This post is for voting and discussion in the 77th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round completes the addition to the ballot of those players born in 1910. Rules and lists are after the jump.
Players born in 1910 are being brought on to the COG eligible list over two rounds, split in half based on last names — the top half by alphabetical order in the previous round and the bottom half this 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 1910-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 EST Monday, November 24, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EST Saturday, November 22.
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 1910 Part 2 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-1910 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 fourteen 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 1910 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 22 players born in 1910 who met the “10 seasons played or 20 WAR” minimum requirement. Eleven of those are being added to the eligible list this round (alphabetically from to Johnny Lanning to Dixie Walker). The eleven players higher up in the alphabet were added in the previous round.
Holdovers:
Harmon Killebrew (eligibility guaranteed for 6 rounds)
Lou Boudreau (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Joe Gordon (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Roberto Alomar (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Kevin Brown (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Roy Campanella (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Eddie Murray (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Rick Reuschel (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Dizzy Dean (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dennis Eckersley (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Joe Medwick (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Minnie Minoso (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Luis Tiant (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dave Winfield (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1910, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Dixie Walker
Wally Moses
Joe Vosmik
George McQuinn
Skeeter Newsome
Billy Sullivan
Johnny McCarthy
Lew Riggs
Pitchers (born in 1910, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Schoolboy Rowe
Hal Schumacher
Johnny Lanning
Joe Medwick, Luis Tiant, Kevin Brown
This is exciting. We’ve got very comparable field of position players. Here’s how they stack up using JAWS:
JAWS
55.8 … Boudreau (15th at SS)
54.8 … Alomar (13th at 2B)
53.6 … Murray (14th at 1B)
51.4 … Gordon (15th at 2B)
50.8 … Winfield (19th at RF)
49.2 … Killebrew (19th at 1B)
47.6 … Medwick (16th at LF)
39.8 … Minoso (22nd at LF)
33.5 … Campanella (25th at C)
_______
WAR
68.3 … Murray
66.8 … Alomar
63.8 … Winfield
63.0 … Boudreau
60.3 … Killer
57.1 … Gordon
55.5 … Medwick
50.1 … Minoso
42.7 … Walker
34.2 … Campanella
WAA
42.2 … Boudreau
37.1 … Gordon
32.3 … Alomar
28.1 … Killebrew
28.1 … Medwick
26.8 … Minoso
27.0 … Murray
23.7 … Winfield
15.7 … Campanella
_______
Wow, this has been going on a long time. Killer’s at the top of the holdover list.
Does anyone know what player has built up the highest number of rounds of guaranteed eligibility without having yet been elected to the Circle of Greats? I’m sure some player on the holdover list probably had six or more rounds built up at one point – maybe even recently; I just don’t remember.
As of the 1945 ballot Whitaker had 11 rounds of eligibility and Smoltz had 9. By the time that Ryan finally got in on a runoff election in his 9th round he had already built up 11 rounds of eligibility as well.
But the highest number I was able to find was 15 rounds for Sandy Koufax by the time he was elected in the second 1922 ballot.
The answer for most rounds of eligibilty without having yet been elected is Killebrew, currently with 6 rounds. Except for Killebrew, Boudreau, and Gordon, everyone who’s ever had 4+ rounds of eligibility has been elected, and almost everyone with 3+ rounds. No one in redemption land has ever had 3+ rounds of eligibility; every player who has ever had 3+ rounds of eligibility is either in the CoG or on the current holdover list.
Here’s a list of all players who’ve built up 3+ rounds of eligibility and not yet been elected:
Alomar – 3 rounds from the 1960 through 1956 ballots, and currently starting with 1910 pt 1.
Murray – 3 rounds from 1955 pt 2 through 1954.
Killebrew – 3 rounds in 1914, 4 in 1912, 5 in 1911, 6 in 1910 pt 2.
Boudreau – 3 rounds in 1914, 4 in 1913 pt 2, 5 in 1910 pt 2.
Gordon – 3 rounds in 1913 pt 1, 4 in 1913 pt 2, 5 in 1910 pt 2.
Brown – 3 rounds in 1910 pt 2.
By the way, in the course of researching this question, it occurred to me that it’d be nifty to have links to the past ballot threads (and result threads) available on the “Circle of Greats” page.
Thanks, Hartvig and David. You saved me a lot of time checking past threads. It took me long enough just to figure out when I had started voting. It looks like I joined during the 1937 Part 1 Balloting, at which time Whitaker had ten rounds of eligibility and Smoltz had seven. I just couldn’t think of anyone who had as many as six rounds built up without eventually being elected (and with good reason, it turns out).
I think Boudreau, Gordon, and Killebrew are all going to make it sooner or later, so they’ll drop off the list @ 33; harder to predict how Alomar, Brown, and Murray (all of whom fell off the ballot at one point or another and returned via redemption round) will end up.
One thing I noticed, taking a quick glance at past holdover lists, was how much stronger the lists were in the past. In 1944, to pick a random year by way of example, there were 12 holdovers. 9 of those holdovers are now in the CoG (Biggio, Grich, Lofton, Martinez, Palmer, Ryan, Sandberg, Smoltz, Whitaker), 2 are still on the ballot (Alomar, Murray), and 1 is off the ballot (Sutton). By contrast, of our current list of 14, I think only about half deserve to make it.
I suppose this only makes sense; in addition to the no-brainers, by now we’ve elected most of the stronger “second-tier” candidates, and with the current lull in strong newcomers we’re sifting through the remnants.
Let’s apply some 4th grade math to those counting stats.
Here is Wins Above Average, expressed as a rate stat, by dividing it into Plate Appearances (PaWaa):
PaWaa:
166.4 … (7024) Lou Boudreau
176.2 … (6537) Joe Gordon
287.8 … (7712) Minnie Minoso
289.8 … (8143) Duck Medwick
306.7 … (4815) Roy Campanella
322.0 …(10400) Rob Alomar
350.0 … (9833) Harmon Killebrew
474.8 …(12817) Eddie Murray
521.4 …(12358) Dave! Winfield
_______
Good, but let’s adjust for length of career.
To use a semi-arbitrary baseline, I’m calling the first 7,000 PA of a player’s career Peak+.
7000 is roughly 12 full seasons.
It is also the length of Boudreau’s career
Here is PaWaa again, calculated through the season closest to 7000 PA.
PaWaa7000:
166.0 … Boudreau
176.2 … Gordon (6537)
236.2 … Murray
237.4 … Minoso
254.4 … Killebrew
264.5 … Medwick
287.0 … Alomar
288.6 … Winfield
306.7 … Campanella (4815)
________
Here is PaWaa(34)
Calculated through the age 34 season.
166.4 … Boudreau (7024)
167.8 … Gordon (6107)
217.2 … Minoso (6558)
255.4 … Killebrew (7636)
268.3 … Murray (9125)
269.2 … Alomar (9612)
270.4 … Campanella (4435)
282.1 … Medwick (7957)
314.6 … Winfield (8180)
_______
This is a high fly ball way over my head that I can’t possibly get to. What does this all mean in terms of who belongs in the COG?
Looking for a magic number to compare players from different eras, with different skill sets. This week the argument seems to be Boudreau and Gordon vs Killebrew.
Don’t know if it is helpful or not, but I certainly enjoy using the little calculator on my computer.
Here we remove the (perhaps)suspect dWAR from the equation.
Who was a pure offensive force?
oWAR, divided by Plate Appearances.
This stat is called O-Pa (imagine you are at a Greek wedding)
O-Pa:
138.1 … (9833) Killebrew
139.6 … (7024) Boudreau
142.9 … (4815) Campanella
148.6 … (10400) Alomar
157.9 … (6537) Gordon
159.4 … (8143) Medwick
162.0 … (7712) Minoso
169.1 … (12358) Winfield
209.4 … (12817) Murray
_______
And here is where it gets tight…
O-Pa 7000:
120.0 … Killebrew
139.6 … Boudreau
142.9 … Campanella (4815)
143.0 … Winfield
144.7 … Alomar
148.3 … Minoso
149.0 … Murray
152.0 … Medwick
157.9 … Gordon (6537)
_______
Voomo, oWAR isn’t a “pure” measure of offensive force because it includes the positional adjustment. It’s not really defense-independent either because of this.
B-Ref’s previous incarnation of oWAR, which didn’t factor in what position hitters were playing on defense, was a better measure of pure offense.
Right. Good reminder.
Boudreau, Gordon, Brown.
Innings Pitched per Win Above Average
IpWaa:
73.5 …. (1969) Dean
80.3 …. (3256) Brown
93.1 …. (3548) Reuschel
101.0 … (3486) Tiant
107.4 … (3286) Eckersley
109.3 … (3170) Ford
______
Here is IpWaa through age 34.
Pitchers do not fade as predictably as position players, so this is arbitrary and unfair (to Eck). But it is semi-handy to look at.
IpWaa (34)
72.9 … Big Daddy
74.2 … Dizzy Dean
79.2 … Brown
85.6 … Tiant
100.8 … Eck
Medwick, Minoso, Dean.
Gordon, Campanella, Minoso
Medwick, Eckersley, Campanella
Reuschel, Boudreau, Brown
I think you left the note for the first half of a split vote in the description at the bottom.
Whoops, yes, that last sentence. I’ll fix that now.
Let’s see…
Dizzy
Ducky
Schoolboy
Skeeter
nope, can’t vote by funny nickname, so I’ll have to try something else later.
Ah, 1910.2 COG balloting, how I’ve pined for thee! A highlight of my week is always the chance to vote here, and I’m glad to have the opportunity again! Here’s my ballot; same as last round:
Joe Gordon
Kevin Brown
Lou Boudreau
Dizzy Dean
Roy Campanella
Harmon Killebrew
Alomar, Campanella, Gordon
Here’s the vote according to my statistical 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 6
Reuschel 8
Boudreau 16
Tiant 18
Alomar 21
Murray 25
Gordon 26
Eckersley 31
Winfield 37
Killebrew 42
Minoso 46
Dean 50
Campanella 56
Overall valuation, I favour Reuschel over Brown, so I’ll vote him. I want Tiant to get an extra round before running the gauntlet of good players to come, so I’ll throw him a vote too. Boudreau also worthy.
Reuschel, Boudreau, Tiant
Campy
Minnie
Schoolboy
Murray, Alomar, Boudreau
Killer
Boudreau
Alomar
Boudreau, Tiant, Eckersley.
(One vote of unconditional support, the others to keep alive until I can make up my mind.)
Kevin Brown
Lou Boudreau
Joe Gordon
Alomar, Minoso, Eckersley
Coincidentally copying John Austin’s vote.
Boudreau, Tiant, Eckersley.
JA’s recent obituary tribute to Al Dark, a fine player but not a great one, sort of sets the table for this round of newcomers. Dixie Walker, Wally Moses, Joe Vosmik, George McQuinn, Schoolboy Row, and Hal Schumacher—some great seasons, some fine careers, but not a COG candidate in the group, and Walker, for whom the best case could be made, wasn’t called Dixie because his father was named Richard.
Killebrew, Winfield, Dean.
Brown, Boudreau, Killebrew
Boudreau, Tiant, Murray
Vote change time! I was hoping Tiant might get over 25% this round but that’s seeming less and less likely. Meanwhile, I think Boudreau and Gordon are far better candidates than Killer. So time to drop Luis and vote for Joe.
Another vote change! Since Murray is safe, I’m going to drop him and vote for Alomar in hopes of getting him above 25%.
Dizzy Dean, Harmon Killebrew; Joe Medwick
Killebrew
Murray
Eckersley
Campanella, Minoso, Dean
Boudreau, Tiant, Minoso
Gordon, Killebrew, Eck
Reuschel, boudreau, alomar
Killebrew, Campanella, Medwick
I have Boudreau in my top 3 but I’d rather see Joe Gordon win so I’m not voting for em. Also lets me keep Campy from dropping off. I don’t understand the support for Killer. He was a very one dimensional player. I think I’d rather have Thome (soon?) and I don’t see him above Eddy Murray. There are lots of bats from before WWII baseball we’re going to need to make room from and I don’t think Killer is going to hold up in comparison.
Gordon, Winfield, Campanella
I think we’re getting to the point where we can look ahead and start making comparisons to guys that play different positions but aren’t on the ballot yet as well. I would guess that most of us can look at the remaining candidates for the last 40 or so positions (Dave Humbert’s comment 228 on the 1910 Part 1 Balloting is immensely helpful for this). I would guess that almost all of us could go thru that list and easily name 25 to 30 players that they are absolutely certain belong.
So then were not just trying to figure out where Killebrew belongs on the Thome/Murray/Sisler continuum but also who if any of them belong ahead of Joe Cronin or Home Run Baker or Gabby Hartnett or Ted Lyons or a couple of dozen or more other guys for those last 10 or 12 spots.
Not an easy thing to do but something we should probably be starting to think about a little more.
Here’s a question I asked in a comment on Birtelcom’s ‘Ford in Your Future’ post. Doesn’t look like it’s going to get any replies there, so I’ll repeat it here, and add some more research:
‘Something I worked out while researching : Only two starting pitchers in the COG who were active prior to the era of low complete games have a ratio of OVER .02 WAR/IP—Koufax and Seaver. Of those in the New Age of Middle Relief, only Glavine and Smoltz have a ration of UNDER .02 WAR/IP. So a question: in comparative terms, does WAR reward starting pitchers for not completing games? Or is this just an anomaly based on a small sample?’
