This post is for voting and discussion in the 87th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This round adds to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1903. Rules and lists are after the jump.
The new group of 1903-born players, in order to join the eligible list, must, as usual, 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). This new group of 1903-born candidates joins the eligible holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full list of players eligible to appear on your ballots.
Each submitted ballot, if it is to be counted, must include three and only three eligible players. As always, the one player who appears on the most ballots cast in the round is inducted into the Circle of Greats. Players who fail to win induction but appear on half or more of the ballots that are cast win four added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Players who appear on 25% or more of the ballots cast, but less than 50%, earn two added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Any other player in the top 9 (including ties) in ballot appearances, or who appears on at least 10% of the ballots, wins one additional round of ballot eligibility.
All voting for this round closes at 11:59 PM EDT Thursday, March 12, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EST Tuesday, March 10.
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 1903 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-1903 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 1903 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.
Holdovers:
Harmon Killebrew (eligibility guaranteed for 10 rounds)
Kevin Brown (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Roy Campanella (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Dennis Eckersley (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Minnie Minoso (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Graig Nettles (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Rick Reuschel (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Luis Tiant (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Richie Ashburn (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dwight Evans (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Wes Ferrell (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Red Ruffing (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dave Winfield (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1903, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Paul Waner
Charlie Gehringer
Lou Gehrig
Travis Jackson
Tommy Thevenow
Tony Lazzeri
Mickey Cochrane
Chick Hafey
Babe Herman
Carl Reynolds
Mule Haas
Joe Stripp
Rabbit Warstler
Roy Johnson
Pitchers (born in 1903, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Carl Hubbell
Clint Brown
Curt Davis
Chief Hogsett
Mike Ryba
Bill Walker
Gehringer, Gehig, and Cochrane
Gehringer, Gehrig, and Cochrane
Gehrig, Gehringer, Waner
This year’s tidbits. Answers in red
1. Paul Waner spent most of his career with the Pirates, but collected his 3000th hit on June 19th, 1942 batting against his former team. Which other player got his 3000th hit playing against the team for which he had played the majority of his career? Rod Carew
2. Charlie Gehringer collected 200 hits each season aged 30 to 34. Who is the only other player to do this? Ichiro Suzuki
3. Lou Gehrig’s twelve consecutive seasons (1926-37) with 125 runs scored is twice as long as Ted Williams’ next longest such streak. Williams’ streak is similarly twice as long as the longest such streak since, a distinction shared by which four players?
Dom DiMaggio, Jeff Bagwell, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez
4. Carl Hubbell’s 2.25 ERA for 1931-34 was one-third of a run better than Lon Warneke’s next best ERA for the period (min. 500 IP) and over three-quarters of a run better than Lefty Gomez’s AL best mark. Hubbell’s 1933 totals included league bests for ERA, ERA+, FIP and WHIP. Who is the only Giant since with a season leading the NL in those four categories? Atlee Hammaker
5. Bill Walker was the other left-handed starter on the Giant teams of the late 1920s and early 1930s, complementing Hubbell with ERA titles of his own in 1929 and 1931. Besides Walker and Hubbell, what other pair of Giant teammates had live ball era seasons for the Giants leading the NL in ERA, ERA+ and shutouts? Sal Maglie, Johnny Antonelli
6. Clint Brown followed Firpo Marberry as the second AL pitcher to finish 250 games. Who was the first pitcher to finish 250 NL games? Roy Face
7. Tommy Thevenow recorded over 4000 career PA, the most among players with career OPS+ below 55. Thevenow’s home run in the 1926 World Series was his third in 17 days, all inside-the-park and the only home runs of his career. His .417 BA in that series is the best by a shortstop in a 7-game WS. Which player has the best BA in a 7-game World Series among left-hand hitting shortstops? Tony Kubek
8. Rabbit Warstler was cut from the same cloth as Thevenow, recording the most career PA among players with career OPS+ below 60. Warstler is the only player with 200 games at shortstop for both Boston franchises. Who is the only player with a lower SLG mark than Warstler’s in a 4000+ PA career? Mark Belanger
9. Travis Jackson’s seven seasons with 2+ dWAR has been bettered only by Ozzie Smith among live ball era NL shortstops. In six of those seasons, Jackson added 10 home runs and 75 RBI, more such seasons than every shortstop except Cal Ripken (Ripken is also the only shortstop to exceed Jackson’s career totals for both HR and dWAR). Jackson’s 135 home runs was the record for Giant shortstops until 2008 (passed by Rich Aurillia) and his 103 home runs before age 30 is still the Giant record, ranking in the top 10 for all shortstops as late as 1997. Besides Ripken, who is the only shortstop to exceed Jackson’s career dWAR and hit 100 home runs? Pee Wee Reese
10. Tony Lazzeri’s 178 career home runs were then the most among players who never hit 20 home runs in a season. Who is the only such player to surpass Lazzeri’s career HR total? Ron Fairly
11. Curt Davis is the career leader in IP, Starts, Wins, CG and SHO among pitchers debuting at age 30 or older. His 274.1 IP in 1934 are the most in the live ball era for a debut season at any age. Who is the last pitcher to exceed Davis’s IP total in a rookie season? Carl Morton
12. Carl Reynolds played 100+ games in four consecutive seasons (1931-34) for four different teams. Reynolds was the first live ball era outfielder to go hitless (min. 12 PA) in a World Series, coming up empty for the Cubs in 1938. Who is the only NL outfielder since to match that feat? Wally Berger
13. Babe Herman had 3 straight seasons (1929-31) with 75 extra-base hits, including no more than 35 home runs. Who is the only player with a longer streak of such seasons? Joe Medwick
14. Chick Hafey also had 3 straight seasons (1928-30) of 75 extra-base hits without exceeding 35 home runs, and added 100 RBI each year to the mix. Who is the last player with 3 such seasons consecutively? Chase Utley
15. Mickey Cochrane won two MVP titles in his career but earned no MVP votes in 1932 when he recorded 100 runs, 100 walks and 100 RBI (but failed to hit .300). Who is the only other catcher with a season matching those totals? Darrell Porter
16. Mule Haas hit more than half of his career home runs in his rookie season and the next. He then directed his attention to bunting, leading the AL in sacrifice hits in each of the next 5 seasons. Haas recorded 16 HR and 40 SH in 1929, the only 15 HR season with 35 sacrifice hits. Who has the only other AL season with 15 HR and 25 SH? Bobby Veach
17. Chief Hogsett’s 177.1 IP in 1937 were then the fewest by an AL pitcher when losing 19 or more games. Who holds that record today? Jeremy Bonderman
18. Joe Stripp split (say that fast a few times) his final season between two teams, playing 50+ games at third base for each. Who is the only other player to end his career the same way? David Bell
19. Mike Ryba posted 3 seasons in which he both pitched and caught 3 or more games. Who is the post-1901 single season record holder for most games both pitched and caught? Bill Harman
20. Roy Johnson and Johnny Frederick tied or surpassed respective league records in 1929 for doubles by a rookie (Frederick’s mark still stands as the ML record). Johnson’s 275 doubles was then the record for careers of less than 5000 PA. Who is the only player since to surpass that mark? John Valentin
Answer to #1 is Rod Carew who got his against the Twins. Lou Brock also got his 3000th hit against the Cubs but that was only rubbing salt in an old wound.
Additional tidbit: Tommy Thevenow is one of 11 players with 15+ seasons in the ML to never have a seasonal OPS+ higher than 89.
Question #18: David Bell spent his last season playing 90 games at 3B for the Phils and 53 for Milwaukee.
Question #19: In 1941 Bill Harman of the Phils pitched 5 games and caught 5 games.
The answer to 4 is Atlee Hammaker in 1983.
For 12, Joe Medwick had 75+ XBH with less than 35 HRs from 1934-1938.
I mean Medwick is the answer to 13.
10. Ron Fairly has 215 career dingers sans a 20-HR season. He only hit more than 17 once.
Answer to Question #5 is Sal Maglie (led in those categories in 1950) and Johnny Antonelli (1954).
Jason Schmidt also led in those categories in 2003, but none of his teammates ever did.
#17 is Jeremy Bonderman in 2003. Went 6-19 in 162 IP, which was also his rookie year.
13. My first thought was Don Mattingly, who had a three-year streak. Then, after a while, I thought of Nomar, who was SO CLOSE – 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003. He missed 1999 (and a four-year streak) by 2 XBH. Miguel Cabrera has also done it four times, though only two of those were consecutive. I’ll keep thinking…
Dr. Doom: Question 13 was already answered in post 10.
I thought Mattingly might be the answer to 14, but he didn’t have a 3-year streak.
69 XBH in 1984
86 XBH in 1985
86 XBH in 1986
70 XBH in 1987
Chase Utley from 2006-2008. Bobby Abreu also did it, though from 2000-2002.
Utley is correct.
You guys are sharp. All of the answers given are correct.
Question 2 has to be Ichiro, right? He came in the league at age 27 I think and had 10 or 11 200-hit seasons in a row.
Correct. That was an easy one.
Question #6: According to the PI, at the end of the 1960 season, Elroy Face had 248 GF and Clem Labine had 247 GF. Face got his 250th GF on 4-18-61 while Labine got his 250th on 4-20-61. That means that Face got there first. However Labine’s home page indicates a total of 257 GF at the end of the 1960 season meaning that he was first. There is an error somewhere.
There’s no mistake. Labine’s 257 GF through 1960 (on his Player page) includes 10 finished games in the AL. Thus, 247 NL games finished.
So, Face is the answer, getting there two days before Labine.
Question 3 answer: the four players after Teddy Ballgame to score at least 125 runs three straight seasons are Pujols, Bagwell, ARod,….and !just wow! on the fourth one.
I challenge anyone to guess who the fourth player is. Hint: retired in 1953.
I found the answer also but I’ll leave it to others to guess. Considering who he batted ahead of, it’s not surprising.
I had you pegged as the one guy who might get it off the top of his head.
If you told me the team, I would have guessed the shortstop. He went 113-114-125 in runs scored himself in the three years we are talking about.
To end the suspense, I cheated and tracked the answer down:
DiMaggio, Joe’s younger brother Dom.
#12, Carl Reynolds question: Wally Berger,who did not wait very long. In 1939 he went 0/15.
Right you are, RC.
That really surprised me that every WS outfielder (with 12 PA) since Berger has had at least one hit.
