ow did he win all those games with an ERA+ of 113?

This is, of course, a helluva good question. Unfortunately, I'm going to be rather busy over the next several days (probably week), otherwise I'd look into comparing his total % of UER with that of his teams. Was he an anti-Rube Waddell in that he gave up far fewer unearned runs than one would expect given how many unearned runs his team had allowed? I dunno, but it would help explain it if that were the case (which of course doesn't mean it was the case).

I do know he was an overachiever in winning. IIRC, he won 14 more games than he should've given his level of run support? Luck? Pithing in a pinch? Sunpots? I dunno, but this is Welch's weak point.

"By contrast, my system holds that an average pitching and hitting team with replacement fielders would go 75-87."

I though Tango said that replacement level defense was average. So a team with average hitters and pitchers and replacement level fielders would finish .500.

Great work Dan. I only skimmed, but do you adjust for league quality? I assume not, with the high ranking of Pete Browning, for example.

"IIRC, he won 14 more games than he should've given his level of run support? Luck? Pithing in a pinch? Sunpots? I dunno, but this is Welch's weak point."

That sounds like a positive, not a weak point. I'm much more open to the pitching in a pinch idea pre-1920.

One thing Dan - XRuns are awful pre-1920, the don't work. Try running XRuns for teams from these years, your error is huge.

I would at least take the step of distributing the unaccounted for runs proportionally among teammates, though this could be a lot of work.

I think Bill James league specific runs created formulas (using the New RC way of combining A, B and C) will work better.

I've been fiddling with my offensive rating system. I've shown it to you before: RC from a Stats encyclopedia, turned into RCAA based on outs made and then equalized for run environment. Since it's using RC from a Stats handbook, it's using formulas that are different in different eras. The run environment adjustment I'd been using was a little overdone, and pushed the low-run environment players a little too far forward. I've found a way to fix that - it's basically the same thing that goes into the PythPat way of getting wins and losses from runs. I look at RC above average, RC above 75% of average, and an extra sliding scale bonus for being far above average in any year. Arbitrarily mashed together into one number, we get a system that mostly measures prime, although the "above 75%" is something of a career measurement. The numbers have no intrinsic meaning, although the scale is such that Babe Ruth is at 701, Ty Cobb at 577, and Gehrig, Wagner, Speaker, and Hornsby all above 400. The following list is of eligible or already elected candidates. There are modest league quality adjustments for the AA and the FL, but I am treating the NL and the AL as the same. Remember, this is offense only - nothing about position or defense. Comments follow in a second post.

247 (Crawford)
230 (Jackson)
192 (Magee)
188 (Flick)
166 (Kelley)
155 (Baker)
153 Chance
151 (Keeler)
146 Tiernan
138 Sheckard
138 Van Haltren
136 Duffy
132 (Thompson)
131 Ryan
128 Doyle
127 Thomas
126 Beckley
126 McGraw
126 Cravath
122 Browning
117 Hartsel
108 Konetchy
107 Donlin
104 F. Jones
104 Childs
101 Kauff
100 Evers
098 Bresnahan

Does a batting park factor of 120 mean that you should discount runs in that park by 20% or 10% (since teams only play half their games at home)

I think it depends on which park factors you use. I think -- but I'm not sure -- that the park factors from Total Baseball (which appear on baseball-reference.com) already take that into account and don't need to be further adjusted. The Hidden Game of Baseball and Total Baseball apply the factors "as is" (except when applying it to averages like OBA), which means the adjustment is either built in or they've totally overlooked the issue. Also, the Total Baseball park factors take into account that a team's hitters don't face its own pitchers and vice versa, which a simple ((RS_Home+RS_Home)/HomeGames)/((RS_Away+RA_Away)/Away Games) does not.

Baseball-reference.com uses the Total Baseball method, smoothed over three years.

Jeff M answered this correctly, but I just wanted to clarify that Total Baseball 8 also uses 3 year park factors. The TB8 calculation is rather complicated, but if anyone wants to see it, I have a spreadsheet that does the calculation for each team/year.

Comments:

Chance: As I said, this is mostly a system for measuring offensive prime. It doesn't reward career length all that much. Each time I have adjusted the system, Chance has remained the highest rated eligible player. The downside is that he only had 1200 games played - but he packed a lot of value into those 1200 games.