Looking into the subject a little further, I discovered 1) that the majority of the great starting pitchers up to and including Pete Alexander had over .02 WAR/IP; 2) that the majority of the better starting pitchers in the age of low complete games, not just those currently in the COG, also have over .02 WAR/IP, although some have unfinished careers and may fall below that mark; 3) that in between Alexander and Clemens, only five prominent pitchers achieve this level, Urban Shocker, Dazzy Vance, Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax, and Tom Seaver. Shocker, Vance, and Koufax, for differing reasons, had relatively short careers. Grove and Seaver had reasonably long ones, even given Grove’s late start.
I’ll ask the question again: in comparative terms, does WAR reward starting pitchers for not completing games?
No. It rewards pitchers who effectively keep the ball out of the hands of their defenses by striking out batters. All the “early” players you mentioned were high-strikeout guys. The two “modern” guys you mention who have a “low” ratio were NOT high-strikeout guys. I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as that, and has absolutely nothing to do with completing games or not (other than whether or not it’s easier to complete games when you’re not shooting for the K every time, but that’s a TOTALLY different conversation).
Alternatively, modern pitchers are throwing a lower percentage of innings late in the game where the are at their least effective. A modern pitcher may throw fewer innings than an old school type, but a greater percentage of those innings will be at a high quality level, which is why they will have better WAR/IP.
Dr. Doom:
The lowest WAR/IP ratio currently in the COG is that of Nolan Ryan at .0155. Can’t be SOs alone, I’m thinking.
Well, yeah. But Ks is A reason, not THE reason. Ryan walked a LOT of batters, too. Most ever, actually. If we assume that a defense gets credit for… you know… playing defense, and the PITCHER doesn’t get that credit, then we reward most the pitchers who get outs without letting those extra balls go to fielders. Likewise, a pitcher who averages 27 K/9, but also average 27 BB/9 and 9 HR/9 is a bad pitcher, even though he struck out TONS of guys. It’s not one-dimensional, but that IS a dimension of the game that impacts things, and pretty significantly. That’s all I’m saying.
RJ is certainly to some extent right; that’s what I was hinting at in my parenthetical above. WAR does not “reward” pitchers for not finishing games. WAR rewards pitchers for pitching at their maximum effectiveness. Having never been a pitcher, I couldn’t say for certain, but I’d imagine that it’s a heckuva lot easier to be more effective if you’re pitching 6 innings, rather than 9. So that IS a factor, but it’s not like there’s a “hidden bias” in WAR that’s saying that it’s better to not complete games.
nsb, if your speculation were right, the next question would be whether that’s appropriate. And that, I think, is very hard to analyze without an advanced degree, for two major reasons:
(1) The widespread availability of good relievers increased sharply around the late ’50s and again in the late ’70s. A comparison of starters’ and relievers’ ERA, by decade:
1925-34: SP 4.13, RP 4.46 … SP 7% lower
1935-44: SP 3.96, RP 4.09 … SP 3% lower
1945-54: SP 3.90, RP 4.06 … SP 4% lower
1955-64: SP 3.87, RP 3.73 … SP 4% higher
1965-74: SP 3.53, RP 3.44 … SP 3% higher
1975-84: SP 3.90, RP 3.56 … SP 10% higher
1985-94: SP 4.06, RP 3.77 … SP 8% higher
1995-04: SP 4.61, RP 4.26 … SP 8% higher
2005-14: SP 4.28, RP 3.92 … SP 9% higher
This picture’s further clouded by the fact that, into the ’50s, many of the best relievers were also ace starters. But in a broad sense, the value of finishing a start is much less in the last 40 years or so.
(2) For reasons I’m not sure of, the “third time through the order” penalty has risen sharply in the last 20 years. Here’s the comparison of OPS in the 3rd time facing a batter (as SP) compared to overall OPS, by decade:
1945-54: 3.4% higher
1955-64: 2.4% higher
1965-74: 2.9% higher
1975-84: 3.0% higher
1985-94: 3.5% higher
1995-04: 5.4% higher
2005-14: 6.0% higher
So modern starters who go deep tend to pay a higher price in runs allowed. How should that affect the value of workhorses? On a team basis, it may create a pattern of diminishing returns: Having one workhorse might still be quite valuable, but each additional workhorse in the rotation would add less value, since most teams do have some good relievers. But how do we factor that into a purely individual value assessment?
These trends also go towards RJ’s attempt (#48) to explain the pattern you found — i.e., that “modern pitchers are throwing a lower percentage of innings late in the game where they are at their least effective.” That presumes some consistency over time in the relative effectiveness of a starter in the late innings, compared to earlier innings. But that’s not necessarily a safe assumption. Until the last 30-40 years or so, starters could afford to pace themselves to some extent, because a lineup’s power was concentrated in a few hitters. That left more in their tank for finishing. Modern lineups have power spread throughout. The bottom of the order nowadays is much more likely to punish a get-me-over fastball, so there are fewer chances for a starter to pace himself.
Yeah, well, I worded the question in a deliberately provocative way. Something or some things have obviously changed, and you probably have nailed down most but not all, because I can think of at least one more—besides Dr. Doom’s point about strikeouts—and that is, in a general sense, strategy. From time to time some regular here on HHS, don’t remember who, suggests that the next step will be using nine pitchers per game, one per inning. Counting pitches, LOOGYs, set-up men, closers—these all are elements of strategy now, whereas what was done in those ways in the past was a product of intuition and/or necessity.
I’ve thought of several tangents to the subject at hand, but I’ll go with just one: pitching strategy has become more and more refined, not so much between pitcher and batter, but between bench and pitcher. In contrast, hitting strategy has become less and less refined, perhaps because far less room exists to strategize with the bat, but maybe not. So many of the old ploys, hit and run, run and hit, taking the outside pitch to the opposite field, the efficacy of sacrifice bunting, either have all but dropped out of serious consideration or have all but disappeared—except the bunt—perhaps because of the thing you mention in a different context, power up and down the lineup. With everyone capable of putting the ball into the stands regularly, batting strategy has become simplified, just when it ought, I think, to become more subtle to counter the more subtle use of the pitching staff.
Enough.
I’d be astonished if we don’t see changes in lineup construction and hitting methods in the next 3-5 years based on:
1) Success of the Royals this year by playing exactly the sort of baseball you’re talking about
2) Success of the Giants by winning 3 WS in 5 years without a traditional “slugger” on the roster and not exactly building around power
3) Extreme strikeout rates are a major reason for the drop-off in offense and the current approach by hitters is a moderate factor in that.
I think we’ll see a bit more small-ball and slap-hitting. It won’t be like the Whiteyball Cardinals but you’re not going to see any 1990s Texas Rangers teams either.
The lower pitchers WHIP’s drift, the MORE important HR power is. In a low scoring environment, the best offense is going to correlate more closely with the long ball IMHO. Three true outcomes is the natural response to fielders being placed in more intelligent ways and pitchers meticulously analyzing the best places to pitch to contact.
@ mosc 97, I believe in defensive shifts… but have they really affected the league BABIP? It’s not been a big impact from what I’ve seen:
http://www.billjamesonline.com/how_do_shifts_affect_league-wide_babip_/
So let’s say shifts become so common they somehow trim the league average BABIP down to like .275… that’s still 27.5% of the time you actually hit the ball in the park that it counts as a hit. You’re reaching base 27.4% more often than that 1 in a 1000 dropped third strike for a strikeout…
You certainly could go the other way and reach for the Mark Reynolds’ of the world, but I think the successful teams are going to try to cut down on their K rates.
That’s apart from the fact that the power hitters are a rare breed these days.
I also think that pitchers from the first “dead ball” era and before could pitch differently than the ones who came later.
Christy Mathewson rather famously told a young pitcher to “Save your best stuff for when you need it”.
If you tried doing that playing in the Baker Bowl in 1930 or against The Big Red Machine in the 70’s you’d be taking a shower by the third inning.
I’m not sure if just looking at a players splits on the 4th time thru the lineup will show this or not. Unfortunately they don’t go far enough back to compare Pete Alexander or Mathewson so I went with Bobo Newsom and Warren Spahn.
I’m not sure what to make of them.
With Spahn the batters OPS went up about .030 each successive time he had to face them: .610, .643, .673 & finally .710.
Bobo’s numbers followed that pattern for the first 3 appearances- .649, .679 & .688- but actually went DOWN to .673 the 4th time around.
I’m not sure what to make of that.
It’s certainly not like Bobo was the better pitcher. It doesn’t appear that he saw a lot fewer players (if taken as a percentage compared to 1st 3 times) the 4th time around when compared to Spahn. I might look at a few more pitchers but for now I’m writing it off as a fluke by a player who always did things his own way.
But without the splits for dead ball era pitchers I’m not sure this is going to prove much of anything anyways.
The “fourth time around” effect you describe is not aactually uncommon. Whether in today’s game or Bobo’s pitchers don’t usually pitch through the fourth time through unless they’re already pitching great. Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson… scores of modern guys’ stats look just like Bobo’s. It’s selection bias at work. If you compare “3rd time through the order” to 4th time through the order” ONLY in games in which they faced the lineup 4+ times, you will see the stats go down in time number 4 as opposed to time #3. The fact is, Warren Spahn’s I’d lower because his pitching loads were very heavy, and occurred when he would face the lineup 4 times more often. It’s that simple.
Harmon Killebrew, Joe Gordon, Dennis Eckersley
Gordon, Boudreau, Killebrew.
Tidbits for the new players on the ballot.
– Dixie Walker led the NL with 124 RBI in 1945, a total amounting to more than 46.5% of his total bases. Only eight players have led their league in RBI with a higher “RBI efficiency” score. Which one of those eight had the highest score?
– Wally Moses’ 435 career doubles ranks 8th among live ball era players with fewer than 100 career home runs. Who is the only other outfielder among the top 10 on that list?
– Schoolboy Rowe had 3 seasons batting .300 (min. 100 PA), exceeded among pitchers only by George Uhle’s four seasons and Red Ruffing’s seven. Included was Rowe’s 1934 season, enabling his Tigers to field a starting lineup on September 9th with every player then batting .300 for the season (a unique occurrence, according to Elias).
– Hal Schumacher ranks 5th in career IP for the Giants, and 2nd among those who pitched nowhere else. Schumaker is the youngest Giant pitcher with a post-season CG victory, winning game 2 of the 1933 WS aged 22 years, 10 months. Who are the only three pitchers with two World Series CG wins at a younger age?
– George McQuinn is the oldest Yankee first baseman with a season of 80 runs scored and 80 RBI, posting those totals in the 1947 season at age 37. Who is the only older first baseman with such a season for any team?
– Skeeter Newsome had seasons of 100 games played at shortstop for the Athletics, Red Sox and Phillies. Excluding Federal League seasons, who are the three pre-1950 players with seasons of 100 games at shortstop for more than 3 franchises?
– Billy Sullivan is one of 9 players with 100 career games at first base, third base and catcher. Who is the only one of those 9 with fewer career games than Sullivan’s 962 contests?
–Joe Vosmik’s 1682 career hits is the 3rd lowest total among players with four 190 hit seasons since 1901. Among active players on that list, who currently has the lowest career hit total?
– Johnny Lanning posted a 58-60 career W-L record including a .390 W-L% as a starter and a .722 mark in relief. Among pitchers with 1000 IP careers including 400 IP in each role, who are the only two like Lanning with a W-L% as a starter more than 100 points lower than overall?
– Johnny McCarthy may be one of the most expensive pre-war ballplayers to have no more than two seasons as a regular. McCarthy was traded three times as part of packages that included cash, with the cash component of those trades totaling a hefty $130,000. The Giants paid $90,000 in two of those deals (one of which netted Johnny Mize) and the Dodgers the rest, while the Yankees pocketed $80,000 of that loot by flipping McCarthy in the 1936 season. Not a bad return for the Yanks on a player who never appeared in pinstripes.
McCarthy succeeded his manager Bill Terry as the Giants’ regular first baseman in 1937 and 1938. Terry posted 7 consecutive qualifying seasons (1927-33) with an RBI total more than twice as large as his strikeouts, a feat matched by McCarthy in his only qualifying season (modern definition) in 1938. Who is the last Giant first baseman to do this?
– Lew Riggs is the only Red with 4 seasons playing 100 games at third base while posting 0.5 dWAR and OPS+ under 100. Which NL third baseman has the most such seasons?
Additional tidbits:
George McQuinn is the only member of the Browns to hit a WS HR. His 34 consecutive game hitting streak in 1938 had been bested only by George Sisler and Ty Cobb in the AL at the time.
Schoolboy Rowe was the first player to appear in the All-Star with both leagues, the AL in 1935 and 1936 and the NL in 1947.
Wally Moses is the only player to have batted .300+ in each of his first 7 years and never did it again.
