22 thoughts on “COG Round 88 Results: Voters don’t linger over Gehringer”

1. oneblankspace March 23, 2015 at 11:07 am

   Assuming the goOgle spreadsheet is up to date…

   25% was reached by Cochrane, Hubbell, Waner, and A.Simmons
   10% was reached by Killebrew, Miñoso, Eckersley, Campanella, Tiant, Reuschel, Ferrell, Nettles.

   Receiving votes but less than 10% were Brown, Averill, Berg.

   Reply ↓
   1. Scary Tuna March 23, 2015 at 9:27 pm

      Winfield also reached 10%.

      Reply ↓
2. Dr. Doom March 23, 2015 at 12:25 pm

   Round 88 all-time vote update! * = active on the ballot; # = in redemption purgatory; all others elected.

   For the record, I did NOT count the vote by “BillH” for Winfield, Tiant, and Minoso. If we get clarification on that being an entirely different BillH from regular poster billh, I will add those votes in accordingly. Now, without further ado, here is the update:

   Craig Biggio – 763
   Eddie Murray – 731
   Roberto Alomar – 725
   John Smoltz – 658
   Kenny Lofton – 608
   Ryne Sandberg – 607
   Edgar Martinez – 507
   Lou Whitaker – 493
   *Harmon Killebrew – 492
   Whitey Ford – 382
   Bobby Grich – 376
   Sandy Koufax – 375
   *Kevin Brown – 347
   Tony Gwynn – 346
   Willie McCovey – 336
   *Minnie Minoso – 271
   *Roy Campanella – 270
   Juan Marichal – 268
   Tom Glavine – 262
   *Dennis Eckersley – 257
   *Dave Winfield – 245
   Alan Trammell – 239
   Mike Mussina – 233
   Curt Schilling – 224
   Nolan Ryan – 220
   Ron Santo – 217
   Lou Boudreau – 216
   Tim Raines – 213
   Larry Walker – 197
   Barry Larkin – 188
   *Rick Reuschel – 181
   Frank Thomas – 181
   *Luis Tiant – 176
   Paul Molitor – 152
   Bob Gibson – 147
   Gaylord Perry – 142
   Jim Palmer – 133
   Al Kaline – 132
   Duke Snider – 130
   Joe Gordon – 126
   Ernie Banks – 119
   #Richie Ashburn – 118
   Eddie Mathews – 115

   1. The other holdovers: Wes Ferrell (76), Graig Nettles (74), Carl Hubbell (36), Paul Waner (33), Mickey Cochrane (30), Al Simmons (20).
   2. Charlie Gehringer finished with 60 total votes, and will no longer appear on these updates, having been elected with fewer than 100 total votes. Also receiving votes this round were Earl Averill and Moe Berg, with one vote each. Either could be redeemed… but I don’t think it’s very likely.
   3. I, for one, am shocked to see Kevin Brown lose a round. I’m not really sure where his support went from round 87 to 88. The addition of Simmons at the cost of Gehrig actually opened UP votes, yet Brown was below the 10% line – and even one more vote wouldn’t have saved him! He’s not really been in that position for a while, so it’s a bit of a surprise to me. Admittedly, as one of the people who votes for him most, I perhaps have paid a bit more attention to him than some others, but still – it’s kind of a shock.
   4. The other thing that surprises me is the continued lack of support for Mickey Cochrane. I get it; his WAR is low. But we have a LOT of trouble electing catchers. I believe we’ve elected six of them (Berra, Bench, Carter, Dickey, Fisk, and Piazza, IIRC). The only electable ones left are Cochrane, Campanella, and Hartnett (at least until Pudge Rodriguez comes around in the 1971 election), and I see Cochrane as the best of that group. Personally, I see him as the best of the remaining group of three from his birth year, but I guess there are a lot of voters out there who disagree with me, because he’s finished behind the other two (Waner and Hubbell) in both rounds so far. And I say all this as someone who hasn’t even VOTED for him. But I probably will this round. Anyway, I just wanted to editorialize a bit. Have a great day, everyone!

   Reply ↓
   1. mosc March 23, 2015 at 8:39 pm

      I have the remaining catchers in this order:
      1) Campanella
      2) Hartnett
      3) Cochrane

      I would probably elect 1 and 2 but not 3. Cochrane was not much of a peak guy at catcher either. I don’t need to see the same longevity at catcher but it’d be nice to see a catcher put up more than 5.7 WAR more than once. Buster Posey in 2012 was better than anything Cochrane ever did, so was Mauer in ’09 (in fact I don’t know how you can seriously argue Cochrane > Mauer career wise even now).

      Reply ↓
      1. Dr. Doom March 23, 2015 at 9:30 pm

         But… why would you elect Hartnett if not Cochrane? 7 more seasons played with only 1.3 extra WAR to show for it? Hartnett had peak of 5.4, with only one other 5.0 season (and it was EXACTLY 5.0, at that). Cochrane had 6.3, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, and 5.0. I REALLY don’t get the argument for Hartnett, unless you’re related to him or something. You’re after Cochrane for peak value, but he definitely has more of that than Hartnett.