McGraw: See Chance. Again, this system seems not to care that he has so few games.

Tiernan: Kind of inconvenient, having a player long ago abandoned by the voters rank so high. I know, meager defensive value, short career. But ... hmm.

Sheckard, Van Haltren, Duffy, Ryan: My previous system was a little too friendly to low-run environments and had Sheckard ahead of this group. Now they're all right together. Van Haltren has the least peak of this group, Duffy the most, the others in between. They all have defensive value, either as CF or as good-fielding LF. I take all of them seriously.

Roy Thomas: OK, the system is very OBP-friendly. But Thomas has been on the fringes of my ballot and will be in my top 15 this year.

Beckley: No peak, you say - but he's above average offensively every year of his career except the last two. His "big years bonus" number is quite small, well below Van Haltren's and Van Haltren's is small. But looking ahead, it's better than either Harry Hooper or Sam Rice. Those are a couple of guys with no peak.

Doyle: His case exposes the differences between WARP3 users and WS users - or for that matter, WARP1. Doyle is on the wrong side of two massive adjustments in the WARP system. One is the very high value that WARP places on defense and the large penalty it assigns Doyle for allegedly substandard defense. The second iis the large league-quality penalty given to Doyle for being in the NL. I think both adjustments are overstated. I can see there being a little difference between leagues, but I have a hard time seing it as a night and day difference. As for the defense: try it this way. What if Doyle were a flank outfielder? Notice that most of the people I've got surrounding Doyle are outfielders. Does he hit enough to be elected on that basis? Well, maybe yes. So he's a C fielder - I refuse to see that as lower than an outfielder.

Evers: This system sees him as essentially identical on offense to Heine Groh. In fact, with Sam Rice on the menu, I couldn't resist doing Jim Rice - and Jim Rice only rates a 102. Like Chance and McGraw, not that many games played, but he could hit. I'd certainly take him ahead of Pratt (63).

Bresnahan: By far the highest ranked eligible catcher, although a very significant fraction of this offensive value was earned as an outfielder. To put his 98 in perspective, I have Schang at 82 and Cochrane at a mere 110.

Welch vs. rest of team - ER & ER%age
Welch vs. Keefe vs. rest of team - ER & UER

Year TRuns TER T%E  WelR WER  W%   T%w/oWelch
1880  438 224 51.1%  321 162 50.5%  53.0%
1881  429 254 59.2%  186 109 58.6%  59.7%
1882  522 259 49.6%  221 108 48.9%  50.2%
1883  577 282 48.9%  271 129 47.6%  50.0%
1884  623 351 56.3%  275 155 56.4%  56.3%
1885  370 189 51.1%  170  91 53.5%  49.0%
1886  558 337 60.4%  279 166 59.5%  61.3%
1887  723 441 61.0%  191 129 67.5%  58.6%
1888  479 263 54.9%  156  91 58.3%  53.3%
1889  708 443 62.6%  196 126 64.3%  61.9%
1890  698 400 57.3%  145  97 66.9%  54.5%
1891 1098 711 64.8%  136  76 55.9%  66.0%
1892  826 483          9   8 
total: 8049 4637 57.6% 2556 1447 56.6%  58.1%

Keefe while with Troy/NYG
1880  438 224 51.1%   27  10 37.0%  52.1%
1881  429 254 59.2%  243 145 59.7%  58.6%
1882  522 259 49.6%  221 104 47.1%  51.5%
1885  370 189 51.1%  154  70 45.5%  55.1%
1886  558 337 60.4%  250 152 60.8%  60.1%
1887  723 441 61.0%  260 165 63.5%  59.6%
1888  479 263 54.9%  140  84 60.0%  52.8%
1889  708 443 62.6%  212 134 63.2%  62.3%
1891 1098 711 64.8%   57  32 56.1%  65.2%
total: 5325 3121 58.6% 1564 896 57.3%  59.2%