One final tidbit which has nothing to do with the issue at hand. I have managed to create my own version of a Play Index, similar to BR’s. It is only a Season Finder and can do only a fraction of the BR’s and is not as user friendly but it can produce many useful results. The BR PI has 5 Choose a Stat selections but mine, as currently constructed, has a selection of 11. And I can increase that number. Fangraphs is my data base source, so I have the latitude to select stats that do not appear on the BR PI. Thanks has to go to Doug who unknowingly helped me by cluing me in on how to use Fangraphs to extract an Excel data base.
Doug, I think the Schumacher question has three answers, not two.
Right you are, John. Thanks.
Skeeter Newsome question: Lyn Lary, Dick Bartell and Dave Bancroft.
Lary is a rare player to play every game in consecutive seasons for different teams, in 1936 for the Browns and the next season for Cleveland. Lary also played every game for the Yankees in 1931.
Wonder if any others have played every game in a season for three franchises and fewer than 500 career games for each.
Doug: the name Rabbit Maranville was the first to pop into my head on this, and after he wasn’t cited as one of the three, I checked him out. He played over 100 games at short for Boston several times, Pittsburgh twice, and St. Louis once, 1928, 112 games, unless there’s something I’m not understanding.
??
The question was players with 100 games at shortstop for more than 3 teams – Lary and Bancroft did it with 4 teams, and Bartell with 5 clubs, incl 3 in 3 years with the Giants, Cubs and Tigers in 1938-40 (Lary had 4 straight seasons with 100 shortstop games, each in a different home, in ’34 BOS, ’35 WSH-SLB, ’36 SLB and ’37 CLE).
Thanks. Fooled by the fact that Newsome played for 3 into not reading the rest attentitively, despite doing so at least four times. The mind is failing.
Billy Sullivan question: Jim Leyritz
Leyritz played 70 or more games in eight seasons, but never played 70 games at one position in any of them.
What other players are like Leyritz who, in 1998-99, played in the WS for the losing side, then played in the World Series the next season for the team that won the year before? (Bill Skowron did something similar in 1962-63, playing for the winning WS side, then playing the next year’s WS for team that had lost the WS the year before).
FWIW, Leyritz played on the WS winning side in ’99, after playing for the losing side the year before. And he wasn’t in the 2000 WS, having been dealt away that June.
It probably is unusual to play on two WS winners for one franchise, and for a different WS loser in between.
Answering my own question, I believe Leyritz’s feat is unique, at least among position players. I can’t find another who appeared in two winning WS for one team, and in between appeared in a losing WS with a different team.
I was looking too and came up with the same result.
I had always thought that Terry Pendleton’s 5 appearances for a World Series loser was the record, but I didn’t realize he shares that distinction with Fred Merkle. Three of Merkle’s series losses were to the Red Sox: with the Giants in 1912; the Dodgers in 1916; and the Cubs in 1918. Others to appear for 3 different WS losers: Burleigh Grimes, Andy Pafko, Mark Koenig, Eddie Stanky
Another quirk about Billy Sullivan.
Generated 11/17/2014.
Yes, Billy Sullivan was indeed born in 1910, the same year his eponymous father turned in a particularly forgettable season (one or many) for the Pale Hose. Perhaps to make his dad feel better, Junior turned in this lone stinker of a season, his last in Chicago. Three years later, Sullivan slashed .351/.382/.508 for the Indians, good though for only a 115 OPS+, despite 32 doubles in only 339 PA, the fewest PA (by a margin of 35 – over 10%) for a 30 double season (second fewest PA was by another catcher with 32 doubles – Brent Mayne in 1999).
Walker question – Not sure how to run ratios in the PI (like in the old 1994 Franklin Electronic Baseball Encyclopedia), but I’m guessing these are on the list, starting with my guess at #1:
Harmon Killebrew, 1971, 119 RBI, 232 TB, 51.29%.
Vern Stephens, 1949, 159 RBI, 329 TB, 48.33%.
Sam Crawford, 1910, 120 RBI, 249 TB, 48.192%.
Manny Ramirez, 1999, 165 RBI, 346 TB, 47.68%.
Presumably these guys are in the “top 8.”
Killebrew in 1971 is top of the list with the highest ratio. Here are the top 8, ordered by RBI.
Generated 11/17/2014.
Killebrew ’71 isn’t just #1 in this ratio for league RBI leaders — he’s #1 of anyone with at least 83 RBI.
Only two others had 100 RBI and at least half as many RBI as total bases: Vic Wertz, 1960 BoSox (103 RBI, 204 TB); and everyone’s favorite “who the heck?”, Maurice Van Robays, 1940 Pirates (116 RBI, 230 TB).
Van Robays, a rookie that year, mostly batted 5th and 6th. The Bucs had four regulars with OBPs of .393 and up, and led the NL in OBP, but hit few homers. Van Robays ranked 3rd in NL RBI — and 3rd in outs made.
I like that both 1910 RBI leaders were on the list, with a combined 11 home runs.
Wertz’s 1960 season is also a favorite of those into ‘freak-show’ stats, as the player having the fewest runs scored (45) with 100 or more RBI. And 19 of those were on HR…
Was he that bad a base runner, or just really unlucky scoring runs? He had a similar but not as extreme {runs scored/ RBI ratio} in 1961 (33/60), though not quite as extreme.
@98
Wertz scored 26 times on plays other than his own HR. Just this past year, with 59 R and 35 HR, David Ortiz scored just 24 such runs. That’s the fewest for players with 100+ RBI in a season.
@100/RC;
I also though of Ernie Lombardi for lopsided (runs scored)/{RBI) ratios after I posted #98.
He never had 100 RBI, but in 1939, he had 85 RBI/ 43 runs/ 20 HR. So, that’s only 23 runs scored other than his own HR. Not sure if that’s a record for 85 or more RBI, but it’s got to be close…
He had ever more lopsided ratios in 1946, but he was probably being pinch-run for a great deal by then.
These players scored fewer than 20 runs other than home runs in seasons with 15 HR and 400 PA:
14 - Marv Throneberry 1962 (30/16) 409 PA 15 - Danny Walton 1970 (32/17) 454 PA 16 - Lou Skizas 1957 (34/18) 410 PA 17 - Jim Hickman 1965 (32/15) 400 PA Dave Henderson 1993 (37/20) 422 PA Mike Piazza 2006 (39/22) 439 PA 18 - Gus Triandos 1959 (43/25) 468 PA Gus Triandos 1961 (35/17) 445 PA Joe Adcock 1964 (39/21) 415 PA Earl Williams 1976 (35/17) 415 PA Dave Kingman 1981 (40/22) 412 PA 19 - Roy Campanella 1956 (39/20) 461 PA Joe Adcock 1962 (48/29) 447 PA Frank Thomas 1963 (34/15) 458 PA Lance Parrish 1991 (38/19) 445 PA Bengie Molina 2007 (38/19) 517 PA Evan Gattis 2014 (41/22) 401 PA@103/Doug;
Thanks; can you run the same list for least{Runs Scored – HR} for players with RBI>85? Triandos would’ve been my next likely candidate after Lombardi, but he had 85+ RBI only once and had 26 {Runs Scored – HR} that year.
Lawrence,
Looks like these players have the fewest runs other than home runs in an 85 RBI season.
17 - Tony Clark 2005 (47/30) 23 - Ernie Lombardi 1939 (43/20) Fred Whitfield 1965 (49/26) 24 - Alfonso Soriano 2011 (50/26) David Ortiz 2014 (59/35) 25 - Dick Stuart 1965 (53/28) Steve Balboni 1986 (54/29) Henry Rodriguez 1998 (56/31) 26 - Gus Triandos 1956 (47/21) Vic Wertz 1960 (45/19) Willie McCovey 1977 (54/28) Adam Dunn 2013 (60/34)Clark’s 2005 season is the only one with 85 RBI and fewer than 400 PA since 42 year-old Cap Anson in 1894.
@110/Doug;
Great, thanks. Not surprisingly, there are mostly catchers and slugging first basemen/corner outfielders on these sort of lists.
Tony Clark had a strange career. It seemed as if he were completely done after his abysmal age-30 2002 season ( a 47 OPS+, 3 HR in 298 PA for a 1Bman – this a year after making the AS team), but he played another 7 years and had over 1600 PA, including for several very good teams (2004 NYY, 2007 ARIZ).
With interest dying out I’ll provide some more answers.
Wally Moses question: Sam Rice
Joe Vosmik: Jose Reyes
More answers:
Lew Riggs question: Terry Pendleton
Johnny McCarthy question: My guess was Johnny Mize but it looks like it was Whitey Lockman in 1951. Mize did it in 1948.
Only 25 first baseman have 62 such qualified seasons (RBI > 2 x SO) since 1952. Only 13 of the 62 seasons have come since 1995.
Don Mattingly has the most with eight seasons, followed by Bill Buckner and Vic Power with seven each.
Other answers.
– Hal Schumacher question: younger pitchers with two WS CG wins – Waite Hoyt, Bret Saberhagen, Paul Dean
– George McQuinn question: older first baseman with season of 80 runs and 80 RBI – Darrell Evans (Evans had two such seasons, incl. 90/90 at age 40)
– Johnny Lanning question: other pitchers with 1000 IP careers, incl. 400+ IP as both starter and reliever, and with W-L% as starter 100+ points lower than overall – Doug Bird, Lindy McDaniel
Winfield, Eckersley, Murray
Murray, Kevin Brown, and Alomar
Off the topic … Shocking trade by John Hart, sending Jason Heyward and Jordan Walden to STL for Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins, a young low-minors pitcher with a disappointing resume.
It could be all about money. But it could also signal that Hart is no believer in metrics like dWAR and FIP.
Considering STL’s dire need for a right fielder, I think John Mozeliak made out like a bandit.
I’m having a hard time understanding the logic of it. St. Louis will either re-sign him (they have been smart and good about spending to keep the assets they want) or they will make a QO and get a draft pick. Miller better turn out to be the person people expected in the first half of 2013. But, I still don’t get it. Heyward was a high value asset, who, if traded this offseason, surely would have had a higher value. Maybe Hart felt he had to operate in secret.
Makes sense for Atlanta if they believe that Miller at 23 has not yet reached his potential. He’s under team control through 2019, whereas they only had another year of Heyward. And as good as Heyward’s defense is, they can put an Upton in RF and do any number of things to fill LF. Gattis and the kid Cunningham will probably get a look.
Deal to me is all about years of control. Jason Heyward is a big name but he wasn’t going to re-sign with the braves. They don’t have the money and indeed may not value him properly (not that I believe the extent of his RFIELD either). If you have this in context of the braves giving up one year of a right fielder for quite a bit of pitching, it makes much more sense.
On the other side, Miller was not a rotational lock and Heyward is a huge asset that will also bring with him either a re-sign or a draft pick. Walden is another much needed piece pushing the cardinals 2015 roster even further.
I always hate to comment on team moves because it’s so likely they know a lot more about these players than we do, but I agree with others that this is more about years of control than anything else.
John @56: I don’t think the Braves had a low opinion on Heyward or his defense. Atlanta tried to sign Heyward long-term this spring when they locked down several young key players (Freeman, Kimbrel, Simmons, Teheran) but Jason, agent, and team couldn’t agree on terms.
I don’t have an opinion on Shelby Miller but I would feel a lot better about things if strikeouts were his m.o. instead of a reduced BAbip. And from what I’ve read, scouts are still high on Tyrell Jenkins despite his numbers so far.
Trying to find a silver lining here but right now losing Jason Heyward still feels like a gut-punch.
Back to voting after a long hiatus (and with a revised methodology, no less!)
Dennis Eckersley, Kevin Brown, Rick Reuschel
Welcome back. Eckersley has 9 votes (over 25%) in the early going. He’s never topped 12 votes over a full round.
Killebrew, Gordon, Medwick
Reply to nsb @44, re: “does WAR reward starting pitchers for not completing games?”
I took all pitchers with at least 50 WAR and 200 starts since 1901, and ranked them by WAR per 250 innings. If there is a WAR bias against complete games, it might show up in this rate stat, which tends to benefit those with lighter workloads.
Here are the top 26 — those with at least 5 WAR per 250 IP (which equates to your 0.02 WAR per inning):
On the one hand, 12 out of these 26 careers were centered in the last 30 years — that’s 46%, whereas those years comprise only 37% of all team-seasons since 1901. That could support your theory.
On the other hand, most of those 12 recent guys were among the CG leaders of their time. Seven of the 12 — Saberhagen, Schilling, Halladay, Clemens, Johnson, Brown and Maddux — completed at least 15% of their 360+ starts. Only six others in this time had such a rate in that many starts.
The other five were Pedro, Johan, Cone, Mussina and Appier. Pedro and Johan were simply sublime, per inning. And even Mussina, Cone and Appier had some workhorse characteristics.
And some of what the recent crew gain on the WAR/250 scale, they give back in total WAR:
— The recent 12 averaged 6.02 WAR/250 and 79.9 total WAR.
— The older 14 averaged 5.59 WAR/250, but 82.2 total WAR.
Comparing the products of those numbers shows a 4.5% edge for the recent group. That could support your theory. But with this small a sample, and an arbitrary 0.02 WAR/IP threshold, it could be just noise.
