67.2 … Grover Alexander (5186)
67.5 … Harry Halladay (2749)
68.5 … Noodles Hahn (2029)
69.4 … Denton Young (alot)
69.6 … Bret Saberhagen (2563)
69.7 … Roy Oswalt (2245)
71.3 … Cole Hamels (1753)
73.0 … Tom Seaver (4783)
73.3 … Mike Mussina (3563)
73.5 … Dizzy Dean (1969)
__________________________
Eliminating the short careers…
Minimum 2750 IP:
46.0 … Pedro Martinez (2827)
52.0 … Roger Clemens (4917)
54.6 … Lefty Grove (3939)
60.0 … Walter Johnson (5915)
60.3 … Curt Schilling (3261)
60.6 … Randy Johnson (4135)
67.2 … Grover Alexander (5186)
67.5 … Harry Halladay (2750)
69.4 … Denton Young (7356)
73.0 … Tom Seaver (4783)
73.3 … Mike Mussina (3563)
75.9 … Dazzy Vance (2968)
77.2 … Greg Maddux (5008)
80.0 … Hal Newhouser (2993)
80.4 … Kevin Brown (3256)
81.2 … Ed Walsh (2964)
81.4 … David Cone (2893)
82.6 … Bob Gibson (3884)
Remove the starter bonus and that list would look very different.
mosc, what exactly do you mean?
Do you mean that WAA is flawed because of how starters are bonused?
____________________
80% of games in relief…
Minimum 350 IP
IpWaa:
39.3 … Mariano
49.0 … Jonathan Papelbon
49.5 … Darren O’Day
53.1 … Joakim Soria
54.7 … Billy Wagner
60.1 … Bryan Harvey
64.8 … David Robertson
65.5 … Mike Adams
65.6 … Joe Nathan
66.4 … Tom Henke
71.0 … Frankie Rodriguez
72.2 … Keith Foulke
73.6 … Rafael Soriano
79.5 … Trevor Hoffman
82.7 … Huston Street
82.9 … Brad Zeigler
83.8 … Hoyt Wilhelm
84.1 … John Wetteland
Whitey Ford, Pee Wee Reese, Minnie Minoso
Change in vote: Brown, Eckersley, Sandberg
Ford
Reese
Keller
Birtelcom, thanks for the link to the original Ford conversation. Ford, Sandberg, and with a tip of the hat for some interesting analysis up top, Lou Boudreau.
I may miss the next round of voting as we take youngest to college. Choose wisely…..
Ford, Murray, Eckersley
Sandberg or Reese for the win. Murray to try to (finally) get him off the bubble.
Feeling very stuck on a project at work. Therefore, it’s time for another voting update! In a still-tight round, Ryne Sandberg maintains his lead, but Whitey Ford is making a hard push, actually catching Pee Wee Reese until David P’s vote @165 put Reese back in second alone.
23 – Ryne Sandberg
20 – Pee Wee Reese
19 – Whitey Ford
16 – Kevin Brown, Harmon Killebrew, Eddie Murray
15 – Craig Biggio
14 – Lou Boudreau
12 – Roberto Alomar, Kenny Lofton
11 – Roy Campanella
8 – Dennis Eckersley, Minnie Minoso
2 – Charlie Keller
Sandberg, Reese, and Ford have REALLY separated themselves from the pack. There should be roughly 10 ballots more cast. That’s EASILY enough to push any one of those three to victory, although it pretty much rules out the hopes of any of these other players, especially since Mike G.’s was the only vote change. Those same three should also remain above 25%, no matter what happens in the rest of the round, although Ford could probably use another vote to ensure that.
Charlie Keller doesn’t have much hope of making it to the next round, but everyone else listed above should be safe, barring 17 more votes in the next 37.5 hours and tying this as the most-voted-in round of the COG.
This will probably remain an exciting one over the next day-and-a-half!
Sandberg to win.
Brown and Biggio to get an extra year because they belong.
Ryno for the win, only over Pee Wee because he’s been around longer on the ballot.
Murray to get over 25%, Boudreau for the same reason though he’ll need some more late help.
Ryno, Murray, Boudreau
Ryne Sandberg, Kenny Lofton, Whitey Ford
Here’s something interesting:
Kevin Brown has 17 votes, Whitey Ford has 20. How many people have voted for both of them? Zero!
