This post is for voting and discussion in the 117th 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 before 1870. Rules and lists are after the jump.
The new group of players born before 1870, 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). Additionally, to be eligible, players must also have played at least half their career games since 1901 or compiled 20 WAR since 1901. This new group of 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 EST Tuesday, January 12th, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EST Sunday, January 10th.
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 1867-69 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-before-1870 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 pre-1870 birth-year players 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:
Kevin Brown (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Goose Goslin (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Rube Waddell (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Hoyt Wilhelm (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Dick Allen (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Graig Nettles (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Richie Ashburn (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Fred Clarke (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Bill Dahlen (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Andre Dawson (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Wes Ferrell (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Rick Reuschel (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Luis Tiant (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Bobby Wallace (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born before 1870, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Jesse Burkett
Frank Bowerman
Monte Cross
Jack McCarthy
Ducky Holmes
Pitchers (born before 1870, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Cy Young
Frank Kitson
This round’s tidbits. Answers in red.
1. Cy Young’s career totals dwarf those of all other pitchers, with over 4000 more BF, over 1000 more IP, over 100 more complete games and almost 100 more wins than the no. 2 man on each of those lists. Young’s eight consecutive seasons (1901-08) with 200 IP and WHIP below 1.1 are tied with Walter Johnson (1912-19) for the longest ever streak of such seasons, a stretch that included a 20 loss campaign for Young in 1906. Who is the only live ball era pitcher to lose 20 games in such a season? Turk Farrell (1962)
2. Frank Bowerman is the only player since 1893 to finish his career with 13 straight seasons of 100+ PA and fewer than 20 walks. Bowerman posted 3 seasons for two teams with 20 games at both C and 1B. Which one-time teammate of Bowerman’s did the same? Mike Grady
3. Monte Cross posted a season leading the AL in strikeouts and compiled identical career totals for strikeouts and runs scored. Which other player did the same in a 3000 PA career? Aaron Ward
4. Jack McCarthy’s 158 career strikeouts are second fewest among 375 outfielders with 1000 game careers since 1893 that include at least 80 games at each outfield position. McCarthy is also the only player with 250 games in left field for the Pirates and Indians. Which other left-fielder, like McCarthy, compiled 4 WAR for Pittsburgh and Cleveland? Brian Giles
5. Frank Kitson recorded several markers of his time that have not been accomplished in the live ball era including: completing all of 10 or more starts in a debut season (1898); recording 140 ERA+ in a 300 IP first or second season of a career (1899); and completing all of 25 or more starts (1903). Kitson was a teammate of “Wild” Bill Donovan in both Brooklyn and Detroit, with both exceeding 500 IP for each of those franchises. Who is the only pitcher since with that accomplishment? Jeff Weaver
6. Ducky Holmes led his league in strikeouts in 1899, a season in which he recorded 30 doubles and 50 stolen bases. Who is the only player to do this twice? Juan Samuel (1984, 1985)
7. Jesse Burkett finished his career with 14 straight 2.5 WAR seasons. Who is the only other player to do this? Roberto Clemente
Answer to #7: Roberto Clemente
1. Cy Young – I NEVER would’ve figured this out by guessing – good ol’ manual searching led me to Turk Farrell of the 1962 Houston Colt .45s, with 241 IP, a 1.097 WHIP, and a 10-20 record.
6. Ducky Holmes – Juan Samuel, back-to-back in 1984 (168 SOs, 72 SBs, and 36 2Bs) and 1985 (141, 53, and 31, respectively).
4. Is it Brian Giles? He definitely had more than 4 WAR with both teams, but I’m not sure he fully counts as a LF. He played a decent bit of CF for the Pirates, and played all over the OF for the Tribe.
It is Giles.
Even though his career totals show a plurality of defensive games in RF, he played a large majority of his games in LF for the Tribe, and a smaller but still clear majority in LF for the Bucs.
Answer to #2: Mike Grady
Bowerman was “assigned” to the Giants by Pittsburgh as a result of the Bucs absorbing the Louisville Colonels after the 1899 season and thus having to shed their excess players. With New York in 1900, Bowerman took the largest share of catching duties previously split between Grady and Jack Warner, possibly contributing to Grady’s decision to jump to the Senators of the fledgling AL for the 1901 season.
3 (Cross): Aaron Ward, 4143 PA, 457 R, 457 K, 84 K in 1920 to lead AL hitters. Gil Coan had the PA and career R=K, but never led his league.
Doug, I’m guessing something was wrong with the original trivia question for #5?
I found one of the answers to the removed question – Juan Marichal in 1971. He had the 250+ IP, 110+ ERA+, 2.5+ K/BB and less than 3 WAR.
The other answer is Rube Waddell’s 1907 season with 2.7 WAR from 284 IP with 2.15 ERA and 3.2 SO/W ratio. That one is a real stumper as Waddell garnered 5.7 WAR the year before from 272 IP, 2.21 ERA and only 2.1 SO/W, yet there was virtually no change in run scoring from 1906 to 1907 (could it have something to do with his unearned runs allowed jumping from 22 to 47?)
No particular reason for changing the question, other than it was a bit contrived. When I noticed the rarity of extended pitching tenures with Dodgers and Tigers, thought that might be a more appealing question, especially since the answer is a recent player people are familiar with.
5. For the new question, it’s Jeff Weaver.
In the “Black Ink Ain’t What It Used To Be” category, Weaver tied with Paul Byrd, John Lackey and Jose Contreras to lead the AL in 2007 with 2 Shutouts. That’s in a season where he had a 6.20 ERA, 71 ERA+, and -0.4 WAR. (He was with the Mariners that season – anybody remember that? I watched and/or listened to every Indians game in 2007, but I’m drawing a blank on Weaver’s Seattle tenure)
Weaver needed his second Dodger stint to reach 500 IP in LA. His final season with a 5-1 record despite a 64 ERA+ is only the third best W-L% (min. 5 decisions) with an ERA+ that low, trailing Bob Veale (6-0, 50 ERA+) in 1971 and Dave Tomlin (9-1, 62) in 1978.
CC, I don’t actually remember him pitching for Seattle, however, I do remember him getting the contract (it was a nice one), which he essentially got because of his 1/2 season of pitching in St. Louis and more specifically, his post season pitching for the Cardinals in 2006, helping them win the WS. Dave Duncan (and TLR) managed to get a number of middling pitchers nice fat contracts based on their work for them.
Well, I can’t IMAGINE who the top newcomer is going to be…
Cy Young
Kevin Brown
Wes Ferrell
How many more rounds do we have, y’all? I just can’t remember.
We have two more rounds (1971 in two parts) to bring us to 119 COG members. That matches the number of current HOF members elected as players (excl. those selected by Old Timers, Veterans and Negro League committees). Then we’ll have one or more additional rounds with only Holdovers on the ballot, to select additional COG members matching the number of new HOF players that will be elected this week.
So it’s JUST 1971 that’s left; okay. Thanks! I didn’t remember how we had split that up. And then I know we have the “yearless” rounds at the end. Would it be worth having one more Redemption Round before the “yearless” ones (I’m guessing 3 rounds – maybe 4, if we’re lucky), just to maximize the players on the ballot? Or have those players been so thoroughly combed-over that it’s not worth it at this point?
Sadly, Doom, I am now guessing that we will only have 2 HOF’ers this year.
Last week it looked like Bagwell was going to end up around 75-80% and Tim Raines was going to finish right at the borderline. But both Bags (79.5%) and Raines (78.2%) have already dipped below 80%, with just over a third of the votes counted.
It is almost a given that the non-public votes will dip both those percentages further down. The question is how much. As of right now, Bagwell needs 72.8% on the remaining ballots to make 75% and Raines need 73.5%. I’m skeptical that’s going to happen. My only hope is the 100 or so voters that were culled from last year will keep both of these very-worthy players above the line.
I think it was said in previous threads that the final, yearless rounds would be ‘open’ rounds, that is, with anyone who you want to vote for eligible. Doug, am I remembering correctly? Will the ballot cease to matter after the 1971 rounds?
