This post is for voting and discussion in the 125th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This is the first of four rounds adding to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1973. Rules and lists are after the jump.
The new group of 1973-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 first group of 1973-born candidates, including those with A-C surnames, joins the eligible holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full list of players eligible to appear on your ballots. The remaining 1973-born candidates, with D-Z surnames, will be eligible to receive your votes in the next three rounds of balloting.
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 Sunday, February 4th, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:59 PM EST Friday, February 2nd.
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 1973 Part 1 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-1973 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 ten 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 1973 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 7 rounds)
Dave Winfield (eligibility guaranteed for 6 rounds)
Luis Tiant (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Dick Allen (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Bill Dahlen (eligibility guaranteed for this 2 rounds)
Graig Nettles (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Richie Ashburn (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Andy Pettitte (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Manny Ramirez (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Bobby Wallace (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Everyday Players (born in 1973, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR, A-C surname):
Mike Cameron
Geoff Blum
Casey Blake
Edgardo Alfonzo
Aaron Boone
Tony Batista
Raul Chavez
Pitchers (born in 1973, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR, A-C surname):
Bartolo Colon
Tim Byrdak
Terry Adams
Readers from earlier COG votes will know these are accompanied by little quizzes about the new players. So, to start off the COG season, here are this round’s tidbits (answers are bolded)
1. Bartolo Colon has played for 10 franchises, the most by any pitcher with 150 or more career wins. Which pitcher with 100 or more wins has played for the most franchises? Mike Morgan
2. Mike Cameron’s 1064 career runs are the fewest of any player with 500 runs in each league. With which player does Cameron share the record total of 7 seasons with 140 strikeouts and no more than 25 home runs? Melvin Upton
3. Geoff Blum is the only player with 300 games played for the 1969 expansion cousin Expos and Padres. Which two players did the same for the AL’s 1969 expansion cousins? Darrell Porter, Kevin Seitzer
4. Casey Blake is the only player with 300 games at 3rd base for the Indians and Dodgers. Besides Blake, who is the only Indian 3rd baseman to play 3rd base for the Dodgers in the post-season? Juan Uribe
5. Tim Byrdak recorded two 30+ IP seasons aged 37+ with 10.0 SO/9 but 4.5 BB/9. Who is the only pitcher with more such seasons? Dan Plesac
6. Aaron Boone was traded at the deadline in his only All-Star season. Making his only post-season appearance in that 2003 season for the Yankees, Boone’s famous WOHR, after entering the game as a pinch-runner, won the ALCS for New York. Which pinch-runner recorded a higher post-season WPA than Boone’s .356 mark, despite having no PA during the game? George Foster, 1972 NLCS game 5
7. Edgardo Alfonzo recorded three or more qualified seasons at both 2B and 3B, each with 75% of games played at those positions. Who are the other two expansion era players to do this? Pete Rose, Placido Polanco
8. Raul Chavez’s last two seasons, at age 35-36, were his best, totaling 1.5 WAR to finish his career where it began, at zero WAR. That WAR total for age 35+ is easily the best of more than 500 non-pitchers compiling -1 WAR or less through age 34. Who is the only catcher with more WAR than Chavez in fewer than 300 PA age 35-36? Todd Pratt
9. Tony Batista is one of 6 players to record 20 doubles, 25 home runs, 70 runs and 85 RBI each season from 1999 to 2004; Batista went on to post a career total of 13.7 WAR, while the other five averaged 74.4. Among 69 retired players with 175 home runs aged 25-30, Batista’s career total of 221 is the lowest. Who has the second lowest career home run total on that list? Jason Bay
10. Terry Adams is the only pitcher with 100 games for the Dodgers, Phillies and Cubs. Which pitcher compiled 100 games for the Dodgers and Cubs, 50 games for the Phils, and a further 250 for a fourth team? Dutch Leonard
I’m going to guess that the answer to #1 is Terry Mulholland with 11 franchises, including 3 separate tours with the Giants.
And if I’m understanding question #7 correctly, one of the players is Tony Phillips.
There’s a 100-game winner with 12, one tied with Mulholland at 11, and one tied with Colón at 10.
7. Pete Rose is one of them… is Frankie Frisch the other?
Frisch wasn’t expansion era, so it’s not him
Rose is correct.
could be Paul Molitor
For #3, one of the answers is Kevin Seitzer.
Seitzer is correct.
And the other answer for #3 is Darrell Porter.
I looked up Dave Robert’s famous stolen base but it was only +0.107. I’m going to guess since you said PA specifically that it’s an earlier sub that got a few key walks/sacrifice flys/hbp or something. Maybe game ending sac flies that weren’t by the starting line-up?
It was not an early sub and he never came up to bat. Like Boone, he scored the walk-off series winning run.
Spent way too much time checking every WO(Non-)HR in memory. Thought I had it with Onix Concepcion scoring the tying run ahead of Jim Sundberg in Game 6 of the 1985 Series, but his WPA was still only .207. I remember exactly where I was standing for Dane Iorg’s series-saving single. The 85 Cardinals, probably the favorite team of my youth, were two outs from the title. Then the wheels came completely off in Game 7.
The answer is as improbable as Iorg getting that hit: George Foster. In his first post-season game, as a pinch runner in Game 5 of the 1972 NLCS against Pittsburgh, he scored the winning run on a wild pitch, good for a .375 WPA.
#2 is Melvin Upton, Jr.
#1 is Mike Morgan.
Anybody else get completely taken by surprise that Edwin Jackson is only two wins from joining Mike Morgan on that list? He’s also in the 12 team club, and has 98 wins. He seems to be running out of gas, but he’s theoretically still young enough that he could even pass Octavio Dotel for #1 on the Franchise Played For list.
I thought he was going to be the answer until I noticed he only had 98 wins. Kind of surprising, the win total I mean.
#5 is Dan Pleasac.
#8 is Gene Tenace, I think.
I think you are right, but I also think there is another answer. Todd Pratt also had over two WAR in his age 35 and 36 seasons, and less than 300 PA.
Pratt is the correct answer.
#4 would be the well traveled Juan Uribe, who spent the 2013 and 2014 seasons with the Dodgers and played third for them in both seasons and then finished his career in 2016 playing a little third and DHing for the Indians. He hit like crud and the Indians released him on 8/5/16.
Can’t believe I didn’t pull that – I think I’ve either blocked out the entire 2016 season (the WS got cancelled, right? Yup, right in the middle of Game 7…) or at least blocked out Uribe’s abysmal tenure.
Which is odd, since I usually take a grim pride in remembering just about every journeyman who flopped in short stints with the Tribe. Take a bow, Orlando Cabrera. You too, Marlon Byrd.
I did this one by hand (just checked who played 3B in the postseason for the Dodgers all the way back to 1916 WS and then whether that person played 3B for the Indians ever). Since I started in 1916, I went through pretty much all the Dodgers post season appearances. I found something out I never knew, though. And it is very interesting. The Dodgers 3Bman for probably their most famous WS, certainly the most famous when they were in Brooklyn, was also their most famous player. At least in Games 1 through 6 of that Series. But that player didn’t play at all in Game 7, which I would think is the most important game in the history of the Dodgers, even though he played every inning of the Series prior to that. If he was hurt in Game 6, he didn’t come out of it, he played the whole game. Did Walt Alston BENCH Jackie Robinson for game 7, or was he hurt?
Alston did bench Robinson for game 7, with Jackie batting 4 for 22 for the series and a slowed by injuries (knee and achilles), though it’s unclear whether the benching was because of the injuries or his play. Robinson and Alston reportedly had issues, and seemed to irritate each other.
It was the only post-season game of Robinson’s career that he didn’t play. Save for two 9th inning defensive replacements, Robinson played every inning of all the other games.
Here’s some discussion of that move.
– http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-thoughts/post/_/id/2097/benching-jackie
– http://mlb.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20050829&content_id=1188293&c_id=mlb&fext=.jsp
For 9, looks like it might be Hack Wilson? 244 career HR’s, with 183 from age 25-30. (And really, it was all 26-30 – he only hit 6 in his age 25 season)
#9 is Jason Bay with 222.
#10 is Dutch Leonard.
#7 is either Placido Polanco or Phil Garner.
I’m going to have to put some thought into this. Based on my past thinking I know which three I would list right now but I think it only fair to reassess my prior thinking on all of the holdovers.
Among the newcomers I’m guessing that only Helton and Ichiro will see much support. Damon is certainly a solid candidate for the Hall of Very Good and is arguably a better player than some of the centerfielders in the HOF but I don’t see a case for his being a reasonable choice for the top half of the Hall, which is essentially what we are voting on.
Looking forward to some advocacy on behalf of particular candidates. Here’s a brief synopsis on my views of the holdovers.
Brown- How much of a factor was the “better living- and especially, playing- thru chemistry” aspect? At this moment that’s still a sticking point for me.
Winfield- Nothing bad to say about him and I could be convinced that we’re overstating how bad his defense was, especially early on.
Tiant- weird career curve hurts his candidacy but I think he belongs.
Allen- a genuinely great player in a few seasons and his numbers are solid in several more. I’m unsure how to account for the virulent racism he clearly had to deal with and what kind of impact he allowed that to have on some of the teams that he played for.
Dahlen- I’m on board but not overwhelmingly so. Between him & Wallace I’m more sold on the former since much of Wallace’s value comes from defense and I’m not convinced that’s being measured accurately.
Nettles- Again, I’m on board and have voted for him on multiple occasions in the past but remain open to being convinced otherwise
Ashburn- Another guy I’ve voted- and advocated- for in the past. Open to being convinced otherwise.
Pettitte- If Lyons couldn’t get in I can’t see any reasonable argument for Pettitte.
Ramirez- I’m almost as concerned about the “Manny being Manny” aspects of his career as I am about his multiple PED suspensions. The numbers clearly say yes but he comes with at least as much baggage as Allen and it would be difficult to explain why we picked him but passed on other PED users like Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire & Sheffield.
Wallace- see Dahlen
As I’ve stated before, I only see 2 viable candidates among the newcomers:
Helton- Like Walker, I’m amendable to the fact that his numbers aren’t being overstated by playing in Coors. Certainly had a terrific peak
Ichiro- Impressive numbers. Do we take into account the years he played in Japan like some of us do for time lost to segregation, military services and some other things? If yes, I think he becomes a relatively easy yes. If no, it’s a different story and he’s back to being on the borderline.
Don’t count this as my vote but as of this moment I’m leaning towards Tiant, Ashburn & either Nettles or Dahlen.
Let’s see where I end up.
Anyone care to address EPM’s thoughts in the most recent Year of the Home Run post? I have one other question: How many of us are left?