I took the whole 50-WAR group and split them in half based on CG%, then figured the group rates of WAR/250 IP:
— High-CG group: 4.60 WAR/250
— Low-CG group: 4.71 WAR/250
Both groups averaged 69.3 total WAR.
That’s a 2.4% difference in WAR/250, or in product of WAR/250 and total WAR. I’m not sure it’s meaningful.
One last(?) comment on this WAR and CG topic: I did a study as above, but with three minimum requirements:
— 50 career WAR;
— 300 starts; and
— .015 WAR per inning.
There are 66 such pitchers. I split them into three groups based on the percentage of starts they completed. Their averages:
— High-CG group: 4.97 WAR/250 … 74.1 WAR … 368 product of the two.
— Mid-CG group: 4.55 WAR/250 … 71.4 WAR … 324 product.
— Low-CG group: 5.18 WAR/250 … 70.6 WAR … 366 product.
Again, small samples. But with both high-CG and low-CG seeming to fare better than the middle, I’m tending more to doubt that there’s a WAR bias against complete games.
BTW, the high-CG group completed 68% of its starts, the middle 38%, and the low group 12%. So, a stark contrast between the high and low, but similar WAR products.
I think the mid-CG group coming out on the short end could perhaps be indicative of what nsb is getting at.
The low-CG group get taken out of games before they tire and run into trouble. The high-CG group don’t because they can go the distance and not get into trouble too often doing so. But, the mid-CG group isn’t so lucky – they can go the distance often enough that they get a longer leash, but that long leash can also bite them when they get burned (in the game and by WAR) trying to get a few more outs.
I think to some extent what we are seeing is the reason I tend to shy away from relying much on WAR-per-inning type stats (and Wins Above Average is in this genre to some extent). WAR per inning and other stats of that ilk penalize a good player for expanded playing time where that playing time is still productive but not up to his peak standard. Except for specialized studies, it doesn’t seem to me we should be reducing a player’s evaluation for adding productive playing time. That is why I like raw WAR totals so much — they give players some added credit (as opposed to a penalty) for adding productive playing time even when the player is not necessarily at his best. A great pitcher pitching late into games, when he may be less great but still productive, is a subset of that circumstance.
I think it’s normal and almost obvious that WAR/IP will favor pitchers that don’t pitch as long. Look at the leaders in WAR/IP with low total innings, and you’ll see that most of them are relievers.
but that doesn’t mean anything about WAR itself favoring players who pitch less. If you look at WAR/season, older players (if they were good enough workhorses to pitch effectively late) might even have the advantage, because if they could keep up a solid .015 WAR/IP for 400 innings, that ends up being a similar total WAR to pitching at Pedro level for 200 innings. You don’t see as many 8+ WAR seasons today as you did when good pitchers regularly logged 300+ or 350+ IP
Total WAR recognizes the value of pitching deep, as long as you are still effective.
Note: I posted that comment in response to you birtelcom, but I realized just as I posted that it was really really more in answer to others above, and we pretty much agree.
I wonder if this isn’t maybe an indication of a relatively long transition to how to optimally use pitchers.
I would guess that virtually all of the pitchers in the first group at least started their careers in the dead ball era and that the last group consists mostly of pitchers from the past 30 years or so.
That leaves the middle group made up mostly of pitchers from the 40-50 year span between the 2. The time frame where pitchers quickly learned that “Saving your best stuff for when you need it” was a recipe for disaster but managers hadn’t quite figured out yet that throwing 150+ pitches with maximum effort game after game was not something that the human arm could endure with the exception of a) the occasional freak of nature or b) guys who were extremely efficient at limit their own pitch counts.
My thinking is that what Doug said @86 reflects this.
Killebrew, Eckersley, and Medwick
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasonal totals:
Brown 43.3
Boudreau 42.3
Reuschel 40.6
Tiant 37.5
Gordon 37.1
Alomar 37.1
Greenberg 37.0
Eckersley 34.3
Murray 33.7
Killebrew 33.0
Winfield 31.1
Minoso 30.6
Medwick 30.2
Dean 27.9
Campanella 19.2
Walker 17.9
Brown, Boudreau, Gordon
Your list had me worried for a minute there Bryan: how is no one voting for Greenberg?! Ah, we already elected him.
That’s not Hank; it’s Reds shortstop Steve Greenberg, who was born in 1910 but missed the ten seasons requirement.
…or just a mistake on my part. Good catch, RJ.
Boudrau, Gordon, Tiant
Minoso, Alomar & Reuschel
Vote…
Winfield
Alomar
Killebrew
Killer, Alomar and Minoso
Killebrew, Dean, and Eckersley
Rick Reuschel, Kevin Brown, Joe Gordon
Alomar, Miñoso, Tiant.
Reuschel, Boudreau, Tiant.
Brown, Eckersley, Boudreau
SABR is reporting Ray Sadecki has died at 73. http://t.co/2F8r1xSpQW Most relevant to recent votes was his 1964 start against Whitey Ford in the Series.
Vote:
Lou Boudreau
Joe Gordon
Dennis Eckersley
This one is going to be a mess.
Killebrew, Alomar, Gordon.
Reuschel, Murray, Winfield
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: your first voting update! It’s been a crazy few days here, and I haven’t had the chance to do this yet. But here are the results through donburgh @117 (48 ballots cast):
19 (39.58%) – Lou Boudreau
16 (33.33%) – Harmon Killebrew
15 (31.25%) – Joe Gordon
13 (27.08%) – Dennis Eckersley
11 (22.92%) – Roberto Alomar, Kevin Brown
9 (18.75%) – Minnie Minoso, Luis Tiant
8 (16.67%) – Roy Campanella, Rick Reuschel
7 (14.58%) – Joe Medwick
6 (12.50%) – Dizzy Dean, Eddie Murray
5 (10.42%) – Dave Winfield
1 (2.08%) – Schoolboy Rowe
Is it just me, or does 48 votes already seem like a lot? Maybe it’s just me… Anyway, it’s good to have COG balloting back!
Also, it seems Eck’s been getting a lot of love lately. He already has more votes than he’s received in any other COG round. In the sixteen rounds since he was redeemed (including this one), he only passed 10 votes once in his first 7 ballots. In the last nine (again, including this one), he’s only FAILED to reach ten votes twice. It’s only a couple of votes, I know, but it’s the difference between requiring last-minute voters to “save” you (an apt term in a discussion of Eck!) and potentially challenging for election.
Most everyone’s safe or on the fast track to getting there already! Medwick, Dean, Murray, and Winfield need 1-3 votes each to get to 8, which is traditionally the “magic number.”
Killebrew, Medwick, Minoso
Boudreau, Eckersley, Reuschel
Vote: Boudreau, Gordon, Murray
The love for Killer seems to ignore Steady Eddie. Careers of 22 yrs (Killebrew) and 21 yrs (Murray). Their stats:
Killer: 2435G, 8147AB, 1283R, 2086H, 290 2B, 573HR, 1584RBI, 19SB, .256 avg
Eddie: 3026G, 11336AB, 1627R, 3255H, 560 2B, 504HR, 1917RBI, 110SB, .287 avg
Certainly Eddie had more AB, since Killebrew was not a regular his first 5 seasons. Does Killer get extra credit (what if) for that? Their runs scored and RBI rate stats are comparable, per AB. Killebrew certainly has the edge in HR/AB, but where else was Killer so clearly superior?
In roughly 37% more AB, Murray had nearly twice as many doubles, over 5 times as many stolen bases, and a batting average much closer to .300 than .250 (considered the mark of better hitters). Eddie was also an above-average fielder, winning 3 Gold Gloves and leading the AL in fielding percentage twice. He became the 3rd player in history with 3,000 Hits and 500 HR, playing more games at first base than anyone (including Gehrig!). I believe the only switch hitter with more HR is Mantle.
Every year Murray provided season averages of 24HR, 91RBI, and 155H, while Killer provided season averages of 26HR, 74RBI, and 95H. Career WAR totals: 68.3 Murray, 60.3 Killebrew. Rankings by bells@21: 25 Murray, 42 Killebrew. Murray’s durability and workman-like example was an inspiration to Cal Ripken, Jr. starting out, and I never heard of any drug issues in his career. If I had to pick a first basemen for my team, I think Murray is the better all-around player who has more to offer than Killebrew.
I just don’t get it. Does Killer get extra credit for playing in a more “offense starved” era/league? If high HR rates are more important than other considerations, why did we pass on McGwire/Palmeiro so fast (besides the roids factor)? Maybe Killer has intangibles that the stats don’t cover.
Was Murray not a nice enough guy?
What am I missing here?
Killer had 9833 PA.
Murray approached that number through age 35 (9764).
So, setting aside Murray’s last six years
(3.8 WAR, 102 ops+, 753 hits)
here’s their comparison through 9800 PA:
Runs
1283
1279
Hits
2086
2502
XBH
887 … (290/24/573)
853 … (425/30/398)
RBI
1584
1469
Total Bases
4143
4181
Slash
.256 .376 .509 .884 143
.292 .369 .488 .857 138
WAR/WAA
60.3 / 28.1
64.5 / 33.2
It’s not something that I had really thought about before but I can actually think of times when it wouldn’t be totally unreasonable to “credit” Killebrew for at least part of those first 5 seasons.
It mostly has to do with rate stats.
Most of us are aware that for about a decade MLB had the “bonus baby” rule that a player who signed a contract for more than $4K that player had to spend their first 2 seasons on the major league teams roster no matter what their age or circumstances. Al Kaline & Sandy Koufax are 2 other players that were effected by this rule.
It’s pretty insane when you stop and think about it- having the players who could potentially be the games biggest stars in the future either sitting on the bench taking up space during 2 of their most formative years instead of honing their skills in the minor leagues or possibly having their confidence shattered a la David Clyde by throwing them right into the pressure cooker of MLB.
Anyways if your going to compare 2 players Triple Crown slash lines by year it would put a player like this at a decided disadvantage. Doing it per 162 would make Killers # 38/105/138 for the #’s you used (HR, RBI, Hits) vs 27/103/174 for Steady Eddie which does put things in a little different perspective.
But other than in those particular circumstances I can’t see giving Killebrew any credit for his first 5 years either.
First five seasons of 99+ GP (Murray played 99 games in strike-shortened 1981:
GP AB H 2B HR BA OBP SLG RBI ASG
HK 724 2596 677
EM 737
Let’s try this again. Somehow it submitted before I was ready.
First five seasons of 99+ GP (Murray played 99 games in strike-shortened 1981:
PLR _GP _AB_ _H_ 2B _HR _BA_ _OBP _SLG RBI ASG _WAR _Years_ _Age_
HK 724 2596 677 98 212 .261 .370 .552 529 _3_ 20.0 1959-63 23-27
EM 737 2826 823 148 133 .291 .354 .493 476 _2_ 20.5 1977-81 21-25
Hartvig, that’s a great piece of historical context, knowing that he was a Bonus Baby.
He only amassed 280 PA in those five years, however.
So that barely affects his overall numbers.
But sure, I agree that regular playing time those first two years in the minors and he might have developed faster.
I agree David Humbert. Of course it’s not just Killebrew. Murray consistently draws fewer votes than a lot of players that I would rank below him.
Dave:I’m not saying it’s right or the only method but I like to give importance to OPS+ and Killebrew has a clear advantage, 143 to 129.
Well, I went to check out if there was something in peak value… and there isn’t. Murray’s peak value is definitely better than Killer’s. So it’s not that.
Team success?
Killer’s teams won 100 games once, came in first 3 times (losing the ALCS twice and losing the World Series once), and second 4 times (including his final year in KC).
Murray’s teams won 100 games 3 times (twice in Baltimore, once in Cleveland; plus he played a half-season for a Cleveland team that won 99 in 161 games), winning two pennants and one World Series. Murray’s teams came in first 3 times (plus that half-season in Cleveland I’m not counting). Murray’s teams finished second 8 times. Different era, sure. But if people are considering team success (not that they should be; I’m just trying to come up with reasons here), it seems that, too, would favor Murray.
In conclusion… I don’t get it. The best answer I can come up with is “Harmon Killebrew was older.” He was in the HOF while Murray was still building his legend. I think that’s what keeps a lot of inferior candidates *cough*Medwick*cough*Dean*cough* hanging around longer than they should: name recognition based on years of them being “legends” before the other guys were born. But seriously, I don’t know WHAT else it could be.
I’ve voted for Murray in the past in keeping with my belief that WAR over-punishes 1Bmen/DH. This round I didn’t because I want to keep Winfield around and try to keep Alomar on the ballot for the millionth round.
For Boudreau/Gordon, I have no idea who to vote for or if they both belong and will let the field figure that out.
If Murray goes on the bubble, then I’ll be voting for him consistently again.
Dave, I think Murray’s consistency at a level of could-be-MVP-but-never-quite-was is a big drag on how he’s perceived. As Bill James remarked in the Historical Abstract, “His best year was every year.” He has the most “MVP shares” of any never-winner. It was easy to take Eddie for granted.
His season high in WAR was 7.1; twenty-three modern first baseman had at least one year at 7.5+ WAR. Murray had two years at 6+ WAR, while 10 of the 16 modern HOF first basemen* had at least three such years, and nine had at least four. (*Min. 40% of games at 1B.)