That method seems likely to produce a vote so scattered that a candidate might sneak in with a very low vote total in a highly scattered field. I’d prefer Doom’s approach. Like bstar, I now expect only two new slots to be open, but with the voter pool reduced by nearly 20%, it’s possible the public/private effect will be less profound.
bells:
I think epm has nailed it: if we were to have 2-4 fully “open” rounds of voting at the end, the vote would be so divided that we’d stand a strong chance of electing someone with a mere handful of votes, which I don’t think is desireable.
Note that in his message of Jan 4 2:20 PM Doug wrote, “…we’ll have one or more additional rounds with only Holdovers on the ballot, to select additional COG members”, and I think that’s the correct way to handle it.
Dr. Doom:
I’ve been wondering whether one last redemption round might be in order, too. If we end up with another 1-2 rounds of voting, I think the current holdover list is sufficient. If we should be so fortunate as to end up with 3-4 more rounds, though, perhaps it’d be worthwhile to throw a few more candidates into the mix.
This is perhaps partly personal prejudice: my choices for the remaining CoG slots are, in order, Young, Pedro, & Pudge (nothing too controversial there, I presume), and then Nettles and Tiant, both of whom I’ve been supporting for a long time. After that…well, I’d probably take Winfield, or maybe Dwight Evans, but of course neither of them is currently on the ballot.
I agree that there will likely only be two people elected this time. What’s odd though is that we’re up to the 11th hour and very few people have publicly revealed their ballots. Right now it’s 158 voters or 35.1% of the estimated total. Last year, 331 voters publicly revealed their ballots, 60.3% of the total.
The HOF announcement is tomorrow afternoon. What the heck is everyone waiting for???
Actually, last year only 201 ballots were revealed prior to the announcement of results. I’m posting about two and a half hours after you (David P) and the vote count is up to 163, so I think we’ll be closing in on the 200 range by announcement time tomorrow – and remember, there will be about 100 fewer votes total, so the percentage of votes announced is likely to be considerably higher.
Ah, thanks for the clarification EPM. What’s interesting is that last year Raines was ahead of Bagwell on the Pre-Results Public ballots (64.9% vs 61.9%). This year he’s been consistently behind Bagwell by a couple of votes.
Well, in the end it seems that there were 212 public ballots prior to the announcement out of a total of 440, compared to 201 last year out of a total of 549. So we’re getting a better snapshot, especially through Ryan Thibodaux’s compilation efforts.
I also think it’s interesting that Griffey received the highest vote percentage ever. It’s certainly not that he’s the greatest player ever inducted, not by a long shot, but the culture of the Hall voters seems to be changing.
So how exactly do we vote?
Welcome to HHS,
Just post a comment with your three selections.
Cy Young, Rube Waddell, Kevin Brown
Here are calculations for the WAR figures of holdovers plus Cy Young and Jesse Burkett. For Young and Burkett, I’ve added a separate line that excludes their pre-1893 figures, and for formatting purposes, I’ve also placed Wallace’s total WAR figures on a separate line.
As a reminder, WAR/Yr only counts seasons with 10 GS or 20 G for pitchers, or 50 G for position players, and “Career length” is indexed to the shortest careers, Ferrell for pitchers and Allen for position players.
A few things to note: If you grant Ferrell his total WAR value, his WAR per season jumps to 6.2, the highest apart from Young, leaving Waddell as his only peer in that category. Ferrell’s peak seasons also change, with Peak5 looking like Brown and Top5 close to Waddell (Peak5: 35.8; Top5: 43.4). I’ve been backing Waddell pretty consistently, and these figures are going to make me rethink Ferrell. (Oddly, Wallace’s average figure declines if you calculate total WAR, since it adds extra seasons and those include negative oWAR.)
Obviously, one member of this list is not like the others, but if you exclude Young it’s clear why none of the others has run away from the pack. Burkett seems to me a very interesting addition, since his post-1893 figures alone (which would qualify him for the CoG) are a pretty close match to Allen, who has been a bit of an outlier in some respects.
(I’ve followed Doug’s formatting advice in trying to keep columns straight; if they are, he deserves the credit – if not, let’s blame Kylo Ren.)
So, thanks, Doug.
Young, Goslin, Burkett
Since this is going to be a blowout round, I’ve got a quick question: would Cy Young still be the best pitcher on the ballot if we only counted his stats from after 1900?
225-146, 3312.1 IP, 2.12 ERA, 137 ERA+, 2.15 FIP, 1.000 WHIP, 1563 K’s, 3.78 K/BB, 331 CG, 44 Shutouts, 72.7 bWAR
CC,
Yes, I believe he would be the superior of the rest of the pitchers on the current ballot based merely on his post-1900 stats
Here are the WAR Ranks and WAR totals since 1901.
23. Young – 72.7
25. Brown – 68.5
27. Reuschel – 68.2
32. Tiant – 66.1
58. Waddell – 55.2
81. Wilhelm – 50.1
89. Ferrell – 48.8
Good thing for Burkett that he could hit.
The Giants let him pitch in 21 games his first season.
That -2.8 WAR his first season on the bump is the 13th worst mark in a rookie campaign.
So factoring in his Pitching (62.9 – 2.9), Burkett sits right on that 60 WAR bubble.
Of course, hard to use WAR with full confidence with the old timers. His Rfield is pretty mich a wash (-4), and his Rbaser is -28, even though he stole 389 bases and we don’t have CS or GDP stats.
This is a tasty slash line for his 9-year peak:
.376 / .451 / .490 / .941 / 150
There’s a lot to recommend Burkett. I noted above that statistically, he’s got a lot in common with Allen (although Burkett was a singles hitter). However, reading Burkett’s SABR biography, he also seems to have been as much a pain in the butt as Allen often was. I’ve been reluctant to vote for Allen as a borderline CoG’er in part because of his difficulties off the field (as well as because of his short career); Burkett had less reason to be a problem than Allen, and although I think he should be considered for the CoG, I doubt he’ll get my vote.
To argue along similar lines in a different way, Lawrence Azrin mentioned Burkett last round as someone comparable to Clarke – whom he was advocating for – as an outstanding early outfielder; CursedClevelander added that Clarke had the advantage of also being a successful manager. I’m not sure how to weight Clarke’s managerial success in a CoG context, but when contrasted with Burkett’s long-term disruptive conduct, I think I’d be less inclined to rank Burkett over Clarke, even though, in a post-1893 context (which eliminates Burkett’s unsuccessful pitching), he has some clear statistical advantages (in a shorter career).
Much of Burkett’s statistical advantage over Clarke has to do with context- more playing time in a hitter’s era plus I think that Pittsburg’s park was viewed as a pitchers park. His numbers are certainly eye popping altho if I was to support either of them it would be Clarke.
One thing about the COG is that we have been going front to back & I can see where that puts guys like Burkett, Clarke & Jimmy Collins at a disadvantage. Any of them could be considered the best or close to it to ever play their position when they retired. I think they all belong in the HOF.
Problem being for COG purposes is that very soon after- or even before- they hung up the spikes even better players came along for us to consider.
Burkett’s appearance on the ballot is more accidental than anything else, but since he squeaked over the 20 WAR threshold since 1901, I’ve included him.
I think, though, that it’s pretty clear he was primarily a 19th century player, with more than two-thirds of his games and WAR before 1901.
Question: Are we supposed to count accomplishments from all career years or some limit, for example, only after 1900 or 1890?
I am very skeptical about some of the accomplishments when the game wasn’t really what we consider baseball. For examples of some of the strange rules, at least according to my understanding:
1. From 1885 through 1893, bats could be flat on one side;
2. Up until 1893, the pitcher’s mound was only 50 feet from the plate, not the 60.5 we have now;
3. At one time, batters were allowed up to four strikes (sometimes); and
4. Until 1897, batters could call for the type of pitch they wanted.
On top of that, because pitchers pitched with little or much less rest than now, their WAR is inflated in my mind.
So–is it left to the individual to make whatever adjustment we deem appropriate or do we have some guidelines?