Well that was somewhat unexpected. Both players while on the same team gave up a higher rate of unearned runs than the other pitchers on the team. It does look like Keefe had the jitters in his rookie year if someone made an error though.
I expected Welch to have a slightly higher rate just because he walked more batters. I figured with more walks come more pitches, more pitches leads to fielders sitting back on their heals, and probably more errors. But, I don't have access to any boxscores to justify that guess.
As for Keefe, I don't know. While he was on the Giants, he led the league 5 times in fewest h/9 and was in the top 10 in WHIP 7 of his 8 full seasons. Still, he gave up a good number of unearned runs.
And from Chris J's website, we find that Keefe benefitted from some of the best defensive support of all time - 12th among all pitchers at 15.1 positive Defensive WinShares. Welch is down at 72nd with 5.4 DWS. I guess Keefe was really helped by his defense in 1883, 84, 90, 91-93.
I am not sure what to make of all this, but I thought people (ok Chris J.) would want to see it.
If any numbers are wrong, it's my fault, I wrote them down wrong from BBRef.

I was too tired to do the rest of Keefe's career. Someone else can or might do it tomorrow. But the more numbers we do, the more it seems like Keefe and Welch were the same guy while they were on the same team.
Oh, and while Keefe led the league 5 times while on the Giants in fewest h/9 and in the top 10 7 times, Welch was in the top 10 6 yrs while he and Keefe pitched together.
And while Keefe was in the top 10 WHIP 7 of 8 full seasons, Welch was top 10 6 of the 8 full seasons they pitche together.
In ERA+, Keefe 7 top 10s in the 8 yrs and Welch 5 in 8 yrs. There were 3 years where they were both in the top 6 - 85, 88, and 89.

Joe Dimino--when I fix up the spreadsheets a little bit more and post them to the Yahoo group, they will have arbitrary AA and FL discounts that are easily tweakable to taste. I'd be very happy to use a better deadball run estimator--can you link me or send me the methodology?

And I can do Keefe in the next few days, certainly.

When does the 1930 ballot come up?

I just wanted to clarify that Total Baseball 8 also uses 3 year park factors.

Thanks. My edition of TB is from 1987!!

Hmm. I don't think my emails to Joe are going through. For the record:

Players Passing Away in 1929

HoMers
Age Elected
44 1926 Sherry Magee-LF
58 1928 Joe McGinnity-P

Candidates
Age Eligible
75 1892 Jack Manning-RF
66 1899 Mark Baldwin-P
65 1904 Walt Wilmot-LF
64 1904 Billy Nash-3B
62 1903 Denny Lyons-3B
61 1900 Elton “Icebox” Chamberlain-P
50 1922 Miller Huggins-2B/Mgr

Hard to believe Huggins was only 50 when he died. When I was 10 and would look at the b&w photos of the Yankees from the 20s, I used to think Huggins was about 80 years old. Of course, I also thought my mom was ancient, and she was about 30.

Each year since 1982 I have tried to pick a few players from each league to root for during the All-Star game. It keeps the game interesting because one of the players is usually a late-inning replacement. I like rooting for the obscure player, the only representative of a team that probably shouldn't otherwise have any reps. Generally, the guy is younger, and often can go on to a productive career. (A rookie named John Smoltz was on my 1989 list)

To keep the list short, I have certain criteria:

1. The player must be his team's only representative. (It makes it hard to root for a Yankee, or generally a Brave - but not this year Johnny Estrada, or in 1991, when Scott Sanderson made my list. Sorry Danny Kolb, Ben Sheets ruined it for you this year.)

2. It must be the player's first All-Star Game (so Ruppert Jones was available in 1977, but not in 1982, although I really wanted to pick him that year. Gary Ward in 1985 also missed the cut, although he was there in '82. Last year, Mike Williams would have made the list, but he was a 2-time All-Star, having represented the Pirates the year before.)

3. The player cannot be a starter. (That seems obvious, but remember that injuries can make obscure starters, like Ray Lankford in 1997 or Ken Reitz in 1980.)


That's about it. So, who makes the cut this year?

American League:

Carl Crawford, TB - He may be ineligible in later years. Usually a Devil Ray is on my rooting list.

Joe Nathan, Minn - He might have the stats to justify his selection, but he's got no teammates in Houston, has never been selected, and will not start.

Ted Lilly, Tor - Joe Torre's attempt to get one more lefty (instead of Roy Halladay) gives me another rooting interest.