I will be leaving on vacation in a couple of hours, and will be away from a computer, so my participation will be limited for the next 2 weeks.
The 1973 class is full of borderline Hall-of-Famers, but they’re all fairly weak Circle of Greats candidates (I’m pretty much repeating what Hartvig said in better detail above). Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the gist of EPM’s post is that 4 COG spaces to fill between the 10 returning players and the new players born in 1973 is possibly too many. I’m not sure I agree: the 1973 cohort isn’t great, but there are at least 4 “old” candidates that I would be happy to see in the Circle.
This is the comment, echoed in some respects by Hartvig above.
A redemption round can certainly be done after this one, which I would support. Certainly there are some players who’ve dropped off the ballot that are arguably as worthy as any on the current holdover list.
Might also want to consider a two-level ballot, the second of which could be populated from an expanded redemption round. Players dropping off the main ballot would fall to the secondary ballot, from which they could later be elevated back to the main ballot. In each election there would be two votes: for the winner of the main ballot and COG election; and for elevation from the secondary ballot to the main ballot.
I think a redemption round- or even 2- may be in order.
As I recall, we almost always had a dozen or more holdover candidates going from round to round in past elections.
Mike Cameron was traded for Ken Griffey. Well, Cameron, two low-level minor leaguers, and Brett Tomko. He also had a 4-homer game.
…
Geoff Blum hit a home run in his only World Series plate appearance.
…
I see Casey Blake as a what-could-have-been player. He put up solid minor league numbers, but did not get a chance to start in the Show until age 29. He was waived by Toronto, Minnesota, and Baltimore. He was a 3B in the minors, and the Jays had Tony Fernandez, the Twins were set with Corey Koskie, and Blatimore was enduring the final year of Ripken.
…
Lowest OBP in a season with 110+ RBI:
.272 … Tony Batista
.290 … Joe Carter
.294 … George Bell
.300 … Butch Hobson
.300 … Tony Armas
.300 … Sammy Sosa
…
Stats for George Bell and Joe Carter in Toronto.
Given being the same age, playing the same position and having their Blue Jay stints follow each other, for Toronto fans it was almost like watching the same player over his whole career.
Hard to believe Bell walked less frequently than Carter….but, of course, his OBP is still higher than Joe’s
but a year or so before that, Cameron was traded for Paul Konerko, who also hit a homerun in the 2005 World Series.
Cameron is an all-time great defensive centerfielder, in my opinion. Too bad he struck out so much.
Will someone who understands how old-tymey defensive metrics are calculated provide us with a summary of it, please?
I ask because we are tasked with considering Bobby Wallace, one of the best defensive shortstops of all-time, who averaged about 50 errors a year.
And Bill Dahlen, who is credited with an Rfield of plus-15 in a season with 86 errors.
I know they barely had gloves back then.
Just think if someone could put the numbers into a coherent context it would help the discussion.
Voomo, apropos of nothing, my Dad gave me his mitt (Depression-Era mitt) and expected me to use it. You should have seen this thing. It’s why I told my parents I wanted to play first base….you needed a first basement glove.
Ramirez, Brown, Winfield
So, speaking to epm’s post in the HR topic, I agree for the most part. I don’t think we should have an option to vote for nobody, because I think it’s against the essential spirit of the exercise. Just like the BBWAA, we are occasionally vexed by oddities of timing. Weak players sneak in on soft ballots, better players get buried under a buzzsaw of stars. I think the whole point of this project (besides it being a whole lot of fun, and one of the longest ongoing processes I’ve ever been a part of) was to see how we would do compared to the BBWAA when looking at things backwards instead of forwards – we have the benefit of exact knowledge of what players are to come, but also the difficulties imposed by time and distance (as seen in our attempts to untangle the jumble of 19th century stars – the Old-Timers committee at least consisted of people who had seen the careers of Wallace and Dahlen, whereas to us they are so remote as to be hard to pin down).
But I do think that, especially with 1973 being a pretty weak year for new candidates (Helton has many of Walker’s negatives but fewer of his strengths – certainly more durable, but a good fielding 1B can’t stack up to Walker’s five tool prowess, and Ichiro has almost half of his prime in a minor league), some Redemption Rounds would be a good idea. I think these topics are most fun when people have candidates they passionately advocate for, and I fear that for the most part we’ll just be treading over shopworn arguments at this point, at least with respect to 8 of the 10 – Pettitte and Manny are new enough to the ballot that we’ve yet to really dig into their cases as substantially. In the past Redemption Rounds have sometimes been a formality, with the redeemed players almost certainly returning to the ballot only to be welcomed by an influx of superior talent that pushed them right back into relegation. With the current ballot makeup and with 4 spots to fill, I think there are several redemption candidates who could be competitive.
And of course I say this as an admission against interest, because many of you might remember that along with Dr. Doom, I’m probably one of the biggest advocates for Kevin Brown, and absent any redeemed candidates, I certainly like his chances of finally breaking through. But I think we’ll have more robust debates if we added a few more candidates that elicit strong emotions from us.
I’d like to respond to one point in CC’s post:
I don’t think we should have an option to vote for nobody, because I think it’s against the essential spirit of the exercise. Just like the BBWAA, we are occasionally vexed by oddities of timing. Weak players sneak in on soft ballots, better players get buried under a buzzsaw of stars.
I’ve gone back and read the initial posts on this topic — birtlecom’s original proposal and the follow-up initial round post — and there is a disconnect between the way the project was originally envisioned and the situation we’re in now.
When the CoG process was launched, the imperative to select an inductee each round was paired with the notion that each round would add a full birth-year’s worth of players. In our current situation, for the next four rounds, each will add one-quarter of a birth-year’s worth of players.
Somewhere along the line, the CoG process began to split birth years in two. I don’t remember the reason. I’ve always imagined it was done to accommodate years with an unusually high number of qualifying players, but I think I was actually “on leave” from HHS when this was done and just made up in my own mind an explanation for why it was occurring when I returned.
Darn! This computer sent off the message above prematurely, the second time in a row for me . . . I probably need to reboot. . . .
I was going to add: If anyone can recall or find the discussion that first resulted in our splitting years, that would be helpful to any attempt to clarify the “essential spirit” of the project — to use CC’s term . . . and I want to note that I share his goal. It seems to me that it is less in accord with the original spirit of the project to move through a birth year over four rounds instead of one, than it would be to determine through a vote, as we vote, when the project would be better served by moving on to another birth year.
A few people have referred to a comment I posted last night on the last string. I’m going to paste it below, and then add a separate comment as a reply to it.
——————-
I don’t know whether anyone will spot this comment, but it concerns our upcoming CoG rounds, and I think the issue I’d like to discuss is one we may want to consider before Doug opens the first of what I assume will be four rounds, given today’s Hall announcement.
I should note at the outset that I’m not sure I remember the rules of the CoG process clearly, so this may be a wasted post: my understanding is that we will be tasked with choosing 4 new inductees, selected from 11 holdover candidates (Luis Tiant, Dick Allen, Kevin Brown, Dave Winfield, Bill Dahlen, Manny Ramirez, Richie Ashburn, Graig Nettles, Bobby Wallace, and Andy Pettitte), perhaps enlarged by a player named through a Redemption Round process (who at some time in the past had little support), plus qualifying players born in 1973.
I think we may be encountering a problem that was not relevant to birtlecom’s original concept: the fact that the high number of open slots for the CoG — which, by birtlecom’s rules must be filled — may exceed the number of eligible candidates that we would have wished to elect under the conditions of previous rounds. To some degree, this was an issue in 2017 as well. In 2018, the problem is that, if I have the rules right, the enlargement of the pool provided by the 1973 group has to supply fresh candidates for four rounds, rather than the one or two rounds that was the general rule throughout the original process.
There are certainly potentially deserving candidates in the 1973 pool, including a couple who are still active (perhaps a problematic issue in itself). But that pool does not seem to be an abnormally rich one, and I feel it’s likely we’ll wind up looking to the holdover candidates to supply most of the electees. This may have the pleasant effect of bringing into the Circle some long-time favorites of a core group of supporters, but my concern is that given the small size of the pool relative to the number we must select, we may wind up forced by the rules to lower the bar for the CoG.
Obviously, that in itself isn’t a really good outcome, but what concerns me more is that we may be forced to allocate membership to multiple borderline candidates this year, while potentially having few slots available in a future year when the Hall may admit only one or two players, and the birth year for CoG consideration is one rich in excellent candidates.
So I wonder whether before we launch the next CoG round, we may not want to consider: (1) whether to hold a Redemption Round, and (2) whether to modify the election process in some way (perhaps by providing an option to vote for “None of the above; retain this slot for future election use” after, say, two rounds — this sort of option might also allow us to postpone voting on active players, if we’d rather not do that).
My post from last night is something I should have thought of earlier, to avoid having Doug go to the trouble of preparing and posting the initial round call for votes, only to have a discussion of the CoG process disturb the flow.
Here’s a suggestion: I personally don’t see any 1973 A-C players challenging the leading holdovers on the list, but the last few CoG rounds have been close-fought, and I think it’s safe to say that although we may not agree on precisely which player meets the criteria (e.g., our “Brown-never!”/”Brown-forever!” factions), I think almost all of us would agree there is at least one CoGworthy name on this list. So I think we should move forward with this round.
But I think we should use this same string to discuss the process — should we have a redemption round? should we modify the requirement for three names or the demand that every round result in a new CoG induction? — and find out whether we can reach a consensus on either going ahead as usual, or making some form of modification before Doug moves to the next round.
And because, if we do this, we’ll be doing multiple things on this string — and, perhaps more importantly, because the idea of proceeding without Richard is distressing to me — I’d add the suggestion that we extend the voting deadline for this round one week, to February 11.
Why aren’t we just moving ahead with 1974, 1975, and 1976?
The only active players from those birth years are RA Dickey, Koji Uehara, and Jason Grilli.
And in those four years, the only candidates likely to get any votes are
1973 … Helton, Ichiro
1974 … Jeter, Abreu
1975 … A-Rod, Rolen, Vlad, Ortiz
1976 … Nobody
Perhaps since we’re already in a round with 1973 A-C, we could modify Voomo’s proposal and suggest the next round be D-Z, then 1974, then 1975.
Oops – I don’t know why that last post sent when it did . . . I was adding that I did worry that there was a problem in “using up” years at that rate, since it might come back to bite us next year, if there are multiple Hall inductees.
I don’t see ‘using up years’ as a problem. The numerical goal of this exercise is to have the same number of inductees as the HOF. We could accomplish that effectively with Redemption votes. As effective, I would say, as worrying about whether we are all still here in three years to consider the merits of Lance Berkman and Javier Vasquez.