The intent of the COG was to focus on modern era players (since 1901). So, while the basic 10 years or 20 WAR qualification for the COG ballot is based on a player’s entire career, there is an additional requirement of a majority of career games played since 1901, or 20 WAR since 1901.
That still leaves a few players (Young, Burkett, Wallace, Dahlen, Clarke) on this ballot who had significant playing time before 1901. If you wish to make adjustments to their career totals, you will need to use your own best judgment. One tool that may help a little is the Neutralized Batting or Pitching statistics provided on Baseball-Reference. From the main B-R Player Page, click Batting or Pitching at the top, then scroll down to near the bottom for the Neutralized Stat tool, which is explained there.
_____
Burkett’s Career Slash
Burkett neutralized to 2014 St. Louis:
.338 / .415 / .446 / .861
.310 / .385 / .411 / .796
Voom,
I believe “2000, National League, Neutral Park” gets you (DOBA) to Jesse Burkett’s career slash line or is slightly off by 1/1000 on each category. I like to compare that environment for the rest of our eligible hitters like Goslin, Nettles, and Allen. Nettles BA becomes down-right respectable and Allen looks like Jimmie Foxx….
Not to mention that foul balls were not counted as strikes.
…but a foul ball caught on first bounce was an out.
Burkett apparently was particularly expert at fouling off pitches, which did not count as strikes (though his specialty was the bunt, and foul bunts were strikes from 1894). However, the year his league adopted the foul strike rule, he won the batting championship nevertheless.
Joseph, No candidate who qualifies for the CoG played when there was a four-strike rule (1887 only), nor when batters could call for the pitch (ended in 1887, not 1897), and none played more than three seasons prior to 1893, when the last fundamental changes were put in place (pitching distance and flat bat). The only really significant rule changes between 1893 and the “modern” era were the foul strike rule (NL: 1901; AL: 1903) and the caught third strike foul tip rule (1895).
Thanks for the great responses–so, a pitcher like Cy Young–who had significant playing time after 1901, qualifies for voting.
However, someone like Tim Keefe, who has 88 WAR, but played all his years before 1899, would not qualify for voting, yes?
That’s correct, Joseph.
19th century players are selected for the HOF by the Oldtimers Committee. The COG exercise was intended to contrast our selections with those of the BBWAA, whose initial focus was only the modern era and is now restricted to players only when they first become and remain HOF-eligible (players who lose HOF eligibility may subsequently be elected by the Veterans Committee or the new Golden Era Committee).
I’ll vote for the first player alphabetically, and the last two:
Allen
Wilhelm
Young
Young, Waddell and Goslin
Another one of the closest guys to making the ballot: Lave Cross, with 19.4 WAR from 1901-1907. If the cut-off was 1900 instead, he’d have made it with a bit of room to spare. He was actually teammates with ballot candidate and last name mate Monte Cross on the early 20th century Athletics.
Lave Cross had a 47.2 WAR and wouldn’t have been competitive in the voting, but he had a very solid career. Over 2600 hits. He played for 3 different franchises known as the Philadelphia Athletics – in the American Association in 1889 and 1891, in the Player’s League in 1890, and in the American League from 1901-1905. He also played for the Phillies from 1892 to 1897. Can we find anyone else that played for the same city in 4 different major leagues? I have to imagine 4 is the record – to have more you’d need to have played in the Union Association and the American League, or in both the Federal League and the Player’s League.
He was almost certainly the player with the best career among those who played for the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. I think most people here know that just about every player with a pulse was traded from the Spiders to the Cardinals (then known as the Perfectos) before the 1899 season. Cross was one of the only players who went the other way – the owners assigned him to the Spiders to be the team’s player manager. After 38 games (in which they went 8-30), he was re-assigned to the St. Louis squad. Even with only 38 games, he still had the 4th highest WAR on the team.
Lave is short for Lafayette – indeed, the French connection goes a step further, as his middle name is Napoleon. But he’s not French – the B-R Bullpen has his real birth name as “Vratislav Kriz” and notes that his family emigrated from Bohemia. Not sure why they chose a French name for Lave – the family initially settled in Cleveland, then moved to Milwaukee. Both places have pretty heavy German/Eastern European immigrant communities, and aren’t exactly known for large French communities.
Cross’s age 36 season of 4 strikeouts in 595 PA for the 1902 Athletics makes him the only player not named Joe Sewell to record fewer than 5 whiffs in a qualified season since 1901. Cross also played every inning of that 1902 season, the oldest third baseman with that accomplishment, and second oldest (to 38 year-old Kid Gleason in 1905) at any position.
If you go back before 1901, Cross had only 3 strikeouts in 592 PA in the 1899 season you mentioned, including none as a Spider. For the 1898 to 1902 seasons combined (age 32-36), it was 28 K’s in 2840 PA.
Cross holds the record, since 1901, of the most RBI in a season without a HR. He had 108 RBI in 1902.
Young, Goslin, Ashburn
Cy Young, Bill Dahlen, Bobby Wallace
Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasonal totals:
Young 107.0
K. Brown 43.3
Dahlen 41.2
Reuschel 40.6
Ferrell 40.1
Wallace 38.6
Tiant 37.5
Clarke 36.4
Waddell 35.9
Allen 35.8
Nettles 35.7
Dawson 35.4
Ashburn 33.9
Goslin 31.7
Burkett 30.9
Wilhelm 28.7
Brown, Young, Allen
Excluding negative seasonal totals is silly. Why not exclude third outs in a game and give the batter a mulligan?
not the players fault if they are allowed to play when they stink…if rickey henderson signed with the rockies in 2016 and put up -3 WAR, that doesn’t hurt his career does it?
Yes, I think it would hurt his career. I think Bryan’s statistic adds to our understanding of the players – I don’t think it’s silly – but negative seasons count. When we look at a pitcher’s won-loss record, we don’t count only seasons of .500 or better and say that the others don’t hurt his overall record. It’s pretty much the same reasoning that balancing the peak-performance and overall-performance viewpoints on players. Both are useful.
I would prefer only dropping seasons at the beginning and end of the career – times when you could argue that negative player value is the fault of the francise playing them, not the player themselves. I just don’t see it as a players responsibility to refuse to play. This is just to me, of course. Recent examples like Jeter, Ichiro, Griffey – I don’t see anything they did at the end hurting their greatness.Didn’t help of course…
Well, my preferred method is just to rule out seasons where the player is not an integral part of the team – fewer than ten pitching starts or fifty games – and to calculate the average WAR per season plus both peak and total WAR. That WAR/Yr rate often rules out first and final seasons, as well as injury years.
But if you’re going to play a season like Ichiro just did, as a worse-than-Triple A replacement player, I don’t see any reason for it not to count against you just because you received a lot of money to do it.
I think the best example of this issue was our debate over George Sisler. For one-half his career he was a crackerjack player, for the other half he was a below average hanger on. We wound up bringing him grudgingly in on half a career, but if he’d never played that second half he would have looked like the Koufax of hitters without Koufax’s slow start, and he’d have been a shoo-in.
Wins Above Average:
Ken Griffey, Jr. 46.5
Larry Walker 48.2
Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasonal totals:
Griffey 54.5
Walker 48.5
Griffey just got elected to the Hall because he was great for ten years, not because the sum of his positive and negative contributions to the game were almost as valuable as Larry Walker’s. If we let bad seasons cancel good ones, I’d prefer Walker and maybe Jim Edmonds to Griffey.
https://replacementlevel.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/a-tale-of-three-outfielders/
Bryan, We don’t have to choose; we can balance. Both measures are valid and both have their limits.
Good article. Thanks for the link.
Walker over Griffey?
Top WAR seasons
Griffey and Walker:
9.7 . 9.8
9.1 . 7.8
8.7 . 6.1
7.1 . 5.7
6.9 . 5.4
6.6 . 5.1
5.8 . 4.7
5.5 . 4.7
5.2 . 4.4
4.9 . 4.4
3.7 . 3.4
3.3 . 3.4
3.2 . 2.7
1.9 . 2.3
1.2 . 1.6
0.6 . 1.2
0.6 . -0.1
0.6 . x
0.4 . x
-0.1. x
-0.7. x
-0.8. x
______________
Griffey had four full seasons (21.3 WAR / 2422 PA) before the age of 23 (when Walker started).
