Hall of Merit: 1898 Ballot

Let’s do it.

Post your ballots here, with a full explanation please. For a good example of what it might look like (other formats are good too, this is just one that I liked), look here, Andrew Siegel’s post of 11:08 a.m. on April 1, 2003.

sample ballot

Please do not tabulate the other votes before posting your ballot, and if you calc them after your ballot, please don’t post them here.

If as the week moves on, you realize you want to change your ballot, i.e., you’ve been convinced the John Doe really was better than Jim Smith, note that on this thread, along with the time and date of your original ballot.

Please post any comments on ballots on the discussion thread, try to keep this thread clean for just ballots.

Hall of Merit: 1898 Ballot Discussion

The general tone of the discussion seems to be that we’ll be moving the first election back to 1898. There haven’t been any major objections or anything, so I figured I’d get this thread up quick to give as much time as possible for discussion.

I’m posting this thread to allow for new discussions of provisional ballots, because . . . the players discussed will be quite different and that other thread was getting very long.

Please don’t add the totals and score them this time . . . if you want to add them up and post a top 10 or something that’s fine (alphabetically, without the total points) that’s fine, but I’d rather not open that can of worms, if people want to do it individually that’s fine, but I don’t think it should be posted. A top 10 accomplishes the goal of seeing the consensus without the other concerns.

The discussion of the merits of moving the ballot back to 1898 is on the First Ballot Schedule thread.

Our new start date will start the with the old opening day most of us grew up with, about a week into April, not the last day or two of March, if that’s any solace to the people who were pumped about starting on opening day :-)

Hall of Merit: Provisional Ballots

As requested . . . feel free to start discussing your ballots . . . I will probably not be able to check back in until Monday, I may pop in at some point before then, but it’s unlikely.

Rob Wood has as good of an understanding of this as anyone, he should be able to answer most questions.

Hall of Merit: Something Better

Here’s the article that started all of this off . . . I guess it’s a really long mission statement, for people new to this area of Primer . . .

Hall of Merit: Links to positional threads from last year

Here’s a link to the postional threads, I’ll just add a few notes if there’s something that needs to be considered that isn’t obvious, for those new to the discussions.

Catchers - by far the worst hitters as a group, so the ones that could hit (i.e. Deacon White, Buck Ewing, Charlie Bennett) were extremely valuable.

First Basemen - the pre-gloves players should get a major boost. Gloves caused the defensive spectrum to shift.

Second Basemen - equivalent to 3B today, it was more offensive ...

Hall of Merit: First Ballot Schedule

Okay, let’s get this rolling.

Let’s open the 1906 polls from March 30 (a Saturday) through April 6 (a Sunday). My fantasy league, of which I’m the commissioner drafts April 5, so I’ll be busy inputting rosters, moves, etc. on the 6th and 7th, but I should be able to tally the ballots by April 9.

We’ll then reopen the polls for 1907 on Monday the 14th, and get on a one-week on, one-week off schedule, generally voting Monday-Sunday. Does this work?

I need suggestions for how to structure the discussion threads leading to the first ballot. Should I reopen the old threads? Organize them by position, etc? What would you like?

The ballot structure we decided on was:

5 electees: 24-23-22-21-20-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6
4 electees: 24-23-22-21-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6
3 electees: 24-23-22-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6
2 electees: 24-23-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6
1 electee: 24-19-18-17-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6

I think this is the schedule for electees that we agreed on:

1906 5
1907 3
1908 2
1909 2
1910 2
1911 2
1912 2
1913 1
1914 1
1915 1
1916 1
1917 1

Then from 1918 through 1975 we elect two candidates per year. The year we “catch up” to the expected number of HoMers is 1955. Keep in mind that we will be 18.9 candidates behind when we start, plus we should be inducting 1.26 new per year at that time.

From 1976-83 we alternate between 3 in even years, 2 in odd years.

From 1984-95 we elect 3 candidates per season.

From 1996-2008 we elect a 4th candidate in “leap years”.

Starting in 2010, we’ll alternate between 4 in even years, 3 in odd years.

In 2014 we’ll be at 4 every year, except leap year when we’ll elect 3.

We’ll stay with that until another expansion throws us off, but earliest it would change an election would be 2019 (assuming expansion next year).

Here’s a link to the thread discussing the Constitution.

Let me know what else we need.

We’ll be voting through the yahoo group.

Hall of Merit: 1876 National League

Once again, jimd’s thoughts are in the discussion:

Standings      W  L   PCT    GB  Adjusted Standings  W   L  PCT  GB
Chicago       52 14  .788   --   Chicago           128  33 .794  --
Hartford      47 21  .691   6.0  St.Louis          115  46 .717  13
St.Louis      45 19  .703   6.0  Hartford          112  49 .694  16
Boston        39 31  .557  15.0  Boston             90  71 .557  38
Louisville    30 36  .455  22.0  Louisville         75  86 .467  53
New York      21 35  .375  26.0  New York           61 100 .379  67
Philadelphia  14 45  .237  34.5  Philadelphia       39 122 .245  89
Cincinnati     9 56  .136  42.5  Cincinnati         24 137 .146 104

If you look at the 3 worst teams, only Philadelphia had more than one or two legit major leaguers. Also the three teams were by far the worst fielding teams in the league. Removing them from the standings would produce these records:

Standings      W   L  PCT  GB
Chicago      112  48 .700  --
St. Louis     94  66 .589  18
Hartford      89  71 .558  23
Boston        61  99 .379  51
Louisville    44 116 .273  68

Hall of Merit: 1875 National Association

jimd’s summary is in the discussion below.