Why is it that every time I see Wally Berger’s name I think of Wally Backman first? Why?!?
#9, Travis Jackson question: Pee Wee Reese
Answer to #9, Travis Jackson question: Pee Wee Reese
#9, Travis Jackson question: Pee Wee Reese.
Question #7: Tony Kubek batted .333 in he 1960 WS.
Hmm, this is going to be tough for the 3rd spot. I know for sure my best position player spot goes to Gehrig (big surprise, right?) and my 3rd spot is going to Gehringer, who’d be a good bet for best position player on any other ballot.
For best pitcher, though? That’s a tough one. Last ballot I voted for Brown. Brown has a slight edge on Hubbell in bWAR, and that’s without figuring in the era adjustment, but Hubbell has the better peak seasons (his two MVP years outdo Brown’s 1998 and 1996) and he’s a far superior postseason performer.
I’m starting to count ballots. Was this a vote? And if so, was it for Brown or for Hubbell? Or are you still thinking about it? I just want to make sure I’m counting correctly. So far, I’m not marking you down at all, but let me know!
You’re correct, Doom. Not a vote yet; still need to decide who is going to be my pitcher of choice, and I may change from Gehringer to a strategic vote if I think the Mechanical Man is safely entrenched in the Top 9.
Gehringer is going to advance to the next round, for sure; he has well over 10% of the total final vote already in hand, so it doesn’t matter what place he finishes in. And in any case he’s going to finish second, or maybe third.
Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell.
#15? Whitey Herzog’s hero Darrel Porter?
Gehrig, Gehringer, Waner
Darrell Porter is correct. Who knew?
Doug,
Actually I did – w/o looking it up-merely because when it happened, I though it was quite remarakble. In the early 1980’s through late 90’s there was a guy in Chicago IL by the name of Walt Wilson who advertised in the Sporting News, “Any question answered for $.50; any list compiled for $ 1.00” You sent cash or stamps to a PO Box, and he got back to you within a week. He actually went to the library and researched this stuff. 100 BB , 100 RBI, 100 Runs scored was one of the first lists I requested.
Obviously the computer made his service obsolete and, unfortunately, steroids made this accomplishment fairly routine 🙁
How timescales have changed in 30 years.
Just googled Walt Wilson. Still keeping his hand in, it seems. Was acknowledged by Warren Wilbert for assisting with Wilbert’s 2013 book “The Shutout in Major League Baseball: A History”.
Doug,
Saw this on the SABR site regarding updates to Retrosheet for 2013: “Walt Wilson did a very thorough and systematic sweep through Chicago newspapers covering over 50 years”
Apparently, he still loves the game of baseball very much
Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell.
WAR Leaders, less than 6500 PA:
62.3 … Shoeless Joe
61.5 … Jackie Robinson
61.5 … Chase Utley*
57.5 … Hank Greenberg
52.1 … Mickey Cochrane
51.5 … Robinson Cano*
49.5 … Larry Doby
49.3 … Ralph Kiner
47.0 … Art Fletcher
_____________________
Cochrane also won pennants in his first two years as Player/Manager
Lou Gehrig
Charlie Gehringer
Mickey Cochrane
Well this is going to be fun! Gehrig, Hubbell, Gehringer
Lou Gehrig
Charlie Gehringer
Mickey Cochrane
Gehrig, Hubbell, Campanella.
Harmon Killebrew, Dennis Eckersley, Lou Gehrig
Reuschel to keep him eligible. WAR wasn’t around then but based on WAR he should have won the 1977 Cy Young award. He was never the name that Steve Carlton was, who won it that year, but looking bacwards with 20/20 hindsight Reuschel clearly pitched better than any other NL starter that year.
Gehrig – one of my very favorite ball players. There’s even a little website – http://www.lougehrig.com/ with some interesting info.
Carl Hubbell – I used to go to spring training in AZ every year from 1984 through 1989 and got to meet the very gracious and humble Mr. Hubbeli just a couple of years before he died from injuries he got in an auto accident.
Spring training was very open and accessible during those years. I had the pleasure of meeting lots of current (At that time) and former great ball players. Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Andre Dawson, Harry Caray – not a ballplayer obviously, Bob Eucker, Frank Robinson, and more. Those were some very fun times. I went back again in 1992 and it had already begun to be more separated from the fans, with chain link fence walkways between practice fields, and other measures to create a barrier that hadn’t previously existed.
Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell
Gehrig, Hubbell, Cochrane
Gehrig, Cochrane, and Ferrell … not that I think Ferrell is better than others on the ballot, but he’ll need help to stay on the ballot and somehow Alomar and Murray made it in before this group of death year.
I seem to recall that Doug also did the 1931 birth year posts (the Mantle-Mays-Mathews year, with Banks-Boyer-Bunning also in the mix). He’s pinch hit in some big time years.
Gehringer, Gehrig, Hubbell
I have never been more excited for a round than I am for the next one. I’m pretty sure of the winner here, but 1902 will be exciting! Also, we haven’t had anyone approaching single-round records for vote total, nor vote percentage for a long time… and this could definitely be an interesting one in that regard.
Anyway, here’s my ballot:
Lou Gehrig
Charlie Gehringer
Kevin Brown
I know people will think I’m crazy for that last one. I have him by the slimmest of margins over Hubbell, but I begrudge no one a vote for just about anyone on here. Exciting stuff!
I seriously doubt that Gehrig will set a single round % total simply because with so many strong candidates on one ballot our strategic voters are going to have their hands full keeping our holdovers around. And then even if they do manage to keep one or two of our bubble candidates this time around we could be faced with an even bigger issue next year since only Killebrew currently has more than 2 accumulated rounds of eligibility plus Al Simmons gets added to the ballot.
Which could mean a ballot with Gehringer, Waner, Cochrane, Hubbel and Simmons and virtually everyone else on the bubble. There are 3 ballots to clear out that crowed and then you run into a year with Lefty Grove plus Lyons, Hartnett, Goslin plus a couple of other HOFer’s before being followed by 3 ballots with only Bill Terry and a couple of bottom rung HOFers. Then we have 6 ballots with no more than 1 strong candidate on each ballot (Frisch, Hornsby, Ruth, Heilmann & Sisler) then we have 6 more with only Vance and Coveleski as reasonable candidates.
I guess what I’m getting at is that in the next 20 ballots (counting this one) I see a handful of newcomers that are clearly better than anyone currently on the holdover list (Gehrig, Ruth, Grove, Hornsby, Gehringer and Grove) and another handful plus that are at least as good as the best of our holdovers (Cochrane, Hubbel, Simmons, Hartnett, Frisch, Heilmann & maybe Sisler) plus I see Vance, Lyons & Coveleski as being roughly equal to any of our 5 holdover pitchers.
In short I see maybe 15 or 16 guys on upcoming ballots that are reasonable candidates almost half of whom are only marginally or even questionably better than at least a few of our current holdovers.
I personally would rather not get to a point where I have no choice to vote for someone that I don’t think at least as good as the guys currently on our holdover list- especially since I think there are at least a handful of them that I am at least close to certain do not belong and have varying degrees of uncertainty about all but a couple of the rest- and I think there’s at least a possibility of that happening.
Once we get past the point that I am talking about above there are 3 strong birth years in a row (Speaker, Faber, Wheat followed by Johnson, Alexander, Collins & Shoeless Joe followed by Cobb and Baker) (And I’m not by any means saying that I think that everyone I listed belongs in the COG- I don’t- just that they’re reasonable to consider)
But that is followed by a long stretch where there are only a couple of years (80 & 74) where you have as many as 2 decent candidates and only another handful or so candidates scattered among the remaining years that even belong in the discussion for the COG.
And even further back we’ll have Cy Young & George Davis & maybe a couple others to think about.
Basically, looking ahead I see about 2 dozen guys I’m pretty certain belong- which would put us around 110 players in the COG. That leaves us what? Another 6 players to sort thru or is it 9? And I think we’ll still be going for next years ballot so that will leave us another year to consider plus maybe open up a few more spots.
Just how many guys are we voting on- at least as of this moment- anyways?
Building from Hartvig’s listing of upcoming votes (for now, we can vote for 119 total members – we have 86):
Likely COG Inductees
(As of 1903 ballot)
1903 : Gehrig, Gehringer, P. Waner, Hubbell, Cochrane + 3 HOF (Hafey/T. Jackson/Lazzeri)
1902: A. Simmons + 1 HOF (Averill)
1901 (double year): 1 HOF (Manusch)
1900: Grove, Goslin, Lyons, Hartnett + 2 HOF (Bottomley/H. Wilson)
1899: 2 HOF (Combs/Hoyt)
1898: Frisch + 4 HOF (Cuyler/Sewell/Terry/Traynor)
1897: 1 HOF (Youngs) + 1 Other (E. Rommel)
1896: Hornsby
1895: Ruth + 1 HOF (G. Kelly)
1894: Heilmann + 1 HOF (Pennock)
1893: 1 HOF (Sisler) + 3 HOF (Grimes/Haines/Roush)
1892: 1 HOF (Schalk)
1891: Vance + 3 HOF (Bancroft/Maranville/Rixey)
1890: 2 HOF (Carey/S. Rice) + 1 Other (U. Shocker)
1889: Coveleski
1888: Speaker, Faber, Wheat
1887: W. Johnson, P. Alexander, E. Collins, J. Jackson + 1 HOF (Hooper)
1886: Cobb, Baker + 1 HOF (Marquard)
1885:
1884: 1 HOF (Bender) + 2 Others (Magee/Cicotte)
1883: 1 Other (Quinn)
1882:
1881: E. Walsh + 1 HOF (Evers)
1880: Mathewson, S. Crawford + 2 HOF (Joss/Tinker)
1879: 1 HOF (Bresnahan) + 1 Other (N. Hahn)
1878:
1877:
1876: V. Willis, R. Waddell, M. Brown + 2 HOF (Chance/Flick)
1875: Plank
1874: Wagner, LaJoie + 1 HOF (Chesbro) + 1 Other (Powell)
1873: B. Wallace
1872: Clarke + 1 HOF(W. Keeler)
1871: McGinnity
1870: G. Davis, Dahlen + 1 HOF (J. Collins)
1867: C. Young
78 HOFs + 7 others upcoming to evaluate for only 33 spots (40 HOF + 5 others have real shot) along with 25-30 backlog/redemption guys
Only open years: 1897 (Goslin/Cochrane/Hartnett), 1893/92 (Cochrane/Hartnett), 1890 (Shocker/2 weak), 1889 (Coveleski), 1882, 1878, 1877 – 36 possible ballot years (assuming single ballot years 1900-1870, then 1867). Likely some years will get combined near the end.