Because of general good health, genetics, contracts, and reputation, he was allowed to have parts of five seasons from 36-40 at replacement-level (0.7 WAR / 2232 PA).
He was a full-time center fielder through age 36
(2145 games / 4th all-time).
Allen, Dahlen, Young
Young, Waddell, Wilhelm
Cy Young – Richie Ashburn – Dick Allen
Young Ashburn Tiant
So I’m finally breaking my pattern – all pitchers for my initial ballot.
Denton True “Cyclone” Young
George Edward “Rube” Waddell
James Kevin “No One Ever Bothered To Give Me A Good Nickname” Brown
Early returns (13 ballots, through CC):
13 – Young
=================50% (7)
4 – Allen*, Brown*, Waddell*
=================25% (4)
3 – Ashburn, Goslin*
2 – Dahlen, Wilhelm*
=================10% (2)
1 – Burkett, Ferrell, Tiant, Wallace
0 – Clarke, Dawson, Nettles*, Reuschel
Denton True “Cyclone” Young
Fred “Cap” Clarke
“Bad” Bill Dahlen
Young, Waddell, Nettles.
Rick Reuschel, Jesse Burkett and Hoyt Wilhelm
Cy Young
Hoyt Wilhelm
Richie Ashburn
Goose Goslin, Cy Young, Hoyt Wilhelm
Young, Goslin, Wilhelm
Nettles, Tiant, Young
With exactly 20 precincts reporting (through David Horwich):
19 – Cy Young
============75% (15)
============50% (10)
6 – Hoyt Wilhelm*
5 – Goose Goslin*, Rube Waddell*
============25% (5)
4 – Dick Allen*, Richie Ashburn, Kevin Brown*
3 – Bill Dahlen
============10% (2)
2 – Jesse Burkett, Graig Nettles*, Luis Tiant
1 – Fred Clarke, Wes Ferrell, Rick Reuschel, Bobby Wallace
0 – Andre Dawson
Here’s hoping the BBWAA gifts us with a few extra rounds of COG voting in 90 minutes. 🙂
D. Allen, Reuschel, Wilhelm
***GRIFFEY and PIAZZA*** elected to Hall
Bagwell (71.6%) and Raines (69.8%) will have to wait ’til next year. Trevor Hoffman’s support (67.3%) actually increased with the non-public votes and he almost caught Raines. I think at least 2 of those 3 will make it next year.
Griffey set a record for highest percentage ever, besting Tom Seaver’s old record.
Anybody want to guess my vote? We’re all old friends by this point. Doom?
I’d guess Young, Ferrell & Nettles, unless Dawson figures in there somewhere.
Actually that’s most likely going to be my vote as well.
mosc, I’m guessing you’ll go Ferrell, Nettles, and Dawson since Young has SUCH a huge lead… but maybe you’d rather spend a vote on Young and let Dawson finally fall off – so I’m not positive. You’d better be sure to vote for Kevin Brown, just to avoid predictability. 🙂
Well nettles has a spare round and dawson doesn’t! Otherwise I’d vote exactly as you said. I do feel like we’ve all gotten a little predictable now that we’ve been through it all.
Officially: Young, Ferrell, Dawson
The voting patterns for HOF are fascinating. Bonds and Clemens are both in the mid 40’s, separated by only three votes–which tells you volumes about the existing center of gravity on PEDs–it’s moving towards them–both picked up about 7%. The other “known” and not just “suspected” players are still buried. There seems to be a sorting out process going on–Piazza and Bagwell didn’t seem to have much of a drag. Interesting how little respect Larry Walker gets, and Edmonds is just gone. But I think the bigger story is that the glaciers are starting to melt for the top tier of PEDs users–eventually they will probably get there. It will be too late for McGwire, Sosa
I wonder whether a contributing factor concerns the arc of these careers. I don’t think anyone doubts that Bonds and Clemens established HoF credentials independent of PEDs, but McGwire’s terrific comeback period is clearly both the anchor of his HoF case and attributable to PEDs, and Sosa was an out-of-nowhere star of whom everyone said, “Who’d have thought . . .?” Their basic credentials appear to be PED-manufactured. Rejection of candidates involved with PEDs rests on two feet: moral disapproval and suspicion of records. I’d guess what we’re seeing is the glacier melting for only the first (as well as the waning of guilt-by-suspicion for figures like Piazza and Bags).
epm, i think that’s a good analysis. It seems to me that Bonds/Clemens will both make it, as writers just start to say to themselves that they are denying history. If you are going to do that, then Piazza and Bagwell have to get support, because there’s no proof they did anything. The tier of users below the ultra-greats are a different story. Sosa, Sheffield, McGwire, the now off the list Palmerio…I don’t see it, unless there’s an extensive reevaluation of the era. And, if you are really going to do that, and you see these guys’ stats as tainted, how do you justify taking them and leaving out McGriff, Delgado, Walker? I guess we will see.
I read Cardinal beat writer Derrick Goold’s piece on how he could vote for Piazza — the suspicions of PED were not journalistically significant enough to defend in an article. Piazza was his 5th vote. Unfortunately, you have to click through the slide show to get there. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/derrick-goold-s-hall-of-fame-ballot/collection_d5f71164-80ec-5fb1-84f5-378ba664ef85.html
OBS – I don’t buy Goold’s reasoning. He votes for Piazza but not Clemens? I don’t see a strong difference in the evidence for or against the two. The main evidence against Clemens comes from Brian McNamee, hardly a credible source. McNamee’s own inconsistencies in testimony is one of the main reasons that Clemens won his perjury trial. I’m not saying Clemens didn’t take PEDs but from a journalistic viewpoint, I don’t see the evidence as being very strong. Meanwhile, at least two former players have come out saying that Piazza definitely took PEDs and that everyone in baseball knew it. Given how reluctant players have been to out PEDs users, the fact that two ex-players (Reggie Jefferson and one unnamed player) have named Piazza seems fairly significant. Again, that may not be strong journalistic evidence but neither is the evidence against Clemens.
David P, I really think most of these folks are wrestling with themselves to come up with an intellectual framework that at least appears to be consistent and satisfies their need to feel/act in a principled way. Goold is falling back on what he says is a “journalistic” standard–if his editor wouldn’t have allowed him to print a story based on a suspicion–he’s going to consider the player clean. It’s not just Clemens–he won’t vote for Bonds either, and puts both in the category of Joe Jackson and Pete Rose.
Tyler Kepner made two interesting observations in The Times. Of the nine totally new voters who made their choices public, only two of them voted for Clemens/Bonds. It’s too small a sample to derive a conclusion, but it’s not indicative of younger voters casting aside the prejudices of their elders. The second is that the total number of voters dropped significantly, due to the new rules on having to cover baseball in the last ten years. The population of voters is going to change.
Oh I agree Mike L and I’ve certainly gone back and forth on where I stand on the issue. I’m just not sure why Goold thinks his editor would allow him to run a story on Clemens but not Piazza, given the available “evidence” against the two of them.
Mike L –
According to the Thibodaux spreadsheet, 5 of 9 new voters chose Bonds and Clemens.
Of course we CoG voters, of all people, shouldn’t discount the possibility that those who left Bonds & Clemens off their ballots did so for strategic rather than moralizing reasons.
David H–I bungled the NYT article–it was by Benjamin Hoffman, and the link is below. I’m not sure where I got the idea only two voted for them. Hoffman did note something interesting–all nine of the new voters chose Tim Raines, which (my hunch) might be indicative of newer minds minds being more open to modern metrics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/sports/baseball/more-hall-of-fame-support-for-barry-bonds-and-roger-clemens-didnt-materialize.html?ref=baseball
Wasn’t McNamee literally born to be a tool who goes around naming people? Think of what a fink weasel like that would be called in college: Hey Namey McNamee, go name some more names!