This isn’t specific to a Murray-Killebrew comparison, and I’m not trying to knock anyone’s vote. Just saying … We tend to remember players by their peak.
Also, Eddie’s prime came just before the mid-’90s offensive explosion, making his career high of 33 HRs look relatively puny. Both these things, he has in common with Lou Whitaker. At least Eddie got the career milestones to ensure his HOF induction.
I remember Bill James saying that one of the reasons Ripken won the ’83 MVP award over Murray is because voters tend to reward a surprise season more than the guy whose been doing it all along. What’s interesting to me is what happened in ’84 when the Orioles slipped to 85-77. Both Ripken and Murray basically repeated their seasons from the year before. But Ripken fell from 1st to 27th in the voting, whereas Murray only fell from 2nd to 4th. So Ripken got rewarded in ’83 but voters also held him responsible for the Orioles disappointing ’84 season. Murray wasn’t held responsible in the same way.
My take on the Ripken/Murray MVP vote differences from ’83 to ’84 is simply that Cal’s RBI, Runs, Hits and Doubles all fell substantially. Historically, it’s been hard to *repeat* as MVP without at least superficially better performance and/or team improvement.
For a real head-scratcher about the ’84 AL vote, try to figure out why Kent Hrbek placed 2nd, with 5 first-place votes to Murray’s 2:
Hrbek — .311-27-107, Twins at .500 (blew div. lead in Sept.)
Murray — .306-29-110, Gold Glove, O’s 85-77
Perhaps John. Of course, it could have been multiple factors. Would be interesting to see how the MVP voting from that year would go in today’s WAR-fueled environment.
I doubt Willie Hernandez would win. But then who?
Here are the top 5 in WAR:
Ripken: 10.0
Stieb: 7.9
Moseby: 7.2
Murray: 7.1
Trammell: 6.7
Ripken had by far the most WAR but his team’s disappointing season would definitely hurt him. Murray has the same problem.
Hard to imagine Stieb winning (16-8, 2.83 ERA) – not exactly a Verlander or Kershaw season. Also hard to see Moseby winning as the “best position player on a team that finished 15 games out of first”.
So then we come to Trammell. The best player on by far the best team that year. Might he have won in today’s environment? Possibly. But he has the problem of playing the same position as Ripken but having far less WAR and trailing him in most counting stats as well.
All this suggests what might be another fun HHS exercise: re-voting the MVP races, at least the close/interesting ones.
Wait. MVP voting?
You mean that thing where 30 sportswriters put in a ballot and DONT spend a week transparently arguing their case?
Ducky, Eck, Winfield.
I am struggling to understand the votes for Medwick and Dean. They are clearly not in the same class as our previous holdovers and many of the top redemption candidates. As others have mentioned, 118 is a pretty tight limit on players. It’s better than HOF standard, adn when you look at the spots available and the good players to come, it looks like players comparable to our holdovers are really about 50-50 at best — there’s only room for 1/2 or less of the players who have roughly equivalent statistical cases to this 60-70 WAR, 30-40 WAA+ crowd.
So I don’t really understand why we’re entertaining any candidates with <60 WAR <30 WAA unless there is something particularly compelling about them.
With Dean, at least you can point to a peak, but as others have mentioned, it's not a Koufaxian or near-inner circle level peak. It's a peak level shared or exceeded not just by some players who gained election after many years on the ballot, but also many who are in redemption land with little hope of ever reaching the main ballot. It's a peak that might be good enough for the COG, when paired with a 60+ WAR career, but very few players have been elected below that standard. Dizzy has about 45, after adding in batting WAR. If he's a might-have been player due to his injuries — why did we not give any serious consideration to the many other players about whom we could say the same. Kriby Puckett and Thurman Munson are two players just off the top of my head with better resumes and pretty solid might-have-been cases that have gotten zero traction, and nobody really arguing for them in the redemption round.
For Medwick, I don't even see the special circumstance. He played during the war. If it's became the names are better known — I have to ask: are the names better knows because of what they did, and the fame they had during their playing career? Or because the writers deemed to elect them to the hall over more statistically deserving players? Do their names ring, simply because we've known they are in the hall? I think largely so.
I know these guys are unlikely to get elected and will probably drop out during one of the heavier rounds, but I'd like to see more of the real candidates getting 25% support in these weaker rounds, so they survive the winnowing to be compared properly to the older players with comparable resumes. I'm afraid we will lose good candidates to the harsh rounds, because we've kept our list big with those who really don't have a case.
At least put the case forward. I challenge the Medwick and Dean voters to tell me what is it about their career that merits consideration alongside those who statistically are *clearly* better. Minoso and Campanella couldn't stay on the ballot without people very explicitly and logically making the case for why they belong, even if many still disagree. I think the same should be done for any player with <60 WAR and <30 WAA+. There are already many more players who clear that bar than we can put into the COG. I need a reason not to talk them down every ballot forward until they drop off.
I wish I had known you were posting this while I was posting @134 above! I (obviously) agree with you. Medwick is basically “What if Enos Slaughter had been worse at baseball?” And Dean… well, I think he has the highest relative strikeout rate of any pitcher ever, and that’s pretty cool. But yeah; they don’t really stack up to the rest of the ballot.
Doom and Michael Sullivan: I agree with Doom’s #134 that name recognition for a longer period of time helps. But we also see voters having their own individual quirks (e.g., Richard Chester at #133).
I was surprised re: Medwick’s initial support and asked for some clarification. Paget responded that he valued Medwick’s 10 year peak (I can only find 5 years myself) and that he put a lot of value on BA because it captured things that OBP didn’t. I started to type a response but gave up…if someone places a high value on BA, then we’re looking at players from completely different perspectives.
Splendid use of the word ‘winnowing.’
MS: This is in response to your questions in post #132. I am impressed by Medwick’s performance during his peak years, 1933-1940. He had the third highest NL OPS+, behind only Mize and Vaughan, two current members of the COG. He led the NL in R, RBI, 2B, H and XBH. He was close to the top of the list in most of other categories. A Triple Crown didn’t hurt either. And he was hugely popular during his playing days.
Richard Chester #140 – Medwick was actually 4th in OPS+, behind Ott, Mize and Vaughan. That being said, Eddie Murray was 2nd in the AL in OPS+ in the 8 year period from 1978-1985, behind only Brett (and obviously in a larger league with more competition). I’m sure he’d rank highly on plenty of counting measures as well during that period.
Indeed, his counting measures are also impressive.
– Seven straight 40 double seasons – only Boggs had a longer run
– Youngest to reach 500 doubles (tied by Pujols, exactly to the day)
The ten year peak mentioned earlier is age 21-30 when Medwick compiled 88% of his WAR and 96% of his WAA. In other words, that was basically his career and he added little or no value after that point. Compared to Slaughter, Medwick seems an easy choice – almost exactly the same WAR but Medwick’s is more concentrated and has WAA is 25% higher than Slaughter’s (though giving Slaughter credit for his missed age 27-29 years at about a 5-6 WAR average would clearly change that assessment).
Is Medwick COG worthy? I don’t think so. If he had put up 15 or 20 WAR after age 30, he’s definitely in the conversation, but almost nothing doesn’t cut it.
Regardless of what anyone thinks re: Medwick, his 154 RBIs during his 1937 triple crown season are hard to fathom. Only two other players in the NL that year topped 100 RBIs – Frank Demaree with 115 and Mize with 113.
Beyond that it’s hard to figure out who he was driving in. Medwick batted 4th every single game. Here are the players who batted 1st-3rd in terms of games played and OPS, listing only those who had 10+ games in a batting order position:
1st: Terry Moore (94 games, .666); Pepper Martin (32 games. .841); Don Gutteridge (22 games, .731)
2nd: Johnny Brown (98 games, .673); Pepper Martin (42 games, .841)
3rd: Johnny Mize (69 games, 1.021); Don Padgett (42 games, .815); Frenchy Bordagary (16 games, .698); Don Gutteridge (10 games, .731)
Martin and Padgett were decent but we’re only talking 114 games in total and they were hardly Rickey Henderson in his prime. Mize was amazing but it was only 69 games and he probably “stole” as any RBI opportunities as he gave.
Neither BR nor Fangraphs lists what Medwick hit with RISP that year. But it must have been off the charts.
I looked into his home runs to see if he hit an unseal number with runners on base, but there was nothing extraordinary there. That season his homers were worth 1.77 RBI on average, as opposed to 1.61 the rest of his career.
I guess, though, that 406 Total Bases will simply get you a lot of RBI. There have been twenty-nine seasons of 400+ TB: the mean of these seasons saw 418 TB and 154.6 RBI. That’s 0.37 RBI per 1 TB. Applying that number to Medwick’s 406 TB gets you an expected RBI total of 150, only four away from his actual figure.
I don’t know how scientific that is, so alternatively: the fewest RBI in a 400 TB season was Hank Aaron (400 TB, 123 RBI). Excepting that, no 400+ TB season had fewer than 130 RBI. Figuring that as a baseline, I guess hitting well with RISP will get you the rest of the way.
With 154 RBI and 31 HR Medwick drove in 123 runners that year. That’s tied for 12th best overall.
Here’s an interesting tidbit about Medwick for June 6, 1937.
Umpire Bill Klem declares the Cardinals winners of the 2nd game with the Phils when the Phils stall and delay until a Sunday curfew of 7 P.M. is reached. The first game was delayed 1 1/2 hours because of rain‚ and the nitecap doesn’t start until after 5:30. The Phils trail 8-2 with 2 outs in the 5th inning when the game is forfeited. Joe Medwick loses a homer in the nitecap and will end the season tied with Mel Ott for the HR lead.
154 RBI is also the Cardinals single-season record, which is rather impressive considering the great power hitters they’ve had over their existence, such as Hornsby (152), Mize (137), McGwire (147) and Pujols (137).
@146,
Was his winning the Triple Crown a big deal when he did it in 1937? The previous four years:
– Foxx AND Klein did it in 1933
-Gehrig did it in 1934
Plus, Hornsby had done it for the Cardinals in 1922 and 1925. Was it even a recognized Big Event in 1937?
RJ – That makes sense. On the other hand, I assume that Medwick was at a disadvantage since his 31 home runs are the fewest for someone with 400+ TBs. He was therefore more dependent on his teammates baserunning ability (and presumably lost a few RBIs to guys getting thrown out at home). In fact, the other 5 players who had 400+ TBs with fewer than 40 homeruns “only” averaged 134 RBIs, 20 fewer than Medwick.
Martin scored 60 runs in only 373 PA, Moore had 76 in 500 PA and Padgett and Gutteridge were 62/476 and 66/473. The latter two project to around 80 runs for 600 PA, Moore to 91 and Martin to 96. Plus, Mize had 103 runs despite *only* 25 homers. Those are all healthy run totals.
David, I’m not convinced that anything special had to happen with Medwick baserunner-wise or RISP-wise for him to have over 150 RBI in 1937.
You mentioned the five other guys who had 400+ TB and fewer than 40 HR and how they averaged 137 RBI. Four of them (Klein, Musial, Babe Herman, Aaron) batted third almost exclusively those seasons.
Those four averaged 130 RBI, but the fifth player, Rogers Hornsby in 1929, batted cleanup in about a third of his starts and had 149 RBI. Medwick batted cleanup for the Cards all year in 1937.
As for Medwick’s hitting with RISP, we will never know for sure but the fact that he hit .374 overall that year suggests to me he didn’t necessarily need to have a great year with men on above his overall average to produce 150+ RBI.
______
I did some more work to see how the top 3 in the Cards lineup did that year. Their collective OBP was pretty close to league average for those three positions. About the only thing I noticed was that the #2 and #3 hitters combined didn’t ground into many DPs that year. Other than that, nothing unusual.
Using the PI Split Finder I ran Bases Occupied with at least 120 RBI with men on. There were 44 names on the list, with most of the data from 1996 to date. 37 of them had a BA with men on base higher than their overall BA. The highest percentage belonged to Andres Galarraga in 1996 with a ratio of .375/.304 for 123.4%. Second was Ryan Howard in 2008 with .309/.251 for 123.1%. Howard was also at the bottom of the list in 2006 with .287/.313 for 91.7%.
All this got me thinking….who hold the record for highest ratio between TB and RBI, in a season with 100+ RBIs? The answer…one Harmon Killebrew! In 1971, he drove in 119 runs with only 232 TB, for a .513 ratio. The only other season above .5 was Maurice Van Robays who drove in 116 runs with 230 TBs in 1940.
At the other extreme, the worst single season ratio was Derrek Lee in 2005, driving in only 107 runs with 393 TBs. Lee actually raked with RISP (.331/.480/.653) so he must have been done in by lack of opportunities. Lee’s season barely edges out Darin Erstad’s 2000 season though Erstad can be forgiven for a low ratio since he batted leadoff the whole year.
@166 David P: Regarding Lee, he indeed had fewer baserunners in front of him. Per Baseball-Reference’s comparison of him to the average player with his number of PA:
– Actual Runners on Base: 379 (187-124-68)
– Avg. Runners on Base: 429 (213-141-73)
I looked at RBI on homers, as I did with Medwick, and he did have fewer runners on base when he hit a dinger compared to career averages; his career rate would have given him an extra seven RBI. Lee’s final 12 homers were solo shots. Remarkably, seven of them tied the game or gave his team the lead.