         Reply ↓
         1. David P March 24, 2015 at 2:59 pm

            I’m with you Doom. It’s basically the exact opposite of the argument that he made in saying Simmons was better than Waner. I’d say more but it’s probably best to bite my tongue. Really, really hard!

            Reply ↓
         2. mosc March 24, 2015 at 5:23 pm

            Mostly defensive underestimation. I don’t think Hartnett is a great candidate but if you take on faith he was undervalued by ~10 runs per 162 games he gets a lot of extra value. Cochrane meanwhile was below the league average in caught stealing percentage.

            I would fully agree that if I thought RFIELD for catchers in this era was worth anything I’d put Cochrane ahead of Hartnett. Totally tossing it out and approximating their defensive value with modern equivalents, Hartnett had a long career with a lot of defensive value. Cochrane on the other hand, I don’t think would change much in career value. I didn’t exactly see much of either player mind you 😉

            Reply ↓
            1. mosc April 1, 2015 at 3:29 pm

               I find it surprising that I am in the minority favoring Hartnett over Cochrane. Their defensive reputations are not that comparable.
            2. John Autin April 1, 2015 at 5:27 pm

               mosc, Hartnett’s career Rfield is 14 runs better than Cochrane. If you think it should be several times that much, it can’t all come from CS rates.

               MLB teams averaged 70 steals per year during Hartnett’s years as a regular. Hartnett’s career edge in CS%, applied to the number of tries Cochrane faced, amounts to 15 extra outs per year. I don’t think that warrants the size of edge you are asserting.

               For offense alone, Cochrane’s 11 regular years totaled 49.8 oWAR. Hartnett’s 16 regular years totaled 51.6 oWAR — an edge of 2.8 oWAR in 1,072 more PAs. Cochrane had 5 years over 5 oWAR, Hartnett one. For their 8-year peaks, Cochrane wins oWAR by 40.5-29.7. For a 6-year peak, it’s Cochrane by 31.5-22.2.

               Over all, I see them as equals.
3. Richard Chester March 23, 2015 at 3:50 pm

   Gehringer’s MVP award came in 1937 and it was quite an interesting and somewhat controversial battle. There were 5 guys with titanic numbers that year, which was a hitter’s year. The 5 were Gehringer, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Dickey and Greenberg. Gehringer’s OPS of .978 was exceeded by the 4 other players, as was his RBI total of 96 by a very comfortable margin. WAR-wise Gehringer was 4th among those guys. His stand-out stat was his league-leading .371 BA. Most people expected that DiMaggio, Greenberg or Gehrig would walk away with the award. It may have been somewhat of a meritorious achievement award for Gehringer as he had been a long-time outstanding second-baseman with no big awards. He had 6 prior finishes in the MVP top-ten.

   Reply ↓
4. mosc March 23, 2015 at 8:35 pm

   Gehringer was great. We shouldn’t be comparing him to whitaker, we should be comparing him to Joe Gordon and Rod Carew. I think 1 and 2 are Rajah and Joe-I-don’t-like-walks-but-I-took-a-ton-of-em-Morgan but Gehringer has a legit case to be in the top 3 at his position all time.

   Reply ↓
   1. David Horwich March 23, 2015 at 9:16 pm

      Gehringer over Collins, huh? I’d put Gehringer #4 or 5 at the position, either just ahead or behind of Lajoie.

      Reply ↓
      1. mosc March 24, 2015 at 6:28 pm

         I forgot Collins lol

         Reply ↓
   2. Lawrence Azrin March 24, 2015 at 11:45 am

      Greatest second baseman ever rankings? The consensus nowadays seems to be:

      GREATEST EVER (#1-#3): Eddie Collins, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan (listed chronologically); I’d rank them:
      -Morgan
      -Collins
      -Hornsby

      A lot of the above ranking depends largely on how you evaluate their defense. I rank Hornsby 3rd because how was an adequate defensive 2nd baseman, but nowhere as good as the other two. His amazing hitting closes the gap considerably, but not completely (IMHO).

      #4: Naploean Lajoie; not as good as the above three, but better than anyone else (although B-R ranks him #3)

      #5/#6: Charlie Gehringer or Jackie Robinson. You can justify either at #5, depending upon how much color-line pre-1947 credit you give Robinson, and whether you value peak or career.

      #7-#12: tight cluster with Rod Carew, Ryan Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio, Bobby Grich and Frankie Frisch

      I don’t see how you can rank Gehringer any lower than #6, but maybe someone can make an argument for one of the guys in #7-13.

      Reply ↓
      1. Voomo Zanzibar March 24, 2015 at 7:14 pm

         By what method are you ranking Rajah below Collins and Morgan defensively? Because the numbers suggest the opposite (while also giving him credit for solid play at both SS and 3B).