I’ve been thinking over Wes Ferrell’s candidacy and I’m somewhat perplexed. In a post above, I noted that I’m a supporter of Waddell, and that if Ferrell’s total WAR contribution is calculated, he suddenly looks a whole lot like Waddell – better, in some key respects. I like Ferrell, always have, and would be happy to take that comparison as a guide.
But the problem for me is that Ferrell’s batting WAR is a function of positional adjustment. Ferrell wasn’t an exceptional hitter, his OPS+ was precisely 100. But he was a very good hitter “for a pitcher.” I’m not sure how much that should count.
Then, again, Ferrell was good enough to be used as a frequent pinch hitter, and his contribution there was not as a pitcher at all, but as a hitter in high leverage situations. So I took a look at a three year span when Ferrell was at his peak (1935-37) to calculate his batting line as a pinch hitter. It was disappointing: in 96 PAs: .209/.253/.302. But, on the other hand, his batting performance “as a pitcher” in ordinary leverage situations over those seasons then looks really solid, even for his high-run era: in 400 PAs: .322/.397/.524 – you don’t need a positional adjustment to appreciate that.
Moreover, Ferrell had a short stint as a regular outfielder in 1933, when he ended the season playing 13 straight games in left, with 53 PAs and a .271/.340/.333 line. So-so. (His pinch hitting that year was odd – no hit/good eye in 20 PAs: .143/.400/.143.)
I’m wondering whether anyone has found a better way of thinking about Ferrell’s hitting contribution that helps clarify one way or another whether his 12+ batting WAR actually pushes him into CoG territory?
Just as a basis for comparison I looked at a few good hitting pitchers:
George Uhle 1511 PA’s WAR as a batter 11.6 OPS+ 86
Red Ruffing 2084 PA’s WAR 15.0 OPS + 81
Warren Spahn 2056 PA’s WAR 7.6 OPS + 43
Don Drysdale 1309 PA’s WAR 5.9 OPS + 45
Tom Glavine 1645 PA’s WAR 7.5 OPS + 22
Mike Hampton 845 PA’s WAR 8.2 OPS + 67
Wes Ferrell 1345 PA’s WAR 12.8 OPS + 100
A couple of guys at random
Lefty Grove 1577 PA’s WAR -6.3 OPS + 6
Whitey Ford 1207 PA’s WAR 3.4 OPS + 28
Bert Blyleven 514 PA’s WAR -1.2 OPS + – 19
A few points. I picked Glavine because he won a handful of Silver Slugger awards & probably would have won more had not Hampton come along.
I don’t know what you can draw from all of this other than NOT having one virtually automatic out in the line up does seem to have some real value.
How much better would Lefty Grove have been if he could hit like Warren Spahn or even Tom Glavine?
It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me to believe that he could have turned 10 of his losses into wins.
Geez. All that and then I leave off the ONE guy I wanted to compare Ferrell to in the first place.
Sandy Koufax 858 PA’s WAR -4.2 OPS + – 26
Add a little WAR to Ferrell for his hitting & take a little away from Koufax for his & they don’t look all that different at their peak.
And Ferrell had a couple more seasons at or close to that peak.
I’m sold.
Ferrell is a COGer.
I would agree with Hartvig’s premise regarding Ferrell and Koufax – Ferrell’s career is the better of the two (if you’re not factoring in any sort of timeline adjustment).
I guess I think it’s best to do a thought experiment. Two identical teams play in a league with a 162-game schedule. One of those teams starts Sandy Koufax, the other starts Wes Ferrell. These pitchers will make EVERY start and pitch EVERY inning (makes the math A LOT easier). The average offensive player in this league creates 90 runs of offense in a season, while pitchers, on average, contribute zero. In this imaginary league, then, the average team both scores and allows 720 runs per season (4.44/G).
Team Ferrell would score 810 runs in a season (another average hitter means another 90 Runs Created). Based on his ERA- (87), they would allow 627 runs. By these runs scored and allowed totals, Pythagoras gives us a .625 winning percentage – or 101 wins. Pretty dang good, I think.
Team Koufax is more complicated. The runs allowed are easy – his 75 ERA- means that his team would allow a miniscule 540 runs (3.33/G). His bat, though, is SO bad that it would actually COST his team 22 runs on the season (he’d be worth -22 runs offensively – 112 runs worse than Ferrell). So instead of scoring 720 runs, they would only score 698. Pythagoras tells us that Team Koufax would have a .625 winning percentage – for that same 101 wins as Team Ferrell!
If you IGNORE Ferrell’s bat, and treat him just as a pitcher, his team would win only 92 games – instead, they won 101.
Looked at another way, “How good of a pitcher would Wes Ferrell have to be to put his BATTING value on the PITCHING side?” Again, we can look to the illustration I gave above. In a 720 R league, Team Ferrell SCORED 810 runs and gave up 627. To even that out, we have to take away his 90 runs of offense, and actually take away 70 runs from opposing teams, giving us a 720 run offense and a 557 run defense – which is a 77 ERA-, so that we get to that same .625 Pythagorean percentage.
Basically, Ferrell’s hitting takes him from being “Pitcher Wes Ferrell” to being something much more. Wanna know how many pitchers have pitched 2000 innings (Ferrell pitched nearly 2700) and have a 77 ERA-? Two – Felix Hernandez and Carl Hubbell. So yeah. His hitting basically makes him King Felix or COGer Carl Hubbell. (Other players in that neighborhood include Randy Johnson and Rube Waddell at 75, Roy Halladay and Greg Maddux at 76, Bob Gibson and Kevin Brown at 78.) So basically, Ferrell’s bat takes him to being a COG-level pitcher. I’m more convinced than ever. Thanks for inspiring this thought experiment, epm!
I dawdled composing my comment below, Doom, and posted it without having seen your much more solid analysis.
Good discussion. Waddell’s going to do fine this round, so maybe I’ll substitute Ferrell to make sure he’s in the mix, and keep thinking about this after Young takes his rightful place and, presumably, we move past the two obvious CoGworthy guys in the class of 1971. I think there’s a pretty good chance we’ll ultimately wind up selecting two from the list that survives this round, though who knows what’ll happen if we grant redemption?
Interesting, Hartvig. The guy I’d compared him to was Newcombe, who always represented a good hitting pitcher for me. Newk’s OPS+ was only 85, but when I tabulated his pinch-hit record for his prime (1955-58), the line (for 61 PAs) was .259/.344/.294, with a regular, “as a pitcher” line (361 PAs) of .303/.368/.503. (Career he had 988 PAs, WAR 9.0 – about the same WAR/PA as Ferrell.)
Newcombe’s total WPA as a hitter was -0.5, which is fantastic for a pitcher. Hampton’s is -2.9, Drysdale -9.8, Glavine and Spahn -11.9 (Koufax -12.1). Of course, Ferrell’s can’t be calculated because B-R lacks the data.
I searched for a pitcher with a Ferrell-length career and a total batting WAR about zero, and wound up using Curt Simmons (WAR 0.7 in 1257 PAs) as a baseline. Simmons generated a total WPA of -10.1. If we therefore assume that an average hitting pitcher with a career length like Ferrell’s would generate a WPA of about -10.0, and assume that Ferrell, with his OPS+ 15 points higher than Newcombe’s would likely at least match Newk’s WPA of -0.5, then I’d say the estimate of ten wins contributed through batting is borne out by that WPA calculation. (But Newk’s “high” WPA may be a product of pinch-hitting prowess that Ferrell does not seem to have shown.)
All this kind of leaves me where I began. I think Ferrell’s a viable CoG candidate, but I’m not sure he can get past Waddell in my book. Waddell still has, in addition to his roughly equivalent or superior numbers, the element of having been a true pheenom, like Johnson, Feller, Koufax, or Ryan – overpowering in a way few pitchers ever have been – and I think that’s a significant factor.
Somewhere in the past half year I posted a year-by-year breakdown of Ferrell’s OPS (from 1930-1937) vs the OPS of all the 9-hitters in the league.