Ken Harvey, KC - Thank you Carlos Beltran. He could be the obscure man of this All-Star game, the guy that makes you scratch your head later saying, "He was an All-Star?" Kind of like Rocky Bridges, Sandy Alomar, Sr., or Dan Petry.

National League

Livan Hernandez, Mon - Livan is the opposite. I was sure he had played in an All-Star game before. Nope, he qualifies.

Johnny Estrada, Atl - He deserves to be here, but no other Brave really does, so go Johnny!

Jack Wilson, Pitt - Another deserving player on a bad team.

Mark Loretta, SD - I think he might be the NL version of Ken Harvey. Then again, I could be wrong.

Dan,
Can you run your numbers on Tony Mullane, Silver King, Guy Hecker, Jack Stivetts, Dave Foutz, and Will White? I'd be interested to see how the other AA pitchers and P/Hitter combinations come out in your system.

I know I should be working on something important, but Ron's criteria for an interesting All-Star got me thinking about how many All-Star games were held in which Ron would have found no one to root for (had he been around for all of them...which maybe he was, I don't know).

Because Ron mentioned he had been using his system since 1982, I only looked at pre-1982 games.

There were 17 games (out of 52) in which no player (who actually played) met Ron's criteria on the National League team. There were 23 games in which no player (who actually played) met Ron's criteria on the American League team.

However, there were only 7 games in which there were no RonStars: 1934, 1947, 1951, 1955, 1959 (game 2), 1960 (game 2) and 1962 (game 2).

As Ron pointed out, this system definitely identifies obscure players. It is not an illustrious list. There are some All-Stars I have never heard of. Lou Fette? Al Javery? Mace Brown? Lew Riggs? Pinky May? Bob Dillinger? Don Schwall?

There were 99 players he could have rooted for in those 52 games. Of those players, 50 were making their only All-Star appearance.

There are very few genuine-to-near HoMers who were RonStars, and only one before 1966 (unless you count Grove in the very first all-star game, when everyone was a first-timer): Appling in 1946. Seaver in 1967. Sutton in 1972. Gary Carter in 1975. Winfield in 1977. Dale Murphy, Rickey Henderson and Dave Stieb in 1980. Other good players: Ferris Fain, Jackie Jensen, Harvey Kuenn, Frank Thomas (1954), Roy Sievers, Norm Siebern, Amos Otis, Buddy Bell, Frank Tanana.

More useless trivia: Three guys on the RonStars with the same last name: Pinky May (1940), Carlos May (1969) and Dave May (1973).

There are some All-Stars I have never heard of. Lou Fette? Al Javery? Mace Brown? Lew Riggs? Pinky May? Bob Dillinger? Don Schwall?

Mace Brown is easily the most famous of this group. Besides being a pioneer relief specialist, he also gave up the "Homer in the Gloamin'" to Gabby Hartnett in '38.

Jim Sp--yes, I don't know how soon I can have all of them but I'll try to get some done soon.

Mace Brown is easily the most famous of this group. Besides being a pioneer relief specialist, he also gave up the "Homer in the Gloamin'" to Gabby Hartnett in '38.

I didn't know that. But he was no Al Javery. Javery made 2(!) All-Star teams.

I didn't know that. But he was no Al Javery. Javery made 2(!) All-Star teams.

Well, I see your Al Javery and raise you a Red Munger. That's 3-time All-Star Red Munger.

:-)

That's 3-time All-Star Red Munger.

Which equals Robin Yount's record.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-kay...

Jeff, I think it's relevant that your list of non-RonStar years ends in 1962. When your league has 8 teams, it's likely that nearly every team will have multiple representatives.

As we creep up to 16 teams per league, not so much.

I was 10 in 1982, so nothing before then. In 1982, we had the world famous double All-Star Mark Clear. Other obscure dual All-Stars include Julian Javier, Dave LaRoche and Scott Cooper.

Jeff, I think it's relevant that your list of non-RonStar years ends in 1962. When your league has 8 teams, it's likely that nearly every team will have multiple representatives.

You are certainly right about that. Curious that it was centered from 1947-1962, though. I thought there would be more in the 30s and 40s. When did the rule come into play that each team had to have at least one all-star?