         Reply ↓
         1. John Autin March 24, 2015 at 7:56 pm

            Wow, Voomo — those Rfield numbers are shocking to many of us, I suspect.

            The BJHBA called Hornsby an adequate defender, but the worst of those who had long careers at 2B. (Last in def. Win Shares per inning out of 71 with 10,000 innings.) James also quoted glowing praise of Collins’s defense, by the likes of John McGraw and Bucky Harris.

            But the most shocking number has to be Morgan’s -48 Rfield. I had no idea, and I don’t know what to say — about any of this.

            Reply ↓
            1. no statistician but March 25, 2015 at 8:44 am

               Voomo and JA:

               A look at the details reveals that 42 of Hornsby’s 54 Rfield runs came before the 1922 season, the majority while he was playing SS.

               Collins’ total of 35 is deceptive. In the last three seasons he was a regular, ages 37-39, his Rfield was -27, cutting into the previous total considerably.

               After 1921 Hornsby was consistently below league average in fielding percentage and range. Collins was above average, far above at times, most of the years of his career.

               The suspicious thing about Morgan’s Rfield is that he appears to have been a lousy fielder in Houston—44 of his negative career Rfield out of 48—and then became fairly good for five years in Cincy.

               All I’m saying, like a broken record, is that career totals are often deceptive.

               No, that’s not all I’m saying. I’m also saying, as many others here have said, that the stats guys haven’t got a good handle on evaluating fielding, neither as an art nor as a science, so it’s —let’s call it ‘unwise’—it’s unwise to give too much credence to the absolute or even the relative accuracy of things like Rfield, especially concerning earlier eras.
            2. Hartvig March 25, 2015 at 10:16 am

               I remember that when the Astrodome first opened and baseball got it’s first Astroturf field a lot of players compared it to playing on concrete.

               Little Joe was awfully young and didn’t play much in 63 or 64 but Eddie Kasko was at short in both 1964 when they were still playing in Colt Stadium and 1965 when the Dome first opened.

               In old Colt stadium he had 8 Rfield in 1063 innings at short. The following season he dropped to -4 Rfield in less than half (474) the number of innings. Shipped off to Boston the following year his Rfield rebounded to 5 in only 138 innings.

               I think that Morgan’s surprising Rfield is almost entirely due to his spending 9 years playing on the first Astroturf field.
         2. Lawrence Azrin March 25, 2015 at 10:20 am

            @13/VZ;

            I am going more by reputation than by Rfield listed in B-R. As NS implies in #15, Rfield is not to be trusted as a definitive source in earlier eras.

            I’ll stick with:
            – Eddie Collins: great defensive 2Bman most of his career
            – Joe Morgan: very good to excellent defensive 2Bman much of his career
            – Hornsby: decent to very good defender early in his career, but after his inner-ear/equilibrium problems c. 1922, decent at best, rates as a below-average defensive 2Bman. Apparently, he was left at second because other positions posed too much of a challenge with his inner-ear problems.

            My central question, though, was – where does Gehringer rate amongst second basemen? No one has addressed that yet.

            No one mentioned Roberto Alomar, but by career Rfield he rates as a below-average defensive 2Bman (-38, though he was _exactly_ average up till 2000). NO ONE considered him an average defensive 2Bman when he was active – in fact, there was near universal agreement that he was a GREAT defensive 2Bman, and deserving of most of his Gold Gloves (every year but one from 1991-2001).

            Reply ↓
            1. Voomo Zanzibar March 25, 2015 at 11:39 am

               Searching the internet for accounts of Hornsby’s bad defense, I’m not finding anything definitive.

               Here’s something from thebaseballpage that covers both sides of it:

               – While no one ever questioned Hornsby’s greatness as a hitter, the second baseman has often been criticized through the years for his defense. Generally considered to be a mediocre fielder at best, Hornsby frequently struggled with pop-ups, and he committed as many as 52 errors while playing shortstop for the Cardinals in 1917.
               Still, a reporter for the Washington Post described Hornsby in 1918 as “the outstanding fielding shortstop in the western circuit of the National League and perhaps the finest fielding shortstop in the entire league.”
               After moving to second base in 1920, Hornsby led the league in putouts, assists, and double plays. In an August 26, 1925 article in the Los Angeles Times, Hall of Fame shortstop and manager Hughie Jennings described Hornsby as one of the best-fielding second basemen in the game.
               And his average of 3.31 assists per-game is the seventh highest of any second baseman in baseball history.
               ___________

               I tend to believe that someone with that much natural ability, coupled with an absolute obsession for the game, was probably at least average.

               Perhaps he was just so much better than everyone as a hitter, that his defense didnt measure up to THAT standard.
            2. Richard Chester March 25, 2015 at 1:27 pm

               @18

               Hornsby had trouble while looking up and going back for pop-ups due to dizziness and balance problems.
   3. Doug Post authorMarch 26, 2015 at 2:42 pm

      The comparison to Whitaker was because they had the same length careers for the same club, and compiled very similar career stats by WAR and OPS+.

      Reply ↓