One other thing to consider is what next year might bring.
Mariano, Roy Halladay, Todd Helton & Andy Pettitte are the strongest candidates among the newcomers to the BBWAA ballot.
I’d say Mariano is a certainty and Halladay a reasonable possibility.
Among the holdovers, Edgar Martinez looks like a pretty sure thing in his final year of eligibility and Moose Mussina has a shot as well.
Among the 1974 birth year, only Derek Jeter would seem to be a pretty sure thing, with Bobby Abreau probably the next strongest candidate.
1975 brings us ARod, Vlad Guerrero, Tim Hudson, David Ortiz & Torii Hunter (players with at least 50 career WAR in descending order)
In 2020, I’d say that among the newcomers only Jeter would appear to be a sure thing, altho a number of the holdovers remain viable candidates as well.
In 2021, the leaders in WAR among the newcomers would be Hudson & Mark Buehrle, in 2022 it will be Arod & Ortiz but that will also be the final year of eligibility for Bonds, Clemens & Schilling and next to last for Mussina, assuming they haven’t been inducted already.
In short, in the next 2 years I’m guessing we’ll have at least 3 and maybe as many as 5 or 6 (or even more) spots to fill with 2 strongly qualified and a couple more that would seem to fall somewhere on the spectrum with our holdovers.
What this says to me is that I don’t think were going to find ourselves in a position where we don’t have a spot for any obviously qualified candidate, at least in the next few years.
What worries me more is a) having an opportunity to vote for the best qualified candidates remaining and b) having a large enough pool of voters to give the process a little more legitimacy. Just off the top of my head I can think of 2 guys not on the ballot that I personally would vote for over anyone on the holdover or newcomers lists and probably another 10 or 12 that are at least arguably as strong a candidate as anyone on those lists. I suspect that others feel similarly, altho I doubt we would all name the same people.
1) I don’t think “lowering the bar” is a problem. The hall determines how many seats so adding lots of seats will in fact lower the bar and that’s OK. It’s not intended to be a “big hall” or “small hall” list. The COG was always thought of as a difference on who the most valid on an arbitrary cut-set would be. If that cut-set gets bigger, the average will drop. That’s OK!
2) The 3 person ballot is the central mechanism of the entire process so I’d be strongly against changing that fundamental rule. “none of the above” is not necessary, you can always vote for somebody who has no chance if you REALLY want to water down the list for seemingly no reason.
3) Redemption rounds are good. I would think they’d have to get more often. Typically it’s time for a redemption round when the number of candidates drops. 3 person ballots with 10% requirements doesn’t let us carry TOO many people but if we’re throwing out too many shout-out votes you know it’s time for a redemption. Don’t look at the quality of the current members of the COG in comparison to the top of the ballot to determine this.
So, apropos of not much, I was looking at the Indians career leaders to make sure I wasn’t forgetting about somebody really obvious for the Casey Blake question. I noticed that the Top 3 in Slugging Pct. for the Indians all-time are Manny, Belle and Thome. Now, I probably knew that already, or at least could have guessed, but I realized that in 1996 after Eddie Murray was traded that those 3 hit back-to-back-to-back quite a few times. Again, I was aware how incredible the Indians lineups of the 90’s were, but I wondered, how many teams had accomplished this feat?
So far I found:
The Indians – As mentioned above. Batted in order once in 1993, three times in 1994, several times in 1995 and 1996.
The Rockies – Top 3 of Walker, Burks and Galarraga. Batter in order multiple times in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
The Astros – Top 3 of Alou, Bagwell and Berkman. Batted in order multiple times in 2000 and 2001.
Nice observation. Can also add:
– Mariners: A-Rod, Griffey and Edgar first batted back-to-back-to-back (2-3-4) in May 1996 and continued doing so regularly until Griffey left after the ’99 season (in that last year, Seattle had Griffey-ARod-Edgar at 3-4-5 for July, Aug and half of Sept).
– White Sox: Thomas, Ordonez, Konerko (1999-2003), usually 3-4-5. Like the Tribe, notable for an original franchise that the top 3 should be contemporaries for an extended period.
I was just looking at Brewer team (they made some big moves tonight), and noticed a rare stat line from their 3rd baseman, Travis Shaw. He had 31 HR last year, while stealing 10 bases, and having zero Caught Stealing.
Only a handful of guys have done that since 1951
(I choose that as the cutoff, because CS stats are iffy or non-existent before then):
2017 … 31/10 … Travis Shaw
2009 … 31/23 … Chase Utley
2008 … 31/10 … Jason Bay
1996 … 48/11 … Albert Belle
I’ve been immersed in posts about the CoG process, and should have posted this earlier. It’s my usual table comparing holdover candidates and leading newcomers according to WAR, in various totals (peak, average, etc.), ERA+, and career length (indexing the shortest career as 1.0). It’s just one possible set of reference points, if anyone finds them useful.
I don’t actually think any of the 1973 A-C players belong in this comparison, but Colon comes closest, so I included him.
Pitchers
P(Tot)WAR…Peak5..Top5…WAR/9IP…WAR/Yr….ERA+…Career length
68.5 (68.3)……37.0…37.0……0.189……4.0 (17)……127……1.0………Brown
66.1 (66.7)……28.7…34.7……0.171……3.9 (17)……114……1.2………Tiant
60.9 (60.8)……20.3…28.4……0.166……3.4 (18)……117……1.0………Pettitte
47.5 (45.8)……22.8…24.1……0.129……2.5 (19)……107……1.0………Colon*
Position Players
WAR……Pk5……Top5……WAR/G…WAR/Yr……OPS+…Career length
58.7………31.5……36.7……0.034……4.2 (14)……156………1.0………Allen
63.6………31.6……32.7……0.029……4.2 (15)……111………1.3………Ashburn
75.2………22.6……29.8……0.031……4.0 (19)……110………1.4………Dahlen
68.0………28.7……32.2……0.025……3.4 (20)……110………1.4………Nettles
69.2………28.7……29.9……0.030……4.1 (17)……154………1.3………Ramirez
70.2………28.6……31.3……0.029……4.2 (17)……105………1.3………Wallace**
63.8………26.9……28.6……0.021……3.0 (21)……130………1.7………Winfield
*Active player; latest season WAR: -2.0.
**Wallace’s total WAR (incl. pitching) is 76.3.
WAR/Yr. includes only those seasons with 10 GS or 100 IP for starters, 20G for relievers, and 50G for position players.
Manny, Tiant, Winfield
Nettles, Winfield, Pettitte
I still can’t believe you guys actually got Wes Ferrell in with out me. Well done!
Winfield had some impressive longevity.
Played the field through age 39.
40-43 were mostly (but not entirely) DH.
That age 40 season he had 670 PA.
Only Rose had more PA after age 40.
Winfield had a 138 ops+ that year
Most PA in a season, age 40+:
720 / 90 ….. Pete Rose
670 / 138 … Winfield
669 / 118 … Sam Rice
637 / 87 ….. Eddie Murray
635 / 59 ….. Rabbit Maranville
634 / 76 ….. Jeter
626 / 164 … David Ortiz
625 / 125 … Honus Wagner
500+ PA, Age 40+, highest ops+:
164 … Ortiz
157 … Mays
141 … Edgar Martinez
138 … Winfield
137 … Musial
135 … Darrel Evans
134 … Cobb
134 … Fisk
Fisk was 42, and played Catcher in 116 games.
Best seasons, according to Pitching WAR
Brown.Tiant.Pettitte
8.6 … 8.4 … 8.4
8.0 … 7.8 … 6.8
7.2 … 6.6 … 5.6
7.0 … 6.3 … 3.8
6.2 … 5.6 … 3.6
4.8 … 5.4 … 3.4
4.5 … 4.6 … 3.3
4.3 … 4.1 … 3.2
4.0 … 3.8 … 3.1
3.6 … 3.2 … 2.9
3.1 … 2.6 … 2.6
2.8 … 2.5 … 2.5
2.1 … 2.4 … 2.5
1.7 … 1.9 … 2.4
1.6 … 1.2 … 2.2
0.2 … 0.2 … 2.2
-0.2 .. 0.0 … 1.5
-0.4 .. -0.3 .. 1.1
-0.5 .. -0.4 .. n/a
In writing a post about Bonds and Clemens on a recent string, I argued that one of the unaddressed problems their PED use had created concerned their places on the leaderboards for position players and pitchers. They are, as one HoF voter said, arguably the greatest position player and pitcher of all time.
Except that they aren’t. When their careers began their natural declines, they cheated with PEDs and were able to pile up unprecedented late career numbers. They were both terrific players naturally, and would have stood high on those all-time leaderboards (especially Bonds), but nowhere near the very top.
Comparing Brown and Pettitte — especially Brown, who appears to have been far deeper into PEDs than the repentant Pettitte — to Tiant in the way Voomo has, seems to me as skewed as calling Bonds and Clemens arguably the best ever. They have arguably the best records ever, but the reason for it erases any pretense of a level playing field and the legitimacy of their number. Brown had some fine years, but one of his best ones (7.2) and another of his good ones (4.5) were almost surely PED-based. (I estimate up to 25% of Brown’s total WAR came after he began using steroids, and that’s based only on Mitchell report comments.)
For the CoG, I did not take an absolutist position on PEDs as I would for the Hall. I voted for Bonds and Clemens, but only after making my best estimate of who they were without PEDs, and deciding that their natural records qualified them. I’d do the same for Brown, except the calculation there leaves him significantly short of the CoG threshold, in my view.
1. It was the Steroid Era. The steroid-aided pitchers were pitching to steroid-aided hitters. At some point we have to come to terms with that and call the advantages a wash.
2. But I understand that is not your point. You are saying that Brown’s career arc was unnatural because PEDs kept him strong later than he shoulda been. Okay. Maybe. It is speculation. Could be that guys making millions had better resources (triniers, nutrition, cozier travel), than the fellas toiling in 70’s. That has to be a big part of why athletes in their mid-30s are enduring more than they used to.
But yes, Brown is named in the Mitchell report.
But what does it say?
2001. There is some record of him purchasing HGH a number of times beginning in 2001.
Brown had 9.5 WAR from 2001 to the end of his career.
Did he use PEDs before that? We do not know, and it is not fair to him (or anybody) to assume.
…
Also, is there going to come a time in the no-so-distant future when using things like HGH is going to be seen as smart, and that we’ll have found a way to do it in a healthy manner? Very possibly. And yeah, this will make it more difficult for internet stat nerds like us to compare players from different eras, true.
But here are two more facts:
MLB did not test for steroids until 2003.
