Whitey Ford may have been the most avidly discussed candidate we’ve had in the Circle of Greats voting, but he has ultimately prevailed, in his 25th round on the COG eligible list. Ford becomes the 76th inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Whitey, and the voting, after the jump.
The great debate over Whitey Ford arises from subjecting some spectacular traditional rate statistics that Ford put together over his career to adjustments proposed by more recent statistical approaches, which seem to suggest a more moderate interpretation of Ford’s accomplishments. Whitey pitched for a dominant team, with some very good fielders behind him, and he did apparently pitch against a collection of hitters and teams that were not, on the whole, as competitive as the opposition many other top pitchers had to face over their careers. Exactly how much of an adjustment to make for these factors is open to debate, but Ford’s high standing in the realm of old-fashioned rate stats, such as win-loss percentage and ERA, remains extremely impressive, even if those stats measure reflect in part more than a purely personal accomplishment.
Highest Pitcher Career Win-Loss Percentage (min. 1,500 IP, debuted in the majors since 1900):
1. Whitey Ford .690 (236-106)
2. Pedro Martinez .687 (219-100
3. Lefty Grove .680 (300-141)
4. Vic Raschi .667 (132-66)
5. Christy Mathewson .665 (373-188)
Best Career ERA+ (min. 250 starts, debuted in the majors in the past 100 years):
1. Pedro Martinez 154
2. Lefty Grove 148
3. Roger Clemens 143
4. Johan Santana 136
5. Randy Johnson 135
6. Whitey Ford 133
7. Greg Maddux 132
T8. Sandy Koufax and Roy Halladay 131
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The Yankees won every single one of the first 22 starts of Whitey Ford’s career, actually 23 if you count the post-season. That may be as unlikely a streak in its way as DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak, if you think about what it means to come up to the majors and start winning immediately, without having the team lose even once. When I query the Baseball-Reference Play Index, the second-longest regular season streak I get of this type — team wins in pitching starts from the beginning of a major league career — is eight games, a level reached by eleven different pitchers but topped only by Whitey. So that’s a 22-game streak for the longest such streak and eight games for the second-longest such streak.
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Notes on this round’s voting:
–Ford appeared on 31 ballots. That’s nine more votes than he had received in any of his 24 previous rounds on the eligible list.
— This round was a good one for the guys who already had the most accumulated rounds of assured ballot eligibility. Ford has been the candidate with the largest stash of accumulated rounds — he’s now won the big prize. Harmon Killebrew has been second in terms of accumulated eligibility rounds, and he finished second this round, well over the 25% level that gives him another round of assured eligibility for his pile. Lou Boudreau and Joe Gordon have been tied for third in terms of most accumulated eligibility, and they were the other two candidates who mustered more than 25% support this round, further adding to their high standing.
–Dizzy Dean did not get a huge amount of support in his birth-year-based debut on the eligible list, but it was enough to remain eligible at least another round.
–With Ford, a longtime holdover, now safely in the Circle, with all the other holdovers generating at least enough support to remain, and with Dizzy replacing Whitey on the holdover list, the length of that list remains stable at fourteen players.
–The number of candidates “on the bubble”, at immediate risk of losing eligibility for the ballot should they fall below the 10% support level, is now up to six, as Dean joins Minoso, Eckersley, Tiant, Winfield and Medwick in this highest-risk group.
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The full spreadsheet showing this round’s vote tally is here: COG 1910 Part 1 Vote Tally.
The vote summary for recent Circle of Greats voting rounds is here: COG Vote Summary 2 . An archive with details of the 1968 through 1939 rounds is here: COG 1968-1939 Vote Summary . In both cases, raw vote totals for each past round appear on Sheet 1 and the percentage totals for each past round appear on Sheet 2.
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A spreadsheet listing the full membership to date of the Circle of Greats, along with some of their stats, is here: Circle of Greats Membership . You can also find that same link any time by clicking on “Circle of Greats” at the top of the High Heats Stats home page.
Another COG data spreadsheet showing each season a COG member played in the majors, along with the team he played for that season and his baseball-reference WAR (overall WAR for everyday players, pitching WAR for pitchers) for the season, is here:
Circle of Greats Seasons
For the first time I correctly predicted your title for the winner.
To quote another Ford, Gerald: “Our long national nightmare is now over.”
