Regular HHS contributor “no statistician but” (or nsb) continues his series examining where the Hall of Fame cutoff line really lies with his look at marginal Hall of Famers. In Part 4, nsb takes a look at the outfield positions, and 14 selected Hall of Fame outfielders who are outside of the Hall of Stats. More after the jump
We’ve just recently concluded four rounds of argument with an underlying premise: that certain baseball players, because of their superior performance or impact over a number of seasons, should belong to a select group called the Circle of Greats. Choosing this year’s inductees was a difficult and sometimes contentious process owing to the lack of any candidates with a clear-cut edge over their peers, save in the case of Derek Jeter—and his reputation did not come through the process unscathed.
‘Not Just Friends of Frisch’ addresses a very different issue concerning players similar to those we considered during recent Circle of Greats elections. Specifically, I want to assess those players who have been elected to the official baseball Hall of Fame but whose credentials, according to one compelling measure, fall below a set standard, that of the Hall of Stats. It’s well to remember that the official HOF has no set criteria in terms of levels of performance; it’s for the voters, whether members of committees or journalists, to decide and they’re not bound by this or that statistical construct, nor are they instructed to ignore non-statistical factors that to them might seem relevant in considering who deserves enshrinement. In particular, some HOF voters may be more sensitive to certain nuances, such as record-setting figures and awards, and less sensitive to more progressive statistical analyses.
In contrast, the present exercise is to examine certain of those players who are in the HOF but not in the HOS, with an eye to determining which, if any, “belong” despite falling below the HOS evaluative level of 100. In part IV, I look at outfielders. As before, I am providing the HOS rating for each player as well as the number of plate appearances, plus the OPS+ and WAR figures. As a point of comparison, I’m also providing the 7th highest ranked retired players at each position, as ranked by JAWS.
Left Fielders:
Heinie Manush 79—8420 PA; 121 OPS+; 38.7 WAR
Ralph Kiner 93—6256 PA; 149 OPS+; 49.4 WAR
Lou Brock 72—11240 PA; 109 OPS+; 45.3 WAR
Jim Rice 84—9058 PA; 128 OPS+; 47.7 WAR
JAWS 7th: Al Simmons 132—9519 PA; 133 OPS+; 68.8 WAR
Center Fielders:
Max Carey 96—10768 PA; 108 OPS+; 54.0 WAR
Edd Roush 87—8147 PA; 126 OPS+; 45.3 WAR
Hack Wilson 77—5555 PA; 144 OPS+; 38.9 WAR
Earle Combs 75—6514 PA; 125 OPS+; 42.5 WAR
Earl Averill 88—7220 PA; 133 OPS+; 48.0 WAR
JAWS 7th: Duke Snider 130—8237 PA; 140 OPS+; 66.4 WAR
Right Fielders:
Harry Hooper 83—10255 PA; 114 OPS+; 53.5 WAR
Sam Rice 82—10252 PA; 112 OPS+; 52.7 WAR (WW I: 1 year)
Kiki Cuyler 88—8100 PA; 125 OPS+; 46.7 WAR
Enos Slaughter 95—9086 PA; 124 OPS+; 55.3 WAR (WW II: 3 years)
Harold Baines 58—11092 PA; 121 OPS+; 38.7 WAR (60% of starts at DH)
JAWS 7th: Al Kaline 187—11596 PA; 134 OPS+; 92.8 WAR
The challenge, again, is this, to argue for (or against) the presence in the Hall of Fame of any or all of the players listed here with a HOS rating below 100. One argument is disqualified: saying that Richard Roe doesn’t belong because John Doe, who was better, has been passed over for inclusion; this fails on every count to meet the terms of the challenge. The merits or demerits of the listed players, comparisons to other HOFers, the use of more detailed statistics, historical and biographical information—these and similar bases for argumentation are all welcome.
So: who belongs? I’ll make my usual follow-up remarks later on.
It’s been awhile since the last installment of nsb’s series, and in the interim I’ve been thinking about ways to get some additional clarity about the various approaches to the question of Hallworthiness. Because of Mike Hoban’s participation in these discussions (and I hope he’s still planning to join in), I thought it might be interesting to use this discussion of Hall of Fame outfielders to highlight the very different ways Win Shares (WS) and bWAR assess position player careers. When Mike H joined our HHS discussions, Doug indicated that we’d soon be discussing the WS-based CAWS system that Mike developed precisely to assess Hallworthiness. If we compare how WS/CAWS assesses the 14 outfielders nsb has proposed we consider, and then contrast that assessment with bWAR-based figures, we’ll have a jump on some of the issues that will surely come up when Mike’s system is directly under discussion. What we won’t be able to address is which system’s assessments are superior, just how the results they generate are similar or different. Of course, Adam Darowski’s Hall of Stats ratings are one bWAR-based parallel to CAWS, and we can compare the results of those two systems, but the Hall of Stats approaches its assessments from a mix of WAA and WAR, plus adjustments of various kinds that make less than a perfect complement to the way CAWS uses Win Shares. What I’m going to do in this comment is to try to compare CAWS with bWAR figures designed to provide a closer parallel, so the differences between the two databases is a bit clearer.
So to start out here, I’m going to list the 14 outfielders by CAWS score and rank. As a reminder, the CAWS score is generated by a simple formula: to the player’s 10 best seasons by Win Shares (which Mike calls Core Value, CV) is added 25% of all the player’s remaining Win Shares: CAWS = CV + ((WS-CV)*.25). For corner outfielders, a score of 280+ means Hallworthiness; for center fielders, a positional adjustment draws their line at 270. To put all outfielders on a level playing field, so to speak, I’ve added a column to indicate how far above or below the CAWS Hall threshold for their position they are.
I’ve added to this list three players beyond nsb’s 14. They are the players whose CAWS numbers mark Mike’s threshold for the Hallworthiness at their position, apart from nsb’s 14. So, for example, Elmer Flick is included because his is the name just above the threshold for right fielders. In the case of left field, that name would be Lou Brock, but since he’s among nsb’s 14, I’ve included Goose Goslin, who is just above Brock for left-field CAWS scores. In center, two of nsb’s 14 are right over Mike’s line: Earl Averill and Max Carey, so I’ve added the name above theirs, Carlos Beltran, the only player on the list not yet in the Hall. Flick, Goslin, and Beltran are in italics. The five players marked ** are Hallworthy according to CAWS (Beltran, not yet eligible, is marked ~).