Also, it is worth noting that there were several years after 1962 in which one of the teams didn't have a RonStar. I don't have the data with me, but as I recall the most recent year of no RonStars on the NL team was 1978, but the AL had several RonStars so 1978 didn't make the list. As I recall, the most recent year of no RonStars in the AL was 1972, but the NL had a RonStar so 1972 didn't make the list either.

In advocacy of Charley Jones, who will be my new cause celebre once the (I think) no-brainer Parisian Bob gets in:
If one discounts the 1883 AA at 15% and the 1884 AA at 10%, and credits him at about 80% of his lackluster 1883 for each of his two unfair blacklist years, Jones ranks first among all eligible players in season length-adjusted Baseball Prospectus WARP1, and third in five-year peak (behind Caruthers and Jennings). If one gives no credit for blacklist years, he ties Beckley in career for fourth (behind the Ryan/Sheckard/Van Haltren trio). Why do people say Beckley had so much more career than Charley? He played in longer seasons. That's not Charley's fault.
Using the same AA discount, he is fifth in five-year-peak season-length adjusted Win Shares, but obviously no one can compete with the 1880's pitchers in WS (Caruthers and Welch), so he is third in peak WS behind Griffith and Jennings.
Where is the love for Charley?

Where is the love for Charley?

It's diminished by level of competition adjustments. As I calculate value, which includes competition for two-league situations, the NA, and pre-NA base (that is the game they were playing), Charley Jones ranks 12th behind --

Welch, Sheckard, Pearce, Pike, Van Haltren, Duffy, Griffith, Jennings, Ryan, Leach, R. Foster, Caruthers.

He won't make my ballot, however, because he ranks 18th among all players whose had most of their value in the 1880s, an expansion period in which there were few southern players and no black players.

Players who rank as well or better within their period, against better competition and/or within a deeper comparison pool (Negro-leaguers generally faced worse actual competition, but they are ranked against all of their white contemporaries, who are also must face them in the rankings) include -- Long, Childs, Bresnahan, Monroe, Poles, and Doyle. All of these players rank below Charley Jones in absolute contextual value, but their ranking within their period shows that, because levels of competition were better, the top players were less able to dominate their competition.

Charley Jones was an excellent player, but to rank him purely on WARP1's evaluation is not fair to post-1890 players.

ah, i guess i just don't really know how to timeline...or whether it's the right thing to do.

A random thought: man, those 1879 Providence Grays were g00000d. Ward tossing all the innings, career years from Jim O'Rourke and Paul Hines, George Wright's last great year, strong seasons from Joe Start and Tom York...man.

Also, I think I'm going to start referring to the OF glut as the 1889 Chicago White Stockings outfield: Duffy, Van Haltren, Ryan. Another unelected ballot mainstay, Ned Williamson, played short for 47 games.

Trying again in the correct thread. . .

I think if you look at Charley Jones's career arc, you'll see that his peak was really 1877-1879 -- his shorter seasons -- and that by 1880 he was 30 and on his serious downswing.


Consider this list of eligible players with an OPS+ over 140 and between 4000 and 7500 career PAs. (More than 7500 on this list is a first-ballot HoMers, less than 4000 we have not been considering seriously -- e.g., Dave Orr and George Stone.)

Name (Bold in HOM)OPS PAs
Joe Jackson......170.....5690
Harry Stovey.....143.....6832
Sam Thompson.146.....6502
Elmer Flick........149.....6414
Pete Browning....162.....5315
Tip O'Neill...........142.....4720
Gavy Cravath.....150.....4645
Mike Donlin........144.....4282
Bill Joyce...........144.....4149
Charley Jones....149.....4009

The early AA years give Jones the illusion of a double or extended peak, you'll see that his in his "real" peak he was 2nd or 3rd in OPS+ between such HoMers as P.Hines, D.White, and K.Kelly. Meanwhile, in 1883-1885, he was ranking 5th or 7th in OPS+ behind such non-HoMers as Swartwood, Browning, and Orr.

I understand the desire to extrapolate Jones's two missing seasons, but even doing so, his career doesn't match Browning's, and it just barely matches Gavy Cravath's career if you chose not to extrapolate time that Cravath was actually playing baseball.

Cravath and Browning will continue to make my ballot, and Charley Jones will not. I could see moving him above Tip O'Neill, but not much higher.