While I didn’t vote for Ford, I came around on him a bit after the voting. The reason. Ken Holtzman.
During the discussion on the Cubs Mount Rushmore, I was looking at Holtzman’s stats and noticed something odd. In 69-70, he accumulated 10.9 WAR for the Cubs in 548.2 innings. In 72-73 he had a total of only 6.2 WAR with the A’s in slightly more innings (562.2) .
And yet, in looking at his raw numbers for those periods (69-70 and 72-73), I can’t see any difference in how he pitched. If anything, it appears that he pitched better in the AL than the NL.
His K’s dropped in the AL but so did his walks so that his overall K/BB ratio was actually better in the AL than the NL. His FIP was also slightly better in the AL than it was in the NL. His road RA/9 for 69-70 was 4.18 whereas it was only 3.71 in 72-73. And this despite the fact that in 73 the AL added the DH.
So why did his WAR drop so much from 69-70 to 72-73? In moving from the Cubs to the A’s, he went from an extreme hitter’s park with a slightly negative defense behind him to a Ford-like environment (great defense, extreme pitcher’s park).
But again, I have a hard time looking at his numbers from 69-70 and 72-73 and concluding that he was a worse pitcher in the later time period and therefore deserved less WAR. If anything, it looks like his WAR in the AL was a victim of circumstances. And perhaps the same was true of Ford as well? Anyway, after looking at Holtzman, I’ve come around a bit on my thinking about Ford.
I put Ford in a group with Marichal and Three-Finger Brown that played on great teams and that traditional stats love but the more “advanced” do not. So far I think we probably got it right by electing Marichal & Ford.
Brown and Reuschel are on the opposite end of that spectrum, slightly less well qualified versions of Shilling and Mussina. I’ve voted for both in the past but at the moment I’m holding off.
Dean is somewhere on the Koufax, Newhouser, Ed Walsh and Waddell spectrum of shooting stars. To me, he didn’t burn quite bright enough to qualify.
Tiant is one where I think traditional and advanced align- right on the cusp of greatness but so close to the line it’s hard to be certain. I’m leaning in his direction.
Eckersley largely depends on how you view relievers. I’m fine with Rivera being in but if I were to vote for another it would be Wilhelm instead of Eck.
Finally, even though I made a couple of comments in support of Killebrew’s case vs. Ford I really was slightly more in favor of Ford getting in.
For me, Killebrew is right on the line, very close to Murray and Sisler. But with Jim Thome coming on line in a couple of months and with at least a couple dozen of the 40 or so spots remaining going to sure things like Ruth, Cobb & Johnson I just don’t see where we have room for 4 first baseman especially since Gehrig and Foxx will both be joining us soon as well.
This is where I think it gets really hard. I’m not even certain what order I would rank the 4 guys I listed much less how they compare to the guys on the bubble at other positions and pitchers. And most likely for every guy we say yes to we’ll have to say no to about 3 others.
“Annual” voting update time! As always, “active” players on the ballot marked with a *. Here they are:
Craig Biggio – 763
John Smoltz – 658
*Roberto Alomar – 617
Kenny Lofton – 608
Ryne Sandberg – 607
*Eddie Murray – 582
Edgar Martinez – 507
Lou Whitaker – 493
Whitey Ford – 382
Bobby Grich – 376
Sandy Koufax – 375
Tony Gwynn – 346
Willie McCovey – 336
*Harmon Killebrew – 324
Juan Marichal – 268
Tom Glavine – 262
Alan Trammell – 239
Mike Mussina – 233
*Kevin Brown – 229
Curt Schilling – 224
Nolan Ryan – 220
Ron Santo – 217
Tim Raines – 213
Larry Walker – 197
Barry Larkin – 188
Frank Thomas – 181
*Minnie Minoso – 173
*Roy Campanella – 166
Paul Molitor – 152
*Lou Boudreau – 151
*Dennis Eckersley – 150
Bob Gibson – 147
Gaylord Perry – 142
Jim Palmer – 133
Al Kaline – 132
Duke Snider – 130
*Dave Winfield – 128
Ernie Banks – 119
Eddie Mathews – 115
*Joe Gordon – 101
Notes:
1. The other holdovers: Rick Reuschel (90), Luis Tiant (71), Joe Medwick (22), Dizzy Dean (10).
2. Harmon Killebrew passed 300 votes. Congrats, Harmon!
3. Whitey Ford passed both Sandy Koufax and Bobby Grich this round, and is now our #9 all-time vote-getter. He lost his little asterisk, too.