CAWS…WinShares…CoreValue…Hall Margin
286………..355…….……263……….+6………..Goose Goslin**
285………..348………….264……….+5………..Lou Brock**
283………..291……….…280……….+3………..Elmer Flick**
273……..…370……….…240……….+3………..Carlos Beltran~ [cf]
272……..…351……….…245……….+2………..Max Carey** [cf]
271……..…280……….…268……….+1………..Earl Averill** [cf]
266……..…314……….…250………..-4………..Edd Roush [cf]
265……..…323……….…246………-15.……….Enos Slaughter
256……..…292……….…244………-24………..Kiki Cuyler
253……..…327……….…228………-27………..Sam Rice
248……..…285……….…236………-32………..Heinie Manush
246……..…321……….…221………-34………..Harry Hooper
245…..……282……….…233………-35………..Jim Rice
242………..242……….…242………-38………..Ralph Kiner
225……..…313….………195………-55………..Harold Baines
221……..…224……….…220………-49………..Hack Wilson [cf]
220……..…227……….…217………-50………..Earle Combs [cf]
We can see where Win Shares and WAR diverge if we simply apply CAWS methodology to WAR-based stats. Instead of using Mike’s formula:
CAWS = CV + ((WS-CV)*.25)
I’m substituting a score I’m calling “CWAR” (short for CAWS according to WAR), which adds to each player’s ten best seasons by WAR a quarter of his remaining total bWAR:
CWAR = Best10 + ((WAR – Best10)*25)
(Best10 is the WAR equivalent of Core Value).
CWAR…WAR.. …Best10
63.4……..69.6……..61.3………..Carlos Beltran~
56.7……..66.1……..53.6………..Goose Goslin**
52.7……..53.4….….52.4………..Elmer Flick**
49.5………49.5……..49.5………..Ralph Kiner
47.9……..48.0……..47.9………..Earl Averill**
47.3……..55.3……..44.6………..Enos Slaughter
45.9……..54.0……..43.2………..Max Carey**
44.7…..…47.7……..43.7………..Jim Rice
44.2……..46.7……..43.3………..Kiki Cuyler
43.4……..52.7……..40.3………..Sam Rice
42.6……..53.5……..38.9………..Harry Hooper
41.6……..42.5……..41.3………..Earle Combs
41.2……..45.3……..39.8………..Lou Brock**
40.9……..45.8……..39.3………..Heinie Manush
40.9……..45.3……..39.4………..Edd Roush
39.4……..38.9……..39.6………..Hack Wilson
31.1……..38.5….….28.6………..Harold Baines
We can compare CAWS and CWAR by listing the rankings for our 14 candidates for de-Hallification along with a “Percent Behind” (%B) indication. (I have added 10 points to the CAWS scores of centerfielders to serve as a positional adjustment; bWAR, and therefore CWAR, builds the positional adjustment into the base figure.)
………CAWS……….(%B)..……………,,CWAR…………(%B)
1……..Brock……….( — )……….1……..Kiner…………( — )
2……..Carey………(1.0)……….2……..Averill……….(3.2)
3……..Averill………(1.4)………3…….Slaughter……(4.4)
4……..Roush………(3.2)………4……..Carey…………(7.2)
5……..Slaughter….(7.0)……..5..…..J. Rice………….(9.7)
6……..Cuyler…….(10.1)………6…….Cuyler……….(10.7)
7……..S. Rice….…(11.2)………7…….S. Rice……….(12.3)
8……..Manush…..(13.0)……..8…….Hooper……..(13.9)
9……..Hooper……(13.7)……..9…….Combs………(16.0)
10……J. Rice……..(14.0)…….10……Brock…………(16.8)
11……Kiner………(15.1)…….11……Manush……..(17.4)
12……Wilson……(18.9)…….12…….Roush……….(17.4)
13……Combs……(19.3)…….13……Wilson……….(20.4)
14……Baines……(21.1)…….14…….Baines……….(37.2)
Using bWAR, Kiner is a huge gainer in %B (+15.1) and Brock a huge loser (-16.8). No one else gains quite the way Kiner does, but there are some other significant losses: Roush (-14.2) and Baines (-16.1) – there is more room for total losses because the CWAR scale is a bit more stretched than CAWS, and particularly because Baines drops so low.
In this comment I’m just trying to set up a fair way to contrast what the implications are for choosing WS or WAR as a basic approach to evaluation. In my own view, “CAWR” is not the way I’d prefer to use bWAR to set up an assessment of these players – I’ll suggest something a bit different later on. And – to add a final note – I want to repeat that I think these crunched-stats lists need to be starting points for assessments that include historical and narrative elements, not endpoints for final answers about who is and who isn’t Hallworthy.
Let me raise an issue right away that to me seems apparent among the outfielders from the HOS list in that several owe their HOF status to obvious voter recognition of special factors: 1) Hack Wilson’s 1929-1930 seasons generally, the 191 RBIs and 56 HRs, the four years out of five leading the NL in HRS; 2) Lou Brock’s stolen bases and World Series excellence; 3) Ralph Kiner’s two 50+ HR seasons and seven consecutive years leading the NL in HRS—still a record; 4) Max Carey’s 10 years as stolen base king, the NL’s answer to Ty Cobb in that respect; 5) Earle Combs’ position as high-run-scoring leadoff hitter ahead of the Ruth-Gehrig tandem.
Is it the modern way to discount, ignore, or—at the extreme—ridicule taking such factors into account? Is “Fame” the wrong word for the modern Hall, in other words? Or is there a new application of the term: not to recognize famous seasons or circumstances but to create it by electing bland accumulators of WAR like Don Sutton—to go to the opposite extreme—bringing them into the light? Granted that questionable choices (Harold Baines? Trevor Hoffman?) are still being made by supposedly more informed groups of electors, does that mean that every non-criteria-qualifying choice from the past is to be rejected? Cross the bar of 100 at HOS and you’re sanctified; otherwise you’re damed?
I have always interpreted “Hall of Fame” in the later way…it’s a Hall to preserve sand extend the fame of the deserving, not a hall of the famous. Certainly some of the owners and other behind-the-scenes figures weren’t all that famous.
Anyway, I think any number such as WAR or HOS is useful but not perfect. Kiner, for example, might fall a little short in those numbers because he retired early, but with that eye-popping OPS+ and his top-five all time at bats per home run (he was second only to Ruth until the 90s), I think he clearly is worthy.
Brett, In considering how AB/HR contributed to Kiner’s case, I’d call him a “top-three” guy. It would be wrong, I think, to lower his standing because others boosted theirs with steroids. This is exactly the sort of situation where we need to “asterisk” PED-users so as to take fairer measures of cross-era talent.
Here’s an interesting comparison (I think). If you compare Kiner with the #2 guy on the real (PED-free) list, Jim Thome, and simply project Kiner’s totals with Thome’s total PA, you get pretty much the same player:
…H……..2B……3B…..HR……RBI……BB……SO………dWAR
2328….451…..26…..612….1699…1747…2548……-16.4……Thome
2392….356…..64…..608….1733…1667…1235……-18.0……Kiner, projected
Of course Thome actually compiled his stats, Kiner got only 60% of the way there, but, allowing for a vastly different strikeout environment, give or take, the two seem to share a profile.
nsb and Brett, I do think it tends to be the “modern way” to discount the factors you mention, which is why I ended my comment by saying, “I want to repeat that I think these crunched-stats lists need to be starting points for assessments that include historical and narrative elements, not endpoints for final answers about who is and who isn’t Hallworthy.” The factors you point to belong to what I called “historical and narrative elements.” My comparison of CAWS and WAR-based figures was not an endorsement of either as a stand-alone approach.