I think that shows a clear divide between those who prefer traditional stats vs those who prefer stats like WAR.
That’s an excellent nugget, David! Very interesting indeed.
David, I agree in part about Brown (I’m a Ford guy) but would add something further. Kevin Brown was in the Mitchell Report as having bought and used HGH and steroids. While I think Ford is dissed by WAR, I would be inclined not to vote for Brown if there were no Ford on the ballot. It’s not just the traditional stats vs, advance for me.
Mike L – Certainly there are multiple factors at work in the Brown/Ford voting divide. That being said, I think the one you identified is part of the same. The people who buy most wholly into WAR seem to have little interest in the PEDs issue, saying we should just completely ignore it when evaluating players. I’m making a broad generalization obviously but I think there’s some definite truth to it from what I’ve seen.
David @172:
Man, you are making some sweeping generalizations on this thread. First, everyone who voted for Ford must be a Yankee fan swooned by name recognition (I’m neither, thank you very much), now we prefer traditional stats over WAR (nobody love WAR like me).
Two factors:
1) The steroid stamp on Brown’s forehead is perhaps the biggest for any pitcher this side of William Roger Clemens.
2) Much like the Rocket, Brown was a gigantic horse’s ass.
Should 2 matter? Probably not that much, but even the most even-minded COG voter will probably cop to a bit of favoritism for those players who don’t resemble a horse’s hindquarters.
Should 1 matter? That’s for everyone to decide personally. It matters to me, especially because of the great divide one can draw between Brown’s middling years in Texas and then BAM! all of a sudden he’s unhittable and, veins bulging, wearing a superhero’s cape on the mound.
And Brown’s name is all over Jose Canseco’s book, long before the Mitchell Report. Though Canseco’s equine qualities probably place him with Rocket and Brown in point 2, it’s kind of eerie how the sands of time have proven much of what Jose said in his book to be true.
Not bashing Brown here from a moral/ethical standpoint, but, for me personally, it’s more than reasonable to use the evidence we have against Kevin to question whether or not he truly was the dominant pitcher in his 30’s that he wasn’t in his 20’s.
David P:
You’ve fallen into the trap of viewing this issue in terms of “either, or”: Either one prefers “traditional” stats or one prefers the self-proclaimed “advanced” variety.
Not so. I would guess that most people who contribute here, myself included, take a look at both and use the two to come to some sort of reckoning that they feel is true, given all the data they’ve examined.
What do traditional stats offer? A record of what happened on the field without adornment or interpretation. What do advanced stats offer? Evaluations based on formulas and assumptions about what the traditional stats mean.
Much of the time there is very little conflict between the two, and recently, among baseball junkies like us, the tendency has been to grab at the quick, dirty number, WAR, or WAA—that one’s popular now—or OPS+, FIP, ERA+, or some combination thereof to make the quick, dirty judgment. Nothing wrong with the quick, dirty judgment? I disagree.
Let’s stick with WAR. How accurate is it? My own view is that it’s very accurate—over 90%—concerning batting. But still, there are players like Larry Walker who seem not to be given a just reckoning using WAR alone. WAR concerning pitching? I don’t think it is nearly as accurate. I give it about 80%. And one of the reasons I do is because of Whitey Ford. Gertrude Stein once commented famously about her home town, “There is no there there.” With Ford the problem is the opposite: there’s too much there there. Read through the link Birtelcom gives @154 above. Ford’s record is outstanding in so many ways that it is difficult not to consider the distinct possibility that WAR isn’t coming close to telling the whole story about the mighty Whitey. Does that make Ford a better pitcher than Steib? I couldn’t say. Brown? The issues people have with Brown don’t relate to stats.
As for defensive WAR, I and many others think it is, to put it kindly, “A work in progress” and hardly acceptable as a single evaluating tool. Defense is just darn hard to evaluate.
Can’t think of a tag to close with here, so—
Three things NSB:
1) I wrote my #172 right before running out the door to meet a friend. Sorry if I didn’t have time to write a more detailed explanation. Sheesh!
2) As Joe Posanksi has pointed out, traditional stats certainly do not offer “a record of what happened on the field without adornment or interpretation.”
http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/judgmental-baseball-stats/
3) As for Ford….look it’s certainly possible that WAR is giving too much credit to the Yankees defense and not enough to Ford. There’s obviously not enough defensive detail from that era (or many others of baseball) to have accurate defensive numbers.