And HGH was not illegal until 2005, Kevin Brown’s final year.
That last bit has to be relevant. He was doing something that was not against the rules.
How is that different from Tiant popping a greenie before a game after a cross-country flight?
Voomo, The Mitchell report says “2000 or 2001,” and that the person who sold him the PEDs at that time said he was unusually knowledgeable about HGH.
I continue to disagree with you on your point (1) and don’t foresee changing. The PED-pitchers and PED-hitters may be a wash, but PED players were not playing on the same terms as non-PED players. Brown’s record in his PED years is based on a comparison with other pitchers, not PED hitters. My belief is that we come to terms with the PED era when we acknowledge that a group of players sabotaged the integrity of the game and that their records can never be viewed as historically comparable to other records.
The effect of a greenie before a game is, to me, in no way comparable to using HGH; it’s comparable to a couple of cups of espresso. I don’t think it’s necessary to get into the chemistry to acknowledge that using compounds designed to effect long-term and dramatic changes in one’s body, muscle mass, and injury recovery potential, is different from swigging a Red Bull for a quick boost.
You are correct that HGH was not on the banned list till 2005. However, Brown was clearly aware of the problematic nature of his conduct, as he paid for his drugs in cash (up to $10,000 a pop), and had them mailed to his agent’s address. And he had good reason to be concerned, because by purchasing HGH without a medical prescription he was committing a crime.
I should have clarified that last paragraph: While MLB did not have a specific rule against HGH till 2005, HGH became a controlled substance under federal law in 1990. Brown may not have broken the rules; he broke the law. I don’t believe that if MLB has not specifically banned breaking a law to gain competitive advantage that means players have implicit permission to break that law without baseball consequences.
Yes, good point about HGH being illegal. I wasn’t completely fluent on that detail.
I’d agree with you, too that it would be great to just point an exclusionary finger at all the players who broke the rules/laws and then move on, but we can not and will not because:
1. We will never know all of their names.
2. The names we do know we’ll never get all the facts.
3. And because it ain’t so simple as to blame the players when the trainers, coaches, executives and so-called journalists were all in on it.
…
– I used the example of greenies not to say that amphetamines were the same as human growth hormone, but that they deserve to be in the same category of being:
a. illegal/illicit
b. something we don’t want teenagers getting involved with
c. capable of boosting performance and overcoming fatigue (short term fatigue for speed, longer-term for HGH)
Voomo, I think I’ve written concerning your first two points already. On #3, I don’t disagree with you one iota about the bad faith of blaming only players. I don’t think that people do, in fact, blame only players. But it’s true that baseball sanctions largely seem to be confined to the players. I think it was outrageous to put Selig in the Hall, as I’ve said before. I think Selig should have been disqualified for the Hall just as I think Bonds and Clemens should be. The fact that Selig wasn’t, however, means the Hall committee made a mistake, not that the Hall should make more mistakes.
Basically, I think the answer to #3 is that the fact that others were complicit does not eliminate the culpability of the players. If it turned out that Black Sox coaches were had been in on the fix in 1919 and had never been called out, it would not in any imply that Judge Landis should have reinstated the players.
The comparison between amphetamines and HGH is not simple. You’re right that most amphetamines in pill form have been illegal without an Rx for many decades (though not in the era when I was a truly devoted fan . . . and when I shared speed happily with friends). Greenies exist on a continuous spectrum of speed that begins with tea and coffee, and the practice of using amphetamines in baseball began as an enhancement of the sort of normal use of speed that has pervaded Western society since Chinese tea exports addicted England.
Medical and social histories make greenies and HGH distinct, and you can see this pretty easily in the fact that from Ball Four on we have understood that teammates openly used greenies, shared greenies, and made them part of clubhouse culture, while players used HGH secretly, disclosing their use only to close friends or to no one, paying for them in untraceable cash, and so forth. The difference in behavior reflects different consciousness of the seriousness of the drug use, the degree of acceptance within the game, and the long-term power and risks associated with HGH, which was simply not the case with greenies, unless they were abused to the point of addiction, at which stage the performance enhancement is gone. Is it imaginable that someone like Curt Schilling would call out “cheaters” if the issue were greenies. Every player understood that steroids were a qualitatively different matter, and I think we understand that as well.
I do enjoy taking the least-popular side of an argument and debating it, simply because I think that we need a lot more of that in our society, but I’m not trying to be the pro-PED guy here.
For me it is all about the quality of the conversation. I can’t go along with a purely punitive approach, even if I agree with many of the points. I’m disheartened by what I see as hypocrysy and willful ignorance (not here at HHS, but in the tone of the conversation in society at large).
For example, cortisone.
No, anabolic and cortico steroids are not the same.
But they are both harmful if abused.
And I’m 100% certain that cortisone injections are over-used in pro sports.
“Gotta get this inflammation down and put this guy back on the field.
Uh oh, now he ruptured a tendon. Oops. Here, have some surgery.” (also overused)
…
Understand, I’m not making the argument that because other things are bad, this bad thing over here shouldn’t be addressed. No. I’m saying we’ve had the opportunity, over and over and over, to really talk about what is Most Healthy For Everybody, and we just don’t do it.
Because some unhealthy things are just accepted.
Amphetamines, for example.
“We know they’re not good for ya, but hey, me and my buddies did them in college, and heck, we could buy them at the front counter of the gas station (along with 500 other things that are unfit for human consumption). So it was probably no big deal that for 50 years, almost every professional baseball player used pharmacuitical speed every single freaking day.”
Bullshit.
It was bad.
They are bad.
Really bad. Along with aspartame and HCFS and MSG and all processed foods and glysophate-drenched wheat and flouridated water and rat-poison-laced tobacco and mercury-laced vaccines and hormone-altering birth control and too much television and compulsory public education and an economy where both parents have to work to survive and about 10,000 other things.
And we (this society) do not have these conversations in a forward-moving, healthy manner.
It is soundbite-opinion-blame.
…
So yeah, I’m not throwing stones at individuals because this is just one big retarded glass house.
…
And why do we loathe Kevin Brown but Andy Pettitte is a good guy?
They used the same freaking hormone.
Oh, but Brown never confessed and Andy held a press conference where he was very contrite.
Bullshit. He wasn’t contrite.
He just had smart PR people in his life who he was smart enough to listen to.
But because we are a nation of superficial sheep who care more about personality than facts, the narrative spun his way.
…
And also, how about the fact that a lot of these guys were actually injured?
And it sucks to be injured.
To be in pain.
To not know if your shoulder will ever work again, not just for throwing a ball, but for all the everyday stuff for the next 50 years of your life.
And you trust your doctors and your colleagues.
And you want to be healthy and whole more than you fear breaking the law (seriously, is there anybody in this glass house reading this who has never done an “illegal” drug?).
What would you do?
I tell you what. My neck, sacrum, and hip are all kinds of screwed up. If I trusted doctors (which I do not), and I was offered a magic pill, it would be pretty freakin’ tempting.
Well, Voomo, I think the answer to most of your questions is that the species is imperfect. I’m not sure whom to hold responsible for creating the problem, but I’m sure it’s neither you nor I — it’s not even Bud Selig.
It is true that Andy Pettitte does seem to be a decent person, that Kevin Brown appears to be sort of a jerk, and that Mark McGwire is a real prince of a guy. But I’m not voting for any of them, because their numbers are cooked.
As for the long list of things you name, I think that some of them are indeed bad, that some of them are harmless, that some are positive goods, and that the last thing we’re short of is conversations and arguments about which of them is which.
Now, as a member in good standing of the Nation of Sheep (although one who seems to have been permanently fleeced), it’s time for me to head out to the woods and collude in sin with my daily cigarette.
Ha! I already had my one cigarette today. Of course, mine was blue lotus flowers, mullein, damiana, lion’s mane, and mugwort, because I am that much of a pain in the ass.
🙂
The biggest issue is HGH in pitchers is not necessarily that it turned bad pitchers into good pitchers but that it shortened recovery time and allowed them to pitch more innings. A positive if you are a good pitcher but not so much if you’re not.
For me, PED’s are a bridge too far. Yeah, I don’t like that guys like Mantle partied all night and then popped a greenie to get straight for the next days game. But someone like Musial who didn’t go out there and hellraise and stay out all night weren’t being put at a disadvantage by it.
Roid’s are different. They turned Sammy Sosa into an even more powerful version of Jimmy Foxx, they made a 39-year old Barry Bonds look like Ruth in his prime.
I can’t live with the idea that some kid in high school thinks that his only chance at achieving his dream of major league baseball means that he’s going to have to use that crap as well.
I totally agree with you on PED’s. You have to make some judgement to level the playing field. We do it between eras without batting an eyelash with OPS+. We do it within a season with park factors. We do it with defensive metrics by basing them entirely on how other players at the same position in that year would have performed, 100% relative. Lets not kid ourselves that the entire process is comparative with adjustments. I adjust for everything, PED’s included.
I would rule out guys who were suspended which basically means two: AROD and Manny. Braun too if it ever became relevant (especially for his celebratory denial acquittal that was so clearly a lie). It does matter what the rules were at the time and I do think Greenies and other ills of the past (segregation, war years, etc) also require extreme adjustments.
I think Pettitte was completely honest in a way that could have crucified him and cost him friends (ex: his Clemens comments). That’s character, even if he is guilty in part as well.
Pettitte has a huge post season advantage so I’m likely to go strongly in his favor in a statistical wash. Not that it’s a wash, but it’s not far off.
Post-season records.
Brown: 14 G, 81.2 IP, 5-5, 4.19, 1.31 WHIP, 0.9 HR/9, 2 CG, 1 SHO
Tiant: 5 G, 34.2 IP, 3-0, 2.86, 1.15 WHIP, 0.5 HR/9, 3 CG, 1 SHO
Pettitte: 44 G, 276.2 IP, 19-11, 3,81, 1.31 WHIP, 1.0 HR/9, 0 CG, 0 SHO
Looking at Doug’s post, Pettitte’s post-season advantage is basically the fact that he played for the Yankees in the age of inflated post-seasons. Pettitte has huge numbers of games and IP, and even Brown’s dwarf Tiant’s.
But the fact that contemporary pitchers have more post-season quantity is not a quality measure. In Tiant’s day, there were half as many post-season slots per team, and far fewer post-season games to play if you made it. When it comes to quality of performance, Luis seems to have the edge, of the three.
My first impression comparing Dick Allen and Manny is that they are very similar, but that Manny did it for 2400 more PA.
They were both rated as awful fielders (though Allen got to be awful at the very different positions).
