Hall of Merit: 1906 Ballot

This promises to be our closest election yet, with fives candidates having a realistic shot at being the year’s only electee. This is a good week to go back an re-examine things if you haven’t done that in awhile.

Hall of Merit: Length of Early MLB Seasons: Games Scheduled

This is a nifty little page . . . gives a 5 and 15 year running average of games scheduled, so you can get an idea for adjusting (if you are so inclined) career numbers.

It’s just a guide though, you’re not going to give the proper weight to each year, but it’s a reasonable way to make an eyeball career value judgement, before digging further.

When reading the chart, the 5 or 15 year period is the one STARTING with the year listed. So the 5 year listing for 1871 is 1871-76, the 15-year is 1871-85, etc. . . . thanks to Paul Wendt for creating this.

Hall of Merit: 1906 Ballot Discussion

Not much in the way of new eligibles this year, but for the first time, just one player will be on the podium this time around . . .

Hall of Merit: 1905 Results - Radbourn and Richardson Elected

Charlie Radbourn and Hardy Richardson have been elected to the Hall of Merit. Radbourn finished first with 706 points and was named on all but one ballot. He is our second posthumous inductee (King Kelly was the first), Old Hoss passed on in February 1897, he was just 42.

Richardson (who was the only player named on all 41 ballots) finished second with 660 points, beating Pud Galvin by 26 points. Richardson’s margin over Galvin was the 2nd closest to date, George Wright beat Jack Glasscock by 21 points in 1901 (Glasscock was elected in 1904).

In 1906 just one new player will be elected and the battle will be tighter than ever. Newcomer Bid McPhee finished 4th, four points behind Galvin, and Al Spalding and Ezra Sutton were tied for 5th, just four points behind McPhee. Both jumped over Joe Start, who finished 7th, but just 29 points behind Galvin.

Harry Stovey held his spot among the returnees and finished 8th with 533 points. Cal McVey jumped over Sam Thompson and Charlie Bennett to finish 9th with 486 points. Thompson rounded out the top 10 with 436 points.

RK   LY  Player       Pts Ballots  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1     3  C.Radbourn   706   40.0   9  5  4  2  4  1  7  3  2  1  1     1
2     4  H.Richardson 660   41.0   3  2  5  6  8  7  2  3  1  1     3
3     5  P.Galvin     634   39.0   4  3  5  8  5  2  2  2  3  1     2  1     1
4   n/a  B.McPhee     630   39.0   5  3  3  6  3  2  6  3  2  2  2  2
5     7  A.Spalding*  626   37.0   7  6  5  3  1  1  1  1  1  4  4  2     1
6     8  E.Sutton     626   36.5   4 10  4  3  1  2  2  3     1  2  2        2.5
7     6  J.Start      605   36.5   6  3  2  6  2  5  2  4  3  1  1        1  0.5
8     9  H.Stovey     533   40.0      3  4     3  4  2  4  6  5  2  3  2  2
9    12  C.McVey      486   33.0   1  3  4  1  7  4  1  3     2  1  2  1  3
10   10  S.Thompson   436   35.5   1  2  2  1  1  2  2  2  4  4  3  4  3  4  0.5
11   11  C.Bennett    423   33.0   1     1  1  1  5  5  2  8  4        3  1  1
12   13  P.Browning   301   30.0               3     3  1  1     6  4  7  4  1
13  n/a  M.Tiernan    279   29.5      1              2  3  2  3  2  2  3  1 10.5
14   14  B.Caruthers  223   19.0         1  3     1  1  2  2  1  1  2  2  2  1
15   16  L.Pike       189   19.0                  2  1  1  1  4  2  2     2  4
16   15  M.Griffin    170   20.0                  1        1  1  3  2  3  6  3
17   19  J.McCormick  136   15.0         1              2        3  1  2  1  5
18   17  E.Williamson 122   15.0                              1  2  4  2  3  3
19   18  M.Welch       96   11.0                           2  1  1  2     3  2
20   20  D.Pearce      69    7.0               1        1     1        2  1  1
21   21  T.Mullane     55    6.0                              1  2  1  1  1
22  n/a  B.Fowler      52    4.0               1  1           1  1
23   22  F.Dunlap^     51    7.0                                    1  2  2  2
24   23  J.Whitney     51    5.0                  1  1                 1  2
25   25  T.O'Neill     40    3.0            1           1        1
26   24  J.Clements    27    3.0                              1        2
27   26  B.Nash        18    2.0                           1                 1
28   31  C.Jones       16    2.0                                       2
29   27  B.Joyce       14    1.0                     1
30   --  D.Lyons       13    2.0                                          1  1
31   28  D.Foutz       12    1.0                           1
32   30  B.Hutchison   10    1.0                                 1
33   29  L.Meyerle      8    1.0                                       1
34   32  D.Orr          6    1.0                                             1
Dropped Out: none.
*won 2nd tie-breaker (# of ballots named on, 37-36.5). First tie-breaker was 20-20
(head-to-head on individual ballots)
^won tie-breaker, 7-5 (head-to-head on individual ballots)

Hall of Merit: Second Base vs. Third Base before 1920

I don’t think I buy into the studies that say that 2B made more plays than 3B and turned almost as many DPs as they do today as evidence that the position was equal to 3B in this time period, in terms of importance.

1B make more plays (in terms of putouts and assists) than anyone on the field. Does that make them more important? The fact that 2B made fewer DPs in the 19th Century is significant, because there were MANY more baserunners, due to all of the errors. As a % of men on 1B, DP are much lower than in post 1920 baseball. Also, while 2B might have (I’m going from memory) 4 or 5 plays per game compared to 2 or 3 for 3B, the 2 or 3 the 3B makes are MUCH more difficult, considering that there was much more speed in the game during this timeframe, and the throw was much longer and the ball was coming at them faster.

Finally, the most convincing evidence is that 2B clearly and easily outhit 3B before 1920 (at about the same level that 3B outhit 2B today). If the positions were defensively equal, managers would have let better hitters play 3B.

Hall of Merit: 1905 Ballot

Time to start voting . . .

Hall of Merit: Whitney, McCormick and Caruthers

The big peak pitchers—was it enough?

Hall of Merit: Stovey and Browning

The two best hitters of the AA, how much do we discount them?

I think the AA was kind of like the USFL. The USFL had Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker and a few other legit stars (although they were young), and some decent retreads like Brian Sipe, but it wasn’t anywhere near the NFL, yet it was a major league, better than what we’d call AAA and they had really good players. Look at the AFL in the early years, it took them quite awhile before they were able to be truly competitive with the NFL. Even to this day, the AFL squads have won just 10 of 36 Super Bowls (28%), despite making up 38% of the teams from before the merger (not counting TB’s win, which is the only one from a post-1970 expansion team). Almost all of the really big stars were in the NFL/NL. It’s an interesting debate.

Hall of Merit: Charlie Bennett

WS or WARP3? Whichever one you use will go a long way towards where he fits on your ballot.

Hall of Merit: Thompson, Tiernan and Griffin

Three of our top OFs, all with very similar accomplishments.