But…and it’s a big but…if you want to adjust Ford’s WAR upwards then you have to do the same for every single Yankee pitcher from that time. And you have to adjust at least some Yankees position players downwards. WAR is a zero-sum game.
If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine. Just be aware that you can’t simply adjust Ford upwards without having implications for lots of other players as well.
David, you share similar suspicions about how WAR generally treats first basemen, or did I misread the post you made noting the paucity of 10+ WAR seasons by 1B since WWII?
If you’re suggesting the positional adjustment is too negative for first basemen, changing that would affect every other position player in baseball.
—–
nsb @177: a good general error bar for WAR is 1 run per 100 PA.
There are at least two other reasons we might not be seeing votes for Ford and Brown. One is that they are both starting pitchers, and sometimes voters don’t want to put two starting pitchers on the ballot with other equally qualified position players.
Second, Ford is pretty safe, about as safe as anyone not named Koufax has been. People might view the two of them equally, and some might have Ford ahead of Brown, but because Brown is on the bubble they vote for him but not Ford. So some might be voting strategically for Brown.
And as bstar mentions, I doubt Durocher would put Kevin Brown in any group of “nice guys” (he also has PED issues, which I don’t personally care about – and actually didn’t even know about, or at least didn’t recall). I never voted for Schilling – he was getting plenty of support, he certainly has the numbers to be in the COG, but I can’t stand him. I mean I really can’t stand him. I think he was the first player elected who I didn’t vote for in the round that he won.
As for Whitey Ford, I have probably written the most words about him (perhaps “against” him) of anyone on this site. I know I’ve “butted heads” (can you do that online?) with a few people (nsb and probably mosc) on Ford. It doesn’t really bother me if he’s elected – he is Whitey Ford, and if we told slightly-more-than-casual fans that we had elected Kevin Brown over Whitey Ford they would probably shake their heads (rightly or wrongly) and call us stat nerds. What I’m really trying to find is the evidence that Ford is better than his WAR numbers. Somewhere in this comment chain nsb mentions he values pitching WAR at 80%. This is probably the crux of our disagreement over WAR, and if someone has it off by 20% I can easily see Ford slipping past Brown – but I think that 20% error bar is what it takes to really get Ford past Brown. I have more confidence in it than my own adjustments, and I didn’t see Ford pitch, and I don’t plan on watching tapes of him. I did see Rivera pitch a bunch, so I’m darn near positive that something like FIP undervalues him because his skill was repeatable (for years and years he broke bat after bat after bat and people weren’t hitting him hard – even though I love me some Luis Gonzalez for the 2001 World Series game winner, it’s not like he hit a rocket off the wall). I think baseball-reference WAR values Rivera more fairly than Fangraphs; I would hope that if Ford had a similar repeatable skill that baseball-reference WAR would value that as well.
Ford is probably the most disadvantaged great pitcher when it comes to WAR (he might be the “anti-Rick Reuschel”). The 3 key factors as I see them are: (1) he pitched in good pitcher’s parks throughout his career (personal park factor of 94.7); (2) he had a good defense behind him (0.24 RA9def for his career); and (3) he did pitch for the weaker league (the AL was certainly weaker than the NL in the 1950s and 1960s, especially when you take out Mickey Mantle because Ford didn’t face them).
There are other factors – Ford has enough postseason innings for them to actually be meaningful, and Ford’s career straddles the RA9role starter bonus that is mosc’s most favorite thing in the world 😉 He gets a little benefit from it, but not nearly as much as Brown (or any other recent starter – by the way, Voomo, this is what I think mosc means when he mentions “take out the RA9role adjustment and you’ll get a different list” – there will be more starting pitchers from the less recent past and less from the more recent past).
The discussion then (as I see it) is over: (1) how much benefit did Ford derive from the pitcher’s parks and (2) how much benefit did the Yankee defense give him. These are certainly open to debate, but I personally have no reason to adjust any of the numbers as they are provided. I have no firsthand knowledge of the Yankees of the 1950s and 1960s. I’m trusting in the park adjustments being accurate because we use them for hitters, and I believe the Yankees had a good defense, though not necessarily a Brooks/Belanger/Blair defense (and Ford’s RA9def is below Palmer’s, which is at 0.33 – that may be the highest in history for someone with a long career – it certainly seems high).