I can’t find it, but the big picture is that Ferrell had an .814 overall, and the 9-hitters (including pinch-hitters and guys in on a 2x switch) were at about .500.
When Ferrell pitched, his team had nine hitters, the other team had 8. Big advantage.
And Ferrell in his peak was arguably the 2nd best pitcher in the league (Grove). When he started a game, he was almost always the most valuable player on the field.
It’s almost impossible to beat Waddell as a great story and there’s no doubt as to his talent.
That said, I think that baseball was still in a period of significant maturation in the first decade of the past century. Bill James did an article on this in one of his HBA’s- about how in little league the best hitter on the team is also usually the pitcher and how lopsided scores diminish the higher classification you go and stuff like that. I think that talent levels were still really uneven in the first decade for a variety of reasons. Kid Nichols- a HOF contemporary of Waddell’s- usually played a few games at first or in the outfield each season even with an OPS + of 55. Bill Bergen- whom we’ve discussed before- was effectively a starter for his entire 11 year career. Lots and lots of stuff like that.
Waddell also spent virtually his entire career in a pitchers era while Ferrell played in the toughest era to be a pitcher prior to the advent of the ‘roided up super slugger.
Then couple that with our having selected Young (well, not quite yet but..), Walsh, Mathewson, Johnson, Plank from this era already (not to mention Nichols by the Old Timers) while the 30’s are only represented by Grove and Hubbell plus a couple of seasons each by Vance & Feller I think the case for Ferrell is better.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I don’t mind disagreeing, Hartvig: we’re almost in complete accord. But I think you’re selling Waddell a bit short.
I remember Bill James’s argument very well, but, as I’ve written before, in my view if we followed that to the logical conclusion, the CoG would be almost totally populated with players of the last 50 years – I believe contemporary players are far, far more skilled than their predecessors, and very few early CoGers could make a mark in the contemporary game (unless, of course, they could train for it as teenagers). I think the CoG has to evaluate players in terms of their times.
And Waddell at his peak was unlike anyone else. He led the majors in strikeouts 6 out of 7 years in a row (and the AL all 7), and his SO/9IP ratios were often in a different league from anyone else – in 1903, 1904, and 1907, his margins in SO/9IP over the MLB runner up were 1.8, 1.6, 1.7. He was still the MLB career leader in SO/9IP as late as 1958, and his two-year total of 651 strikeouts in 1903-4 wasn’t broken until Koufax in 1965-66, by which time, the MLB strikeout rate had risen about 30% (The Big Train’s best was 546). If you take into account league strikeout rates, normalizing Waddell’s S0/9IP to 1973 rates – the year Ryan set the single season record of 383 – Waddell’s rate was 10.7 to Ryan’s 10.6. And if you normalize to league strikeout rates for Randy Johnson’s record ratio of 13.4, Waddell’s would be 14.6. The guy had a cannon.
Whereas Ferrell did one thing exceptionally well and another surprisingly well, what Waddell did was extraordinary over the entire period from 1893 through World War II, and holds up today.
As for Bergen, he’s a one-off – there’s really not lots and lots of stuff like Bergen: no one approaches him in negative career WAR in any era and, as Bill James has written, there simply must be things we don’t know that explain his longevity, beyond the obvious fact that he was a great catcher – I recall James noting that Bergen was voted among the top five one year, when league players were polled for an MVP type award! Bergen’s a complete mystery. But you can find awful players hanging on in any era for no reason apparent in the record book: look at Doug Flynn in the ’70s and ’80s – negative WAR year after year and defensive skills just above average, but 4000+ PAs.
As for the representation issue, I can see that in the case of catchers, whose value is probably underrepresented by statistics, but just as I don’t think third basemen should be represented if the stats don’t warrant it, I can’t see an argument for adding representation to 1930s pitchers without a statistical basis. After all, if we wind up with five pitchers from the 1900s and only two from the 1930s it would not be a tremendous injustice: we have 11 CoG position players who played in every single year of the 1930s and an equal number who played in some portion of the ’30s, but we have only four who played every year of the decade of the 1900s, and five others who played in some portion. Altogether, the 1930s are better represented 2:1.
Which is not to say there isn’t as much a basis for Ferrell as Waddell – I tip just slightly towards Waddell and might wind up going the other way. I just can’t resist a good argument.
cy young, Nettles, and Bill Dahlen
Vote:
Wes Ferrell
Rube Waddell
Hoyt Wilhelm
Andre Dawson, Cy Young, Jesse Burkett
The vote change deadline will pass this evening. As of this morning, I see 25 votes. Assuming that ultimately those on the bubble will need four votes to remain in the pool, I see the following players still needing votes:
Need one more: Ferrell, Burkett
Need two more: Dawson, Reuschel, Tiant
Need three more: Clarke, Wallace
Nettles needs a vote, but he’s safe for this round. Dahlen, Ashburn, and Brown would be vulnerable if any vote defects today.
I think that of the 15 players we’re considering now (apart from Young, who will be elected and disappear from the ballot), no more than two can reach the CoG this year, since I expect Pedro and I-Rod to by easily elected in the two 1971 rounds. Of the seven guys in trouble, it seems to me that although there are several whom I see as worthy of CoG election, few could actually emerge as successful in the final two open rounds. (Ferrell seems to me an exception, and we already know that Hartvig will put him over the line this round – and if he forgets to, I will.)
If remaining voters have favorites among those in danger of slipping away they should certainly vote for them if they wish. But I think it may be time to start letting those who clearly are not going to make it drop from the list, rather than saving them on general principle, so that we have clear choices among strong candidates at the end. When we get to the final rounds, if there are still votes being scattered among 15 candidates for 2 slots, we increase the risk of electing players whose overall support is actually shallower than those who don’t make it.
For those who would like to see it presented in the “usual way,” this gets through Jeff B, the 25th ballot:
22 – Cy Young
=========75% (19)
=========50% (13)
8 – Hoyt Wilhelm*
=========25% (7)
6 – Rube Waddell*
5 – Dick Allen*, Goose Goslin*
4 – Richie Ashburn, Kevin Brown*, Bill Dahlen
3 – Jesse Burkett, Wes Ferrell, Graig Nettles*
=========10% (3)
2 – Andre Dawson, Rick Reuschel, Luis Tiant
1 – Fred Clarke, Bobby Wallace
I would concur with epm’s “votes needed” section.
I would add the caveat that Wilhelm will need one extra vote to get to 25%, Waddell will need 3, Allen and Goslin will need 4, and ain’t nobody else gettin’ there. I presume that some of you are wondering “why do we care about accumulated rounds anymore? Aren’t we almost done?” Yes, that’s true; but I would ALSO add that we’re only about a year away from ANOTHER Hall election, and I see no reason not to pick up right where we left off in January 2017! I don’t see any reason this COULDN’T be revisited annually, as long as there are people willing to make the posts and cast the votes.
I hope we do continue this next year, Doom, but certainly with a redemption process, since the HHS voter pool will have changed (in part, I hope, with birtelcom’s full return). We’d need to include 1972 birth-year players too, right? If only one HoF slot were to open, I can’t see anyone among the survivors of this group challenging Chipper.
I’m trying to temper my optimism, but I think Raines and Bagwell received levels of support this year commensurate with being elected next year. Hoffman got pretty close too. Among newcomers, we’ve got Pudge, Vlad Guerrero and Manny Ramirez. Obviously Manny has no chance, but Pudge and Vlad are strong candidates.
For our own potential 1972 election, Chipper is obviously the cream of the crop. Manny Ramirez is potentially the most contentious PED guy we’ll have dealt with so far, since he pretty flagrantly used well after MLB instituted testing and was suspended twice. Andy Pettitte is an interesting candidate for a hundred reasons, and his bWAR of 60.9 puts him just below the level of our holdovers.
I’d think we could do a couple redemption rounds in the months leading up to next year’s BBWAA vote, then schedule how ever many new elections we need, starting with the 1972 birth year election.