The more likely candidates have just their name above – less likely in parenthesis (others or HOFers). Very few holes remain above where a backlog candidate could sneak in. Including backlog/redemption favorites, ~ 115 players will be mentioned, 75 of them with a real chance to make the COG.
Breaking down the candidates 1903 to 1867 (primarily post-1900 careers):
Slam dunks: 24
The following players coming up should easily make the COG (11 are top 20 all-time in WAR, 22 in top 80):
Young, Ruth, W. Johnson, Cobb, Speaker, Wagner, Hornsby, E. Collins, P. Alexander, Gehrig, Grove, LaJoie, Mathewson, Plank, G. Davis, Gehringer, Dahlen (the only non-HOFer), S. Crawford, P. Waner, Heilmann, Frisch, B. Wallace, Hartnett, Cochrane.
All but the last 2 earned over 70 WAR (Hartnett/Cochrane are the remaining catchers > 50 WAR). Everyone over 70 WAR has gotten in not named Palmiero or Ruffing. The only two that could be argued against may be Heilmann (arthritis kept him from 3000 Hits but he still raked .342 and 2660 H in 18 seasons) and Wallace (pitched, played outfield/3B/2B before settling in as a SS in his 8th season – played 25 years and athletic enough to stay on till age 44). Even conservative voting should fill 22 of the 33 remaining slots from this group.
Got a shot: 16
The following players coming up should be in the discussion for the COG (all but one have from 60-70 WAR):
A. Simmons, Faber, Clarke, Hubbell, Lyons, Willis, Goslin, Coveleski, E. Walsh (an early Koufax), HR Baker, Vance, Shoeless Joe Jackson (the only non-HOFer), Waddell, McGinnity, Wheat, M. Brown.
M. Brown only accrued 55.1 WAR in 14 years, but 239-130 W-L with a 2.06 ERA in any era is a notable achievement. Faber/Lyons/Willis all have high WAR but high losses also from their poor teams, and Vance/Waddell/Walsh had <200 Wins and <3000 IP. Coveleski barely got 3000 IP (215-142, 2.89) and Wheat got 2880 H in large part from his era (final 8 years of 19 year career in the slug-happy 20’s). If half are passed on, we have Simmons/Clarke/Hubbell/Goslin/Baker/J. Jackson/McGinnity/M. Brown. 8 from this group getting in would leave 1-3 slots remaining, though less might make it as well, as some are a bit borderline.
What ifs: 5
The following players coming up may get “what if” credit for the COG (all had shortened or impaired careers): Cicotte (banned at age 36 with 209-148, 2.38 ERA), Shocker (died at age 37 with 187-117, 3,17 ERA), Sisler (sinusitis retired him by age 37 with 2810 H, .340 avg), Joss (died at age 31 with 160-97, 1.89 ERA), and Youngs (died at age 30 with 1491 H, .322 avg). Cicotte and Shocker’s cases are weaker, and some or none at all may get in depending on backlog competition during their year and voter sentiment.
No real chance: 40
The following players probably do not offer enough to be COG material, based on previous selections (50-60 WAR and no compelling narrative): Magee (non-HOF), Quinn (non-HOF), Rixey, J. Powell (non-HOF), Carey, B. Terry, Keeler, Sewell, Hoyt, Tinker, Flick, J. Collins, Hooper, S. Rice, E. Rommel (non-HOF). Arguments can be made that some have legit HOF talent/narrative (Terry/Keeler/Sewell in particular) but most are fighting for HOF level, not truly COG. There are 25 more that do not reach 50 WAR, and are “only” HOF level at best: Averill (13 yrs, 2000 H in slugger era), Bancroft (16 yrs, 2000H as key SS), Bender (212 W in just 3000 IP), Bottomley, Bresnahan (pioneering C), Chance, Chesbro (1 big 41 W season, < 200W), Combs (12 yrs, 1800H with great teams), Cuyler, Evers, Grimes (270 W, spitballer), Hafey, N. Hahn (non HOFer, 45.9 WAR with 130-94 record in 8 – really 6 years!), Haines, T. Jackson, G. Kelly, Lazzeri (14 yrs, 1800H with great teams) , Manusch (17 yrs, 2500H in slugger era), Maranville, Marquard, Pennock (248 W with great teams), Rousch, Schalk, Traynor (17 yrs, 2400H, best 3B of his time), H. Wilson (12 yrs, 1461H, 244HR in slugger era). Telling is the fact that of the 35 HOFers above, the BBWAA only chose 5 of them (Terry, Keeler, Maranville, Pennock, and Traynor) while the rest were products of various committees. 5 other HOFers played over ½ their career in the 1890’s and thus cannot be considered: Griffith, J. Kelly, McGraw, Nichols, and Rusie.
And the guys we’ve seen that have not made it yet to the COG (born 1904 or later):
Backlog possibilities: 11
The backlog has four types of players on it as of 1903: High WAR (65+)/non-HOFers (K. Brown, Reuschel, Nettles, Dw. Evans, Tiant), High WAR (60-65)/HOFers (Winfield/Ashburn/Eckersley/Killebrew/Ruffing – Ruffing actually has 70 WAR, but only 55 of it is from pitching), a high peak/non-HOFer (W. Ferrell with 61.5 WAR – 48.8 pitching and 12.7 hitting), and segregation-impacted guys (Minoso/Campanella – see below). Some such as Brown/Nettles/Winfield/Killebrew have seen high support, so a few may battle their way in.
Redemption hopes: 10 – 15 (depending on preferences)
A few redemption candidates may rise up to fight for a spot: Palmiero (can 3000 H and 500 HR overcome steroid taint?), Sutton (nearly 69 WAR and 324 Wins but seen as compiler), B. Bell (66 WAR, 2500 H – able 3B), Randolph (65 WAR, only 2B option besides Kent), Dawson (64 WAR, 438 HR, best RF option – equal to R. Smith), Bi. Williams (63 WAR, 426 HR, best LF option), K. Boyer (63 WAR, popular 3B option), D. Cone (61.7 WAR – efficient P but <200 Wins – some may prefer Drysdale or Newhouser), D. Allen (58.7 WAR but popular 1B option), or Simmons (popular C, Torre possible also). No real SS or dynamic CF options left. All of these players have been passed on, so chances of any actually getting into the COG are slim.
Segregation impacted: 4
The following backlog/redemption candidates had their careers shortened by the color line and may get support: Minoso (late start to career, 2000 H), Campanella (10 year career, paralyzed at 36), Doby (13 year career, 1500 H), Satchel Paige (6 years, 476 IP). All but Minoso are in the HOF, and “what if” credit may get someone in.
A total of 70 players (75 with substitutions) were discussed as likely candidates for the remaining 33 slots in the COG. 40 other players to be seen have no real shot. Competition will be strong through the end and someone’s favorite will not get there. As the BBWAA adds players, the COG can expand later to fill gaps, but few real grievous omissions are likely with this electorate. This list and discussion is intended to remind folks of the options coming up (since none of us have seen these guys play) and help with vote planning down the stretch.
Excellent breakdown and analysis.
I would add 3 names to the ones that you mentioned:
Enos Slaughter who, if given reasonably generous credit for the 3 prime seasons he lost to WW2 would fall somewhere in the Wheat/Goslin/Clarke range.
Ducky Wucky Medwick if only because he managed to stick around for 6 ballots.
Finally, Monte Irvin who takes a bit of a larger leap of faith than Minoso or Doby because he was older than either of them when he finally got his chance and then he busted his leg after only a couple of seasons. But the special committee for the Negro Leagues – who looked into the players qualifications far more closely than the BBWAA or Veterans Committee usually did- saw fit to make him the 4th player selected, behind only Paige, Buck Leonard & Josh Gibson.
While I don’t think he has a chance in hell of getting in (or of even getting back on the ballot, for that matter) if push came to shove and I could only pick one of Irvin, Minoso & Doby, it would be Irvin.
I’m really hoping that the BBWAA pick at least 3 guys next December because some of these decisions are going to be brutally difficult to make.
Hartvig – Even if the BBWAA selects 3 people (I think two are likely – Piazza and Griffey), we’ll soon be bringing in the 1971 birth class. Pedro is automatic, Pudge depends on how people feel about the PEDs allegations.
So we won’t gain much…
I’m still hoping for a spot for Satchel Paige.
Hartvig – agree that Slaughter’s war credit should get him on the “maybe” list.
Besides the favorite Dick Allen, it seems Ducky Medwick, Wilhelm, Dean, and Kiner were the significant vote-getters that fell off the ballot, but unlikely they will make it back.
Maybe when the COG is full we can have a 19th century vote (for old-timers) or a Negro Leagues vote (the committees missed Quincy Trouppe, Buck O’ Neill, “Cannonball Dick” Redding, Spottswood Poles, Bruce Petway, Dick Lundy, and others) until the BBWAA expands the Hall some more.
Cochrane, Gehrig, Hubbell
A few things:
1. Lou Gehrig has been named on the first 17 ballots (and mentioned by CursedClevelander in what, for now, I’m not counting as a ballot).
2. Tony Lazzeri, Travis Jackson, and Babe Herman are all the kind of players who would maybe be deserving of a “favorite son” vote or two – nice careers in the 40-50 WAR range. Not gonna happen on this ballot, I’m afraid, but worth a shout-out, I think.
3. Remember: the TOP NINE players advance whether or not they get to 10%. If you, like me, no longer read the rules that are posted at the beginning of each post, you may have forgotten about this rule, since I’m certain it hasn’t been invoked in the last year – maybe 50-60 rounds of COG voting (although if, like me, you’ve been voting since the beginning, you’ll probably remember it getting invoked quite a lot in the first few rounds). So while your pet candidate may not get to 10%, that DOESN’T mean you should omit him; there WILL BE at least 9 players on the ballot next round no matter what. And while 4 of them will almost certainly be players who are new this round, the other five+ are dependent on who gets the votes – even if that only means 2 or 3 votes. So don’t let the stacked ballot make you feel like all hope is lost for your personal favorite(s).