However, I think the most interesting aspect of these questions lies in disentangling narrative elements, many of which reflect the “fame” earned through press impressions and leader boards that do not distinguish among eras, with the actual value of play, reflected in statistical analysis. Take Hack Wilson’s 1930 season, on which his reputation largely rests. As you know, those 191 RBI were driven in during a year of absurdly high batting figures — Chuck Klein was not far behind with 170, and in the AL, Gehrig had 173. For all his 56 HR, Wilson’s season, by far the apogee of his brief career, earned only 7.4 WAR. 75% of Wilson’s career value lies in five seasons averaging 6.0 WAR.
We all grew up knowing about Wilson’s RBI record, and, at the time, his NL HR record. He earned a place at the head of historical lists in those categories, even though he put up those numbers in a league batting .303, with an OPS of .808 (compare last year’s NL: .247/.722). If that meets the definition of Hallworthiness you prefer, it’s absolutely legitimate to advocate for Wilson in the Hall. I think it implies a very large Hall, and that’s one option. However, if you grant the Hall of Stats premise that the current Hall size is the basis for discussions of this sort, then you’ll need to deal with the question of who gets left out because Wilson is let in, and how much the “fame” earned through exceptional seasons or post-seasons counts when measured against superior career values.
I picked Wilson from nsb’s list because I think he’s the case that most easily suggests that great reputations and Hallworthiness don’t align. I’ll be arguing that this is harder in the case of Kiner and that others, such as Slaughter and Carey, have better cases than WS or WAR would indicate (I also think Sam Rice has an interesting case that comes to light when discussing why Brock may belong in the Hall). It all depends on where you put the threshold, and how you configure “fame.”
My choices for being Hall-worthy are Carey and Slaughter, and not just because they have the two highest HOS ratings (though, for me, that speaks well for those ratings).
Carey actually has quite similar offensive and baserunning numbers to another player under examination here (Brock), but where Brock was a defensive liability, Carey was a definite asset, both by defensive metrics (such as they are) and by reputation. So, Carey could beat you with his legs and his glove, and hold his own with his bat, not unlike an outfielder we elected to the CoG even before he retired (Ichiro, of course, has more impressive counting stats, and batting crowns that Carey never had, but gave up a lot by never learning to take a walk; end result, their OPS+ scores are essentially the same, with Carey having the edge in Rbat and Ichiro, slightly, in oWAR). Carey also turned in one of the great WS game 7 performances, 4th in WPA, 3rd in RE24, and the only 4-hit game (three were doubles) in a come-from-behind win (the Pirates trailed by 4, closed to 1 back, then trailed by 3, tied it, then trailed by 1 in the 8th before scoring 3 in the bottom of the inning to seal the win).
Absent three years from his prime lost to military service, I think Slaughter’s career WAR would have been in the 65-75 range, a relatively easy Hall pick at the top end of that range, and still solid, lower-tier Hall credentials in the bottom end, comparable to Snider and Simmons in their positions of JAWS reference points.
I’d like to say Kiner belongs as well but, as a one-dimensional player, and with a career that was essentially his 6-year peak and not much more, it’s a tough sell me for me, even cutting him quite a bit of slack for a career shortened by injury. Bill James’ Favorite Toy projects Kiner to finish with 82 WAR, based on his position (43.5 WAR) after his age 29 season. But, that would be 6 actual WAR and the rest on credit owing to his shortened career. Giving him 15 WAR on account might be justifiable, but that just gets him to borderline Hall status, so I’m afraid I will reluctantly pass on Kiner.
To follow up on the figures that compare CAWS to a perfectly parallel bWAR-based system, I want to add another chart. As I’ve been saying, unpersuasively, perhaps, I think career WAR rate is an important factor to consider in making assessments of total career value (in part to more appropriately assess what nsb has called “bland accumulators”). After more than ten minutes of thought, I’ve come up with a single-number formula that I feel better reflects the way I’d initially assess players, using the types of WAR-based figures I’ve been posting for the past couple of years. The formula adds to total bWAR a mix of 50% of the Best-10 season WAR total, plus 5*WARrate. That is to say, to total bWAR we add two quality measures, equal to the 5 seasons at the players Top-10 average and 5 seasons at the player’s career 500PA average. This dual Quality formula I’ll call WARQ: WARQ = bWAR + (Best10/2 + bWARrate*5).
As for my trying to invent two acronymous stats in the course of one string, I know what you’re thinking . . . can we just pretend it’s ok?
So here are the rankings according to WARQ (for comparative purposes, I’m including in italics the three just-above-the-line outfielders that Mike H includes in CAWS).
WARQ…WAR..WAR/500PA…Best10…OPS+…dWAR…Career
116.0……69.6……..3.2………..61.3…….119…….1.6.……..2.21………..Carlos Beltran
109.7……66.1……..3.4………..53.6……128……-4.7……….1.97………..Goose Goslin
100.4……53.4….….4.2….…….52.4……149……-4.5……….1.28………..Elmer Flick
94.0………49.5……..4.0………..49.5……149…..-10.7…….1.25………..Ralph Kiner
92.8……..55.3……..3.0………..44.6……124……-8.2………1.82………..Enos Slaughter
88.6……..48.0……..3.3………..47.9……133…….-5.3……..1.44………..Earl Averill
88.1……..54.0……..2.5………..43.2……108…….-0.1……..2.15………..Max Carey
86.0……..53.5……..2.6………..38.9……114……-4.4………2.05………..Harry Hooper
85.7……..52.7……..2.6………..40.3……112……-4.0………2.05………..Sam Rice
82.8……..46.7……..2.9………..43.3……125…….-5.6……..1.62………..Kiki Cuyler
82.7…..…47.7……..2.6………..43.7……128……-8.0………1.81………..Jim Rice
79.8……..42.5……..3.3………..41.3……125…….-2.8….….1.30………..Earle Combs
79.0……..45.8……..2.7………..39.3……121……-7.7………1.68………..Heinie Manush
78.9……..45.3……..2.8………..39.4……126…….-6.1……..1.63………..Edd Roush
76.2……..38.9……..3.5………..39.6……144…….-7.2….….1.11………..Hack Wilson
75.3……..45.3……..2.0………..39.8……109…..-16.8……..2.25………..Lou Brock
61.5……..38.5….….1.7………..28.6……121…..-19.5……..2.22………..Harold Baines
As always, I don’t think any one number can appropriately assess a player or whether he belongs in the Hall or CoG, so there’s more to say about a number of these players, especially, I think, Kiner, Slaughter, Carey, Sam Rice, and Brock. I’ve said before that I’m a “Small Hall” guy – if I were configuring a new Hall, I think none of nsb’s 14 would be in it – nor, I expect, would Elmer Flick, a player whose quirky batting championship delighted me when growing up. But the exercise here, for me, is finding interesting ways to distinguish among the 14, and there are certainly some I’m happier to advocate for than others.
