Hall of Merit: McPhee and Richardson

A place to focus in the pros and cons of our top keystone men.

Hall of Merit: Galvin and Radbourn

As suggested earlier this week, a place to focus the discussion on some of our top candidates.

Hall of Merit: 1904 Results: Glasscock & Rusie Elected

Jack Glassock and Amos Rusie have been elected to the Hall of Merit. Glasscock was elected easily after finishing at the top non-electee in 1901, 1902 and 1903. Rusie edged Charles Radbourn by 34 points for the other spot, it was Rusie’s first year of eligibility.

The runner-up positions are tightly bunched, 3rd place was separated from 8th place by just 131 points. Radbourn has moved into the top runner-up slot for the second time (he finished 5th in 1898, when four players were elected), he finished directly behind Glasscock in 1901, 1902 and 1903. Hardy Richardson finished 4th, and was the only player besides Glasscock named on all 43 ballots, Pud Galvin passed Joe Start among the returnees, finishing 5th.

Start edged Al Spalding by two points for 6th place and Ezra Sutton finished 8th. Harry Stovey and Sam Thompson rounded out the top 10.

The top newcomers for 1905 include Bid McPhee, Mike Tiernan, Bud Fowler and Ed McKean.

RK   LY  Player       Pts Ballots  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
 1    3  J.Glasscock  850  43.0   16  8  4  5  1  2  2  2  1              1  1
 2  n/a  A.Rusie      720  42.0    5  5  4  7  8  3  3  2  1  2  1  1
 3    4  C.Radbourn   686  42.0    6  5  6     3  3  4  5  3  4     2     1
 4    5  H.Richardson 649  43.0    1  4  3  5  4  9  3  4  4  1  1  1  2  1
 5    7  P.Galvin     610  40.0    1  3  5  8  4  2  6  2  2  1  3     2     1
 6    6  J.Start      589  38.0    5  4  2  3  3  3  4  3  3  2  1     2     3
 7   10  A.Spalding   587  38.0    7  3  3  3  3  3        2  3  4  3  1  2  1
 8    8  E.Sutton     555  36.5    2  5  7  3  1     5  1  3  2     3  1  2  1.5
 9   11  H.Stovey     517  41.0       2  3  3     4  3  2  5  8  5     1  2  3
10    9  S.Thompson   473  39.0       1  2  2  3  5  2  2  3  2  6  3  3  4  1
11   12  C.Bennett    415  36.0       1     1  4  1  3  5  1  3  3  7  4  1  2
12   13  C.McVey      394  31.5       1  2  2  3  3  2  4  4        3  2  4  1.5
13   15  P.Browning   307  31.0             1  1  1     3  1  5  2  5  7  2  3
14   14  B.Caruthers  273  25.0          2     2     5  1  2  1  2     2  3  5
15  n/a  M.Griffin    170  18.0                   1        3  1  4  3  1  3  2
16   17  L.Pike       168  18.0                   1     3  1     3  1  3  3  3
17   16  E.Williamson 126  15.0                            1  2  2  2  2  2  4
18   18  M.Welch      107  12.0                               4  1  1  3  2  1
19   20  J.McCormick  102  11.0                1        1  1        2  3  1  2
20   19  D.Pearce      89   8.0       1        1              1     2  1  1  1
21   22  T.Mullane     65   7.0                   1     1           2     1  2
22   21  F.Dunlap      56   6.5                   1                    3  2  0.5
23   24  J.Whitney     47   4.5                      1  1        1        1  0.5
24  n/a  J.Clements    46   6.0                                  2        2  2
25   23  T.O'Neill     39   3.0                1        1        1
26  n/a  B.Nash        26   3.0                            1              2
27  n/a  B.Joyce       15   2.0                                     1        1
28   26  D.Foutz       12   1.0                            1
29  27T  L.Meyerle     11   1.0                               1
30  27T  B.Hutchison   10   1.0                                  1
31   29  C.Jones        9   1.0                                     1
32  30T  D.Orr          6   1.0                                              1
Dropped out: Silver King (25); Denny Lyons (30T), Bobby Mathews (30T), George
Stovey (32).

Hall of Merit: 1905 Ballot Discussion

I haven’t finished tabulating the 1904 results yet, we’ll get those up a little later, but there’s no reason we can’t get the 1905 discussion going.

I’ll be at the SABR Convention this week, from Wednesday to Sunday, if you’re also there, stop by and say hello!

That will obviously limit my input this week, but I’ll try to check in when I can.

Hall of Merit: Pennants Added (updated for 1914 ballot)

Using Michael Wolverton’s formulas, I’ve calculated the Pennants Added for all of the candidates on this year’s ballot, as well as already elected HoMers.

I used both WARP3 and Win Shares (when possible) for hitters, just WARP3 for pitchers because Win Shares just have too many issues right now.

The Win Share rankings have some changes, now that I’ve added in Chris Cobb’s NA Win Shares for the players he’s calculated.

With WARP3, I made one modification, using a straight line adjust for the length of the schedule (to 162 games), instead of their formula of (162/scheduled games)^(2/3). This puts players from the 1870s and early 80s on a more equal footing.

The WARP1 numbers are adjusted for season length, but not league difficulty. At some point this week, I’ll run a correlation using birthdate with pennants added. One way to tell the degree of the ‘difficulty adjustment’ (at least the age component) will be to check and see whether WARP3 or WARP1 correlates well with birthdate (another way would be the mid-point of the players career, adjusted for schedule length, but that would take awhile to figure). A weaker correlation would show more balance with regard to the year players were born, which is good in my opinion.