So here’s a comp of each of their best seasons, using just Rbat
…
best Rbat
Allen.Manny
60 … 61
55 … 59
52 … 53
40 … 53
39 … 49
36 … 46
34 … 43
34 … 43
34 … 42
26 … 42
22 … 37
09 … 36
00 … 32
00 … 25
-05 .. 16
……… 13
……… 09
……… 02
……… -03
……… -05
The same exercize using oWAR, Allen comes out ahead for the first 6 seasons, probably due to baserunning and positional adjustment.
Manny was a few knocks away from having an OPS of over 1.000 with three different teams in pretty decent tenures.
.998 OPS (.313/.407/.592 [so it would seem like rounding would give him a ,999] slash line) in 4,095 PA’s with the Indians
.999 OPS (.312/.411/.588) in 4,682 PA’s with the Red Sox
1.012 OPS (.322/.433/.580) in 892 PA’s with the Dodgers
As far as I can tell, there’s only one player in history who can claim even two teams with an OPS of over 1.000 at a similar PA sample size, and that’s Jimmie Foxx – 1.034 with the Sox, 1.079 with the A’s.
Set the PA cutoff a bit lower and you get Hornsby with 3 teams and just missing a 4th. 1.130 with the Braves (621 PA’s), 1.035 with the Giants (684 PA’s), 1.039 with the Cubs (1,321 PA’s) and .995 with the Cardinals (6,716 PA’s). That seems right, doesn’t it? Hornsby was definitely the best hitter ever that teams still passed off like a hot potato due to his attitude. Manny only really got dished off once (the Indians would have been happy to put up with his quirks if not for the price tag), but he’s another guy where a team said “we know we’re getting the inferior player, but we just can’t deal with this guy anymore.”
The definite odd man out in the “I had a 1.000+ OPS with one team in at least 800 PA’s”? Kevin Mitchell, a 1.045 OPS in his 874 stint with the Reds.
Ramirez, Brown, Dahlen
Voomo asked, “Will someone who understands how old-timey defensive metrics are calculated provide us with a summary of it, please?” And pointed to Bill Dahlen, “who is credited with an Rfield of plus-15 in a season with 86 errors.”
I don’t think I understand any more about old-time defensive stats than Voomo, but I thought it might be good to look at how Dahlen appears in the context of the 12-team NL of 1895.
1895 NL Primary Shortstop Fielding
G……E…DP…Fld%……Rnge/9….Rfld…Team……….Player
131…56…71….940……7.05………18….BALT……Hughie Jennings
128…64…50….925……6.36………17….BKLN……Tommy Corcoran
123…84…48….892……5.68………-3…..BOST……Herman Long
129…86…70….904……6.52………15….CHIC…….Bill Dahlin
127…59…58….923……5.76……….6…..CINC…….Germany Smith
132…69…42….907……5.27……….4…..CLE………Ed McKean
88…..63…39….874……5.38………-17…LOU……..Frank Shugart
126…73…59….913……6.32………17….NY……….Shorty Fuller
89…..62…32….879……5.32………-12…PHIL……..Joe Sullivan
108…77…42….884……5.58………-7…..PIT……….Monte Cross
118…53…52….925……5.82………-2…..STL………Bones Ely
45…..30…18….889……6.02………-6…..WASH……Frank Sheiback
[Jeez, I hope those columns sort of line up once I post this — they look so handsome now!]
Dahlen leads in errors, but he’s obviously getting credit for being second in range factor and second in DPs (actually edging Eeeyah Jennings in DP/G). Jennings was clearly the pick of SS that year. He was in the midst of his astonishing five-year peak, which generated 35.4 of his career 42.3 WAR, and which seemed to taper off as he enrolled in Cornell Law School, illustrating the dangers of self-improvement. During those five seasons, Jennings piled up 71 Rfield to go with his 140 OPS+. Dahlin was having an awful year at the plate in 1895, but his fielding remained strong, as may be plain in context.
Bill James gets apoplectic about errors. He thinks it’s an awful stat. “Error” denotes all sorts of different things. A fielder who gets beyond the normal edge of his range but is charged with an error because he can’t handle the ball he’s reached is penalized the same as a Bill Buckner, or the same as a player whose errant throw allows the batter to get to first and then to get to second. High-range infielders like Dahlen are obviously likely to make more errors of that first kind than ordinary infielders. The positive DP number may be a better diagnostic of skill (notice how far Jennings and Dahlen are ahead of the pack in that category.)
I think that this round, I’m going to devote some time to making the case for Dahlen and Wallace, whom I’ve voted for in the past (Dahlen with conviction, Wallace to keep him eligible). I’d like to make sure that we don’t sharing with the BBWAA the problem of prioritizing players we’re familiar with from the eras we’ve experienced and more easily understand.
I think fielding is a key factor in this. Baseball in the decade 1900-09, which is range within which Dahlen and Wallace technically qualify for the CoG, was a far lower-skill affair than the game we know. But what we also all know is that competent fielding has a greater impact on lower-skill playing environments – just think of t-ball, where the runs flow uninterrupted until, occasionally, some kid miraculously throws the ball on target to first and some other kid, against all odds, catches it. Three inning t-ball scores aren’t 25-23 because of strong hitting. A good fielder is hard to find and can have enormous impact.
For that reason, I want to spend some time and effort this round to see whether it’s possible to better document and support the strong fielding reputations that Dahlen and Wallace have. It may turn out that the stats aren’t really so impressive, but the counter-intuitive example of 1895, where Dahlen’s huge error count turns out to look different in the context of SS performance throughout the league, and accounts for his 2.2 WAR that year, despite a 79 OPS+ way out line with his career norms, suggests that the more context we have, the better Dahlen and Wallace are likely to look.
I’m… not buying it. I’m sorry but this is a non-integrated league. These guys practically played a different sport. I also don’t fear “forgetting the history” for it’s own value. I find it impossible to argue you’d rather draft Dahlen than say Nomah (sorry, gotta spell it that way) if they were both 18.
Of course I’d draft Nomah. He would be head and shoulders beyond Dahlen — assuming the Dahlen we’re talking about is coming direct from 1895-1905. If Dahlen somehow could have grown up in our era — the game norms, the training, the diet from childbirth, etc. — everything else remaining the same, I’d pick Dahlen.
If you want to argue that segregation-era baseball can’t be compared to post-1947 baseball, I suppose that’s ok. But why would Dahlen and Wallace be special cases, different from the many CoG inductees whose careers predated 1947?
For me, the premise of the exercise is to elect the greatest baseball players ever, given that every player plays the game of his era in the league of his time. Any other premise, I believe, will result in 90% of electees being from the expansion era. If that’s what we want to do, ok, but I think applying those criteria selectively when there’s a subjective sense that, say, moving back from the 1910s to the 1900s crosses some qualitative threshold, seems to me to undermine the integrity of the project. Baseball evolves in a pretty smooth continuum from 1893 on. Jump over large stretches of time and you may feel the game has become completely different, but, except perhaps for the changes around 1920 (on a smaller scale than 1892/1893), there is simply no such dividing line.
One thing I would add to this well put post is that errors are the only stat that is dependent on the observations of an outside source (now the official scorer, I am unsure who was deciding that in the 19th century or early 20th century). The judgments made are not consistent over the course of time (what is normally considered error has changed considerably in my lifetime), nor even are the consistent from place to place. When we are presented with a total of errors from 1895 we have no context at all as to what that even means and whether those “errors” represent even the same thing as we commonly believe to be errors now, nor can we ask those who were making those decisions the basis of their decisions.
A very important point, Brent, and one that I suspect there’s some research on–or at least materials for research– because I’m sure there are contemporary accounts that give indications of how these matters were conceived, even if they haven’t yet been explored in published studies. (Perhaps someone who is a member of SABR and is familiar with that stream of articles knows more about the state of research on early fielding and scoring.)
On your last point, we do have early rule books that describe for the benefit of official scorers how to distinguish an error from a hit. The earliest to do so for the Major Leagues, in 1872, has only a 40-word description–vague indeed! But the 1883 rule book that Henry Chadwick drafted gives a pretty explicit set of instructions to the scorer about how to differentiate a hit from an error. It’s not really a long section compared to today’s rule book–about 250 words compared the the present 1200–but I think the concepts laid out are the basic ones we recognize today. Still, the patterns of interpretation in the period 1893 to the early 1900s may differ significantly from what we’re used to.
The overall problem seems to me to be reaching a solution for contemporary baseball. The types of analyses that Baseball Info Solutions performs on videos of every fielded ball, with innumerable simple, descriptive categories for the ways fielders handle or mishandle chances, measured relative to seasonal norms for how players at each position handle similarly batted and balls-in-play at similar field locations relative to the fielder, are enormously impressive. Once there’s some agreement on how to bring that sort of cumulative analysis to StatCast data, which is more precise than BIS data, I think fielding measures may approach the reliability of batting and fielding measures. But here’s a really interesting punchline to all this: although BIS notes the official error counts compiled by MLB scorers, in its own data collection BIS does not employ the concept of “error,” which is vague, subjective, and questionably related to the exercise of fielding skill.
Andy Pettitte – Dick Allen – Richie Ashburn
Dick Allen, Graig Nettles, Luis Tiant
Luis Tiant, Manny Ramirez, Mike Cameron
I’ve gone with the best two of the holdovers IMO, and my favorite newcomer since it seems wrong to have no votes for them. Cameron is a kind of player I’ve voted for a lot (including Kenny Lofton, and Tony Philips), although I might be inventing similarities where there are none; I guess what I like here is defensive journeymen with some offensive skills (in Cameron’s case: home runs/slugging, some on-base ability, baserunning).
Thanks to Doug for welcoming discussion of the structure of these four rounds, partly since he will be the one to implement it. How we structure it will probably have a lot to do with who gets voted in.
This first round is pretty much a “holdover round” and it sounds like a redemption round (or two?) is likely; I guess the question is how many rounds do we want to focus on 1973? Do we want Helton and Suzuki (et al) to face redemption round candidates, or do we want the redemption round(s) to come after we’ve finished with our first pass at 1973 candidates? I like one redemption round, and the most straightforward approach I can see is two more 1973 rounds, then one redemption round and then the final vote, but that doesn’t take into account some of the more creative solutions that have been proposed.
Looking at the spreadsheet, I see that 189 different voters have participated in this project.
Doug (Andy?), is it within the operational framework of HHS to pop off a group email to let folks know the COG is active?
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Vote:
Richie Ashburn
Bill Dahlen
Dave Winfield
________________
ASHBURN
Durable
Great D at CF
A Lot of Black Ink
Sustained Peak
……………………….. and he’s on the bubble.