1875 saw the culmination of the Boston dynasty, Harry Wright’s most dominant team. Here are the standings:

Final Standings     W  L  PCT   GB  Adjusted Standings   W   L  PCT  GB
Boston             71  8 .899   --  Boston             144  12 .926  --
Phil. Athletics    53 20 .726 15.0  Phil. Athletics    125  31 .801  19
Hartford           54 28 .659 18.5  Hartford           114  42 .731  30
St. Louis Browns   39 29 .574 26.5  St. Louis Browns   110  46 .708  34
Phil. Pearls       37 31 .544 28.5  Phil. Pearls       104  42 .669  40
Chicago            30 37 .448 35.0  Chicago             98  58 .628  46
New York           30 38 .441 35.5  New York            93  63 .596  51
St. Louis Reds      4 15 .211 37.0  Phil. Centennials   62  94 .394  82
Washington          5 23 .179 40.5  New Haven           43 113 .277 101
New Haven           7 40 .149 48.0  Washington          43 113 .276 101
Phil. Centennials   2 12 .143 37.5  St. Louis Reds      35 121 .221 109
Keokuk              1 12 .077 38.0  Brooklyn            26 130 .169 118
Brooklyn            2 42 .045 51.5  Keokuk              16 140 .104 128

Boston didn’t just get fat on the club teams either, this team was incredible, probably the most dominant in major league history. They played at least .750 against every team in the league. The Pearls played them the best, taking 2-of-8. Here are what the standings would have looked like if you cut ‘major’ league off with New York, the logical place to draw the line:

Final Standings     W   L  PCT GB
Boston            139  23 .861 --
Phil. Athletics   102  60 .726 37
Hartford           82  80 .507 57
St. Louis Browns   76  86 .468 63
Phil. Pearls       65  97 .404 74
Chicago            55 107 .340 84
New York           47 115 .291 92

I’m just thankful the one season where NY finished 92 games behind Boston concluded 97 years before I was born, and 15 years before my great-grandmother was born.

Hall of Merit: 1874 National Association

Thanks again to jimd for the summary in the discussion portion.

1874 Standings   W  L  PCT   GB Adj. Standings    W   L  PCT GB
Boston          52 18 .743   -- Boston          120  41 .743 --
New York        42 23 .646  7.5 New York        104  57 .648 16
Phil. Athletics 33 22 .600 11.5 Phil. Athletics 102  59 .636 18
Phil. Pearls    29 29 .500 17.0 Phil. Pearls     84  77 .521 36
Chicago         28 31 .475 18.5 Chicago          78  83 .485 42
Brooklyn        22 33 .400 22.5 Brooklyn         70  91 .433 50
Hartford        16 37 .302 27.5 Hartford         53 108 .329 67
Baltimore        9 38 .191 31.5 Baltimore        33 128 .206 87

Here are the standings removing Hartford and Baltimore, who only had a few true major leaguers amongst them.

Adj.II Standings  W   L  PCT GB
Boston          110  50 .690 --
New York         93  67 .578 17
Phil. Athletics  90  70 .564 20
Phil. Pearls     69  91 .434 41
Chicago          63  97 .395 47
Brooklyn         54 106 .339 56

Boston continues their dominance, winning their 3rd consecutive pennant.

Hall of Merit: 1873 National Association

Thanks again to jimd for this summary, which is in the discussion portion.

First the standings:

Actual Standings    W  L  PCT   GB Adjusted Standings   W   L  PCT  GB
Boston             43 16 .729   -- Boston             120  41 .744  --
Phil. White Stock. 36 17 .679  4.0 Phil. White Stock. 115  46 .715   5
Baltimore          34 22 .607  7.5 Baltimore          100  61 .623  20
Phil. Athletics    28 23 .549 11.0 Phil. Athletics     97  64 .604  23
New York           29 24 .547 11.0 New York            96  65 .594  24
Brooklyn           17 37 .315 23.5 Brooklyn            61 100 .379  59
Washington          8 31 .205 20.0 Washington          38 123 .233  82
Elizabeth           2 21 .088 23.0 Elizabeth           18 143 .109 102
Maryland            0  6 .000 16.5

Just like 1872, a few adjustments need to be made for the weak sisters again. I’ll give the standings how they would look at each possible spot where you could draw the ‘major league’ line.

The first would be to remove Elizabeth, as they were really just a club team that gave it a whirl, Washington had at least tried the year before, and wasn’t total dreck.

The second adjustment would be to remove Washington, who, while not total dreck was clearly not on the level of these teams:

No Elizabeth         W   L  PCT  GB  No Eliz./Wash.       W   L  PCT  GB
Boston             115  47 .707  --  Boston             106  54 .665  --
Phil. White Stock. 109  53 .674   6  Phil. White Stock. 101  59 .628   5
Baltimore           93  69 .571  22  Baltimore           82  78 .513  24
Phil. Athletics     89  73 .549  26  Phil. Athletics     78  82 .489  28
New York            87  75 .538  28  New York            76  84 .476  30
Brooklyn            49 113 .303  66  Brooklyn            37 123 .228  69
Washington          25 137 .156  90

The final adjustment would be removing Brooklyn, since they were clearly below the pack of the other 5.

Top 5                W   L  PCT  GB
Boston             100  60 .622  --
Phil. White Stock.  93  67 .581   7
Baltimore           73  87 .454  27
Phil. Athletics     69  91 .428  31
New York            66  94 .415  34

Feel free to draw the line wherever you’d like.

As far as the individual achievements go, Ross Barnes has solidified his place as the star of the league. George Wright and Levi Meyerle are also looking like superstars, Cap Anson is coming into his own, and Deacon White made his first Silver Slugger squad. Lip Pike and George Hall are also consistently among the best players in the league.