There will be at least 11 players on the ballot next year, if I’ve figured correctly. Even if all the players on the bubble drop off the ballot, there are 8 players with 2+ rounds of eligibility, so all 8 of them will be on next year no matter what; plus 3 or 4 new guys, depending on how Waner does.
Yes, that is true; I guess I wasn’t really looking at how many there would ACTUALLY be; I just meant that nine people are “safe” no matter how many/few votes they get, so long as they get at least one. Likely we will have 15 or so on the holdover list. I mostly just meant that being under 10% is not a death sentence.
What you stopped short of saying is that there could be a 10-way tie for 9th place, and all those guys are good-to-go.
This is extremely tough. I always vote for who I think is the best player on the ballot, so that’s a vote for Gehrig. I’ve been voting for Ashburn and Minoso, but I can’t in good conscience vote for them ahead of the quartet of Cochrane, Gehringer, Hubbell and Waner. I will vote for Waner, because he doesn’t have much support yet and complete the ballot with Gehringer. I may make a change later on.
Winfield, Waner, Gehrig
Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell
Seasons with at least 10 shutouts and 5 saves:
1908 … Ed Walsh
1908 … C Mathewson
1933 … Carl Hubbell
Seasons with at least 10 saves and 5 shutouts:
1912 … Ed Walsh
Going down to 10 saves and 3 shutouts:
1963 … Bob Shaw
No pitcher ever had 10 saves and more than a single shutout after the save rule was officially adopted by MLB in 1969. Rollie Fingers is the only pitcher to have at least 10 saves and 1 shutout in a season twice.
Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell
Iron Horse, Mechanical Man, Meal Ticket
(Gehrig, Gehringer, Hubbell)
For the 1903 election, I’m voting for:
-Lou Gehrig
-Dave Winfield
-Paul Waner
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Eckersley
-Killebrew
-Brown
-Reuschel
-Tiant
-Evans
-Ashburn
-Gehringer
-Nettles
-Hubbell
Tally note: the ballots @ 30 and 31 haven’t been tallied.
Including those 2 ballots, the current standings after 23 votes (thru opal611’s vote @ 63):
23 – Gehrig
15 – Gehringer
12 – Hubbell
================50% (12)
6 – Cochrane
================25% (6)
5- Waner
================10% (3)
2 – Winfield
1 – Brown, Campanella, Eckersley, Ferrell, Killebrew, Reuschel
0 – Ashburn, Evans, Minoso, Nettles, Ruffing, Tiant
61 of 69 votes (89.7%) have gone to first-timers.
…and of course I’m sure you’re all wondering, “which election has had the highest percentage of votes going to first-timers?” (after the first few rounds, that is).
I don’t have a definite answer, but a strong contender is the 1935 election, in which Gibson, Koufax, and Frank Robinson (along with Dick Schofield, who received a single vote) gathered up 60.1% of the vote. In the 1934 part 1 election, Aaron, Clemente, Kaline, and Aparicio took 56.9% of the vote (despite the presence of Gibson and Koufax on the ballot), and in 1944 Seaver, Carlton, Nettles (and Bando, and Belanger) received 54.4% of the vote. 1931 part 1, 53.2% (Mantle, Mathews, Bunning).
Thanks David,
Fixed the tally sheet. Our totals are matching through Opal611’s vote.
Doing my first audit; I’m with you so far…
gehrig, gehringer, evans
No holdovers for me today. Gehrig, Gehringer, and POISON.
Gehrig, Gehringer, and (and to attempt to keep him on the ballot) Nettles.
There are only 4 players in MLB history whose last names begin with “Geh-” and two of them were born in the same year and became HOFers. The other two are Paul Gehrman who pitched in two games for the Reds in 1937 and Hank Gehring who pitched for the Senators in 1907-08.
Anyway, my vote is Gehrig, Gehringer and Cochrane. I thought about voting for one of the bubble boys but Evans is the only one I’ve voted for in the past and I`m lukewarm at best about him.
Gehrig, Tiant, Evans
What a great birth year: it hurts not to vote for Gehringer, and Hubbell looks like he was probably better than any of our pitching holdovers. That said, I’m obviously a pro-holdover voter, so I’m using votes for two of my favorites.
Gehrig – Best player
Waner – Lagging total due to top tier ballot influx. Get him over the hump
Ashburn – My top choice among the bubble guys
Through Chris C, the 29th vote:
29 – Lou Gehrig
19 – Charlie Gehringer
12 – Carl Hubbell
====================25% (8)
7 – Mickey Cochrane, Paul Waner
====================10% (3)
2 – Dwight Evans, Dave Winfield
1 – Richie Ashburn, Kevin Brown, Roy Campanella, Dennis Eckersley, Wes Ferrell, Harmon Killebrew, Graig Nettles, Rick Reuschel, Luis Tiant
0 – Minnie Minoso, Red Ruffing
Right now, there’s a nine-way tie for 8th; all of those players would advance (though Minoso and Ruffing would fall off if the balloting ended right now).
Gehrig is guaranteed election. This is also one of the longest streaks of being names on consecutive ballots I can remember – but is that really a shock coming from Gehrig? 😉
Gehringer is all-but guaranteed 25%, unless we have a total number of voters we haven’t seen in over a year. I think we’ve only topped 78 voters twice, and those were a LONG time ago (that’s for memory, though; I could certainly be wrong). Gehringer is solidly above 50, and COULD make a run for 75%, although that seems difficult. Hubbell could also make a run for 50%, and is certainly in a good position to finish with 25%.
We’ve topped 78 votes 5 times (89, 88, 81, 79, 79), but the last time was indeed long ago: the 1957 ballot, which began on March 21, 2013.
Doom – Minoso has two rounds of eligibility. He won’t fall off even if he receives 0 votes this round.
Yeah; I was trying “fall off” as a catch-all to mean “lose a round, so either fall off or go down.” I was hoping it would work. I see that’s not the case. I just wish there were a term to use so we could discuss those things without having to use so much verbiage.
Gehrig, Waner, and Reuschel
Gehrig to win, and I always vote for the most-deserving
Richie Ashburn to try to stay on the ballot
Kevin Brown to try to stay off the bubble next year
Apologies to Carl Hubbell and Graig Nettles
NYEAR25 average of average (then averaged based on consecutive and sorted years). This metric highly favors peak but also tries to estimate the level of performance we typically remember a player for over a career. Eddie Murray is my typical COG threshold at 4.64
Gehrig: 7.84 (staggering)
Gehringer: 5.71
Ferrell: 5.51 (still 4.46 with just pitching)
Hubbel: 5.33 (0.08 benefit from hitting)
Waner: 4.89 (Slightly better than Murray)
Cochrane: 4.02 (just not enough career or a high enough peak)
I have Paul Waner out. He had wartime at bats to extend his career and didn’t play against any black pitchers. Cochrane’s candidacy is extremely far fetched but whatever ppl…
!BALLOT!
Gehrig, Ferrell, Campanella
Gehringer and Hubbel don’t need my votes.
aaand egg on my face for not realizing Cochrane was a catcher.
Nettles (4.85) is also above the Murray line. I’d put him ahead of Waner and I’n not sure between him and Hubbell.
mosc, what is NYEAR25 ?
_____
How was Waner extended by the WAR?
He was still a league average player in 1941.
And his WAA in 845 PA from 42-45 was 0.7.
_____
The names of the teams in the league that Waner player/managed in 1946:
Tampa Smokers
Havana Cubans
West Palm Beach Indians
Miami Beach Flamingos
Lakeland Pilots
Miami Sun Sox
______
—
Famous for his ability to hit while hung over, when Waner gave up drinking in 1938 at management’s request, he hit only .280 – the only time that he failed to hit .300 as a Pirate. As Casey Stengel said in complimenting his base-running skills,:
“He had to be a very graceful player, because he could slide without breaking the bottle on his hip.”
Waner was also near-sighted, a fact that Pirate management only learned late in his career when he remarked that he had difficulty reading the ads posted on the outfield walls.
Fitting him with glasses, however, only interfered with his hitting, as Waner now had to contend with a small spinning projectile rather than the fuzzy grapefruit-sized object he had been hitting before.
The first 12 years of Waner’s career (before he stopped playing hung over):
.348 / .417 / .507 / .923 / 142
Averaged:
110 runs
206 hits
300 total bases
_______________
Most hits, first 12 seasons:
2606 … Ichiro
2473 … Waner
2337 … Rose
2328 … Simmons
2304 … Puckett
2295 … Sisler
2267 … Boggs
2266 … Aaron
2246 … Pujols
Whoops, Voomo, somehow I missed your comment (And largely just echoed it in @97). Anyway, Amen.
Voomo: read his SABR bio. He wasn’t playing hung over — he was doing shots before every AB. NOT knocking that, BTW. It worked for him.
When I hear the name Paul Waner, I think about the stories of him taking batting practice and hitting ball after ball five feet inside the right field line and then switching up and placing balls right down the left field line with the same accuracy.
Just a wizard with the bat. I think Rod Carew is a really good comp.
@102,
I think Carew is a good comp too. Tony Gwynn maybe even more so (and with Gwynn you get the added benefit of them having played the same position). Waner strikes me as even more dominant at the plate than either of them (something his Rbat total would seem to confirm).
Voomo: mosc explained that NYEAR bit in his post #77 in the COG 1970 Balloting article.
@86/mosc,
I find that -with some exceptions obviously- I agree with the perspectives you bring to bear on baseball mosc, but the value you place on Paul Waner’s career is a place where I don’t follow your rationale at all. Personally, I can’t make much sense of a Circle of Greats that doesn’t include Waner.
1)Extra war-time AB? Whopping total of 368 AB in which he added a grand total of 2.3WAR to his career.
2)Didn’t play against black pitchers? That argument goes for every one of our new crop of titans, including Gehrig whom you value highly. (And Ferrel for that matter, too, whom you voted for as well.)
*The only knock on Waner is his lack of HR power. But in every other facet of the game he excelled in a way few others have in the history of the game (ok, except for baserunning it seems). 605 2B and 191 3B? That is an incredible number of extra base hits (in fact, he holds the record for most 3B of all time for post-1920 players.
*Terrific durability (especially for a guy with a drinking problem) — look at those game totals from 1926 to 1937.
*During that span (’26 – ’37) he hit .348 (2473H/7105AB). Please, everyone, wrap your minds around that. And not as a slap hitter like his brother.
*Sure, he played in an explosive era offensively, but remember that isn’t it really the Junior Circuit more than the Senior, that throttles into the offensive stratosphere?