Alomar, Eckersley, Gordon
Nobody between lines 135 and 153 on the spreadsheet has voted yet, so let me break in.
HKillebrew (challenge for win)
EMurray (push away from bubble)
JDean, commonly called Dizzy (push away from bubble)
“Nobody between lines 135 and 153 on the spreadsheet has voted yet, so let me break in”
And thus pretty much entirely failing to live up to your screen name.
Oh the shame you must feel☺
It’s a name I started using when they were lying about “your email address will not be published.” — maybe not displayed, but there was a mailto: link on the name. I then used ” “, which did not include any characters to link to my email. Then that became “oneblankspace”.
Being cautious about who we give our e-mail address to is a lesson I’m sure most of us have learned the hard way.
I usually use an old AOL address that I haven’t checked in close to 20 years- I have no idea if it’s still active or not but if it is there must be several million unread e-mails in it by now.
Eckersley, Killebrew, Winfield
With the exception of Killebrew, the current leaders in the voting haven’t received much actual comment here, beyond statistical shorthand, at least.
A few rounds back there was some lively discussion comparing Boudreau and Gordon with special emphasis on the the facts that Gordon missed two prime years to WWII and Boudreau’s career WAR might be a little soft since he played throughout the war. A quick point on the latter: Boudreau suffered a season ending injury of some kind, I think—didn’t look it up—and missed the last third of the 1945 season. That can be evaluated two ways: either he played only 1 2/3 years more that Gordon during the war, or his WAR is undervalued for the 1945 season by about 2.0. Either way, it’s a minor point in Lou’s favor.
As for Eck, I can’t remember much discussion specific to his Jeckyll and Hyde career. For what it’s worth, I think his WAR is somewhat inflated as a reliever, the reliever who more or less created the job of closer in modern terms. That’s HOF worthy, but I don’t think it puts him on a par with Gordon or Boudreau. I like all three of these players, Eck as much as Lou and Joe, but with Brown and Reuschel on the ballot, it’s a mystery to me why he has so many votes.
I’m puzzled by Eckersley’s support this round, too; I see him as one of those players who are HoF-worthy but fall short of the CoG. For me the combination of a good-but-not great career as a starter + 6 years as an excellent reliever + 6 years as a rather mediocre reliever just isn’t enough. I think one relief pitcher is enough for the CoG, and we picked the right one.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we adjust for World War 2- both in terms of time lost and the numbers that were put up by those who played. I did a little searching tonight and found the following:
http://www.baseballinwartime.com/baseball_in_wwii/baseball_in_wwii.htm
Maybe someone has linked to or mentioned this in the past. If so I apologize for not crediting you for doing so.
Over five hundred major league players served in World War 2. And that is from a time when there were 25 man rosters and only 16 teams- meaning at any one point in time during the season there are only 400 players on ML rosters at any one time. In addition over 4000 minor league players served in the military.
To be fair, not all of those major league players were on a ML roster when they went into the military. Some had already retired or were playing out their career in the minors. Others had yet to play a game in the majors. But at a guess I would say that at a minimum around 200 of them- or about half of all the players on ML rosters- were active shortly before or after their time in the military.
Think about that.
What if next year half of the guys who played this year were suddenly gone? Not just the marginal players either but Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Cole Hamels, Andrew McCutchen and many other top of the line stars as well as any number of guys like Adam Lind or Jean Machi or Coco Crisp or who have you. And most of the guys coming up from the minors to replace them aren’t going to be the young, top-of-the-line, almost-ML-ready players- because most of them are going to be in the military as well- but 35 year old career minor leaguers with 5 kids or baby faced kids of 17 or 18.
I know people have looked at this- and not just on this site- and figured that discounting performance by 10% give or take a little is sufficient. I’m not seeing that at all.
Hank Greenberg. Bob Feller. Ted Williams. Yogi Berra. Al Dark. Joe Gordon. Dom DiMaggio. Larry Doby. Jackie Robinson (OK so the latter 2 wouldn’t have been playing MLB. But still…). Gil Hodges. Stan Musial. Charlie Keller. Ralph Kiner. Cecil Travis. Johnny Pesky. Mickey Vernon. Tommy Henrich. Buddy Lewis Ferris Fain. Hank Bauer. Virgil Trucks.
And on and on and on and on.
And in their place the 1944 American League champions trotted out a one-armed outfielder to play in half of their games the following season and still only finished 6 games back in 3rd.
Seriously. Look at that list of players. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Now remove a comparable list of players from today’s rosters for 3 years and replace them with a bunch of career AAAA players. How much better would the remaining top of the line players look going up against that level of competition vs. what they faced before and after?
OK, so who did I forget?
Here’s the complete list:
http://www.baseballinwartime.com/those_who_served/those_who_served_atoz.htm
Johnny Mize.
Let’s just do the shortstops.
In addition to Pesky, Dark and Travis others who were starters just before or just after they went into the service or, in most cases, both: PeeWee Reese, Luke Appling, Phil Rizzuto, Granny Hamner, Dick Bartell, Billy Cox, Jerry Priddy, Bobby Bragan, Sibby Sisti, Billy Hitchcock, Roy Smalley Sr.. And let’s not forget Arky Vaughan who didn’t go into the army but still left baseball at 31 years of age after a 5+ WAR season.
So we have a 16 team league and you remove guys like Reese, Appling, Rizzuto, Vaughan, Travis, Pesky, and several others at or near their prime, replace them with with a bunch of has beens and never were’s and expect me to believe that these guys are only 10% worse that what Boudreau had been up against before?
No wonder so many Hall of Fame voters thought that Marty Marion was a Hall of Famer. For three years there it must have been like watching Babe Ruth himself play in a Babe Ruth league.
Gus Zernial. Eddie Yost. Gene Woodling. Dick Wakefield. Earl Torgeson. Elmer Valo. Bobby Thompson. Birdie Tebbetts. Enos Slaughter.
And on and on and on.
Those are just the names that I recognized. I may have missed some.
Hartvig: your intuition about the skill drop is correct, what I believe you’re misinterpreting is what that 10% figure meant. But you have a lot of company.
I had to read that saber article from 2004ish (where the “10%” figure comes from) through and study it very carefully before I understood the answer to a crucial question: “10% of what?”
What most people here seem to be assuming is that it means 10% of player’s WAR or WAA value, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would we penalize good players more than average players? And why would we give a *bonus* to players with negative WAR or WAA??
What it actually meant is that the average total run expectancy of the players put out during the peak of wartime was about 10% less than it would have been. Not the difference between some players and average or replacement — we’re talking about the difference between average and *zero*. And that amount needs to be shaved off of *every* player’s WAA. It would also need to be shaved off of WAR, but bRef has already reduced rRep somewhat during those years, so only the difference needs to be shaved off of WAR.
I detailed the calculations a number of ballots ago, but I worked out that a fair hit would be around 7 runs per 650 PA, so about .85 WAA for a full year of play. bRef already adjusted rRep by about 3 runs per 650 PA, so I used .5 WAR per 650 PAs.
{{The math says the league before and after the war averaged about 4.5 runs per game per team, and about 42 PAs per game. 10% of 4.5 is .45 runs, over 42 PAs == .0107 runs per PA difference which is 6.96 runs per 650 PAs. In an 8.1 runs per game scoring environment that is worth .85 wins. }}
The difference ends up looking small as a percentage (but generally larger than 10%) when we consider guys who are COG candidates, because they were so much better than average whether during the war or not.
OTOH, someone who was an average player during the war years would get their WAR cut roughly in half by this adjustment, so it’s pretty steep when you are considering the overall mass of players. Someone who was a weak all star level (2 WAA/4 WAR) would get their WAA nearly cut in half as well.
I make no assertions about whether this level of play difference is accurate, only that I’m using the results of what looks to me like a pretty good attempt to estimate it with the data we currently have.
What I feel quite sure of is that if you take that article’s findings as given, my adjustment (or something very close to it) is the right way to adjust for the level of play difference. If anyone doesn’t think so and has a coherent objection I’d like to hear it.
Video of Pete Gray in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UG6bxkq5L4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQCbQ0v8-Eo
I think it is important to note that Wins Above Replacement during 1942-1945, as calculated by baseball-reference, are already significantly discounted to reflect the decline in talent level. So discounting WAR below what b-ref is coming up with may be double-counting to the detriment of those who played during the war. See http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml: “Now for some leagues the competition was not that good, so the replacement runs multiplier will be smaller as the average player is worse relative to the replacement player, but this is really only a case when looking at pre-World War I seasons and the World War II seasons. For example, we view the average player in the 1884 Union Association (the weakest major league by a wide margin) as a replacement level player, so the multiplier is zero for that league.”
Looking at Boudreau’s WWII numbers confuses the heck out of me. The two years before the war, he had 65 and 63 extra base hits.
You might think that he’d be able to at least maintain that level during WWII, given all the quality pitchers that were gone. But he wasn’t. In 1942, his XBHs plummeted to 30, less than half of what they were before. The following years he had 42, 53, and 28 XBHs, with that latter total coming in 97 games (a pace of 44 XBHs in a full season).
The three years after WWII he had 42, 52, and 58 XBHs.
So 1943 was the year of the infamous balata ball, though they changed the composition of the ball pretty quickly once they realized the drastic negative effects on hitting. But what the heck happened the other years? Why wasn’t he able to maintain his XBH level against inferior pitching?
No responses.
I guess it confuses the heck out of everybody.
Until 1946 the Indians split their home games between Cleveland Stadium and League Park. Maybe in certain years the proportions of games played at each park had something to do with it. I don’t know if one park was much harder to hit in than the other.
This doesn’t really answer the question, but extra-base hits were down from 1942-45 throughout the majors. Here’s a list of XBH/GP for the majors as a whole:
1939: 2.64
1940: 2.67
1941: 2.47
1942: 2.15
1943: 2.07
1944: 2.21
1945: 2.12
1946: 2.24
1947: 2.38
1948: 2.45
1949: 2.44
Richard @ 214 beat me to the playing in 2 parks but maybe I can still add a little to that. Bill James mentions in his first HBA that Boudreau only hit 16 home runs at home when he was with the Indians but 46 on the road those years. He also mentions that they played in old League Park during the week and Cleveland Stadium- which he describes as “cavernous”- on weekends.
That still doesn’t explain why his extra base hits went down during WW2, especially since ballparks with spacious outfields tend to lend themselves to line drive hitters
Regarding fewer XBH in the wars years-1) the great power hitters had to serve–they were too visible to continue to play. 2)I wonder whether thinner rosters and the paucity of decent benches led players to be more cautious on the base-paths.
Thanks for the responses!
Boudreau definitely hit more XBHs in League Park (1 per 11.1 PAs) than he did in Cleveland Stadium (1 per 18.0 PAs). But for some reason, in 1942, he only mananged 2 XBHs in 115 PAs in League Park, well below his career average.
Anyway, one factor I hadn’t considered is that 1942 was his first year managing. Maybe his numbers suffered because of his extra responsibilities?
When I looked, it appeared to me that WAR was discounted only a little, and WAA not at all.
Bref has noted that the difference between average and replacement shrunk some, and does not give as much credit for IP/PA in rRep. But they do not correct for distance from average at all — if the league as a whole was worse, this is not being discounted in bWAR.
Roberto Alomar, Joe Gordon, Roy Campanella
Killer, Murray, Eck
This election is turning into what could be a barn burner (a phrase presumably taken from the general excitement and attention in a farm community when a local barn is on fire). Four candidates at the top with between 18 and 21 votes.
birtelcom @170–Barnburner also has a historical link-anti-slavery/free-soil/anti-state action New York State faction of the Democratic Party in the late 1840s/50s. A little out there, they would supposedly “burn the barn down” in order to get the rats (corruption/slavery) out. I guess a precursor to the Viet Nam era “burn the village down in order to save it.” Now, back to baseball. I’m still conflicted on Killer–I think it’s hard for people who didn’t grow up in that era to understand how remarkable (8 times 40+ HRS, 6 times leading league, 573 HRs) was at the time. 500 HR’s was a mountain only the greatest sluggers climbed. In hindsight, mostly fairly, we say he wasn’t much of a fielder or baserunner, and are less impressed by his HR, in part because in the era of steroids and smaller parks, there were so many HRs hit. But, in his time, he was one of the few.
I’ll grant that Killebrew was a better HR hitter than Eddie Murray – Murray is probably the “worst” HR hitter among the 500 HR club, having the fewest HRs and the 2nd most games, PAs, and ABs (to Aaron).
But looking in context of their times, is Killebrew a more impressive HR hitter than Murray? Only 4 players (Ruth, Foxx, Ott, and Williams) started their careers before 1950 and finished with 500+ HRs. The last of those was Williams who began in 1939.
From 1951-1959, a span of 9 years, 8 players would begin their careers and hit 500+ HR. Willie, Mickey, Eddie, Henry, Ernie, Frank, Harmon, and Stretch Willie.
Between 1960-1985, only 3 players began their careers and hit 500+ HRs. Reggie (1967), Michael Jack (1972), and Steady Eddie (1977).