Bob’s drawing Elmer Flick into the discussion made me look up that famous performance of 1905, the .306 (recently adjusted to .308) batting championship. In the past I’d just assumed that it was a fluke caused by the fact that Nap Lajoie only played in 65 games, and so his .329 average was disqualified. The previous season Flick’s .306 would have placed a distant fourth to Lajoie’s .378, and the following season ninth behind a horde of players (including himself at .311).
In any event you would think, right? that 1905 was a down year for hitting and scoring, like 1968. But it wasn’t particularly. The 1904 average of runs scored was 3.6, 1905—3.7! In 1906—the year of the hitless wonders—it was 3.6. League BA? .244, .241, .249. OPS+? 95, 94, 95.
In 1905, though, 2982 walks were issued vs 2611 in 1904, and that may be the hidden factor.
. . . recently adjusted to .308 . . .
Thanks, nsb. I hadn’t heard and thought it was my mind that needed adjusting.
Amazing to me how many historically exceptional offenses had a terrible-hitting 2nd baseman as their leadoff hitter.
Looking at Hack Wilson got me to the 1930 Cubs.
Surely Hack was batting behind a couple of guys with exceptional OBP.
Yes, yes, and no.
Hack batted 4th.
2nd and 3rd were two guys who played all 156 games:
Woody English (.430 / 152 R)
Kiki Cuyler (.428 / 155 R)
Leading off, however, was Footsie Blair, a rookie.
.306 OBP
65 ops+
-35 Rbat
Footsie became a regular because Rogers Hornsby was struggling to recover from heel spur surgery and then broke his ankle on a slide. This essentially ended his regular playing career, a season after he played every game (with the heel spurs) and had 409 TB.
____
Gabby Harnett spent the whole year batting 7th, with a 1.034 OPS
Highest OPS from the 7-hole, minimum 300 PA from that slot:
1.058 … Hartnett (1930)
1.000 … Harlond Clift (1935)
.993 … Dusty Baker (1977)
.991 … George Grantham (1925)
.967 … Hartnett ! (1928)
.957 … DiMaggio (Vince) (1941)
Clift raked at 7, but bounced around the order, sucking in every other slot.
He had 163 PA batting leadoff, with a .672 OPS
Baker, same.
227 PA batting 6th, .728 OPS
And Vince DiMag
250 PA batting 6th, .639 OPS
Blair and Cuyler in 1930, and English in 1929 all scored more than 50% of the time they reached base. Only one other Cub has done so since 1901: Rick Monday in 1976 and he swatted 32 homers.
Following up on the theme of what should count in Hall assessments — stats only or more subjective factors — I want to return to a theme Mike Hoban raised in an earlier “Friends of Frisch” post. Mike was speaking about Brock’s qualifications for the Hall and he said that, in his view, 3000 hits should be a sufficient criterion for enshrinement, regardless of anything else. He mentioned too that he’d support Ichiro for the Hall even though Ichiro did not reach the CAWS threshold.
I think that’s a perfectly valid position. Since the Hall has not specified what the Hall criteria are, we and others are free to envisage and advocate for our own standards for what constitutes qualifications for entry. I don’t agree with Mike’s position, not because I think he’s “wrong” (a meaningless idea), but because when I was a young fan, 3000 hits was not the big deal it later became, and it has little resonance for me — I see nothing meaningful in distinguishing a player with, say, 3023 hits from one with, say, 2987. (Since Mike is older than I, I assume the same was initially true for him.) Those two players would be essentially equal in hits for me, and I’d go on to look at other things if I were comparing them. However, someone for whom 3000 hits represents a threshold of importance might find the difference compelling because, in his or her view, part of the purpose of the Hall is to enshrine players who exceed such significant round number accomplishments. Something of value would be lost if one were left out.
I didn’t pick those hit totals in the last paragraph at random: let’s compare Lou Brock and Sam Rice:
WAR..WAR/500PA…Best10…Hits…OPS+…dWAR…Career
45.3……..2.0……………39.8……3023…109……-16.8…….2.25………..Lou Brock
52.7……..2.6……………40.3……2987…112….….-4.0…….2.05………..Sam Rice
Rice’s career was, by every measure but total hits (and, slightly, longevity), more productive than Brock’s. Moreover, Rice lost his age-28 season to military service in World War I, which makes him worthy of some subjective further boost as well.
Brock is in the Hall, I think, for three principal reasons: 1) He was a standout base stealer; 2) His postseason record is terrific; 3) He was a compiler, who hung around to 3000 hits (his final three seasons, 1250 PA, generated -2.0 WAR). In the late ’60s and early 70s, Brock was consistently an exciting news story because of his SB totals, and it was established though press coverage early on that he was a great player.
It turns out Brock was not a great player. His stolen base totals were among the highest ever, but, for his era, he got caught a lot, and his 3::1 ratio of SB and CS did not generate all that many net runs (his Rbaser figure is significantly lower than Aparicio’s, and not much more than half Rickey’s). His defense was poor; his hitting was only above average. He did indeed establish a great post-season record with two World Series winners, and had his best Series in a losing cause — every Brock plate appearance generated a huge buzz and he set a new Series record for SB in ’67, tying it in ’68. But those of us who recall what a force he was at that time will also recall that in the 1968 Series, when Brock’s Cardinals were heavy favorites and took off to a 3-1 lead, it was Brock’s missteps on the basepaths that turned the Series around in the fifth game when it looked like the Cardinals were on their way to polishing off the Tigers. Thrown out stealing or trying to score on consecutive plate appearances, Brock was the key to turning a 3-0 Cardinal lead into a surprise 5-3 loss, from which the team never recovered (he was also picked off in the 7th game when it was tied in the sixth). Happens to the best of players, but it seems to me that this too is part of Brock’s postseason legacy.
Rice, who was a better all-around player than Brock (with a lot of SB for his era), also had postseason distinctions, but no one who followed the Series in his time is still alive, and his team, the Senators, has twice died since then. In the 1924 Series, when his hitting was weak, Rice made up for it with a series of circus catches that are described in terms that seem to prefigure Tommy Agee in 1969. In ’25, Rice had a terrific Series at the plate, and added to it one of the most famous catches in Series history, robbing the Pirates of a game-tying HR, toppling into the right field stands. (At the time of Rice’s Hall election in ’63, I recall a lot of fuss about that catch in the press, but it’s forgotten now.)