Having Nettles over Waner seems to me like faith-in-WAR run amok.
(I hate how all of my comments recently come off like I think Nettles was not a great ball player — actually I think he’s quite underrated by the general fan. Just *massively* overrated by our crowd here.)
A couple things:
How is it “faith-in-WAR run amok”? Waner has more WAR than Nettles. Unless people are ONLY valuing the player’s top two seasons, Waner should come out ahead of Nettles by WAR.
Second, Nettles has (Above-average-hitter)+(Outstanding-defender)+(Reasonably-difficult-position). Waner has (Very-good-hitter)+(Adequate-if-somewhat-sub-par-defender)+(Not-that-hard-of-a-position). Those are REALLY different qualifications. I think you’re being overly simplistic.
Yes, Waner hit .348 – in a league in which (besides 1933, which was unusually low-scoring) games were always 9 R/G or higher. In Nettles 12-year peak, that was the HIGHEST the run environment got. Waner, in those twelve years hit .348, but with a secondary average of .285; Nettles, in his 12 best, batted .254, but with a secondary average of .301. I think you’re oversimplifying things too much. If you make any sort of timeline adjustment for Nettles (because baseball in the 1970s WAS better than baseball in the 1920s), I see no reason why it’s ridiculous at all.
@99,
*It’s faith-in-WAR run amok in my opinion because Nettles and Waner simply shouldn’t be in the same conversation when it comes to being all-time greats. Waner has slightly more WAR, but only slightly. And he’s much greater.
*You’re right, these guys are totally different kinds of ballplayers. I would never have thought to make the comparison at all; I only did so because mosc said that he wouldn’t include Waner in his COG, and that he would include Nettles. A position I find more than a little perplexing.
*You bring up Nettles’ secondary batting average. That’s bound to make any guy who hits for decent power and an awful batting average look better. Maybe this comes as a function of having been around when Nettles played, but he was just painful to watch up at the plate a lot of the time.
*Your last point about what you call a timeline adjustment. Periodically we come back to this question on HHS; I’ve never chimed in so let me put in my two cents, for whatever they’re worth. The very existence of the Circle of Greats presupposes that you can compare players across time. But what we’re really doing is judging *dominance* of players within their own times and comparing that to other players in different times. Too many things have changed to say Arky Vaughan is better or worse objectively than Derek Jeter. The best you can do is talk about their strengths relative to their own time. Which, in the end, is the only thing that matters really because the ultimate aim of playing baseball is to achieve victory. Who are the players that did the most to help their team defeat other teams.
All of which means that to talk about how baseball is better in the 1970s than it is in the 1930s doesn’t have -in my opinion- a valuable place in the discussion of “greatness”. I recognize other people will have different opinions on this matter. But for all any of us know Alvaro Espinoza would have outhit Tris Speaker had he been around in the early 20th century. Doesn’t mean I think he should be rated “better” than Speaker.
That’s why I put no stock whatsoever in the idea that, since baseball had improved by the 1970s (or 2000s, or take your pick), we should make a timeline adjustment. If you do make a timeline adjustment how much or how little do you make? Beyond slippery slope, it just seems fruitless.
paget-
Re: timeline adjustment
I’ll agree that it’s an inexact science at best and that how a player performed in his own time should be the primary deciding factor.
However I do think that there is still a place for it in how we assess players vs. one another.
We are already making a lot of relative value judgements in how players from the same era stack up vs. one another: pitcher v. position player, offense v. defense, peak v. career, slugger v. average, outstanding at 1 or 2 things v. very, very good at everything and so on.
Then we turn around and try to figure out how that applies to guys who may have played 100 years apart in what might be a vastly different game.
I certainly don’t think it should be the only factor considered or really even a major one.
But if I’ve got only a limited number of spaces and two dozen virtually equally qualified guys for the last half a dozen or so spots I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least consider that Tiant played at a time when he had to face Mays and Aaron and Robinson and Clemente whereas Hubbell got a pass on Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard and the rest.
And actually, in this case I’m still going with Hubbell over Tiant but when we get to Lyons or Coveleski or Walsh I may not.
Doom (et al):
If you go to b-ref and Nettles player page, you can go to the ‘scenario builder’ and just about duplicate his career stats by placing his entire career as if he played every year with the 1984 SD Padres. If you place Waner with the 1984 Padres, he gets to 3,000 hits with seven 200-hit seasons and a slash line of .315/.386/.448 . I realize this exercise is a huge leap of faith but his career OPS+ of 134 seems to put Waner in good-enough company.
As for the similarity scores, it’s a list of 10 HoF’ers for Waner, including Lajoie, Clemente, Boggs, Gwynn, Carew amongst others
In a couple of cases I’m also considering making something of a reverse timeline adjustment as well.
If you look at JAWS or the Hall of Stats Home Run Baker is about dead even with Nettles, Bell & Boyer. Even putting aside that he missed a peak season trying to be an early Curt Flood and another taking care of his children he was clearly the best third baseman in the games first 75 years. I think that’s something to consider.
You could also apply this reasoning to Cochrane & Hartnett to some degree.
Cool discussion guys!
1) I can give another diatribe on NYEAR25 if you want, I think I’ve done it three times now though so I’m less inclined to waste the space. It’s a byproduct of the COG process and more akin to JAWS or hall rating than an analytical stat. Just another way of looking at WAR accumulation over a career rather than just adding it up.
To add some comentary, it highly weights peak performance. High enough where Koufax is not the lowest pitcher we’ve elected, for example. It’s also not as harsh as something like WAA+ is for players with long careers and lots of replacement value during long declines.
2) I dislike “first x years” and “last x years” metrics and similar such things that penalize great players for having career arcs that continued before and/or after their peaks. Pujols came on the scene like gangbusters sure but was be better than Ruth who was pitching before his batting career? I prefer pulling out seasons for comparison. “Best 3 year stretch”, for example, means a lot more to me than “Best first/last 3 seasons”.
3) I agree with Hartvig. WAR does a nice job of correcting for parks and eras in general so the numbers are already fairly weighted but it does not compensate for reasons why competition changed. Players took years off to go to war, the league integrated, and in more recent years a select group of players Roided themselves out of proportion with a “replacement level player”. For these factors and a few others I go beyond WAR seasonal corrections and adjust further for career value.
4) Nettles V Waner: I like peak. To have a great peak, it’s hard to be a one dimensional player. Killebrew is a perfect example here. He’s got too many categories working against him for his RBAT, even when best in the league, to let him have a truly historic season. Nettles at his best had positives in all the major categories. He even stayed out of the double play surprisingly well for a lefty and lived up to “average speed” even as he aged. Unless you’re totally against the way WAR uses separate components for valuation you have to accept that a great bat, while still the category with the largest variance, is not everything.
Nettles lines up pretty well with what I consider “normal” baseball during the 60s through the 80s. I guess I have some WAR deduction for everybody who played outside those years to some degree or another.
Clearly though, Nettles was no slouch as a player. His RBAT doesn’t compete with Waner at all but his defensive value is similarly divergent.
mosc,
Re Nettles versus Waner, if we were to use merely offense as a means of comparison, Waner creates approximately a 100-AIR-adjusted 7.14 runs; Nettles 5.12 runs per 27 outs. By the good old Pythagorean Theorem, that’s a .660 winning percentage for Team Waner or, roughly, 107 – 55 per 162 games.
That’s an awful lot of glove-work by a 3B to make up that deficit. When you consider he might get 3.5 – 4 chances at 3B per game, I just don’t think Nettles makes up the difference. Even if Waner were Gary Sheffield or some other iron gloved RF’er, I just don’t see it.
On another note, is Nettles any better than Buddy Bell?
@125,
Just a point to further your evaluation of Paul Waner. Waner and fielding: most of the comments on him seem to have assumed that he was a below average fielder. I’ve never heard anything about his reputation fielding-wise, so I can’t really talk about it, but it’s probably worth noting that, at the very least, WAR seems to judge him a solidly above-average fielder. I don’t often have a ton of faith in Rfield, but it’s worth bringing up that WAR doesn’t rate him an “adequate-if-somewhat-sub-par-defender” (comment 99). On the contrary, he was worth 38 fielding runs in through his age 35 season.
Second, I brought up Nettles in connection with a bunch of other 3B at roughly his level in the last round of voting: Ken Boyer, Buddy Bell, Darrell Evans, Ron Cey etc. Out of all of these guys the best one -for me, decisively- is Ken Boyer. Boyer is the only one I might vote into my COG, and (as I said last time), I can definitely live without him.
Yes, WAR does rate Waner a below-average fielder. He has almost -10 dWAR for his career. Through age 35, he was -5.7. He has exactly one season of dWAR above zero. That’s pretty much what a below-average defender is. Contrast that with Nettles, who has over 20 dWAR.
@136,
That’s incorrect, he’s not a below average fielder. He’s an above average (solidly above average) fielder for his position. To only look at his total dWAR misunderstands the nature of his contribution.
Looking only at the dWAR total as opposed to fielding runs, you might as well conclude that Keith Hernandez was just an average fielder when he might be the greatest fielding first baseman in the history of the game. 1B may be a much easier position to play than SS, but Hernandez is still saving runs for his team. As Wander does compared to his peer group. To me that makes him qualify as above average even if his Rpos sinks him into negative dWAR territory.
I agree that Waner wasn’t a below average fielder – he did have 23 Rfield for his career, for whatever Rfield from the 1930s is worth. And I also have him in the COG, though I didn’t vote for him this time. Now time for some fun.
Comparison time – who’s the greater player?
Rbat: 460 to 420
Rbaser: -7 to 40
Rdp: 0 to 10
Rfield: 35 to 94
Rpos: -82 to -75
PAs: 8088 to 8030
The first player is Paul Waner through his age 34 season (mainly to get the PAs near the same as the other player’s full career). While I also agree with mosc in that I don’t like “first x years,” it’s not really an issue with Waner because his first 12 years are easily his best 12 years (lowest WAR is 4.6, highest WAR outside that range is 2.3).
The comparison actually also works out pretty well because it looks like Waner’s total “Rstuff” throughout his entire career is only lower by one “Rstuff” than at this point in time (he gains 36 Rbat and 2 Rbaser from 1938-1945, but loses 12 Rfield and 27 Rpos). So it’s not like Waner’s overall Rstuff changes if we add in the back end of his career – it just changes the composition (more value with his bat, less with his defense).