DAHLEN
3rd in WAR among SS from 1871-1991 (Wagner, Davis). 10th all-time. Those numbers are for 50%+ shortstops.
Among players with at least 75% of games at SS, only Ripken and Ozzie are ahead of him.
WINFIELD
Elite Durability
………………. and I regularly saw him from the RF bleachers in the Bronx and I’m not buying his negator defensive numbers.
[NOTICE, as required by Federal Law: The excessive length of this post may cause distress in certain individuals. Avoid reading if you have a history of allergic reactions to prolixity.]
Earlier, I wrote that I planned to devote some time to making the case for Dahlen and Wallace, and I have been trying to get clear in my own mind what their records reflect. Voomo, in his CoG vote, has noted some positive aspects of Dahlen’s record in terms of his standing among shortstops, and I want to take that route in this comment. Dahlen was his team’s primary shortstop for an unusually long period, and Wallace also spent most of his career at shortstop. I thought I’d compare them to other shortstops of their day, which was, roughly, from 1893, the year that the baseball diamond took its final form (Dahlen was actually a rookie in 1891), to 1909, although both played bit roles later. This is an advocacy post – I’m hoping more people will consider voting for these guys – but along the way, as the numbers emerged, I did keep questioning whether they were the right players to advocate for. In the end, I think they are.
Shortstop, alongside catcher, was the key defensive position then as now, and the conditions of play (small, unlaced mitts; lumpy balls used all game; rough grounds) presented challenges that modern players don’t generally face once they get to the Little League level. On the eve of the 1893 move of the mound to 60’6”, about 40% of runs scored were unearned. In 1893 that dropped to 30%, and throughout the careers of Dahlen and Wallace the rate never fluctuated significantly from that figure, ranging from 28-32%, and almost always within a point of 30%. That’s a lot of unearned runs and I think the potential payoff of marginal improvement was greater than it is today. In 2017, the unearned run rate was 7%. It always makes sense for teams to be willing to sacrifice offense to field a good shortstop, but this was especially true in the Dahlen/Wallace era.
There were only two other shortstops of the era who had the type of longevity at the position that Dahlen did: Tommy Corcoran, who was his team’s primary shortstop from 1893-1906, and Monte Cross, from 1895-1907. Compare their OPS+, oWAR, and dWAR to Dahlen’s figures for 1895-1908 (the WAR figures are normalized on a per 100-game basis):
Shortstop………..OPS+……oWAR…..dWAR
Corcoran…………74………..0.61……..0.97
Cross……………..79………..1.21……..0.45
Dahlen…………..105……….2.43……..1.42
The other two great shortstop “institutions” played well in the field, but nowhere near as well as Dahlen, and those skills cost their teams heavily at the plate, while Dahlen brought to his teams superior defense without any trade-off on offense.
(By the way, I chose these figures after trying calculations for things like error, double-play, and range rates, but I came to the conclusion that piling those on just made comparisons opaque, especially given the problem of normalizing for significant changes in league error and DP rates, etc. I think these three figures convey the information most clearly, and since we’re just comparing players at one position, the double-counting of the positional adjustment in the two WAR figures doesn’t matter.)
Two other prominent shortstops with ten-year tenures during Dahlen’s career (after the mound relocation) were Bones Ely and Herman Long (who had a reputation as a slugger), both 1893-1902:
Shortstop………..OPS+……oWAR…..dWAR
Ely………………69………..0.33……..0.94
Long…………….91………..1.46……..1.03
Ely is comparable to Cross, and Long, for all his reputation, was far less productive offensively than Dahlen, and inferior in the field as well.
Now, there were players comparable or superior to Dahlen who played shortstop, though none with his longevity at the position during the time frame of Dahlen and Wallace’s heyday. The most obvious is Honus Wagner, “arguably the greatest player ever” (the quote is from me), who became a shortstop in 1903. George Davis, whom we elected to the CoG, was generally the best shortstop in his league over the period 1897-1907 (actually a 10-year stretch, because the league wars sidelined him in 1903). Hughie Jennings was in a class of his own during his brief five-year tenure as Oriole shortstop (1894-98). Joe Tinker, who only came up in 1902, and whose career was relatively brief, was comparable to Dahlen in many ways (I’m only calculating through 1909 here), and Kid Elberfeld provided a little more offense during his seven-year stint at short (1901-7), but with indifferent defense. And finally, there’s Wallace, who became a primary shortstop in 1900 and retained that role through 1909. (I’m duplicating Dahlen’s figures below; remember that the WAR figures are per 100G.)
Shortstop………..OPS+……oWAR…..dWAR
Dahlen…………..105……….2.43……..1.42
Davis…………….122………3.33…….1.60
Elberfeld…………109……….2.87…….0.82
Jennings…………140………4.61……..1.39
Tinker…………….91………1.76……..2.05
Wagner………….180………6.26……..1.14
Wallace………….112………2.89……..1.50
In this company, or at least alongside Davis, Jennings, Tinker, and Wallace, Dahlen looks more ordinary. Everyone looks awful next to Wagner, though note that Wagner’s legendary defense doesn’t quite show up in the numbers, and as for Davis, there’s much more good to be said about him, which is why it was he, and not Dahlen or Wallace, whom we first selected for the CoG from among trans-century shortstops.
But bear in mind that Jennings burnt out in no time, and Tinker’s 13-year total career was brief (by the way, his full career numbers would be 96 / 1.82 / 1.92). Dahlen generated 16+ WAR outside his 14-year run as primary team shortstop, including a four-year stretch (1891-94) with an OPS+ of 127. In fact, in his early career, Dahlen was a leading slugger, and in 1894 established a new record with a 42-game hitting streak (not to mention 70 games out of 71) – he’s also 28th all-time on stolen bases, although without caught-stealing numbers that’s hard to assess (Davis leads him at #17; this was not a feature of Wallace’s strengths).
To shift focus to Wallace, he too has credentials outside his briefer tenure as his team’s primary shortstop. In the three years leading up to that status (1897-99), Wallace contributed a 118 OPS+ and very high Rfield numbers as a third baseman (he was actually a primary SS in ’99, but because over a third of his games were at 3B, I haven’t included that year in his main totals). And before that, in 1895-96, he generated over 6.0 pWAR as a starting pitcher, with a 127 ERA+. Wallace was converted to a position player not because he didn’t have pitching talent, but because his other talents were of greater value to the pitching-rich Cleveland Spiders. Because I chose to write this post with a primary focus on Dahlen, it may appear that I’m advocating him over Wallace, but I could have done it the other way (although Wallace’s diversity of skills would make the organization tougher). I think they are as comparable in quality as their nearly identical total WAR figures suggest.
Somewhere, Bill James has an overly long screed about how defense is fundamentally more challenging than offense, in baseball, in sports, in war, in life. Dahlen and Wallace, alongside Davis, who was the premier player in this respect, were exceptional in defense in an era when defense was exceptionally challenging, and, unlike others, they offered the best in defensive mastery without cost to their team’s offensive strength over periods of many years. They played a long time ago, but they played when baseball had become the game we know, and they played in what was the present for them. Had they been transported to a different era to train and play, there is no reason to think they would not have met the challenges of that era to the same extent.
Both Dahlen and Wallace are fully qualified for the CoG, and although their eligibility for our vote may be based on the WAR they produced during the latter part of their careers, the quality of their records (the circularity of their greatness?) has to be based, like all CoG candidates, on their full careers. It is no fluke that their WAR figures are about 10% higher than any other candidate we are considering. I think recognizing that and bringing them into the Circle will improve the quality of the CoG project.
Not only fielders make errors: I have a substantial one of my own. I said that after 1909 both Dahlen and Wallace played only bit parts. That’s true for Dahlen, but Wallace continued to be a regular through 1911, and a semi-regular in 1912. However, since in 1910 Wallace played many games at 3B, his dWAR for that year was mixed by position and beyond my capability to blend with 1900-9; the same thus became true for 1911, though he was at short all that season. So my 1900-9 time frame for Wallace abridges his career at short a bit in order to keep the comparisons, as far as I’m able to make them, apples-to-apples. Wallace had a bad year at the plate in 1911, though he was ok in the field: the net effect of that abridgment slightly strengthened his SS numbers.
Wonderful read, thank you.
I think fundamentally my “You’re before 1947” penalty is just a lot bigger than yours.
I’m sure that’s right. And I probably overcompensate in the other direction because of worries about the very different issue of a natural bias towards the present and familiar. And, also, thanks for the kind words!
Vote:
Dahlen, Wallace, Winfield
Obviously, I’ve committed to Wallace and Dahlen this round, but this is the first time I’ve voted for Winfield. Unlike Voomo, I do think the poor defensive numbers for Winfield reflect reality. Looking more and more at analyses of defense, I’ve become convinced that good defense and good-looking defense are very different and very hard to tell apart from the stands,
When I was young, I looked like a good right fielder. I made circus catches almost every game. It puzzled me and everyone else because I was short, fat, and slow. In a 50-yard dash I’d watch everyone crossing the finish line from ten yards back. But it seemed I could always get to fly balls at the very edge of possibility through a rush of fanatic energy. Other guys — the same ones who would choose me last in pick-up games (which is why I was always the right fielder) — would tell me how surprised they were at my fielding skills. In hindsight, I know how that worked. I was indeed good at reaching balls at the edge of my reach. And I made sure everyone could see that because I was basically a showboat about it. But neither they nor I saw how close to me that edge was. Thank goodness no one computed range factors!
A more relevant example: Derek Jeter was one of the few Yankees so good that I had to admire him — I even sometimes rooted for him (a guilty secret). He seemed a terrific fielder to me. Now I’ve read so many articles presenting data on his inability to go to his left, or on the weakness of his midair circus throws that ordinarily skilled fielders release far faster, with both feet planted . . . year after year of dramatic data undermining the Gold Glove awards Jeter kept winning, based on coaches believing their eyes . . . Well, I now am convinced that Jeter was a really lousy shortstop, and I have no trouble believing that Winfield’s negative Rfield numbers do not lie.
But Winfield was nevertheless a rock of reliability for so many years, piling up enough oWAR to keep his weak D at bay, and all despite having to endure years of awful, awful work conditions as the target of a raging narcissist owner . . . I left off last year, once the Goose was in, considering Tiant and Ashuburn for a third vote: they seem to me among the best of this group. But having cast two votes for defense this round, I’m going to revel in inconsistency instead.
Nettles, Ramirez, Tiant
Dave Winfield
Manny Ramirez
Richie Ashburn
How is Winfield still not in the circle?
Since we seem to have 11 votes so far, I thought I’d post an unofficial tabulation according to what I see. Without numbers on the comments it’s easy to get lost, and I may have missed votes, especially if any are in indented replies. Please let me know if you see a vote I’ve missed, or if this tally seems wrong.