I think that’s a good plan, C.C. But I think as we move on, we may need to think about a change to the voting algorithm (which I’m sure we’d feel freer to do if birtelcom’s able to be part of the conversation). I’m not sure the three-vote ballot approach is the best one to use to sort through a process involving holdovers, redemption, and new candidates with, most likely, only 2 or 3 open slots. The closer we get to any “final” round at any stage, the more likely it is that an unfocused vote over a broad candidate range will scatter votes in a way that admits a player with narrow but dedicated support.
A different possibility would be to dump all holdovers, including those with less than 10% of the vote, back into the redemption pool each year, thus largely eliminating strategic voting in elections.
epm, it’s an interesting analysis, but I can’t say I agree. There have been times (and versions of the COG electorate) that focused primarily on retaining holdovers. There have been those (like the first few elections) that were SOLELY (more or less) focused on the best candidates. I think we’ve achieved a nice balance, and I think people understand that any voting they do is temporary. I think many of us who remember these elections will do a good job at preserving holdovers (when necessary), PLUS birtelcom built in the “top-nine advance” rule (unused in many moons, though we’ve come close a couple of times) to guarantee that, even if they only get one vote each, there are ALWAYS at least 9 players on the holdover list. I think it’s a pretty great system, and while your concerns are valid, I don’t really see them being necessary. That’s just my $0.02, though.
Maybe you’re right, Doom. I participated in the early elections, but I can’t recall them now. I’m concerned about there being too many candidates at the close, rather than two few, so I’d worry about the top-nine rule spreading the field too thin.
I suppose one way to handle this would just be to make sure that each January, when the CoG reopens for business after HoF vote, there was a procedure detailed enough to let everyone get back up to speed about how this all works and the implications of voting approaches, so that voters new to the process and those of us too weak-minded to recall, after a lapse of maybe ten months, how various strategies actually work out will all be able to get up to speed.
Young, Waddell, Clarke.
Fred Clarke, Luis Tiant, Bobby Wallace
Young, Waddell, Tiant and at this point, I have a strong feeling I really don’t know what I’m doing. Young is easy. But, after that, baseball was so different 100 years ago, I’m having a very hard time comparing. I’m basically eliminating some of the more modern players who I saw play and didn’t have the impression, at the time, that I was looking at an immortal. But I’m mistrustful of advanced fielding stats–especially ones 100 years old. And, I look at some of the older players on the HOF ballot, and I’m surprised at how thin their support was from the writers. Goslin never got higher than 13.5%, Ferrell 3.6%, Clarke, 24.5%, Dahlen basically nothing, Wallace 2.7%,
Good points, Mike. In the cases of Dahlen and Wallace, by the time the BBWAA started voting in 1936, they had been out of the game a long time, and since virtually all attention was on traditional hitting stats, they would not have stood out at all (your point about fielding stats holds, though). Remember, their superior contemporary, George Davis, never received a single BBWAA vote.
Clarke’s vote is actually strong in CoG terms – he was on the ballot during the first ten years of the Hall, when there was a maximal backlog of great players. No player who received more votes than Clarke on any ballot ever failed to get into the Hall, and many players who received less support also got in. In his final year, for example, not only did all 15 players above him ultimately get into the Hall, but the next 17 below him did too. That level of support is what you’d expect from a borderline CoG candidate.
In Ferrell’s case, I think the issue was simply that voters likely focused solely on his pitching record. In these discussions, Ferrell has been rising as the unusual scale of his batting contributions becomes the focus.
Goslin, though, seems to me a different matter. He’s the type of player early Hall voters traditionally liked and I don’t think advanced stats actually add anything to his case. I’d have expected his support to be much higher. I’ve voted for Goslin many times, but perhaps the BBWAA voters are telling me something I should listen to – that they saw him and his record, and, as you put it, didn’t have the impression they were looking at an immortal.
The other thing regarding Dahlen and Wallace (and the reason I won’t even consider them on my ballot; all of this applies to George Davis, too, by the way) is that the early BBWAA knew that there was an “Old Timers’ Committee,” and that they weren’t responsible for the “long ago” players. My guess (and, admittedly, there’s no way to prove this) is that they considered those two players to belong to the Old Timers’ Committee. If that’s the case, I would argue that the reason for their lack of support has to do with poorly-defined guidelines of whom to vote for; that said, if the early BBWAA didn’t consider them because they were not MEANT to be considered by the BBWAA, then there’s no problem with US not considering them, since we’re only tasked with re-doing the BBWAA’s job. Even if you disagree with me on THAT point, the Old Timers’ Committee could explain why the support for those two was SO low.
Doom, The BBWAA had no trouble electing Cy Young as early as 1937. Young’s career (1890-1911) started the same year as Davis’s (1890-1909) and earlier than Dahlen (1891-1911) and Wallace’s (1894-1918), and ended much earlier than Wallace, the same year as Dahlen, and just two years later than Davis. The voters elected Keeler (1892-1910) in 1939. I can’t see how it’s possible to think that 75% the BBWAA voters thought Young and Keeler were eligible and the others not, on the basis of Old Timer status.
I do agree with you that they may have wanted to leave all but the most Famed early players to the Veteran’s committee. I also think they viewed players who were exclusively pre-1900 as Old Timers only, hence zero 1936 votes for Old Hoss, the Hoosier Thunderbolt, etc.
I don’t dispute ANY of that. The issue I think you’re forgetting is that, while WE know who played when, it’s very probable that the early BBWAA did NOT. It’s not like they had a MacMillan encylopedia handy. For example, I acknowledge that it’s true that Doc Gooden and Roger Clemens were rookies in the same year; yet, Clemens “feels” like a player that I grew up watching, while Gooden was a relic of the past. If you were doing that stuff EXCLUSIVELY from memory, I think it would be very, very easy to “mis-sort” or “mis-label” the chronology of players. It just doesn’t make sense to me that their vote totals would be SO low unless people either A.) forgot about them or B.) didn’t believe they were in their purview. Either way, it makes sense to me to ignore them for COG purposes.
Hartvig says some of this below, as well, but I think it comes down to not having clear definitions and not having good information. Still, if the BBWAA didn’t consider players, I’m not either. That’s what makes a “clean” break for me, and I think that those players weren’t considered by more than just a few members.
Doom, I can’t agree that being “tasked with re-doing the BBWAA’s job” should entail re-committing those voters’ errors of ignorance. Isn’t the goal to do a better job?
Yes and no, epm. To truly “do a better job,” we would’ve considered Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Bullet Joe Rogan, etc. It seems silly to me to say that we should look at one pool of players ignored by the BBWAA, but not ALL. So if we’re going to ignore one group, we ignore them all. That’s why I didn’t vote for Satchel Paige, and why I won’t vote for these guys, either. I have no problem with your perspective; I just disagree with it as part of the COG exercise. Obviously, I’m outvoted by people here, but I’m going to just keep on keepin’ on.
Well, I know you’re operating on principle, Doom, and that ultimately we just disagree on that level. But – I may be wrong – I think you and I had an exchange on Shoeless Joe where you were arguing in his favor. If I’m right (and I may not be) I don’t really see much distinction, on BBWAA voting mandate grounds, between Jackson and Paige, and guys like Clarke and Wallace would be less firmly excluded than Jackson.
I actually wrote a long response to Mike L’s comment and then had a brain fart and backed out of the page (I meant to simply go to another page I had open) that covered much of the same ground that you and Dr. have.
In short- poorly designed voting, no clear definition of who was or wasn’t an Old Timer and lack of good information led to a lot of problems.
Even in 1981 when we had McMillan, Ritter & Honig named 11 pitchers who’s careers were largely centered in the 1900-1920 era plus another 5 who pitched more than a couple of seasons during that time in their top 100 players of all-time. And their comments are all similar for each- look at that low ERA! Then they turn around and so the same thing for hitters like Kiki Cuyler, Bill Terry, Chick Hafey, Pie Traynor & Joe Medwick in the 1930’s- look at that batting average!
No context at all.