The other guy – Larry Walker.
Guys — judging a defender by his fielding runs alone is no worse than using raw, unadjusted offensive numbers without park factors. You’re not taking the context of how those numbers were compiled into account at all.
We can safely say, “WAR says Paul Waner was a slightly above-average right fielder” and be correct.
We cannot say, “WAR says Paul Waner was a slightly above-average fielder compared to all other defenders on the field.” That isn’t close to true. He is almost -100 runs defensively, -55 through age 35.
Suppose Paul Waner had been put in center instead of right and played exactly the same over the course of his career. Would he have the same amount of positive fielding runs? No, because the pool of defenders in center are more skilled than those in right. Instead of slower, less skilled right fielders not getting to some balls that Waner did, you would have other center fielders getting to all the balls that Paul caught plus others that Waner couldn’t get to.
We can estimate what Waner’s Rfield would have been in center. Using the historical Rpos table from B-Ref, per year RFs were about 4 to 5 runs less skilled than CFs of that era. So instead of (+37 Rfield, -89 Rpos) in right through age 35, our best guess is that Waner would have been something like (-20 Rfield, -32 Rpos)** in center. But his dWAR would be unchanged!
By the construct you guys are using, you would now say that Waner was a below-average fielder, because his Rfield is in the negative. But he’s the same player and performed exactly the same. The only thing that has changed is the skill level of the pool of defenders he’s being compared to. And you have to adjust for that differing skill level to put everyone on an even playing field.
And that’s EXACTLY what WAR does — it removes all the context and adjusts for things like different skill levels of defensive positions, different strength of opponents for pitchers, different ballpark environments for hitters, etc. We adjust for context with pitchers and hitters. There’s no compelling reason to not do the same with fielders.
Paul Waner is +23 Rfield for his career.
Barry Larkin is +18.
Joe Cronin is +28.
You guys are saying Paul Waner (-9.7 dWAR) should be viewed as the same quality of defender as Larkin (+13.8 dWAR) or Cronin (+14.2). That’s a silly statement considering there’s almost a 250-run defensive gap between the RF and the two SS.
The entire reason Sean Forman changed dWAR from (Rfield only) to (Rfield to Rpos) was to stop people from doing what you guys are doing. It’s the same reason Fangraphs melds UZR runs and positional runs and calls that “DEFENSE” in their WAR breakdown.
_____
**Rpos for RF was -7 in Waner’s time. For CF it was anywhere from -1.5 to -3.5. I used -2.5, so (7 minus 2.5) times 13 full seasons is a 57 run difference.
Come on Bstar….99% of the time when someone says “Player X is an above (or below) average fielder”, they’re talking about “for their position”. They don’t bother to write or say “for their position” because it’s implied and everyone knows what they’re talking about. No one’s claiming that Waner was as good as Larkin or Cronin.
David, you sure you read the comments above mine?
@179
Yeah, he’s sure.
I recalled that during one of HHS’ Larry Walker dust-ups you had some comments to make about Walker’s fielding. I went back and found that you referred to Walker not only as a “fantastic right fielder” but also simply as a “great fielder.”
How can you defend calling Walker a “great fielder” when he was worth only 1.5 dWAR for his career? The only way you could is if you implicitly accepted the idea that, in calling him a great fielder, you actually meant in comparison with all his peers at RF.
Now, Walker had 94 fielding runs in 1988 games. In his first 1940 games Waner clocked in at 37 fielding runs. Now that’s definitely not an insignificant difference; but on the other hand it only averages to a difference of about 4 fielding runs per year in Walker’s advantage.
This is really a semantic question at this point, but I refuse to believe 4 fielding runs difference per year is the difference between a “great fielder/fantastic right fielder” (Walker) and a “below-average fielder/slightly above-average right fielder” (Waner).
Trying to find some common ground here, paget, I think age 35 (you used this in comment 130) is a pretty good cutoff point for gauging what the numbers are saying about a player’s fielding instead of including all of his late decline years. It’s not fair to include those years for guys who played their entire career in the outfield, guys like Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, or even Walker and Waner.
Walker is +92 Rfield, +29 runs overall thru age 35.
Waner is +37 Rfield, -52 runs overall.
There is an 81-run difference between the two at that point. But there’s another issue, paget: playing time. You’re ignoring it entirely if you don’t use the positional adjustment as it doles out runs based on innings in the field. This is another issue with just looking at Rfield, even for two players who played the same position.
Walker played 12600 innings in the field through age 35. Waner logged 16400. That’s about 3 more full years’ worth of innings for Waner. So the gap is more than 4 runs per year between the two.
Per 1350 innings (150 full games)
Walker: +10 Rfield, +3 runs overall
Waner: +3 Rfield, -4 runs overall
That’s a big enough gap for me to have differing opinions on these two. And the conclusions reached from these numbers still pass muster. YMMV.
@184/bstar,
This is a helpful and interesting comment. And also not condescending at all, which makes it easier to digest than your earlier ones in this particular discussion. David P in comment 157 hit the nail on the head — no one here is looking at raw Rfield and then saying something like Waner is as good a fielder as Larkin, or as valuable in the field, or whatever. My point was always only that Waner was considerably more valuable in the field for most of his career than the average RF and that that would be another point in his favor since he clearly wasn’t just a uni-dimensional monster at the plate.
I still don’t understand how you can refer to Walker as a “great fielder” when he only achieved 1.5dWAR for his career except by admitting that, semantically, you did/do the exact same thing I did in referring to Waner as a good fielder (in other words comparing him to his peers at his position). But I’m happy to let that lie; it’s not really that important.
@120
mosc: Why do you use a 25 year period instead the players actual number of years?
The smaller the number, the higher the weighting towards peak. NYEAR25 is chosen to be the length of an extremely long career to standardize the time window without penalizing all but the most extreme cases. Even at 25,as opposed to say NYEAR15, you’re extremely peak weighted. When I get home I’ll show an example with Koufax and Blyleven.
@140
mosc: Have you done your Koufax-Blyleven analysis? If I have done my analysis correctly I have 5.00 for Koufax and 5.61 for Blyleven.
Gehrig
Kevin Brown
Gehringer
Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer, Rick Reuschel
Richie Ashburn (for top9/10%); Mickey Cochrane and Charlie Gehringer
… and THERE it is. The first ballot not to name Lou Gehrig; it had to happen sometime. But ol’ Biscuit Pants had a good run!
Doc – Gehrig has this round locked up. Anyway he never hit the same fan with a foul ball twice. Now that’s a COG accomplishment.
I guess it’s considered poor taste to not vote for the best candidate. It gives you 3 votes to everyone else’s 2 for determining who remains on the ballot and if they get extra rounds. Some people used to vote for strictly the three strongest while others were voting purely for the bottom of the ballot. We’ve kind of met in the middle where most folks will vote for who they want to win at the minimum and the rest of their ballot is more open to interpretation.
But wouldn’t it be more fun if the obvious best candidate occasionally hung back for a round or two in order to set up discussions of comparable superstars?
Speaker and Cobb are two years apart, and we almost certainly won’t get that face-off.
Gehrig, Ferrell, Ruffing
Gehrig, Gehringer, and Kevin Brown — does anyone else here find it hard to compare players who played 80 years apart with a straight face? You can only beat who you play , but the complexity of the number of dimensions that the game has changed leaves my head spinning a bit – I have no idea whether my third choice was better than about 5 guys on the ballot who played in the 20s and 30s
Campanella, Cochrane, and Gehrig
Through 38 votes (#106), the standings:
37 – Gehrig
23 – Gehringer
================50% (19)
12 – Hubbell
================25% (10)
9 – Cochrane
8 – Waner
4 – Brown
================10% (4)
3 – Ashburn*, Campanella, Ferrell*, Reuschel
2 – Evans*, Winfield*
1 – Eckersley, Killebrew, Nettles, Ruffing*, Tiant
0 – Minoso
Asterisks denote players on the bubble.
I’m right on board with you…
Gehrig, Hubbell, Winfield
Gehrig, Hubbell, Cochrane.
No objection to #4 getting in.
Homeruns in 1927, AL:
Ruth 60
Philadelphia 56
St Louis (total) 55
Detroit 51
Gehrig 47
White Sox 36
Washington 29
Boston 28
Cleveland 26
Lazzeri 18
Williams (StL) 17
My votes:
Killebrew
Minoso
Lazzeri
That’s only the second vote for Killebrew. I’m glad that amongst a pool with multiple COG members his support rightly falls to ballot maintenance at best.
That’s no different than all the other holdovers on the ballot, though.
Last player to hit more HR in a season than a team: In 1949 Ralph Kiner had 54 and the White Sox had 43.
I want to vote for Lazzeri, but his only standout stat is RBI.
And that’s batting 5th and 6th behind George and Henry.
But still…
6.125 plate appearances per RBI for Tony Lazzeri.
Among 2nd Basemen:
5.98 … Rogers Hornsby
6.13 … Tony Lazzeri
6.27 … Jeff Kent
6.44 … Bobby Doerr
6.70 … Joe Gordon
7.14 … Robinson Cano*
7.15 … Chase Utley*
7.18 … Charlie Gehringer
Right now exactly 3 votes is good for the 9th place tie.
_____
Vote:
Dennis Eckersley
Lou Gehrig
Paul Waner
Just occurred to me that I haven’t actually voted yet.
My votes for as long as I can remember have tended toward keeping bubble boys on the ballot. I’m going to continue with that in this election as well, but this is the first ballot where it doesn’t feel good to do it.
The top four guys on the ballot are not really up for debate in my opinion. And a very strong case can be made for Cochrane as well of course. But I think all five of those players will get in eventually and don’t need the help for the moment. Of the holdovers I believe that Winfield, Ferrell, and Ashburn belong, and all of them are on the bubble, so that’s going to be my vote.
Ashburn,
Ferrell,
Winfield
Ashburn Reuschel Gehrig
Lou Gehrig, Carl Hubbell, Paul Waner
Through 45 votes (#139), the totals:
42 – Gehrig
23 – Gehringer
================50% (23)
15 – Hubbell
================25% (12)
10 – Cochrane, Waner
5 – Ashburn*
================10% (5)
4 – Brown, Ferrell*, Reuschel, Winfield*
3 – Campanella
2 – Evans*, Eckersley, Killebrew
1 – Lazzeri, Minoso, Nettles, Ruffing*, Tiant
Asterisks denote players on the bubble.