The voters I have are Jeff Harris, Doug, mosc, JEV, Steven, T-Bone, Hub Kid, Voomo, epm, David Horwich, and, most recently, Jeff B.
6 – Dave Winfield, Manny Ramirez*
=================50% (6)
4 – Luis Tiant
3 – Bill Dahlen, Richie Ashburn*, Graig Nettles
=================25% (3)
2 – Dick Allen, Kevin Brown, Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (2)
1 – Bobby Wallace*, Mike Cameron*
*Is for candidates who will be dropped from the ballot if they fall short of 10%.
I wonder whether we’ve ever had a holdover on the bubble tied for the lead after 10+ votes before . . .
Allen, Winfield, Dahlen
…..and if multiple-cheat Manny Ramirez makes the CoG, I will definitely vote for Palmeiro in the redemption round
You guys, there is an INSANE amount of posting on this thread. I was too busy to post this weekend, and now I’m so far behind that I don’t know where to jump into these discussions; I will try to catch up on the reading, though. But first, I’m going to cast my vote:
Kevin Brown
Luis Tiant
Richie Ashburn
I couldn’t decide between Ashburn and Nettles, so I’m giving it to the guy on the bubble. I don’t really know that it matters, but I had to pick SOME criterion to separate them, and that’s as good as any, for now.
This is, I believe, the 125th round of voting for the COG. This marks my 63rd time voting for Kevin Brown, which means I’ve now voted for him on a majority of the ballots in the history of the COG. Still waiting for everyone else to get on board…
(Is Bartolo Colon the first active player we’ve considered for the COG? If not, I’d love to know who it was.)
I’m pretty sure you’re right about Colon, Doom.
It seems ironic, given that PEDs are what’s blocking in Brown from CoG glory, that (putting aside Paul E’s vote for the moment) the leaderboard features a loopy ‘Roider next to Mr. Morality. Maybe Brown’s problem is that clubhouse tantrums aren’t as lovable as giving a smiley high-five priority over a double play.
And interesting, too, that Manny was ‘roiding in the testing era, whereas Brown was in the pre-testing era… yet one of them seems to be punished, while the other was just “being Manny,” I guess.
Well, given the choice between punishments — no votes for CoG or two huge suspensions — I’d pick Brown’s punishment over Manny’s. But yeah, I’m a little surprised by Manny’s early support in the vote, and I do think many of us tend to cut Manny slack. In my own mind, I’ve always given him an “airhead handicap,” although officially I wag my finger and frown.
My total Kevin Brown votes, now and forever, is 0
Allen
Brown
Dahlen
I’m following EPM, Winfield, and I’m going with the geezers–Wallace and Dahlen. I’m interested in more discussion about both.
Among the COG candidates currently on the ballot, who had the best single year’s performance?
I came up with this question after examining Dick Allen’s 1972 season, and pursued it by looking for other years of not just excellence but dominance among the suspects on the list, where I discovered that no one else comes close.
In fact, by my reckoning, Allen’s 1972 season has to be one of the great unrecognized performances in baseball history, despite the fact that he did win the AL MVP that year.
1972, for those who need a refresher, was a season shortened slightly by a work stoppage at the beginning, so that most teams played 154, not 162 games. It was a year of pitching dominance, especially in the AL, where the league batted .239 and the pitchers collectively had an ERA of 3.06.
In this run scarce environment, Dick Allen, who started just 141 games, led the league in oWAR by .8, OBP by .015, SLG by .065, OBPS by .114, HRs by 4, RBIs by 13, BBs(tied), Adjusted OPS+ by 30, runs created by 17, adjusted batting runs by 19 and batting wins by 1.9, Offensive Win % by .068, RE24 by 18.93, WPA by .9, WPA/LI by .8, REW by 1.8. His closest competitor for dominance was Bobby Murcer who started 8 more games. Allen wasn’t exactly helped by the fact that he was playing in old Comiskey half the time, a pitcher’s park from time immemorial, so it’s strange that his home/road splits tilt heavily toward Chicago, where he bloodied the ball with 27 HRs, a .335 BA, and an OPS of 1.161. His 37 HRs on the season set a ChiSox mark that lasted until Old Comiskey was torn down.
An editorial comment: this investigation also uncovered the fact that Allen, by Baseball Reference measure, finished a distant third in the league in WAR behind Wilbur Wood and Gaylord Perry, both of whom won 24 games. To my mind this only adds more evidence to what I have asserted on other occasions, that pitching WAR and batting WAR should be treated as separate stats and not as the same thing in any ultimate tally.
Great catch, nsb! Allen’s season was terrific indeed. I’m a little less sure than you that it was unrecognized, since I recall a lot of hype throughout the seasons about the emergence of the new Dick Allen, unfettered at last in his new AL home. But your stat summary really drives it home, and shows the season was better than I’d recalled, so perhaps the recognition it did get was still not what it deserved.
On your other point, I’m not sure that comparison with Perry and Wood actually does show the incommensurability of bWAR and pWAR. First of all, bWAR involves not just batting but fielding too, and Allen got dinged (not all that much) for indifferent defense in a low-skill position. As for Perry and Wood, Perry was astounding: he pitched 342 innings of 168 ERA+: that’s over two seasons worth of super pitching in one: you’d expect double-digit pWAR — double-digit anyWAR. And while Wood’s quality wasn’t as high, his quantity almost made up for it: he ate up 376.2 IP in 49 starts, almost half of which he won. That IP total is a lively-ball era record, and, as you note, in a short season. Wood pitched on 2 days rest 25 times, and on more than 3 only once. He would have been scheduled to pitch the team’s 155th game, had there been one, and if the season had gone on to 162 games, he could well have wound up with 400 IP.
Sometimes I feel as you do, that bWAR and pWAR are being arbitrarily equated. Other times I’m not sure. But I’m not sure the case is made in this instance.
EPM. you reminded me about the doubleheader Woods started against the Yankees on July 20, 1973–the last games I went to before leaving for college. Woods struck out the immortal Horace Clarke–who reached 1st on a PB, then the next five Yankees reached base and Woods was pulled for Eddie Fischer, who let seven more players come up. 8-0 by the end of the bottom of the 1st. So they sent Woods out there for the 2nd Game (I doubt he was tired) and he was perfect through 3, gave up an unearned run in the 4th, and then a Grand Slam to Roy White in the 5th.
The game ended in the 6th because of rain. The whole scene was bizarre, proving, once again, that when my Mom took me to a game, strange things were likely to happen.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA197307201.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA197307202.shtml
A subject that’s been on my mind lately (and may show up someday in a long comment or two) is the impact of military service on baseball careers. Discovering that Bobby Murcer was the rather distant runner-up to Dick Allen in several offensive categories in 1972 made me take a look at Murcer’s career, something I can only remember doing casually in the past. Well, it turns out that just as Bobby was about to join the Yankees permanently in the spring of 1967 his draft notice showed up and he missed the next two years, although, for some reason, B-R fails to indicate that he was in the service.
I’ve been trying to research this a little, and I know Ken Holtzman deserves an Asterisk for serving part of the 1967 season in the National Guard, but how many other prominent players lost actual big-league time to the draft during the Vietnam era before the lottery went into place, say from 1961-1971. Was Murcer the last?
What a great topic for research, nsb! I was thinking about this yesterday in the course of writing about Ted Lyons, though that was, of course, in the context of World War II service, which we’re accustomed to recognizing in some way.
I’m not sure whether Murcer was actually on track to get the Yankee job in 1967, but one of the highest-impact instances of a young player’s career records being hurt by military service in a way that people tend to forget is the case of Willie Mays, who lost almost two years to the Army in 1952-53. You can’t play history over to be sure of alternative outcomes, but what are the odds that Hank Aaron (who was not drafted) would have been the first to break Ruth’s HR total if Mays had been able to play those two years? Mays wound up 54 HR short of Ruth’s 714, and even though one of the two years surrounding his Army years was an abbreviated rookie campaign, he hit 61 HR over those two seasons, 41 in the latter, to be followed by his first 50-HR year (he had 4 in 1952 before the military whisked him away). I think it’s a cinch he’d have had the honor to be the first “New Babe Ruth” if the draft hadn’t come along.
Mays always got a lot of credit: everyone recognized that he was amazing. But somehow I think he nevertheless did not get the credit he deserved. Mays did indeed win two MVP awards. WAR is an imperfect measure, but when you see that Mays led all players in the league, hitters and pitchers, in WAR NINE times, those two MVP awards begin to look more like an insult than a celebration. . . . Sorry, I strayed from your point, but good points point in many directions.
Not to beat a dead horse, but an equally prominent two year loss was suffered by Whitey Ford, who, after having been called up to the Yankees in July of 1950, went on to become the most effective pitcher in the league in August and September. We would not have been arguing over Ford’s worthiness for the COG with the probable extra 7-10+ WAR and 35+ wins his lost 1951-2 seasons might have generated.
On the other hand, of course, nothing is certain. Willie might have suffered a career damaging injury, Ford a torn rotator cuff, during those two missed seasons. Another player of note whose career could have turned out differently in the Korean War era is Johnny Antonelli.
As to Mays being cheated out of MVP awards, it’s a subject discussed here before, but in fact he had off years a couple of times when lesser players had career years for pennant winners, and his competition was very tough—Aaron, Frank Robinson, Banks, Koufax. He certainly deserved the award in 1962 over Maury Wills, and the 1964 voting seems rather perverse, although my recollection is that Ken Boyer, who won easily, did some spectacular clutch hitting for the pennant winning Cards. Otherwise why would Boyer have finished so far in the lead of teammate Bill White (14 first place votes to 2), whose number were fairly similar.
Here at HHS, we voted Willie Mays the MVP for 1960 and 1962. We didn’t re-vote 1964, but yeah; it’s certainly possible he could’ve won.
n s b,
re 1964 M V P race, In light of the Phillies coming out of nowhere in ’64 (or at least, not expected to contend to the extent they did), I believe it was kind of a sure bet that Callison would have won if the Phillies hadn’t collapsed. As for Sept/Oct:
G…PA..HR..RBI
32 143 7 26 .270/.371/.533 Ken Boyer
32 142 4 29 .288/.317/.470 Bill White
33 139 8 22 .277/.317/.508 Calllison
33 146 5 18 .341/.434/.618 Richie Allen
Allen scored 28 runs in the 33 games. He generally batted at the top of the order (2nd, 3rd, 4th for the 33 games) and Callison batted 2nd or 3rd for this period
Pete Alexander followed up 3 consecutive 30-win seasons with a year of WWI action. 373 career wins
Red Faber was the WS hero in ’17, only 80 IP in ’18.