From 1986-1994, another span of 9 years, 10 players would begin their careers and hit 500+ HR. Big Mac, Barry, Raffy, Sheff, Sammy, Griffey, Big Hurt, Thome, Manny, and A-Rod.
After that it is just Pujols (2001), though I suppose Ortiz (1997) and Beltre (1998) have some chance to reach 500+ HRs and they started before Pujols.
But look at those breakdowns:
1914-1950: 4 players (it’s possible that more would be in this group if not for WWII – who knows what Greenberg or Mize would have done without missing time, and those guys were basically COG locks so I don’t think we spent too much time really trying to figure it out)
1951-1959: 8 players
1960-1985: 3 players
1986-1994: 10 players
1994-2013: 1 player (and counting)
It seems like the breakpoints in years for creating groups are fairly natural, at least to me.
I think because Murray played in the 1990s we tend to lump him in with the 1990s, but he’s not a 1990s player. He’s a 1970s-1980s player. From 1973-1985 he is the only player to begin a career and hit 500+ HRs, and he’s starting near the middle of that time frame. Yes, Killebrew hit a lot of HRs, but so did other players in his era. As I’ve mentioned at times in other posts, while run scoring was down, HR rates throughout much of the 1960s were not – they were higher than any other period in history up to that point in time (with some exceptions like 1968), and higher than any that would follow until the late 1980s (I think in 1986-1987 HR rates jumped above those that generally occurred in Killebrew’s era).
When Murray retired after 1997, McGwire was the closest player to him and he only had 387 HRs. Now, looking at the BBref leaderboard it doesn’t look like the progressive active leaders were that far apart – Murray had 504 HR after 1997, McGwire had 457 after 1998, but Big Mac hit 70 HR in 1998 to close that gap. Looking at those progressive active leaderboards, from 1990-1992 the active leaders in HRs were Dewey and Murray (379), Winfield (406), and Winfield (432). Forget about 379 HRs – the last time the active leader had less than Winfield’s 432 HRs was 1956 when Ted Williams had 418. The late 1940s-early 1950s, likely because of WWII, are the only period in history since Ruth during which the active leader was as low as the late 1980s.
I suppose that’s a long-winded way of saying that I think Killebrew is overrated in terms of HRs, because HR hitting in his time is higher than people believe it to be, and Murray is underrated, because HR hitting in his era is lower than people believe it to be.
That’s fine and dandy, but see Richard Chester @133. Killer has a 14 point OPS+ lead on Murray, 143 to 129. If you go down 14 points from Murray, here’s the active players currently at 115:
Granderson
McCann
Swisher
Pedroia
So from an OPS standpoint, the difference between Killebrew & Murray is equivalent to the difference between Murray and Nick Swisher. (FWIW, Robin Yount and Gary Carter are at that same 115 OPS+ number).
Murray was undoubtedly better in numerous other aspects of the game, but when you just look at hitting (and especially for power), Killebrew has a big lead.
Anyway, the argument about “there were a lot of power hitters in that era” is strange. It’s like saying Willie Wilson’s stolen bases don’t count as much because his career overlapped with Henderson and Raines and Coleman. What does that have to do with anything?
Okay, a couple of things –
1) OPS+ is already a rate stat, so it’s a bit misleading/inaccurate to doubly use it to rate guys. Like, it’s not accurate to say someone who has a 130 OPS+ is twice as better than average than someone who has a 115 OPS+. You’re not exactly saying that, but you are using an equivalent ‘distance’ in the numbers to make a point about where players fall. But I would contend that there’s a smaller difference in skill between two guys that are clearly above average (as a difference between 143 and 129 would suggest) than between someone clearly above average (Murray) and someone with a lot more ‘above-average-but-still-common’ numbers like anyone with an OPS+ of 115. Not to mention that it’s also misleading to compare retired guys with active guys for rate stats, as the active guys are likely to see their stats fall as their career goes down. Swisher et al will more than likely get closer to 100 than to Murray as their careers go on. Otherwise you could make the case that Joey Votto (OPS+ of 154) is almost as much better than Killebrew than Killebrew is to Murray.
2) In short, yeah he has a higher OPS+ but so what? That’s really valuable, but it’s quite out of context. For instance, two retired guys that sit higher than Killebrew with an OPS+ of 144 are Lance Berkman and Albert Belle. I don’t see anyone making a case for them for the CoG (well Berkman is too young, but I really can’t see it). Dick Allen leads Killebrew in OPS+ by 12 points and although he had his dogged supporters here, he hasn’t gotten any traction in Redemption, let alone being at the top of the ballot like Killer. McGwire has an OPS+ of 163! Obviously Killer played 600-700 more games than McGwire or Allen respectively, so that context would make me penalize their rate stats, but for me that would maybe bring Allen down to a level comparable with Killer and leave McGwire still clearly above.
So, genuine question for Killebrew voters touting OPS+ – why would you vote for him over McGwire or Allen? Is it just that you would adjust their value down more than I would for that 6-700 game gap? To bring McGwire down below Killer, that’s about 4 points of OPS+ per 100 games. What about, then, Gary Sheffield? OPS+ of 140 and played 140 more games than Killebrew. Why would you vote for Killer over him? I don’t even know if Sheffield got a vote, let alone stay on the ballot or win it.
These aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m honestly trying to understand the perspective here on a stats level, because I’m (obviously, from my methodology) a fan of omnibus stats that go beyond just ‘hitting as a rate stat’. I don’t get it, but I want to try to.
bells @ 197 –
Sheffield has never received a vote in a regular voting round; the only time he’s appeared on the ballot was the very first (1968) election, and he was shut out. I don’t recall how he’s done in the redemption rounds, but he’s certainly never been a serious contendor.
“From 1951-1959, a span of 9 years, 8 players would begin their careers and hit 500+ HR. Willie, Mickey, Eddie, Henry, Ernie, Frank, Harmon, and Stretch Willie.”
Seven of the eight are in the Circle of Greats.
In light of the birtelcomment (do you see what I did their? Yeah you do!) above, it’s probably time for another update. This is through PP’s vote @167:
21 (36.84%) – Lou Boudreau
20 (35.09%) – Harmon Killebrew
19 (33.33%) – Joe Gordon
18 (31.58%) – Dennis Eckersley
13 (22.81%) – Roberto Alomar
11 (19.30%) – Kevin Brown
10 (17.54%) – Minnie Minoso
9 (15.79%) – Roy Campanella, Joe Medwick, Eddie Murray, Rick Reuschel
8 (14.04%) – Luis Tiant
7 (12.28%) – Dizzy Dean, Dave Winfield
1 (1.75%) – Schoolboy Rowe
Quite the race this round.
57 votes counted and four players still in the running.
Through 59 votes, and including the vote change @ 173, the leaders are now:
21 Boudreau
20 Gordon, Killebrew
18 Eckersley
16 Alomar
All the other holdovers are over 8 votes.
Alomar – Gordon – Dean
Alomar
Murray
Winfield
Happy Birthdays to the twins from Donora PA – Stan Musial and Junior Griffey. Can it really be a Happy Birthday for someone deceased or merely the anniversary of one’s birth?
I am really having trouble seeing any candidate as better than Joe Gordon on this ballot. I don’t even think it’s particularly close!
Since all the “bubble” candidates seem safe:
– For The Win: Harmon ‘pay attention to my OPS+, not my BA’ Killebrew
– Roberto Alomar, for another round of cushion before the deadball era greats overwhelm the COG ballot
– Favorite Son: Schoolboy Rowe, excellent hitter for a pitcher
Schoolboy Rowe is the only pitcher to hit a GS while a member of a team in each league.
For those who don’t know, and haven’t followed the previous couple of months’ discussions, Lou Boudreau was a player/manager at age 24.
Won a WS in that role at age 29,
while having one of the best years ever by a Shortstop,
while as manager was dealing with integration (Larry Doby) in the midwest.
_____
And for his career of 7000 PA, was more effective through 7000 PA than anyone else on our ballot:
(Plate Appearances divided by Wins Above Average)
PaWaa7000:
166.0 … Boudreau
176.2 … Gordon (6537)
236.2 … Murray
237.4 … Minoso
254.4 … Killebrew
And of course, Gordon lost 2+ years of peak to the War…
Dave Winfield, Dizzy Dean, Joe Gordon
I believe THIS vote puts us in a 3-way tie for first among Boudreau, Gordon, and Killebrew. Yowza.
And this is supposed to be the “off-season”. Not here.
With the current 3-way tie, at least one of Boudreau, Gordon, and Killebrew have been named on 47 of 61 ballots, as follows:
14 Killebrew only
10 Boudreau only
8 Gordon only
8 Boudreau and Gordon
4 Killebrew and Gordon
2 Boudreau and Killbrew
1 all three
For the 1910 Part 2 election, I’m voting for:
-Roberto Alomar
-Eddie Murray
-Dave Winfield
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Eckersley
-Killebrew
-Brown
-Boudreau
-Gordon
-Reuschel
-Tiant
-Medwick
Killebrew is a funny guy to consider in light of the ‘advanced stats age’ – he’s overvalued in an ‘old school stats’ perspective from just having the flashy HR total, but undervalued in the sense of OPS being sort of underrated in his time. Either way, as you might tell from my comment @197, I’m still far from convinced of his worthiness. I value Gordon and Boudreau both over him, so I’m gonna change my vote. From
Reuschel, Tiant, Boudreau
to
Gordon, Tiant, Boudreau
mosc, I saw you comment way back that you had Boudreau among your top 3 but weren’t voting for him because you wanted Gordon to win, and also that you didn’t get the Killebrew love. If you’d consider dropping Campy and adding Boudreau, we might find common cause. I’m happy with either pulling it out over Killer, and would support Gordon in the future if Boudreau won.
Killebrew vs Gordon:
Gordon had 6537 PA.
And missed 2+ years of peak to the war.
So here’s Gordon’s entire career vs Killebrew’s Peak 6700 PA.
From the time he became a regular, 1959 to 1969:
57.1 WAR 37.1 WAA / 41.4 oWAR 22.4 dWAR
50.0 WAR 28.8 WAA / 58.1 oWAR -13.0 dWAR
Runs
914
962
Hits
1530
1463
XBH
569 … (264/52/253)
657 … (203/19/435)
RBI
975 .(batting 5th, 6th, 7th)
1118 (batting 3rd and 4th)
Slash
.268 .357 .466 .822 120
.264 .383 .543 .927 153
_________
Voomo, gotta say I always enjoy the multiple stats breakdowns you do in pretty much every thread.
For this one, it makes it really clear where the difference value lies. If you want to make a case for Killebrew it rests nearly entirely on OPS+ and its components, namely getting on base and hitting for power. Killer was good at that, for sure. but Gordon was almost as good in any category other than HRs (and his OBP is .025 lower), and he was a second baseman. To me that more than makes up for the differences, even if one is somewhat skeptical of straight-up dWAR. I just can’t explain away that gulf in WAA in any way that makes me feel satisfied with the selection of Killebrew. And that’s not even giving any war credit, which makes the difference immense in my mind.
I definitely value long careers too; but as has been stated on the thread already, Murray is a superior candidate in that regard in most categories. I’d argue that someone like Palmeiro is too. And hey, I mentioned Gary Sheffield upthread – plugging him into my spreadsheet as if he were on the ballot, he gets a cumulative ranking of 37, whereas Killebrew would get a 39 with Sheff on the ballot. Sheff is an interesting comp, in that he has the exact same WAR and JAWS as Killer, with an advantage of 2 WAA. But I just can’t fathom how Killebrew is on the verge of being elected after umpteen rounds, and Sheffield never received a single vote, even though he was on the first (and therefore least deep) ballot.
Bells #201 – That first vote, where Sheffield was completely shut out – featured 4 candidates (Piazza, Bagwell, Thomas, and Mussina) who were clearly superior to anyone on the current ballot (plus Robbie Alomar). Throw in PEDs allegations, poor attitude, potentially committing errors on purpose, and I don’t think it’s that surprising that Sheffield received 0 votes.
BTW, I notice you made the final comment that round but never actually voted? 🙂
And looking back, how disappointing was it that the first winner (Piazza) was announced with the completely pedestrian headline: “Circle of Greats: 1968 Results”?
HAHA! Good point about that headline! No “COG-light on the Piazza” or “COG Voters Throw a Piazza Party” or something I’m sure much more clever than that. Funny.
I was going to say something about that, too, but I forgot. The #6 newcomer, which Sheffield probably/possibly was, has NEVER done well. Plus, how good was ANYONE at strategic voting at that point. We, as a voting bloc, were learning too in that first round! Knowing what we know now, I doubt Sheff would get shut out. There would’ve been a MUCH greater push to get him to 10%, because nowadays we mostly favor the breadth of players. Look back at those results: THREE guys topped 40 votes … while John Olerud (2), Sammy Sosa (1) and Gary Sheffield (0) combined for roughly the same number of votes as Hideo Nomo (1) and Matt Stairs (1). Yeah… we’ve changed quite a bit.