Still right with you. I’ll also note that, following Kirk’s vote below, the 9-player cutoff is at 4 votes. So, as things stand as of Kirk @143, Dwight Evans and Red Ruffing (as well as newcomer Tony Lazzeri) would fall off the ballot completely; Roy Campanella, Dennis Eckersley, Minnie Minoso, and Graig Nettles would fall to the bubble; Harmon Killebrew would be in terrible shape, with only 9 rounds of eligibility left in his store. 😉
For those interested in storing up a couple of extra rounds for Charlie Gehringer, he’s exactly at 50% following Kirk’s vote @143. He’ll need to be on half the remaining ballots (duh) in order to keep that position. Meanwhile, Carl Hubbell probably only needs 3 more votes to lock up 25%, while Paul Waner (at 11/46) is awfully close, but would need a lot of help to get to 25% before the round ends.
Finally, Lou Gehrig is VERY close to the all-time vote % record for a single round. The record belongs to Stan Musial (94.12%). Gehrig, through Kirk @143, sits at 93.48%, the second-best mark in COG-history. Others over 90%: George Brett (93.44%), Ted Williams (93.24%), Jackie Robinson (91.78%), Randy Johnson (91.67%), Greg Maddux (90.67%), and Mike Schmidt (90.16%).
Keep in mind, vote changes end today, so get them in before tonight if you’re going to make a change!
Gehrig, Waner and Minoso
Vote change:
From Gehrig, Gehringer, Waner
To Gehrig, Gehringer, Ferrell
Not because I think Ferrell was better, but solely to try to make it a tiny bit harder for everyone low on the list to get top-9 through some stupid 8-way tie.
There are people waiting to vote for the last minute to create an 8-way tie. It’s near unavoidable.
Yep, which is a reason I think the entire process is deeply flawed. I should probably wait until the very last possible second to vote, just to screw people over.
Okay, this post turned out a little more hostile than I had intended it to, but I’m going to post it anyway and just ask that the two of you (mosc and Mike HBC) forgive my tone.
1. You are both being ludicrously pessimistic. First of all, there isn’t going to be an 8-way tie. It’s just not going to happen. It wasn’t even terribly realistic at the time mosc suggested it, and it’s certainly not realistic as of today.
2. OF COURSE the process is deeply flawed. Name one single, solitary process in the world that’s flawless. Oh wait; there is no such thing. Honestly, if you want to be a gamesman, and wait until the last possible second, YOU SHOULD. I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. There really hasn’t been anything terribly unjust happening on the ballot. I don’t see how it harms me as a voter or as a human being that Red Ruffing or Minnie Minoso is still on the ballot, even though I’m never, ever going to vote for either of them. So what?
3. There may be some electees with which you disagree; I’m sure we ALL disagree with at least one person who’s been elected. But overall, the process has worked ridiculously well, has not overlooked obvious candidates, has separated some borderline candidates from others, and has done a much better job than the BBWAA. Those were exactly the goals of this project. As someone who had A LOT of doubts about this process when it began, I can say that birtelcom’s system has actually been a HUGE success.
This year’s “Fab Five” all belong, but their fates are mostly determined (and besides, it hardly matters whether Gehringer gets 2 rounds of eligibility or 4 – he’s going to win next round anyway – and I don’t think any of Hubbell, Cochrane, or Waner will be in danger of falling off the ballot down the line even if they don’t crack 25% this time around), and there are 5 other players I’d like to vote for.
Of the players on the bubble, I’d like to see Evans and Winfield continue on, but I feel more strongly about Winfield than Evans – if nothing else, I don’t want to have redeem him a third time. Of the players who are on-deck to the bubble, as it were, I favor Campanella, Nettles, and Tiant. Hmm. Guess I’ll go with the position players, as both are at position where the CoG is a little thinner.
Campanella, Nettles, Winfield
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasonal totals:
Gehrig 78.9
Gehringer 48.1
Brown 43.3
Waner 40.8
Reuschel 40.6
FerrellW 40.1
Hubbell 39.8
Tiant 37.5
Nettles 35.7
Evans 34.9
Eckersley 34.3
Ashburn 33.9
Ruffing 33.1
Killebrew 33.0
Winfield 31.1
Minoso 30.6
Cochrane 29.5
Herman 27.4
JacksonT 26.5
Lazzeri 23.6
Campanella 19.2
Hafey 16.3
15 Hall of Famers on the ballot, including 10 new guys, and 2 of them were more valuable than Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown has four votes.
I hope there’s a good Cochrane vs. Campanella debate in our near future.
Gehrig, Brown, Cochrane
Harmon Killebrew, Lou Gehrig, Carl Hubbell
Gehrig Gehringer Cochrane
Gehrig, Gehringer, and Hubbell. Toyed with picking Waner over Hubbell–as a nearsighted (but near-teetotaler) man, I’m fascinated by the idea that he could possibly play the outfield. At least a pitched ball is on you right away. As to the holdovers, I’ve expressed my lack of enthusiasm before, so I’m happy to see all these uber-qualified types. I’m voting now to avoid the possibility of being influenced later by people on the bubble.
Looking at 5 years on either side of Waner’s career.
1920 – 1950
Most Hits
3152 … Waner
2927 … Al Simmons
2876 … Mel Ott
2839 … Gehringer
2837 … Frankie Frisch
Doubles
605 … Waner
574 … Gehringer
540 … Medwick
539 … Simmons
534 … Gehrig
Triples
191 … Waner
173 … Goslin
165 … Sam Rice
164 … Traynor
163 … Gehrig
Runs
1972 … Ruth
1888 … Gehrig
1859 … Ott
1775 … Gehringer
1751 … Foxx
1627 … Waner
1511 … Frisch
Total Bases
5162 … Ruth
5060 … Gehrig
5041 … Ott
4956 … Foxx
4685 … Simmons
4478 … Waner
13th in RBI
16th in Batting Average (yes, .333 is only 16th best)
Top of the ballot is doing just fine without me, but I can’t NOT vote for The Iron Horse. My two remaining votes I’ll cast for those I feel most endangered.
Gehrig, Evans, Ruffing
Gehrig, Gehringer, Waner
Gehrig, Gehringer, Waner please.
Vote update through Low T, the 54th vote (* indicates bubble; everyone else has two rounds, except Harmon Killebrew):
50 – Lou Gehrig*
27 – Charlie Gehringer*
17 – Carl Hubbell*
======================25% (14)
12 – Mickey Cochrane*, Paul Waner*
======================10% (6)
5 – Richie Ashburn*, Kevin Brown, Wes Ferrell*, Dave Winfield*
======================TOP NINE
4 – Roy Campanella, Rick Reuschel
3 – Dwight Evans*, Harmon Killebrew
2 – Dennis Eckersley, Minnie Minoso, Graig Nettles, Red Ruffing*
1 – Tony Lazzeri*, Luis Tiant
With a push, Cochrane and/or Waner could get to 25%.
Hubbell should PROBABLY be safely above 25%, regardless of whether or not anyone votes for him the rest of the way. He might need one more vote just to be certain.
Gehringer is still chugging along right at 50%.
Lou Gehrig’s vote percentage (92.59%) is now 4th all-time.
I think there are AT LEAST five votes out there still; the last time we had fewer than 59 voters was round 34 – one year ago! So don’t forget to get your votes in if you’re planning on voting!
A round like this one, when compared to the last one, makes me doubt the voting methodology for the COG.
If Eddie Murray had not been elected in the last round, he would be maybe 4th or 5th in this round. But he’s in.
And Gehrig will get in this round. And probably Gehringer and Waner on another round–but we still have players like Ruth, Speaker, Cobb, W.Johnson, Speaker, Wagner, Hornsby, and more coming up. And they are going to bump off a lot of players on the hold over list, I think.
And as great a player as Murray was, he’s not in the same class as Gerhig, Ruth, Cobb, etc.
I don’t think anyone’s making the case that Murray IS in the same class as Gehrig, Ruth, or Cobb. That’s not the question we’re trying to answer, though. The question we’re trying to answer is, “If we were to elect the same number of MLB players as the BBWAA, whom would we elect?” That means 115 or so, REGARDLESS of what class of player. SOMEONE has to be the worst player on every list. SOMEONE has to be #115. It’s going to be an Eddie Murray or a Larry Walker or a Barry Larkin or a Whitey Ford or a John Smoltz or a Craig Biggio. We have to fill all those slots. Yes, it’s probably true that not everyone from the current holdover list will make it into the COG. But while that’s true, this electorate said that Murray stood out among the players who were there. Just as someone has to be the last in, someone has to be the first out. I just don’t see a problem with what we’ve been doing so far; in fact, I see it as a pretty remarkable success.
Yeah, there was a time where Edgar Martinez wasn`t even in anyone`s top 9 (ie. he fell onto the redemption ballot, as did Killebrew, Reuschel, Brown, Eck, Nettles, Evans, Ashburn and Winfield of the current crop), and he`s long since elected. I don`t really see the idea of someone being less worthy than a bunch of people that come on at once as being a problem with the methodology. I guess we could have started at the top and semi-arbitrarily let Birtelcom select the all-time greats and go from there, or maybe we could have had everyone eligible every round and you just vote and the top vote getter gets in until we matched the BBWAA number, or could have redone it starting at the class of 1935 for the HoF…. but I can`t really think of a better methodology than we have. I really like going back into baseball history, and the clumping of birth years is just part of the fun of the strategic process for me.
What would you suggest as an alternative?
Some comparisons to point out the success of COG voting so far:
Players in the COG that the BBWAA somehow missed (WAR numbers included): Bonds (162.4), Clemens (139.4), Mussina (82.7), Schilling (80.7), Bagwell (79.6), Whitaker (74.9), Vaughan (72.9), Walker (72.6), Mize (71.0), Grich (70.9), Santo (70.4), Trammel (70.4), Raines (69.1), E. Martinez (68.3), Lofton (68.2), Reese (66.3), Piazza (59.4), Gordon (57.1). Griffey, Rivera, Thome, and Rose are in the COG though not eligible (yet) for the HOF. Bonds and Clemens we know why – we gave Gordon war credit with a short career – probably the weakest position player choice overall.