When Rice played, the 3000-hit threshold was not meaningful to players, sportswriters, or fans. He didn’t quit because he had to — he could easily have hung around for 13 more hits, since he batted .293 in his final season. But .293 was Rice’s career low, and he had a very slow late summer that year, so he bowed out after a 3 for 5 mid-September game without a thought for the threshold that has become such a big deal now. Rice had more hits per PA than Brock (by a lot), and had six 200-hit seasons to Brock’s four (despite the fact that Brock had longer season schedules); he also led his league in hits twice, something Brock never did, despite being primarily a leadoff hitter (Rice batted equally in all the first four slots).
Now, Rice is in the Hall thanks to the Veterans Committee, but the BBWAA turned him down, topping off a bit over 50% in thirteen tries: I doubt that there’s going to be a lot of support for Rice on this thread (and, to be clear, I wouldn’t support him for the Hall). Brock got about 80% of the BBWAA vote and waltzed into the Hall on the first ballot. If the magic of 3000 hits is what counts, ok; if the memory of the overblown press coverage of Brock’s stolen bases is what counts, ok; if his terrific postseason record is what counts, and its more or less invisible sad ending is not, ok. But when you come to a case as clear (in my eyes, at least) as Brock’s, I find it very hard to ignore the main message of the massive statistical record we usually value so highheatedly: that he was not what we usually mean by saying a player is Hallworthy.
Rice’s season low of .293 BA is the highest such value for retired players with 10+ seasons. His 1 strike out per 33.7 AB is 6th best for players with 1000+ games. After he retired Clark Griffith offered Rice the opportunity to play until he reached 3000 hits but he turned down the offer because he did not want to go through the rigors of getting back in shape.
That story about Griffith, which Rice told later, includes the fact that when he retired Rice didn’t have any idea of his total hits. If Rice’s statement that this was “a couple of years” after his retirement is accurate and means two years (1936), then he would have been 46 when the issue came up. I wonder whether the initial Hall vote in ’36 was the occasion upon which this sort of focus on milestones emerged.
Ty Cobb happened to get his 4000th hit playing against the Tigers in Detroit, with a first inning line drive that Harry Heilmann tried to catch with one hand, but had it glance off his glove for a double (some clues there about official scoring in those days). The milestone was noted in the Detroit press, but barely; most of the notice went to Heilmann’s 4 for 4 with a HR and two doubles, as the Tigers prevailed 5-3.
https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2013/11/18/no-hoopla-when-ty-cobb-got-his-4000th-hit/
I would put in a word for Earl Averill. 48.0 bWAR in just 13 years is fairly impressive in and of itself, but Averill could possibly have been a star several years before he was purchased by the Indians from San Francisco. He had three solid seasons with the Seals. The PCL always seemed to have players who became big league stars quickly after being sold to a ML club (DiMaggio, Gordon, Doerr), so it is not out of the question to expect Averill to contribute immediately for, say, his age 24,25 and 26 years. Granted, this is not quite the gap considerations we might give for the war or pre-integration, but I am not sure Averill’s HOS total tells the whole picture.
Gary,
first 10 years, just like Ichiro, were from age 27-36. 137 OPS + for Averill; 117 for Suzuki. Apparently, Averill wrenched his back(?) and that was the end of it ?
That’s an interesting angle on Averill, Gary. I hadn’t checked his pre-MLB career. Averill’s career path is a strange one. Apparently he started his pro career with the Seals — a very high level to break in at. He was already 24. Oddly, there is no SABR bio of him, and I can’t locate any information about why he started so late. With three years in S.F., he didn’t get to the Majors till he was almost 27, missing all the lead in to peak years. (He was, famously, from the West Coast, so he may not initially have been focused on a career so far from home.)
In S.F., Averill may not have looked quite as amazing as his record suggests. His fielding was clearly a problem, and although he hit well, he was playing alongside Lefty O’Doul and Smead Jolley (one of those Minor League whizzes who whiffed in the Majors — an exception to your PCL norm of high MLB success). In ’27, his second year, Averill hit .327, but the other two hit .378 and .397 — O’Doul did get the call, but Jolley had to wait till he broke .400 later on. It seems to me Averill’s age 24 season, being his debut year in the Minors, can’t be considered a missed MLB opportunity. If things had broken better for him, though, he might have come up 1-2 years earlier and been ready.
Averill apparently had no plans to pursue baseball after he was told in high school that he had a “dead” arm (no, he wasn’t a pitcher; apparently, he couldn’t make the throws from the outfield). So, he quit high school and worked various jobs. Played for local amateur teams for a few years (apparently his arm wasn’t dead) and was persuaded to try out for the Seattle PCL team. Didn’t make it, so back to local baseball for a couple more years, until the SF Seals finally spotted him and invited him to tryout (this time he made the team), and the rest you know.
https://www.historylink.org/File/9513
Great find, Doug. This fills in what we’re missing because of the absence of a SABR bio. (The writer seems a little less familiar with baseball than we might expect: he calls Averill’s 1928 PCL total of 173 RBI “staggering,” apparently unaware of the long PCL schedule that let Averill compile that total over 189 games — but B-R doesn’t even have PCL RBI figures.)
Bill James, I believe, notes that Averill worked as a florist.
Makes total sense, nsb. Averill showers bring May flowers. He played with Bob Seeds on the 1932 Indians
Late in his career he was traded to the Tigers, where, in 1939, he played with: Hank Greenberg, Birdie Tebbetts, Pete Fox, Dizzy Trout, and George Gill.
Hmmmm. Maybe we should consider a rule against doing damage to aging minds on Sunday mornings.
Mine or yours? In 1940, he added teammates Scat Metha and Cotton Pippen…
I had to go to the office this morning. Damage had already been done….
Mike, one more and I report you to the authorities.
If I were to advocate for some of the 14 on nsb’s list, I think I’d start with Slaughter and Kiner.
I think Slaughter’s is an easy case to make. By any measure he’s not far below the Hall threshold, and he lost his age 27-29 seasons to the War. His career WAR total is surely at least 10.0 lower than it would otherwise have been. There’s something of an anomaly in Slaughter’s record that I find interesting. Although he didn’t hit too many HR (169), he hit a lot of triples (148), leading the league twice (once at age 33). Give Slaughter back his War years and he might have challenged Paul Waner for the lively ball era career triples lead at 191: a great Hall talking point. So Slaughter obviously had good speed on the basepaths, and he is, of course, most celebrated for his 1946 World Series “dash” to score the winning run from first on a natural single. The anomaly is that he has a really poor SB record.