Fellow Pale Hoser Joe Jackson also missed most of ’18.
Half-season for Harry Heilmann.
_______
AS for Vietnam, although Garry Maddox debuted at age 22, his two years abroad at age 19-20 may have slowed his career a bit.
Warren Spahn rarely is talked about for losing time (probably because his lost time came right at the beginning of his career) but given the fact that the Braves had him immediately in their starting rotation in 1946 once he returned from fighting Nazis, we could surmise that he possibly lost 40 to 50 wins to WWII, which would put him firmly 3rd all time in career wins and over 400 for his career (of course, maybe his arm doesn’t have as many wins in it in the back end of his career if he pitched from 1943 to 1945)
I don’t think Spahn’s arm had a fixed quota of wins in it — I think his arm was immortal (where is it now?) — but the rest of his body was vulnerable to age. I think you’re basically right about Spahn, but, a little different from Mays and Murcer, we don’t really know at what age Spahn would have become Spahn, since his 1941 debut was not impressive, and he had only pitched up to A-level in the minors (the Braves seem to have had no AA affiliates).
Whoops — “. . . a little bit different from Mays and like Murcer, . . .”
If a genie gave me three wishes, having a post-post editing program on HHS wouldn’t be one of them. But he gave me 763 . . .
. . . screwed that one up too . . .
n s b,
I think Allen may have had the second (1964) and third best (1966) seasons among this COG ballot as well. I believe Allen’s 1964 season is one of the three greatest of all-time (per WAR -Joe Jackson, Mike Trout) among true rookies. Also, in his BJHBA, James called Allen the best player in the majors in 1964 and 1972 per Win Shares. In 1966 his OPS+ was 181; in 1972 it was 199. I don’t believe anyone among the holdovers or 1973 birth year came close to those ratios. In 1967 he slumped to a league leading OPS+ of 174 before injuring his hand and wrist pushing an old Ford in the rain in late August. At the time, he was on pace for ~ 143 runs created. He played in 122 of the team’s first 122 games that year.
In 1972, Allen played in the first 148 of 148 and the CWS were eliminated by the eventual WS champion Oakland A’s. He literally sat out the final seven team games
I was prepared to follow epm and Mike L. in voting for Winfield, Dahlen, and Wallace, when Doom’s comment reminded me that Big Sexy is on the ballot, and I’m quite sure this will be my only opportunity to vote for him. His accomplishments fall a bit short of serious COG consideration, but he has been very good – and very entertaining. His 4-1 record in August helped the Twins get back to the playoffs last year AFTER they became sellers at the trade deadline. He started the month with a complete game win over the Rangers, then followed up with seven innings shutting out the Brewers. I wish the Twins would bring him back this spring, but it looks as though he might end up pitching elsewhere in 2018.
In the interest of keeping Wallace on the ballot for further consideration, I’ll drop Dahlen and go with a vote of Winfield, Wallace, and Colon.
This is so hard. Two 19th century guys vs. a bunch of players I remember playing (except Ashburn). I think I will vote Winfield, Allen, and Wallace (to keep him on the ballot)
Winfield, Nettles, Pettitte.
there’s a lot of pinstripes in that vote
My informal count—so informal that I may be off by a vote here or there—puts Winfield in the lead with 11 votes after 18 responses, Ramirez and Dahlen with 6 apiece tied for 2nd. Here’s the final vote tally in the previous election, courtesy of epm in the early morning hours of February 18, 2017:
After 26 votes, I have these results:
=================50% (13)
12 – Goose Goslin
11 – Luis Tiant
9 – Dick Allen, Kevin Brown
8 – Dave Winfield
=================25% (7)
6 – Bill Dahlen, Manny Ramirez*
5 – Richie Ashburn*
4 – Graig Nettles, Bobby Wallace*
3 – Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (3)
1 – Brad Radke*
In other words, Winfield’s stock has risen considerably, while Tiant’s (5), Allen’s (5), and Brown’s (4) have fallen. Why is that? Any theories?
Tiant’s and Allen’s totals in Round 124 were exceptionally high for both (particularly true for Allen, who benefited from leading early in the voting, I think). I think Tiant did pretty well in Round 123, too, but I don’t think he was anywhere near the top before then. I remember these fairly well as a frequent Tiant and Allen voter, although I don’t actually have the earlier totals to hand. I seem to recall that Kevin Brown regularly gets up to about 3rd place in COG voting, but so far has peaked there.
It looks like Goslin’s votes are all going to Winfield – is there something about outfielders that I’m missing? I don’t have anything against either player, both had worthy Hall of Fame careers, but for the top 125 (soon to be top 128) of all time, I like quite a few other players better. Voomo’s longevity argument for Winfield has swayed me a little this round, but not enough to change my vote.
Since nsb re-posted the Round 124 results and noted (correctly) the leaders this round, I thought I’d follow up with the latest
full count after 18 ballots (as I have it), since things have moved around a bit since the last vote update.
We’re about to step across the border into Thursday: the deadline for changing votes is coming up tomorrow evening (but first-time votes are validly cast through Sunday evening).
11 – Dave Winfield,
=================50% (9)
6 – Bill Dahlen, Manny Ramirez*
5 – Dick Allen, Luis Tiant
=================25% (5)
4 – Richie Ashburn*, Kevin Brown, Bobby Wallace*, Graig Nettles,
3 – Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (2)
1 – Mike Cameron*, Bartolo Colon*
[The voters I have are Jeff Harris, Doug, mosc, JEV, Steven, T-Bone, Hub Kid, Voomo, epm, David Horwich, Jeff B., Paul E, Doom, Thickie, Mike L, Scary, Brent, and, most recently, dr. remulak. If I’ve missed your vote, please let me know.]
Time to vote.
Tiant, Ashburn, Nettles
I looked very closely at Allen this time around.
And there’s no denying that he was a genuinely great talent and that his rate/stats are remarkable.
But he had a 15-year career.
In his first 2 full time seasons he played 160+ games. In the rest of his career he had 2 seasons with more than 150 games and 2 with more than 140 games. His next high was 128 games and in 8 seasons he didn’t play in at least 40 of his teams games, about one-quarter of the season (considerably less than half in 4 of them & just over in another).
We didn’t think Jim Edmonds was worthy of the COG largely because he missed too much playing time yet he played in 140 or more games 7 times and more than 130 in others. Most HOF voters must have figured that Scott Rolen was too brittle to vote for yet he played in 140 or more games 7 times, more than 130 in another and matched Allen’s 6th highest total (128) in 2 others.
Convincing arguments can be made for all of the holdovers, but these are my three selections:
Kevin Brown
Graig Nettles
Bill Dahlen
Looking at the names, I would have guessed Nettles would be running away with this. His average and OPS+ are held down a good bit by his poor batting line in his 40s. Just lobbing off his advanced age restores a pretty healthy 113 OPS+. We’ve also had discussions previously about how the older defensive metrics tend to drift everyone towards the norm more than recent versions (meaning Nettles is probably a bit under-sold on defense).
Dave Winfield
Manny Ramirez
Kevin Brown
For the 1973 Part 1 election, I’m voting for:
-Manny Ramirez
-Dave Winfield
-Luis Tiant
Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Pettitte
-Brown
-Ashburn
-Nettles
-Allen
-Wallace
-Dahlen
Thanks!
Glad I found my way back to COG voting after missing it last winter. EPM’s post about early shortstops and defense reinforces my support for the geezers on the ballot a while back, and I’ll bolster the defensive whiz at the hot corner too.
Wallace, Dahlen, Nettles
Here’s a tabulation after 23 votes (Dave Humbert’s being the most recent):
13 – Dave Winfield,
=================50% (11)
8 – Bill Dahlen, Manny Ramirez*
7 – Graig Nettles, Luis Tiant
6 – Kevin Brown
=================25% (6)
5 – Dick Allen, Richie Ashburn*, Bobby Wallace*,
3 – Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (3)
1 – Mike Cameron*, Bartolo Colon*
Voters; Jeff Harris, Doug, mosc, JEV, Steven, T-Bone, Hub Kid, Voomo, epm, David Horwich, Jeff B., Paul E, Doom, Thickie, Mike L, Scary, Brent, dr. remulak, Hartvig, Andy, Josh, opal, Dave Humbert
Please let me know if you see a vote I’ve missed.
It appears that Winfield’s got a lock on this one. “To my amazement,” I was about to add, but upon looking again at his competition, the renewed realization came to me that he’s really no better and no worse than most of the other’s receiving 4 or more votes. There are positives and negatives involved in evaluating his career, and I don’t find the balance between them as positive as I do for several others on the ballot, but I am obviously in the minority. He came back from a potential career ending herniated disc to put up some productive seasons in his late thirties and early forties, and he performed well while suffering from George Steinbrenner’s machinations for many years. These things are admirable, but they fail to raise him in my estimation from the level of very good to that of often great. Often great: Dahlen, Tiant, Allen, Ashburn, Nettles (just barely), and Ramirez and Brown with a disclaimer.
Oooh a new vote. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.
My vote
————
Ramirez
Allen
Ashburn
Vote:
Bobby Wallace
Graig Nettles
Dick Allen
As we move into the home stretch with 25 votes in (Brendon’s being the latest), here is the current tabulation, as I have it:
13 – Dave Winfield
=================50% (13)
9 – Manny Ramirez*
8 – Bill Dahlen, Graig Nettles
7 – Dick Allen, Luis Tiant
=================25% (7)
6 – Richie Ashburn*, Kevin Brown, Bobby Wallace*
3 – Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (3)
1 – Mike Cameron*, Bartolo Colon*
The voting deadline is now just 12 hours away.
In a vote that should surprise no one who remembers my preferences, I’ll go with:
K. Brown
Manny
Nettles
Here’s a final, unofficial tabulation (as I have it) after 24 votes (Cursed Clevelander’s being the most recent):
13 – Dave Winfield
=================50% (12)
9 – Manny Ramirez*
8 – Bill Dahlen, Graig Nettles
7 – Luis Tiant, Kevin Brown
=================25% (6)
5 – Dick Allen, Richie Ashburn*, Bobby Wallace*
3 – Andy Pettitte*
=================10% (3)
1 – Mike Cameron*, Bartolo Colon*
Voters; Jeff Harris, Doug, mosc, JEV, Steven, T-Bone, Hub Kid, Voomo, epm, David Horwich, Jeff B., Paul E, Doom, ThickieDon, Mike L, Scary Tuna, Brent, dr. remulak, Hartvig, Andy, Josh Davis, opal611, Dave Humbert, Cursed Clevelander
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