I really can’t see much debate over (3): I think the NL had unquestionably better talent in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly when Mantle is removed. A friend of mine told me he saw an interview with Frank Robinson (I think well after Robinson retired) where the NL players considered the AL a “retirement community” (I can’t remember the exact quote and can’t seem to find any reference to it online). The batting WAR leaders in the AL from 1950-1969 are Mantle, Kaline, then Brooks, Yaz, Berra, Minoso, Ted Williams, Killebrew, Fox, and Aparicio (Colavtio is 11th). The NL leaders over the same time are Mays, Aaron, Mathews, Clemente, Musial, Banks, F. Robinson, Boyer, Snider, Santo, and Ashburn (in 11th). All of those NL guys are COGers or close to COGers, and we’ve already elected 3 other players who had over 30 WAR in the NL during that time (McCovey, Jackie, and Rose). A few of the guys on the AL top 11 list weren’t seriously considered by us, and only Doby had over 30 WAR during that time and has been seriously considered by us.
What I wonder about Ford is if the Yankees had a truly dominant (near-Koufax type) pitcher on the team during part of Ford’s career would we really be voting for Ford? If Bill James had written a book chapter about how overvalued Ford was would he have this many votes (and based on WAR, he could have written one)? I say this because when I look at Drysdale’s numbers I expect to see 45 WAR or so (I expect to see Jack Morris – that’s how colored my own opinion of Drysdale is by that book chapter). But I pretty much see Marichal. Ford had postseason rate stats that are virtually the same as his regular seasons stats – so did Drysdale, though of course in less innings. Ford pitched in pitcher’s parks – so did Drysdale (particularly over the last half of his career – his career park factor is 96.8, a little above Ford’s, but not that much). Drysdale doesn’t get as much taken off for his defense (his career RA9def is -0.00). He gets a similar starter bonus as Ford, a little more because he came along a little later. He certainly pitched in the better league (that’s the one point I won’t back down on) so he gets credit for that (comparing 1961, Ford gets about 22 “replacement runs” and Drysdale 28, despite 40 more innings for Ford – and I’m calculating “replacement runs” as RAR-RAA to remove their runs above average – maybe the gap is too big, I don’t know).
For me, there are so many adjustments I have to make for Ford that I can’t see making all of them – I can’t do nsb’s 20% error bar for pitcher WAR. It’s easy to make adjustments for someone like Vinny Castilla – he has raw numbers that are pretty similar to Ron Cey, but once he’s out of Coors he’s not near Cey’s level of offensive contribution (I don’t mean to knock Castilla too much – he put up 20 WAR in his career, had a nice 3-year peak of 12 WAR – that’s a quality major leaguer right there). Ford’s a much more complicated case because he’s vastly better than Castilla and there are more factors to consider.
I guess my question now is, why all the support for Ford, and none for Drysdale? Drysdale drew 6 votes and dropped off the ballot – are his credentials really that much worse than Ford’s (ranking their WAR totals in order from high to low, Drysdale is ahead of Ford every year until their 13th, when it is 1.8 to 2.0, and you really have to add about 1/2 a win per year to Ford’s numbers to get him to pull even with Drysdale about year 9 or 10)? Or have we all let that book chapter completely change our opinion on Drysdale (I’m assuming most people here have read James’ Politics of Glory book about the HOF – if you haven’t it’s a pretty good read detailing the HOF election process)?
Apparently my new goal is to fill the interweb with 9,000,000,000 words about Whitey Ford 😉
For me, I see Drysdale and Ford as similar, and I’ve never read the chapter in Bill James book. I have them both as solid HoF selections, but just short of the CoG. I’d also put Drysdale ahead of Ford, but only by a hair. I’m guessing part of the greater support for Ford has to do with the holdover ballot being a bit thinner. We’ve been electing the better holdovers fairly frequently over the last 30 rounds or so since Drysdale came on the ballot.
In the 1936 round, there were 16 players who received votes. 9 have since been elected to the CoG, and 4 are currently still (or back) on the holdover ballot. Drysdale was one vote shy of the 10% threshold for staying on.