As for Kiner, he was considered a weak Hall addition when he was voted in after many years on the ballot. The rap on him was that he was a “one-dimensional” player. I think that’s not an unfair characterization, but in that one dimension, hitting, he was really exceptional. Moreover, Kiner was also affected by the War, although it’s harder to see. He was off to an early start at age 18 and on a normal development curve in the Minors until early 1943, when he was drafted in the Navy and became a pilot. When he showed up at spring training in 1946 to try and make the Pirate team, he hadn’t played baseball at any level for almost three years. Consequently, his rookie record has to be seen as a period of adjustment not just to MLB but to baseball itself. He had problems: a low BA and lots of whiffs. Forbes Field was in those days like Griffith Stadium in Washington — a burial ground for home runs. Kiner’s season total of 23 HR for the year seems unimpressive, even though it flukily tied for the league crown; however, because of his home field it is actually anything but: that 23 actually tied the Pirate franchise record. The next year the fences were brought in to normal range and he hit 51, boosting his home park total from 8 to 28. With that in mind, Kiner’s MLB break-in seems pretty astonishing — how many rookies tie the franchise record for HRs without having played baseball for three years? It’s easy to imagine that Kiner would have had a far more impressive 1946 if he had played at AA level in ’45, or that without the War he would actually have debuted in ’45 adding a year to his career. Given the brevity of Kiner’s career, we may be talking in terms of as much as a nearly-10% total WAR bump, since Kiner averaged over 7.0 WAR during the 1947-51 seasons, while his debut earned him only 2.8. By the calculation I prefer (“WARQ”), Kiner would be at Elmer Flick’s level in his crunched statistical profile, a little below where Slaughter might be if given minimal credit for his War years. And, of course, there’s also the basic fact that Kiner’s career, though short, is basically written in black ink — that is, after all, what got him into the Hall for real.
There’s one other player I think deserves extra consideration, which may compensate for his underwater status in the Hall of Stats: Max Carey. Carey is the closest to the HoS benchmark among the 14 outfielders up for discussion, and CAWS sees him as Hallworthy — just over the line. nsb earlier mentioned his ten stolen base championships, and that’s a large part of the reason I see Carey as more Hallworthy than, say, Averill, who sits just above him on my statistical list.
The meaning “stolen base” didn’t reach its current profile until 1898. When Carey retired, he was third on the list of post-1898 career SB leaders, just three behind Eddie Collins in second. Ty Cobb was first with 897 to Carey’s 738. No one else post-1898 had over 400 except Honus Wagner, who was just fifteen behind Carey. So in that one skill area, Carey is among an elite group with three inner circle Hall members.
Caught-stealing numbers were inconsistently recorded during the careers of Carey, Cobb, and Collins, and are virtually absent for Wagner. There is, however, a large enough sample of the first three to get a clear idea of their SB efficiency. CS figures are recorded for seasons where Cobb totaled 388 SB, Collins 387, and Carey 446. For those large samples, Cobb has an SB success rate of 65%, Collins 66%, and Carey 80%. An 80% success rate in an era that had very little CS-avoidance is spectacular. By comparison, Lou Brock had a success rate of 75% in an era that was far more aware of the cost of being caught stealing. Moreover, Carey stole bases at a greater rate per PA than Collins and Wagner; he even edged Cobb (68.54 per 1000PA vs. 68.48). Carey retired in 1929. It would not be until the 1960s when baseball would next see base stealers as prolific and efficient as Carey, and then only a few: Carey is still 7th all-time on the post-1898 leaderboard.
But Carey was not just a base stealer; he was an all-around player. He never developed much power, but with Forbes Field as his home base, power was not of much use. Instead, he played his home field for triples, and was in double digits nine seasons. He was an excellent fielder; outfielders have negative position adjustments, but Carey makes it back almost to neutral on dWAR; he had a +86 Rfield and an excellent reputation in the field. His OPS+ is about the same as Brock’s, but without the negative defense. And in an era where the bunt was highly valued, Carey excelled: he ranks 13th in career sacrifice hits.
Carey’s case is weakened by the same flaw that plagues Brock’s: he hung around too long. It’s not likely Carey was looking for benchmarks, but his last four years are pretty dismal, generating a total of only 0.5 WAR, and dragging down his WAR-rate stat. It’s what sinks him below Averill on my ranked list, Averill having avoided a long decline because of the severity of his back problems. But Averill, good as he was with the bat, did not have speed or fielding skills, or any distinctive profile in baseball history. Carey added to solid general skills the distinct feature of being, if you combine quantity and efficiency (so far as existing records can show) over a long career, the outstanding base stealer of the first two-thirds of the 20th century. So I’d bump him up to third rank among the 14 outfielders on nsb’s list, roughly equal to Kiner.
I kind of have a problem with the notion that a player “hung around too long”. If the team was willing to continue paying him, even after he was no longer producing value, seems to me that’s the team’s fault, not the player’s.
Especially in those days, a player was just trying to make a living, so he’d be reluctant to retire until forced to by his team, or because of injury. So, maybe the rate stat part of the equation should be for the best 80%-90% of the player’s career, or some similar mechanism for throwing out the lowest value seasons of a career.
You’re perfectly correct. “Hung around too long” is relative to some things and not others. It’s principally relevant to the issue of career record and to whether the player was helping the team. Management sometimes prefers to keep a player past his productive time on the team because he may inspire younger players or, draw in crowds, or (today) be a lot cheaper to keep than to fire when you have to eat the contract. If management prefers to maximize revenues rather than maximize competitiveness, that’s its prerogative and the player is not to blame, but the decision and the results are skewed to what we generally assess as being of positive value, and I don’t see any reason to unskew it and untie statistics from their value anchors.
In Carey’s case, “hung around too long” relates specifically to his career record — he seems to have gotten a lot out of his time with Brooklyn at the end of his career, and ultimately became manager there. But my own feeling is that it is entirely illegitimate not to count certain things that actually happened on the field because we don’t like what they were. We’re not bound by the implications of Carey’s last seasons if we don’t want to be, but we should know what they were before we make our adjustment, not pretend they didn’t exist because we want to evaluate a player only at his best. If we want to evaluate him at his best, start by looking at the whole picture and then make the adjustments you want.
In the latest iteration of my charts, the one with the stupid name, WARQ, I’ve made a compromise by shifting from career peak to ten-best seasons, which cherry-picks to enhance a player’s record, and adding half that value on top of total WAR. I wouldn’t want the rate stat to be cherry-picked too by calculating it on a reduced base. After all, the object of counting the player’s worst seasons is not to bring the player down: it’s to provide a full basis for an assessment. How we treat the basis when we make the assessment is up to us in our subjective judgments. “Subjective” is not in any way a pejorative term, but if we build too much subjectivity into the statistical base, we risk distorting the base and losing the ability to track what we’re adding because of our own values, rather than because of what happened on the field.
Doug, In the rush of my initial quick series of postings on this string I managed to overlook your post addressing the same three guys I’ve talked about here. I spotted your comment a little while ago (a Wait . . . What? moment) and see I’ve more or less simply repeated some of your comments about Carey and Slaughter, failed to anticipate others, and written as though I’d ignored your comment on Kiner. Sorry!
np, Bob.