And I think that’s part of the BBWAA’s issue with Ferrell & to a lesser extent Goslin as well.
They’re comparing Ferrell’s 4.0 ERA to dead-ball era pitchers and- largely because of a lack of good info- failing to adjust for context. I imagine they main reason he got the votes that he did was strictly because he won so many games.
With Goslin I would imagine that the impact of playing much of his career in Griffith Stadium was probably significantly understated as well.
All that said I’m still on the fence about Dahlen & Wallace myself (but leaning towards no) and I’ve already put Clarke & Goslin in my no pile already.
And then having said all of that if any of them did get in I wouldn’t be the slightest bit upset because I could easily be wrong because there is so little to separate them and so much to take into account.
Ferrell, Nettles annnnnnnd… Tiant.
At this point I’m convinced that Ferrell & Nettles are my 2 choices for the “open” spots coming up. I’m convinced that Young belongs as well of course but I have Louie ranked higher than most of the guys outpolling him as well so I want to keep him around as a possible option.
Reuschel, Tiant, Dahlen
Wallace, Brown, Clarke
Here’s my count, through 31 ballots (Dave Humbert):
24 – Young
===========50% (16)
8 – Waddell*, Wilhelm*
===========25% (8)
6 – Tiant
5 – Allen*, Brown*, Dahlen, Goslin*
4 – Ashburn, Clarke, Ferrell, Nettles*
===========10% (4)
3 – Burkett, Reuschel, Wallace
2 – Dawson
For the 1867, 1868 & 1869 election, I’m voting for:
-Andre Dawson
-Rick Reuschel
-Cy Young
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Tiant
-Brown
-Goslin
-Ashburn
-Nettles
-Allen
-Waddell
-Wallace
-Clarke
-Dahlen
-Burkett
Young, Dawson, Allen
Another update, because a few things have happened since David Horwich’s update above, and those things might matter to some late voters. This is through billh, the 33rd ballot cast:
26 – Cy Young
===========75% (26)
===========50% (17)
===========25% (9)
8 – Rube Waddell*, Hoyt Wilhelm*
6 – Dick Allen*, Luis Tiant
5 – Kevin Brown*, Bill Dahlen, Goose Goslin*
4 – Richie Ashburn, Fred Clarke, Andre Dawson, Wes Ferrell, Graig Nettles*, Rick Reuschel
===========10% (4)
3 – Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace
Young, Tiant, Burkett
It would be a shame if Bobby Wallace gets squeezed out before having the final open rounds opportunity – only Young (and later Pedro) earned more WAR than him of everyone eligible down the stretch. His playing time before 1901 was worth 21 WAR of his 76. Burkett produced 40 WAR of his 62 prior to 1901, and Dahlen was about even on both sides. I guess his defense is just not trusted despite being among the best of his era. Maybe the voters have other favorites and don’t feel strongly enough for his case. Or maybe we have too many great shortstops already. Against this field, he should at least have a reasonable chance (be in the running) to the end. How sad.
Well I just remembered I forgot to vote, and there are two minutes left. I think he’s worth another look.
Young, Ferrell, Wallace
I delayed this round primarily to see which candidates were left in need of a vote at the very end (thinking most of Ferrell.). It looks to me as though Wallace is the only one left. I like Wallace – I think I cast a vote for a couple of rounds ago (at least I was intending to at some point), and he’s by no means the candidate I’d target for dropping: I can think of at least seven others I’d rank behind him, and only three I’m certain I’d rank ahead.
I’m in favor of winnowing down the field at this point, so I’ve been watching all day, hoping that I wouldn’t be put to the test of deciding whether to save a borderline candidate for borderline CoG honors, or stick to my guns. But there are just a few minutes of voting left now, and I guess that’s the choice I need to make.
Dave Humbert wrote a good brief for Wallace (it’s on the 1872-71 round), and re-reading it has convinced me to vote to retain Wallace. In addition, this gives me a change for an all-W round, since my other votes are intended to put two strong candidates over the 25% line. (And in addition even more, I just refreshed my browser to see whether other votes had come in and found Dave’s further plea for Wallace.)
Waddell, Wallace, Wilhelm
haha, we had the same idea, but also totally different ideas. you were delaying to see if you could save a candidate you liked, and I just realized I forgot to vote and there were three minutes left, and Dave’s plea was the last post and made sense to me. I don’t want anyone to stick around that doesn’t deserve to be here, but there will be plenty of candidates in the 1971 round, so that’ll sort things out. I will be more diligent then, as i forgot about this one because Young was a foregone conclusion.
epm/bells:
Thanx for the save. Just did not get why Wallace was being shunned in favor of everyone else (he’s far from the weakest option out there). I suppose Wallace, Clarke and Dahlen have not had long on the ballot and opinions of long-term holdover favorites are stronger. Voter bias may lean toward a more modern player that is familiar (such as Dawson or Reuschel, neither of which I’d put in over most others here). The smaller voting pool and lack of consensus is serving to split the vote rather thin as well. The last overwhelming candidate has left the backlog, so the final 4 rounds should be more competitive.
Dave H. I voted for Wallace the previous round, but then I looked again and decided that too much of his value was tied up in his fielding stats (he’s 8th in total career Defensive WAR), which were a stretch for me. And I was influenced by the low HOF vote totals, so I dropped him this round.
Career vote totals:
Craig Biggio – 763
Eddie Murray – 731
Roberto Alomar – 725
John Smoltz – 658
Kenny Lofton – 608
Ryne Sandberg – 607
Harmon Killebrew – 585
*Kevin Brown – 578
Edgar Martinez – 507
Lou Whitaker – 493
#Dave Winfield – 408
#Dennis Eckersley – 407
Roy Campanella – 396
Whitey Ford – 382
Bobby Grich – 376
Sandy Koufax – 375
*Luis Tiant – 368
Tony Gwynn – 346
Willie McCovey – 336
*Rick Reuschel – 324
#Minnie Minoso – 309
*Graig Nettles – 276
Juan Marichal – 268
Tom Glavine – 262
*Richie Ashburn – 252
Alan Trammell – 239
Mike Mussina – 233
Curt Schilling – 224
Nolan Ryan – 220
*Hoyt Wilhelm – 218
Ron Santo – 217
Lou Boudreau – 216
Tim Raines – 213
*Goose Goslin – 203
Larry Walker – 197
*Dick Allen – 198
Barry Larkin – 188
Frank Thomas – 181
Gabby Hartnett – 165
*Wes Ferrell – 152
Paul Molitor – 152
Bob Gibson – 147
Gaylord Perry – 142
Paul Waner – 140
Jim Palmer – 133
Al Kaline – 132
Duke Snider – 130
Carl Hubbell – 126
Joe Gordon – 126
Ernie Banks – 119
Eddie Mathews – 115
Pete Alexander – 111
#Dwight Evans – 100
1. The other holdovers: Andre Dawson (99), Rube Waddell (56), Bobby Wallace (23), Fred Clarke (15), Bill Dahlen (11), Jesse Burkett (4).
2. Falling off the ballot was electee Cy Young (28).
3. Congratulations to Richie Ashburn on his 250th vote!
4. Congratulations to Goose Goslin on his 200th vote!
5. Congratulations to Wes Ferrell on his 150th vote!
6. Cy Young was the runaway winner this round, with 28/36 ballots naming him. All the holdovers, plus newcomer Jesse Burkett, earned 10% and this will move on. Waddell and Wilhelm, by being named on epm’s ballot (the final one cast), made their way above the 25% mark and will gain an extra round of eligibility.
Final tally is 36 ballots cast, with Young the runaway winner at 28 votes.
7. Big milestones coming for Dick Allen, Andre Dawson, and possibly Kevin Brown next round (though Brown likely has to wait two rounds for his big day).
8. I would ask Doug, if you’re reading this, if we could have one redemption round to restore 3 players to the ballot (rather than two to restore 4) following the two 1971 rounds. It would be nice to give a few players one last shot at the COG before our final two rounds. Thanks for considering!!
Thanks for the summary, Dr. Doom.