The numbers will be in the discussion link . . .

Hall of Merit: 1904 Ballot

This should be the most interesting election yet, the first one that is truly wide-open.

Hall of Merit: 1904 Ballot Discussion

Forgot to start this last night . . .

Hall of Merit: 1903 Results - Roger Connor and Cap Anson elected

The only real suspense this week was whether or not enough people would boycott Anson in his first year for him to have to wait. Six people boycotted, and that allowed Roger Connor to win the election with 984 points. Connor won despite the fact that he only received 12 first place votes to Anson’s 31. Even with the boycott, Anson was able to defeat Jack Glasscock for the second spot, by 195 points. It was the 3rd consecutive year Glasscock finished 3rd in the voting.

Charles Radbourn finished fourth for the 3rd consecutive year, the gap between Radbourn and Glasscock widened slightly, from 46 to 64 points.

The pack after that continues to tighten and shuffle, as the difference between 5th and 8th was just 29 points this time around. Hardy Richardson remained fifth (for the 3rd straight year), while Joe Start jumped over Ezra Sutton for sixth place. Pud Galvin moved from 10th to 7th, as his ranking continues to climb. Sutton dipped to 8th, finishing 2 points behind Galvin, 12 behind Start.

Sam Thompson remained 9th and Al Spalding dipped from 8th to 10th.

RK   LY  Player       Pts Ballots  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1   n/a  R.Connor     984  44.0   12 25  4  2     1
2   n/a  C.Anson      900  38.0   31  6  1
3     3  J.Glasscock  705  44.0         14 11  6  6  2  1     2  1        1
4     4  C.Radbourn   641  44.0       4  5  6  6  2  3  6  2  1  3  2  2     2
5     5  H.Richardson 562  43.0       1     2  3 12  5  2  4  7  1  2  1  2  1
6     7  J.Start      545  40.0       1  7  3  3  4  5  2  2  4  1  3  3     2
7    10  P.Galvin     535  40.0          3  4  5  5  4  7  3     2  3  2     2
8     6  E.Sutton     533  40.0       1  1  8  6  2  3  4  5     1  2  1  4  2
9     9  S.Thompson   489  43.0       1  1  2  3  3  3  2  1  3  9  5  5  3  2
10    8  A.Spalding   484  36.5    1  2  4  2  5  2  2  1  1  4  1  4  3  4  0.5
11   11  H.Stovey     445  38.5          3  2     1  1  6  6  5  5  3  3  1  2.5
12   12  C.Bennett    410  37.0                2  1  7  4  2  6  3  2  6  3  1
13   14  C.McVey      331  30.0             1  1  4  1  3  5  3  1  3  3  1  4
14   13  B.Caruthers  299  23.0       3     1  3     2  3  3  2        1  2  3
15   15  P.Browning   255  26.0                1     3     2  3  5  5     3  4
16   16  E.Williamson 138  17.0                            2     1  4  2  4  4
17   17  L.Pike       136  15.5                         1  2  1  2  1  1  6  1.5
18   18  M.Welch      132  16.0                            1     3  4  1  4  3
19   19  D.Pearce      91   9.0          1           1        1  2     2     2
20   20  J.McCormick   74   8.0                         1  1  1  1     1  2  1
21   21  F.Dunlap      55   7.0                            1           3  1  2
22   22  T.Mullane*    44   5.0                      1              1  1  1  1
23   23  T.O'Neill     44   4.0                   1  1                 1  1
24   25  J.Whitney     25   2.0                         1  1
25  n/a  S.King        22   3.0                                        2     1
26   27  D.Foutz       11   1.0                               1
27T  28T L.Meyerle     10   1.0                                  1
27T  28T B.Hutchison   10   1.0                                  1
29   26  C.Jones        7   1.0                                           1
30T  30T B.Mathews      6   1.0                                              1
30T n/a  D.Lyons        6   1.0                                              1
32   24  G.Stovey       3   0.5                                              0.5
*Won tiebreaker, named higher on more ballots (4-3).
Dropped out: Tom York (30T), Tommy McCarthy (32)

Hall of Merit: Let’s get to know each other . . .

From Andrew Siegel:

“The talk of new daughters leads me to renew my suggestion that we set up a thread where we list age, family, occupation, hometown, favorite team, etc., so that we can get to know something about the people we are spending so much time with.”

As requested . . .

Hall of Merit: 1903 Ballot

Balloting for 1903 is open, a little early since a few voters are going on vacation this week . . .

I know the rules allow a Cap Anson no-vote this week. But I don’t encourage that at all. He was a product of his time.

And looking at some other things he did off the field, I found this in the NHBA:

Bill James basically gives him most of the credit for saving the game in the late 1870s. Anson organized the practice of raiding other leagues, not other teams in the league. This forced other teams in the league to follow suit, and the National League rose to the top, becoming the true major league. Also:

“. . . Anson made baseball immensely popular in Chicago, which was the league’s largest and most important city. In the NL’s first years, the schedule was getting shorter, the league was getting smaller, and the cities in the league were growing more remote. The game was dying. Cap Anson is the man who really changed that - not all by himself, but more than anyone else.”

I’m not saying he deserves any ‘extra credit’ for this on a ballot, but it should help to offset any moral issues one might have with him. Paraphrasing what someone said on the 1903 discussion thread, think long and hard before penalizing a Jim Crow from a Jim Crow time.