I wasn’t offended.
Bob:
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate concerning Enos Slaughter, in spite of the fact that by my own reckoning he is as deserving of HOF status as anyone in this series.
Why? Because I discovered by accident an interesting fact that bothers me about his long stint in St Louis:
WAR rank among Cardinal POSITION players:
1938 Slaughter 6th (1.0 WAR),12th overall
1939 Slaughter 3rd (4.3) behind Mize (7.9) and Medwick (4.6), fourth overall
1940 Slaughter 3rd (3.9) behind Mize (7.4) and Terry Moore (4.4), fourth overall
1941 Slaughter 3rd (3.3) behind Mize (5.4) and Jimmy Brown (4.2), fifth overall
1942 Slaughter 1st (6.2), second overall behind Mort Cooper (8.2)
1946 Slaughter 3rd (4.4) behind Musial (8.6) and Kurowski (4.9), fifth overall
1947 Slaughter 3rd (3.5) behind Kurowski (5.9) and Musial (4.6), seventh overall
1948 Slaughter 2nd (5.4) behind Musial (11.1), third overall
1949 Slaughter 2nd (6.9) behind Musial (9.2), third overall
1950 Slaughter 3rd (2.3) behind Musial (7.3) and Tommy Glaviano (3.9), eighth overall
1951 Slaughter 5th (2.7) behind Musial (9.1), Solly Hemus (4.2), Schoendienst (3.5), and Billy Johnson (3.4), sixth overall
1952 Slaughter 4th (4.8) behind Musial (8.0), Hemus (6.7), and Schoendienst (5.3), fourth overall
1953 Slaughter 4th (2.6) behind Musial (7.7), Schoendienst (6.4), and Hemus (5.5), sixth overall
In his thirteen years for the Redbirds—by the measure of WAR—“Country” was never, not once, the best player on the team. In the top three among position players nine times, true, but only first once, second twice—and these were distant seconds. Overall he finished third or better only three times, fourth three times, fifth once, sixth twice.
Does this matter? Possibly not, but compare a player who was the subject of a raging discussion some years ago here at HHS, Lou Whitiker. Whitiker was undervalued, no doubt, and by the measure of what he meant to his team he was severely undervalued. In 18 full seasons as a Tiger He was the best player overall by the WAR measure five times, six times the best position player. He was second five times as best position player including 1995, his final season, when he had just 285 PAs.
Whitiker accumulated heaps of WAR with limited recognition; Slaughter was a headliner who was the third or fourth best player on his team, and made the All-Star squad every year.
Those three prime years he missed to war, of course, make up for a lot.
It’s an interesting perspective, nsb (and I appreciate the work putting this list together). I’m not sure there’s too much traction in a comparison between Slaughter and Whitaker — Whitaker has a Hall of Stats rating of 145: he’s miles better than Slaughter, and I think no one here would argue otherwise. The fact that Whitaker isn’t in the Hall while Slaughter is is absurd — but someone has outlawed making an argument against Slaughter on that basis.
As for Slaughter on the Cards, as you note, his seconds were distant, but they were distant to Stan Musial, a leading Inner Circler. Slaughter, obviously, could not be considered even a leading Outer Circler. More to the point, I’m not sure how relevant Slaughter’s rank among Redbirds is to the issue. His basic value can be expressed in WAR (or Win Shares), and the fact that he was on a team with stars doesn’t increase or diminish it. The Cards were the NL Yankees of the better part of the 1940s, although Slaughter missed half their pennants. If he’d had identical WAR as star of the Phillies, why would it make him more Hallworthy?
I want to note that you are playing Devil’s Advocate to someone who is playing Devil’s Advocate. As I wrote earlier, I don’t think any of these 14 outfielders would be in my Hall; among the ones I’ve listed in charts, I think Goslin might represent the threshold I’d use (just because I’m inclined towards the Goose and might stretch my Hall down low enough to catch him). If you’re dealing with the Hall of Stats ratings, though, I’d intuitively feel comfortable advocating for Slaughter and Kiner over, say, Lance Berkman and David Wells, both of whom make Adam Darowski’s cut, based on the arguments I’m making for them here (Berkman and Wells wouldn’t be in my Hall either). Of course, to hold to that I’d have to do some real analysis to compare those players in detail, and I haven’t done that. But Kiner seems to me a far more historic figure than either of the two he’d displace, and Slaughter’s three lost prime years carries a lot of weight. The contest I’d really like to see is Max Carey (HoS: 95) vs. Ernie Lombardi (100) — which one has the stronger claim? Maybe we should decide it by footrace.
I would assume that Lombardi would win by a nose.
Nice. You know, if I remember correctly, in “Glory of Their Times,” Hans Lobert, who was known as a speedster, described how he raced a horse around the basepaths with the crowd placing bets. He reports that they said the horse won by a nose, but points to his own, Lombardi-like, nose, and says he thinks that most unlikely.
Only if Carey was running backwards
Here are Averill and Roush, in 1961, at the time of Roush’s induction into Cooperstown.
WAR, 51%+ G , CF, 1901 – 1961
1 Ty Cobb 151.0
2 Tris Speaker 134.1
3 Mickey Mantle 84.8
4 Joe DiMaggio 78.1
5 Willie Mays 77.0
6 Duke Snider 64.5
7 Richie Ashburn 61.8
8 Max Carey 54.0
9 Larry Doby 49.6
10 Earl Averill 48.0
11 Edd Roush 45.3
Everybody else is in above these two. I would suspect, without looking, that Whitaker and Trammell are probably somewhere, currently, in the same ballpark (10th-11th) at their respective positions.
I think Trammell is where you suspect him to be (11th), but Whitaker is higher up, about 7th.
I’m not sure whether you’re saying Roush and Averill were a reasonable choices at the times of their vote or something else. In 1962 (which was Roush’s year; Averill’s was ’75, by which time players like Vada Pinson, Jimmy Wynn, Willie Davis were well ahead of him on this list), the Hall had about 90 total members; now it has about 330 — Trammell’s relative strength at his position is far greater than Roush’s was at his. When Roush was inducted, Carey had preceded him the year before, but otherwise only Cobb, Speaker, and DiMaggio had yet made it from this list. The careers of Mantle, Mays, and Snider were well enough along (or near ending) for it to be clear that center fielders far exceeding Roush (and Carey) in quality were going to be lining up soon, and also that Ashburn and Doby would be strong candidates, the first on career quality alone, the second for both quality and historical reasons as a package.