Admittedly, Ford’s ballot was nearly as stacked with another 9 now-inducted candidates and 16 total, but he got 19 votes to start, so clearly he’s getting more support. I think that has a lot to do with his win-loss and raw stats. Mosc keeps pointing to 133 when comparing Ford to other pitchers with similar resumes, seemingly forgetting that ERA+ doesn’t take into account fielding behind, or unearned runs. It’s an interesting numbers, but it’s no WAR/WAA replacement for looking at overall value.
I think that’s a big part of why Ford does well: he looks so much better than similarly borderline candidates if you’re looking at the wrong stats.
WAR should never be the final say, it should be the starting point in these discussions.
MIchael, if you can accuse others of looking at the wrong stats, I think I’m within my rights to accuse you of ignoring Ford’s:
-postseason accomplishments, which far outstrip those of Drysdale, Stieb, Kevin Brown, and likely the next pitcher that Whitey has to go up against head-to-head.
-credit for missed wartime years
-lost innings pitched because his manager used him in a manner universally regarded as hare-brained.
-difficulty in accumulating WAR while pitching in a weaker league, in front of good to great defenses, in a lower scoring environment, and in an extreme pitcher’s park.
Maybe not a great argument if only one or two of those line up, but when all four of those contexts are in place at the same time? Very difficult to stand out. Whitey was pitching into the wind here.
-Whitey’s place as the best pitcher of his time. Drysdale and Kevin Brown weren’t, and it wasn’t that close for either of them. Do either Drysdale or Brown even make the top 5 for their time? I’d put Drysdale 4th for the ’60s and Brown no better than 7th for ’95-’05 (Pedro, Maddog, RJ, Clemens, Mussina, Schilling). Shouldn’t the fact that Whitey is #1 for the ’50s matter at least a little bit?
If we have to use WAR for everything and make it the final say, I can easily argue that combining those five items and converting them to WAR pushes Ford past Drysdale, or Dave Stieb, or even Kevin Brown, who I’m very skeptical of (personal bias).
Artie Z and others:
When I say that I think pitching WAR is about 80% accurate, I’m saying that it is more or less accurate for 80% of the pitchers over a season, but for the remainder it isn’t—to varying degrees—because the assumptions inherent in the generalizations it makes about such things as park factors, league strength, and so on, while they may be applicable generally, don’t factor in a corrective for atypical performance. (One example: the reward is too high, in my opinion, far too high, for pitchers who have anomalous good years for bad teams.)
WAR makes the basic assumption that pitching excellence conforms to a norm or a set of norms, and yet it doesn’t, so far as I can tell, pay any attention to whether the games in which the pitchers pitched were won or lost, except in a formulaic sense, in spite of the fact that winning in professional sports is the whole point. Bill James—I haven’t read his Politics of Glory—says this about Ford in the first BJHBA: “When won/lost records are compared to the won/lost record of the pitcher’s team, the most difficult thing that it is possible to do is to rise above the level of a great team. Lefty Gomez, though a Hall of Famer, basically just matched the level of his team. Johnson and Young towered over their teams, but they were not very good teams. Only a few, including Grove, Matthewson, and Whitey Ford were able to rise thirty or forty games above the level of a great team.” Now, James had his own idea about “Wins above Team,” but it goes right to the heart of the problem I see with with WAR and Ford. Also, I don’t see anyone arguing against Ford’s performance daring to go outside the WAR context to make a case, meaning that we’re back to using WAR as the only criterion. If so, then why bother? Just have birtelcom print the b-Ref WAR rankings and skip the voting.
I will point out in closing that as much as I have argued here for Ford’s being a better pitcher than WAR credits him, I have said over and over that I don’t know if he is better than the other players in his general range on the recent ballots. But—I also don’t vote.
Eddie Murray, Eck, and Alomar
For the 1916 Part One election, I’m voting for:
-Craig Biggio
-Roberto Alomar
-Ryne Sandberg
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Murray
-Eckersley
-Lofton
-Killebrew
-Ford
-Brown
-Reese
-Boudreau
2B, or not 2B…
Lofton, Reese, Ford
Murray, Kilebrew & Biggio
Some things still hanging in the balance-
One more ballot with a vote for Killebrew or Brown would put them over 25%.
Another ballot without a vote for Killebrew or Brown or Biggio would knock them back under 25%.