Players in the HOF by BBWAA that we passed on: Sutton (68.7), Dawson (64.5), Bi. Williams (63.5), Drysdale (61.2), Stargell (57.5), Aparicio (55.8), Medwick (55.5), Perez (53.9), Wynn (51.6), Puckett (50.9), Wilhelm (50.1). Dean, Gossage, Lemon, Hunter, Fingers, Sutter, Kiner, Fox, J. Rice, and Brock had < 50 WAR and were avoided also. Sutton and Brock have compiler reps, peak guys may prefer Dean/Kiner, and most relievers outside of Wilhelm or Gossage have not seen support. Likely Dawson, Bi. Williams and Drysdale are the borderline guys that the best arguments can be made for.
Players in the HOF by BBWAA born after 1903 that are on the backlog: R. Ruffing (70.4), D. Winfield (63.8), D. Eckersley (62.5), H. Killebrew (60.3), R. Campanella (34.2). Still have a shot, as they should.
Players in the HOF by veteran committees that we passed on: Newhouser (60.4), Bunning (60.3), Slaughter (55.0), Herman (54.7), Doerr (51.2), Cepeda (50.2) and the large group of Gomez, Doby, Lombardi, Klein, Schoendienst, Rizzuto, Kell, Mazeroski, R. Ferell, Lindstrom and L. Waner with <50 WAR. Ashburn (63.4) is the only one still on the backlog – who in the remainder is truly great?
Players not in the HOF that we passed on: Palmiero (71.6), B. Bell (66.1), Randolph (65.5), R. Smith (64.5), K. Boyer (62.8), T. John (62.3), McGwire (62.0), Cone (61.7), Bando (61.4), W. Davis (60.5), Edmonds (60.3), Sheffield (60.2), K. Hernandez (60) and a host of others <60 WAR. These are so tightly bunched – no one really stands out besides Palmiero, and he has issues.
Players not in the HOF still on the backlog: K. Brown (68.5), Reuschel (68.2), Nettles (68.0), Dw. Evans (66.9), Tiant (66.1), W. Ferrell (61.5), Minoso (50.1). Most still have a chance, though separating the pitchers is hard.
The weakest choices for COG by WAR: Piazza, Berra (59.3) and Dickey (55.8) – all catchers, Greenberg (57.5) and Gordon – war credit as mentioned above, Rivera (56.6), Ford (53.9) and Koufax (53.2) – all high peak pitchers with special roles. Above them are Jackie Robinson at 61.5 and Marichal at 61.9, then all 64+ WAR. Hard to say that we picked many duds – Ford and Koufax are the fringe guys but hard to ignore.
In all, these results would seem to indicate a well-running process where the truly superior players are getting their due. Guys like Murray and Alomar may not have had many dominant years (seeming overrated by WAR) but truly excelled over their careers, and that counts too. The group we choose will be much stronger than the BBWAA's, and selecting the best talents in the history of the game with more objectivity was the point of this whole exercise.
In reply to Dr. Doom’s comment #35 on this thread Dave Humbert does an excellent job in laying out the remaining players for our consideration. Not only is there no doubt that everyone in the Ruth, Speaker, Cobb category will get in there is also little doubt that everyone at the next level will as well. I am confident that if we were to do a poll ranking players in order that virtually everyone in the top 100 will be in the COG.
I do think it is possible however that there may be 2 or 3 players that the majority feel belong that will not get in simply because of a lack of space. And part of the reason for that is because of our birth year system of voting. But they’re going to be the consensus 105th best player or something on those lines. And that is an oversite that if we were to continue this project into the future that we would likely eventually correct. So for now I think that the best thing for us to do is to try and ensure that the players we do have to choose from in a given year represent the very best of the remaining candidates from the nearly 80 years that we currently have available to us.
Timing is everything.
But, the HOF has the same phenomenon. When the ballot is lacking some shine, players like Perez and Rice get HOF nods.
Indeed, timing is crucial. A dearth of Hall-quality starting pitchers during his time on the ballot almost let Jack Morris slip into Cooperstown.
Gehrig, Tiant, Brown
Although our COG is by definition more exclusive than the actual MLB HOF, the Ruth/ Cobb/ Gehrig level of player has _NEVER_ been our standard, or anything close to it. Using Gehrig as the lower boundary, there are, what? – 10, 12, maybe 15 position players at that level.
A discussion limited to that level of greatness would be a whole lot less fun than what we do now. Eddie Murray is a perfectly fine COG inductee; I’m surprised it took so long for a 1st-ballot HOFer with many qualifications to get in (of course, there have been other 1st-ballot HOFers, such as Brock and Puckett, who didn’t get much support here).
Reuschel, Evans, Tiant
Brown, Reuschel, Ruffing.
Gehrig, Big Poison, Hubbell.
Gehrig, Gehringer, Cochrane
Tiant, Nettles, Eckersley
Let’s make this a little more interesting for last-minute voters…would be a shame for these three to lose their cushion from the bubble. Tiant and Nettles are right up there in WAR, and Eck may be the last reliever we see on the ballot (doubt Wilhelm or Gossage have a shot at redemption anymore). Lazzeri was just born in the wrong year to have any longevity, but I can pass on him. If this ballot were less crowded, Gehrig could have got near 100% and holdovers would have been safe (Ruth should have a shot in 1895).
Kilebrew, Waner and Gehrig
With just under 24 hours to go, here’s the tally through 61 votes (#173):
54 – Gehrig
======================50% (31)
28 – Gehringer
18 – Hubbell
======================25% (16)
14 – Waner
13 – Cochrane
7 – Brown
======================10% (7)
6 – Reuschel
5 – Ashburn*, Ferrell*, Winfield* tied for 8th-10th place
4 – Campanella, Evans*, Killebrew, Tiant
3 – Eckersley, Nettles, Ruffing*
2 – Minoso
1 – Lazzeri*
Gehrig has fallen under 90%, and Gehringer below 50%. The scramble among the holdovers for a top 9 finish continues apace.
Join the crowd: Lou Gehrig
Stay on the ballot: + Red Sox favorite: Dwight Evans
Stay on the ballot: Dave Winfield
Test-test-My last post from yesterday didn’t seem to get posted. Indeed, nothing on here for the last two or three days. It makes me wonder if we are losing votes.
I’ve been super busy lately so I have been putting off voting and posting until the last day of the last few rounds; but I’m still not sure who I want to vote for! Lots of strategic considerations. As of now, bubble boys Ashburn, Ferrell and Evans are below the 10% threshold, but would hang on due to being tied for 9th. My methodology is bullish on Ferrell, lukewarm on Ashburn and Evans, and if I had to choose I’d be fine letting Evans go. Ruffing, who I rate below Ferrell but still worthy of consideration, is probably a lost cause, as is the extra round for Eck, Minoso and Nettles – just not enough votes left. I could, however, throw votes to Campy and Tiant to pull them up into a tie for 9th. But then, if any one of them or the guys at 5 gets one more vote, the whole house of cards comes crashing down because a tie for 10th counts for squat. Some serious game theory going on here. But also, I just can’t decide. I’m sure of one thing – I’ll give one vote to Gehrig because I can’t not. But the others? I’ll mull it over some more I guess.
Might as well post my straight up rankings while I’m at it – methodology has been explained for the last 30 or so rounds, so hopefully y’all know what the numbers mean. Interesting to note that, strong as this year is, Brown and Reuschel still rank above Hubbell.
Gehrig 4
Gehringer 8
Waner 17
Brown 20
Reuschel 21
Hubbell 27
Tiant 32
Ferrell 35
Nettles 38
Ruffing 41
Ashburn 44
Evans 44
Eckersley 46
Winfield 54
Killebrew 58
Cochrane 60
Minoso 62
Campanella 72
Okay, finally decided:
Lou Gehrig (best position player)
Kevin Brown (best pitcher by a hair over Hubbell thanks to tougher league)
Wes Ferrell (strategic vote to give him a cushion and keep him safely in the Top 9)
Gehrig, Campanella, Tiant
With 64 votes in (through #186):
57 – Gehrig
======================50% (32)
28 – Gehringer
18 – Hubbell
======================25% (16)
14 – Waner
13 – Cochrane
8 – Brown
======================10% (7)
6 – Ferrell*, Reuschel, Winfield* tied for 7th-9th place
5 – Ashburn*, Campanella, Evans*, Tiant
4 – Killebrew
3 – Eckersley, Nettles, Ruffing*
2 – Minoso
1 – Lazzeri*
Four players are one vote away from a tie for 9th place.
Gehrig, Cochrane, Winfield.
Campanella, Evans, Tiant
Haha, oops. After my earlier comment, I for some reason thought the deadline was midnight Pacific time, not Eastern (didn’t it change to that, at least for a brief period, awhile back?) I guess I’m 42 minutes too late. Anyway, my vote would have been Gehrig, Ferrell, Ashburn, which would have saved Ashburn but I doubt he’d make it in eventually anyway. And next round is going to be just as tough, adding Simmons but putting Eck, Nettles, and Minnie on the bubble. So it goes, my mistake.
Is site on Central Time or did not adjust for Daylight Savings last weekend? I’m at 12:59 AM EST now.
I think it didn’t adjust for DST. And so it appears the vote @189 (which would have saved Evans, and kept Campanella and Tiant off the bubble) came after the deadline.
Quite the bloodbath this round: 3 players (Ashburn, Evans, Ruffing) fall off the ballot, and 6 others (Campanella, Eckersley, Killebrew, Minoso, Nettles, Tiant) lose a round of eligibility, with all of those except Killebrew going back on the bubble.
68.2% of votes went to first-timers, which I’m pretty sure is a record (other than the first round or two).
I believe the site is on Central time.
Either way, it would seem that Scary Tuna’s vote @188 is the last for this round.
It looks like I’m too late. Some of us don’t live on the east coast.
It would have been. Gehrig, Ashburn, Campanella.
@142, 152, 181, 184;
Paul Waner vs. Larry Walker:
Their career WAR is almost identical, and JAWS on B-R rates Walker 10th, Waner 11th. Despite that, because Walker has serious durability and park adjustment issues (amply discussed here), I would still rate Waner clearly ahead of Walker, despite what WAR tells us.
This, the same way I would rate Paul Waner above Craig Nettles. Yes, I know that Nettles is underrated, and BA and base hit totals are overrated. Despite that, I have seen Paul Waner on _many_ all-time Top-100 MLB lists, and Craig Nettles on _no_ all-time Top-100 MLB lists.
BTW, Walker is slightly above the average JAWS score for RFers, and Waner slightly below the average JAWS score for RFers.