4. Roberto Alomar is now #3 all-time in votes received. He may yet catch John Smoltz. We’ll see if he makes a run at Biggio – but I doubt it.
5. Kevin Brown has now passed the statistically-very-similar Curt Schilling in votes. Brown also nearly made the cut for an extra round. When the last two votes cast (robbs and bstar) failed to name him, he missed out on the extra round. The vote by robbs, though, did manage to bring Gordon his extra round.
6. Boudreau and Eckersley both made the 150-vote club this round. Not only that, but Boudreau actually passed Eckersley in votes, by one. When you consider how many more opportunities Eck has had than Lou, it starts to give you an idea of their different levels of support.
7. Welcome to the 100+ votes club, Joe Gordon! We like you! Just, maybe not enough to elect you…
How well does Ford fit in with the other starting pitchers in the COG so far? In terms of straight numbers, he ranks:
23rd in games, innings, hits, runs, earned runs, batters faced. Makes sense.
22nd in games started and home runs. Make sense.
24th (last) in strikeouts. Makes sense.
Walks 16th.
Complete games 15th.
FIP 13th.
Shutouts 9th.
ERA+ 3rd.
ERA 1st.
W-L % 1st.
WPA 11th, 13th among all pitchers.
RE24 9th, 9th ditto.
REW 8th, 8th ditto.
WPI/LI 17th, 20th among all pitchers.
Pitching runs 12th, 22nd among all pitchers.
Pitching wins 11th, 16th among all pitchers.
WAR 23rd, 78th among all pitchers.
It’s almost as if you believe WAR or you believe the raw evidence, and there’s no middle ground.
Also, something I worked out while researching this: 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?
Ford belongs.
In the advanced stats community, there are weaker candidates that get immediately embraced because they represent a cause. Then there are obvious candidates that people ignore because maybe they weren’t quite as good as they appear. That has nothing to do with if they belong or not. Ford belongs.
Mike, I’m not convinced that’s been the case with the COG voting. For the most part, the clear candidates have been inducted quickly and the more gray-area candidates have been the subject of greater debate, and I think generally the back-and-forth has been largely independent of political or emotional “advanced stats” cheerleading for “causes” and such.
Adam Darowski’s Hall of Stats has Whitey Ford at a 105 Hall Rating, well below the level of the 120s that would aim him clearly at COG level. The Hall Rating is based purely on a formulaic application of WAR and Wins Above Average numbers and doesn’t reflect emotional or political reactions to or perceptions of particular players.
The proponents of advanced stats here in the COG discussions have, I think, generally followed where those advanced stats take them, regardless of whether a particular player is a “cause” or was more or less valuable than his traditional stats suggest. I also believe that few if any here are slavish devotees of any particular stats, advanced or otherwise. In general, I think the debate over Ford (and others) here has been an open-minded, and eye-opening, discussion that has included some careful analysis of the potential limitations of particular stats as they apply to individual players such as Whitey, largely devoid of posturing over any “cause”.
One of the best things about HHS as a site is that it is a spot where, for the most part, advanced stats are treated matter-of-factly, as useful, if never infallible, tools, to be neither feared nor venerated. And at the same time, traditional stats are respected as additional tools both for fun and, when appropriate, further, if limited, guides to understanding baseball. Compared to many baseball websites, where tiresome debates still rage (almost forty years after Bill James first started publishing) between “team sabermetrics” and “team traditional”, the discussions here take all approaches into account in a relatively open way.
I would agree with birtelcom on this one, and I was, in fact, going to write something similar. Bert Blyleven got in right away because he’s obviously deserving, not because he represents a “cause.” Larry Walker and Tim Raines and Lou Whitaker struggled to get in, in spite of perhaps being a part of the “cause.” They struggled to get in because they’re not immediately obvious candidates. While I think there is a bias toward “advanced stats,” (and it’s a bias I share), I don’t think that “cause” voting has anything to do with the results here. People seem to vote based on the evidence they find most compelling. While that is often “advanced stats,” I have never seen anyone give a “cause” as a reason for the way in which they voted. Perhaps it’s happened, but I certainly haven’t been aware of it.
I just read that Ray Sadecki-who started opposite Ford in Game One of the 1964 World Series-has passed away.