In going for Carey and Roush, the Veterans Committee made a strong vote to lower the Hall threshold to capture second-tier stars from the past, rather than hold the threshold and allow the Hall to fill with first-tier stars from the present and future (I think the committee’s move in that direction was determined in 1955, with Schalk’s election). It’s an understandable psychology to want to vote for someone rather than no one, but that is precisely what opened the door to Frisch’s Friends in the ’70s and, ultimately, to Harold Baines: it has perpetually driven the Hall threshold down and resulted in a Hall so large that you get lost wandering its corridors, filled with fine but unexceptional players like Roush. Of course, opting for a large Hall has always been an option, but if baseball survives another century, people are going to need to budget a week to tour it, and there will be hundreds players whom they will forget — there may be a hundred now.
Bob,
F W I W, I believe Roush was deemed the greatest Reds player ever with the 1969 baseball centennial celebration. Interestingly enough, I guess Frank Robinson was no longer a Redleg in spirit either? Who else would it be at that point? Frank McCormick?
From Wikipedia (so, it’s gotta be true):
“In addition to Roush’s selection into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 (chosen with Bill McKechnie), he is also a member of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, inducted in 1960.
Considered the greatest player in Reds’ history at the time, Roush was invited to throw out the first ball at the last game at Crosley Field on June 24, 1970. Joe Morgan called Roush “the best of us all”
In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included Roush in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.”
I recall Roush mentioning a vote of Cincinnati fans naming him the best of the Reds in “Glory of Their Times,” which was published in the mid-’60s. I would have thought Bucky Walters would have won out, but I guess Roush made more of a splash locally than we’d think today — plenty of people were alive who recalled the Reds of 1919, the first to win a pennant and Series, however tainted. I guess your first love always has priority.
Roush had a very good stretch with the Reds, given that his strength, batting average, was what was most highly valued then. He was a very good player. Everyone in the Hall was a very good player. Roush was a standout at the end of the dead ball era (actually, the part of that era where the ball was no longer dead). Since the NL was later than the AL in responding to the Ruthian Revolution, Roush’s prominence was prolonged a bit.
One way you could imagine the Hall reconfigured is to have a wing for the transcendently great players and a wing for players who were great in the framework of their time. Really, that’s the whole point of Veterans Committees,etc.: to redeem players who didn’t make the cut from the long perspective. Problem is (as I see it), no distinction is made between the two classes. Carey and Roush both drew a max of about 50% on the BBWAA vote and then were quickly moved into the Hall by an alternative route, just three and two years after the writers had said ‘No’ 15-20 times. It’s hard to lower a threshold more blatantly than that. (In Schalk’s earlier case, the Veterans Committee voted him in the very year that he received only 45% of the BBWAA vote on his 17th try.)
Bob,
“no distinction is made between the two classes.”
Correct. Mantle and Mays (Happy Birthday!!) are in the same Hall of Fame as Baines and Roush. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made the same mistake in residential lending 15 years ago when they gave the same interest rate to a 620 credit score as an 820. You saw what happened after that….Fortunately, the consequences of the inadequacies of Cooperstown aren’t as severe as the housing crisis of ten years ago
I’d rather not go down the road of apparent parallel examples outside of baseball, Paul.
Jordan Luplow hit two homeruns yesterday in a five inning game.
I don’t know how to search to see if that’s been done before. The play index Does not allow for searches of a specific game length, as far as I can see.
Voomo, Although I can’t help on five-inning games, here’s a topper from Retrosheet:
“6/2/1976: Atlanta’s Earl Williams lost two home runs to rain in a game at Fulton County Stadium. He led off both the second and third innings with homers to left off the Padres’ Alan Foster. The game was called in the bottom of the fourth with the Braves ahead 5-0.”
The most home runs in a 5 inning game are 6, two by the Phillies and four by the Cubs, on Sep 19, 1997. No player had more than one.
Jeffrey Hammonds (May 30, 2001), Andre Thornton (May 6, 1986), Russ Nixon (Sep 9, 1958), Ralph Kiner (July 4, 1951), Hal Trosky (June 25, 1940) and Jimmie Foxx (Sep 7, 1938) all had two home runs in a 5-inning game (Hammonds’ and Kiner’s games were 5½ innings, but their homers came in the first 5 innings).
Great! How did you search for this, Doug?
I used Team Pitching Game finder, set IP to 5 or less, and sorted by HR. Then checked all the games (48) with 2 HR or more allowed.
Ingenious!
Not to downplay Voomo’s eagle eye for how MLB events occurring day to day now fit into baseball history (I don’t know how to search for multi-homer games that were rain-shortened either), I want to bypass his neat comment to add a point related to nsb’s project.
While this pause in HHS has been extended, I’ve been thinking about ways to place nsb’s exercise in a larger perspective. nsb gave us a total of 70 names in his initial post, all players with sub-100 HoS scores who are in the real Hall. Ten were Friends of Frick, four had their careers cut short, eight were 19th century players, plus the 48 we have been considering.
We’ve mostly been considering those 48 in a relative vacuum: that is, we’ve been asking whether they belong in the Hall without asking the question: Whom would we replace them with? Moreover, there may be players with 100+ HoS ratings whom we would want to remove and replace with others. (There are actually two players with ratings of 100 whom Adam Darowski excludes from his Hall of Stats: Ernie Lombardi and Eppa Rixey, presumably because fractional numbers place them below the 232-player limit for his Hall.)
There are 76 players with 100+ HoS ratings who are not in the Hall of Fame: three are ineligible (Rose, Jackson, Ciccotte), and six more may be ineligible for some of us because of steroids, but that leaves 65 names who, per Darowski, have greater claims to the Hall than the 70 players named in nsb’s initial post. The Hall of Stats is not a final arbiter; it’s a well designed one-number ranking that serves as a starting point (CAWS and JAWS are others). After nsb’s project, at some future time we may want to consider its flip side, looking for players whose qualifications may not match up to their HoS scores, sorting the 100+ plus players into easy-“Yes” votes (e.g., those we’ve already endorsed for our Circle of Greats, such as Grich and Whitaker), and identifying others who warrant discussion, both on their own and in relation to those who earned support among nsb’s group of 100> players (e.g., Campy).
But the ones I really have my eye on are 19th century players who fall below 100 in the HoS, because I suspect many of them are ranked low only because their season schedules were significantly shorter than 20th-21st century players’. John McGraw would be an example. McGraw has a 97 HoS score. The heart of his career, the 1890s, involved seasons that were 5-20% shorter than today’s. McGraw has a WAR/500PA rate of 4.6, which is very high, and pro-rating his performance to project his likely value in a modern framework would surely move him far over the HoS benchmark. (However, if we’re ruling out steroid-based players, we’d want to consider whether McGraw, who was a notoriously dirty player, should be downgraded on those grounds.) This exercise might also be a way for us to begin considering some expansion of the Circle of Greats into the late 19th century, as was suggested during our last voting rounds.
I’m paying a penalty for not having my stat formulas under control. I overlooked the fact that the Hall of Stats already makes adjustments for schedule lengths.