That round, there were nine legitimate contenders, I would argue: Bagwell, Piazza, Thomas, Alomar, Mussina, Olerud, Sheffield, Sosa, and the as-yet-unmentioned Jeff Kent. 61 voters put 40+ votes to each of Piazza, Bagwell, and Thomas. THIS VERY ROUND we’ve had 62 voters, a similar number of top-flight candidates (perhaps even FEWER), and look at the leaders: they’re in the low-20s. I just think we were VERY different voters back in the day, and you can’t assume that those patterns have ANYTHING to do with what we’re doing now.
Doom: Also the rules were different at that point.
1) Extra rounds of eligibility were only gained based on getting 50+% of vote (the 25% rule wasn’t in effect yet).
2) Otherwise you stayed on the ballot by being one of the top 8 non-winning vote getters or getting 20% of the vote. (now of course, it’s top 9 or 10%).
3) The ability to make vote changes went into effect in the 1967 election (based on a suggestion you made). Which meant that very first election, people were locked in once they voted.
And of course, at that point, no one had any stored up eligibility which limited strategic voting.
re: last comment on the first round but no vote – I was shy back then. I didn’t think I knew enough about baseball to be qualified to comment, pretty much. That might have been my first post on HHS, and look at me now, trying to rally torch-and-pitchfork-wielding crowds to surround the home of nice guy Harmon Killebrew and demand answers as to why he’s getting so much support. Things have changed since those heady days…
In the interest of fairness I checked Killebrew’s 70 & 71 seasons to see if adding in the 2 missed seasons would effect the comparison since it likely would have given Gordon at least another 1200 PA’s or more. It doesn’t appear that it would have- at least if we were to discount Gordon’s playing against inferior competition. I also did some checking into Gordon’s time in the military. It appears he spent virtually all of his time in the service in California or Hawaii as an organizer of intramural sports- primarily baseball- so it also doesn’t appear that his service time can be blamed for his subpar 1946 season.
That said it would still appear- to me at least- that in a head to head comparison Gordon is the superior player.
Killebrew was a better home run hitter. And that’s not inconsequential- 40+ home runs a year had a pretty substantial impact back in the 1960’s. He was also better at getting on base.
But Gordon was no slouch in either of those 2 categories himself. He was in the top 10 in the league in home runs 9 times, twice finishing as high as second. He had the most career home runs by a second baseman until Joe Morgan came along. He also finished as high as second in the league in walks in a season.
And in every other aspect of the game Gordon wins hands down.
I can see the case for Killebrew belonging in the COG but I can’t see how he’s as deserving as Gordon.
Gordon’s power stood out as a 2B bagger in his era.
He played from 1938 to 1950.
Taking ten years on either side, from 1928 – 1960.
Home Runs by Second Baseman:
253 … Gordon
223 … Doerr
179 … Gehringer
142 … Lazzeri
137 … Jackie Robinson
94 …. Cuccinello
84 …. Rogers Hornsby
81 …. Schoedinist
80 …. Bobby Avila
64 …. Frank Boling
_______
Slugging Percentage
Minimum 4000 PA:
.489 … Gehringer
.474 … Jackie
.466 … Gordon
.465 … Lazzeri
.461 … Doerr
.416 … Frisch
.410 … Buddy Myer
________
And then there’s defense.
Here’s Fielding Runs:
150.0 .. Gordon
103.7 .. Fox
83.9 … Red S
81.1 … Jackie
74.0 … Hughie Critz
58.0 … Snuffy
57.0 … Lonny Frey
He also hit all those homers as a Righthander based in The Bronx and Cleveland.
.482 SLG Road
.447 SLG Home
Yankee Stadium was notoriously tough on righties, as Gordon’s exact contemporary Joe DiMaggio’s splits attest.
But Cleveland Stadium was just a gigantic hole.
435 to the power alleys and
470 to center
http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/ClevelandStadium.html
And this diagram of the Polo Grounds makes me go crosseyed:
http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/PoloGrounds.html
Comparison of Joe Gordon to Bobby Doerr.
At Fenway Park:
Gordon, 1 HR per 18 PA
Doerr, 1 HR per 28 PA
At Yankee Stadium:
Gordon, 1 HR per 29 PA
Doerr, 1 HR per 186 PA
Nice Richard! Eye opening.
Never done this before-
***VOTE CHANGE***
FROM
Murray
Reuschel
WINFIELD
TO
Murray
Reuschel
KILLEBREW
Vote update now that all votes are locked in. This one takes us through donburgh @203, in what continues to be a tight race through 62 ballots cast:
22 (35.48%) – Joe Gordon, Harmon Killebrew
21 (33.87%) – Lou Boudreau
18 (29.03%) – Roberto Alomar, Dennis Eckersley
11 (17.74%) – Kevin Brown
10 (16.13%) – Minnie Minoso, Eddie Murray
9 (14.52%) – Roy Campanella, Dizzy Dean, Joe Medwick, Dave Winfield
8 (12.90%) – Rick Reuschel, Luis Tiant
2 (3.23%) – Schoolboy Rowe
Everyone should be safe this round; I doubt we’ll get 19 voters in the next two days.
The top continues to be tight, and Boudreau (who for a while was in first) finds himself a vote back of Gordon and Killebrew.
In fact, if the next 3-4 voters really dislike Boudreau, Gordon, and Killebrew, even Alomar and Eck could still (theoretically) be in this thing, though I simply can’t see that as a realistic possibility at this point. Still, the two of them have locked up an extra round, so there’s that.
Eck definitely has the most support he’s ever gotten.
As of Wednesday morning, Tiant had 9 votes; since then, David P took one away, and no one else has voted for him; he’s moved the wrong way!
Well, late voters, we’ve left you quite a mess this week. Good luck sorting it all out!
I agree with hartvig @202. Gordon deserves a slight, but distinct edge over Killer. I’d rather see him (and Boudreau) go in before. In a close election, a vote for all three just neuters the ballot. One problem I’m having is that I don’t love the rest of the players.
I’m going all middle infield–Gordon, Boudreau, and Alomar. To quote the Sheriff of Nottingham to Bugs Bunny in “Rabbit Hood”, “I shall probably hateth myself in the morning”
Alomar, Murray, Winfield
I think Gordon and Boudreau probably deserve induction, but not just yet.
Killebrew, Murray & Winfield
Murray, Alomar, Winfield
Last day voting update!!! This is through The Diamond King @224, aka 66 votes:
23 (34.85%) – Joe Gordon, Harmon Killebrew
22 (33.33%) – Lou Boudreau
21 (31.82%) – Roberto Alomar
18 (27.27%) – Dennis Eckersley
13 (19.70%) – Eddie Murray
12 (18.18%) – Dave Winfield
11 (16.67%) – Kevin Brown
10 (15.15%) – Minnie Minoso
9 (13.64%) – Roy Campanella, Dizzy Dean, Joe Medwick
8 (12.12%) – Rick Reuschel, Luis Tiant
2 (3.03%) – Schoolboy Rowe
This is SERIOUSLY tight. Alomar, as it turns out, HAS made a run for it. Gordon and Killebrew are tied at the top; Boudreau a vote back, and Alomar a vote back of him.
Last day voters, you can: a) put us in a run-off; b) help us avoid a runoff; c) put us in a three-way (or FOUR-WAY) run-off. Yikes. Do that thing you do! I imagine there are only 4-6 of you left. What are you going to do?
I know we’ve had a few 2-way races this close on the final day and maybe even a 3-way (or 2)- anyone remember any 4-way races this close on the last day of voting?
I don’t.
In fact I’m not even positive that any of the 3-way races were this close on the last day.
In 1937-1 Rivera beat Perry & Marichal by 2 votes. I didn’t go back to see how close it was going into that last day however.
In 1952-2 Molitor rather famously won by being named on something like 5 straight ballots at the end but when I go back and check he was 2 votes ahead for a couple of days prior to the final day when he proceeded to pull away and win with 29 votes. But right behind him were Gwynn, Raines, Whitaker and Trammell with 24-23-22-21 votes respectively and all of whom except Whitaker were themselves enshrined within 5 elections.
Looking back I’m fairly amazed to find that prior to that last day we had gone over 36 hours without a vote being cast or even a single comment being made.
Going into the last day of the 1929 election there was a 3-way tie for first (Banks, Marichal, and Santo, with Grich only 2 behind them) that was broken by the final vote, which gave Santo the nod:
http://www.highheatstats.com/2014/03/circle-of-greats-1929-balloting/
http://www.highheatstats.com/2014/03/cog-1929-vote-results-santos-on-his-way/
Happy 74th birthday, Luis Tiant!!! Somehow, I don’t think that there will be a last-day push to get him into the COG on his birthday today. 🙂
But then again maybe that’s why birtelcom selected today as the deadline date. 🙂
Since my usual cause, Mr. Murray, has an extra round of eligibility, I feel I can vote my conscience, here.
K. Brown
L. Boudreau
J. Gordon
Boudreau, Tiant, Eckersley
Just a reminder, if anyone’s left to vote: you get to decide it. Gordon and Boudreau tied at 24; Killebrew at 23. Alomar is probably out of it at this point, needing a flurry at the eleventh hour, as he’s still at 21. Excited to see how it goes!
Could we be looking at a runoff?
For those who don’t recall our last runoff, it’s one vote, for one of the tied players, held concurrently with the next COG round.
Didn’t holding the votes concurrently cause a bit of confusion before? I thought we switched to a four (or so) day run-off held before the next vote.
Given the Gordon-Boudreau debate that happened when both came on the ballot (one representing missed war credit, the other representing the idea of downward adjustment for those who played through the war), it would be fitting for them to go to a head-to-head.
I’m definitely surprised Alomar has made this late run; I have him in my top 5 for sure at this point, but haven’t considered voting for him since he has an extra round and seemingly wasn’t a threat to win anytime soon. Definitely will keep that in mind for future elections.
Bells – Actually there’s a more significant reason for having them go head to head. Boudreau was Gordon’s manager, teammate and double-play partner for 4 seasons. And of course they won a World Series together in ’48.
The Ryan-Rose Runoff (®?) was held nearly simultaneously with 1940.1; see comments there:
http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/10/circle-of-greats-1940-part-1-balloting
Yes, that one was. I believe the Santo runoff was handled differently, however, with a short runoff round. My understanding is that a potential (but unlikely) runoff would be handled in the second fashion
Santo was never in a runoff, I think you’re referring to the Smoltz/Snider runoff (1924).
You are correct. Too many Ss.
woohoo, looks like I may get to decide it this time.
Turns out that I think I probably put both of the top 2 in, as well as Alomar. But one vote won’t do it for him and he’s pretty much locked into 25%.
It would be very interesting to have a direct runoff between Boudreau and Gordon — battle of the wartime infielders — war credit versus scab!
I could potentially achieve this result by voting for both or neither.
There’s really nothing else to consider, as nobody is close to the 10% or 25% lines. It would take 11 more ballots to drop anyone, and it would take 7 more ballot to drop Eck below 25%, and everybody else above it now would need more. Nobody else could hit 25% with only a few more votes.
So the only thing that matters is who wins.
My three best candidates on this ballot are Brown, Alomar and Reuschel. I have Gordon close and over Boudreau by a nose. But I have both in, and my primary interest is in more COG threads… so a runoff would be interesting.
tick tock tick tock
My vote is:
Brown,
Alomar,
…
…
Gordon
Psyche!
MS @ 243 –
It was your vote that decided the 1929 election, which otherwise would have featured a 3-way runoff. So I guess you’re making a habit of casting deciding votes?
I guess. What I am doing intentionally is looking for leverage. Either waiting for the last minute, or, when I can, spotting an opportunity to build momentum for something I’d like to see.
I went back and looked at the 1929 thread. At the time, I don’t think I realized it would be the last and deciding vote — I cast it at 7pm and I can tell by what I wrote that I expected there would be a few more votes. I just wanted Santo in.
Waiting till the last minute has certainly had it’s successes (Not just the two deciding votes, but a number of times I helped a candidate I like get an extra round, keep one, or stay on the ballot), but I’ve also watched a number of times as the voting went to a place where no way I could vote would affect anything I cared about.
Medwick
Killebrew
Winfield
Glad I decided to call it, otherwise paget would have snuck killebrew into that runoff at the last minute.
Although I guess I could have insulated against one Killer vote by voting for both Boudreau and Gordon, instead of neither.
Boudreau, Alomar, Brown
What an exciting, down-to-the-wire round of voting!
A runoff between Boudreau and Gordon would have been fun, with their cases so intertwined. Glad to see Eckersley finally get off the bubble (maybe Tiant can do so before 1903) and maybe Alomar can build some momentum after waiting SO MANY rounds.
Well played all.
Are we due a Redemption Round election? Seems like it’s been awhile.
I thought so too Bstar but it looks like the last one was held along with the 1914 round. So if I’ve counted correctly the next one will be held along with 1907, Part 2.
Yes, that’s exactly right — the next redemption round is planned to happen along with the 1907-part 2 round (Round 81). I’m thinking about maybe breaking the next redemption round into two parts. The first would bring back two candidates from the baby-boom birth years 1946 and later; the second would bring back two candidates from the birth years 1945 and earlier. One would run along with Round 81 and the other would run along with Round 82.
The post for the next round, along with the results post for this round, will be up later today.
I vote yea to the idea of separate Redemption Rounds.
I vote “yay!” to the new COG posts going up today.