When you adjust for season length, Jones had a major league career that was significantly shorter than only Stovey's from the list above. If you give him credit for full-time play during the blacklisted years he would in fact have the second longest season-length and games-missed adjusted career of the players on the list (including Tiernan who should have been included).

Plus Browning and Tiernan (the best unelected hitters from above) were butchers in the field, while Jones was always fair and downright good at the beginning of his career.

I've got the list as follows: Clear HoMers: (1) Jackson; (2) Flick; Strong candidates: (3) Stovey; (4) Jones; (5) Thompson; Decent candidates: (6) Browning; (7) Tiernan; (8) Cravath; Not worthy: the rest.

My intent was certainly not to exclude Tiernan, but I'm not sure why Tiernan "should have" been included. His OPS+ was 138, and my cutoff was 140.

I don't mind adjusting seasons or filling in, but you have to do it across the board. The only way Jones tops Cravath is if you fill in the career of the former, but not the latter.

RonStar update (Thanks JeffM for giving my enjoyment a name!)

Livan Hernandez, Mon - DNP.
Johnny Estrada, Atl - 0-2, 1K.
Jack Wilson, Pitt - 0-2, Fielding DP with fellow RonStar Mark Loretta.
Mark Loretta, SD - 1-2, Fielding DP, NL RonStar of the Game

Ken Harvey, KC - 0-1, 1K.
Carl Crawford, TB - 0-2, 1K.
Ted Lilly, Tor - 1IP, 2H, 1K, 0R.
Joe Nathan, Minn - 1IP, 0H, 2K, 0R, AL RonStar of the Game. Overall RonStar of the Game.

RonStar update

As long as it's not Ronco. If my hair ever starts to fall out, I'm still not using that spray paint on my scalp! :-)

If my hair ever starts to fall out, I'm still not using that spray paint on my scalp!

Even if your hair doesn't fall out, Ronco still has a product you need. If you have hair, you need haircuts, which means you need the Flobee (also known as the vacuum cleaner with scissors). If only Pete Rose had this available, he would have purchased fewer bowls.

Responding here instead of in the ballot thread. . .

Lip Pike (1)-- ...much better in the NA than Start, not as good before.

Guess it depends on how you are measuring. In WARP, Pike wins on all the peak measures but loses on career to Start. In WS, Pike loses on every measure to Start.


Well, Start's career lasted long after the NA was over, Pike's didn't, which is why he has the career edge in WARP. As for WS, what are you using for NA Win Shares that has Start ahead of Pike?


Dropping him in the rankings because he wasn't the best player on his team in the three seasons you happen to look at strikes me as the height of absurdity, BTW.

I assume this was aimed at my comments. If so, it is contrary to everything I've posted on this issue. I looked at every season Pike played to reach the conclusion you suggest. Take a look at David Foss' numbers. Pike was often not even the third best player on his team.

Pike was excellent in 1871 and top of the league in 1875 and 1876. Otherwise, I think he was just a very good, but not great, hitter (and a poor defender by all accounts). He was fast and has a memorable name, but I don't see any evidence that he was a top echelon star. I'm not entirely convinced he was better than Tom York.

Honestly, I don't recall who it's a response to. I do recall discussing Pike's NA years a few elections ago with someone who didn't actually look at all the NA seasons in question (just 1871-1873 IIRC). When I looked at those same seasons in that same thread, I came to the opposite conclusion: that Pike was consistently one of the best players on his team. That's what my comment was in reference to.

Regardless, I fail to see how it's particularly relevant. Who cares how good a player's teammates are?

Tom York: OPS+ 119
Lip Pike: OPS+ 155

Granted, York played a couple years longer, but still, he had one season OPS+ better than Pike's career average.

Who cares how good a player's teammates are?

Lots of people, when evaluating whether a particular player is worthy of enshrinement. A player who isn't the best (or second best or third best) on his team is not the best player in the league and probably, but not always, isn't one of the top players in the game. It is even more true when an outfielder isn't the best outfielder on his team.

Most people believe that truly great players -- those worthy of enshrinement -- ought to be dominant in one or more phases of the game for some sustained period of time. Some of that group, including me, believes it's hard to be a dominant player overall if the player isn't the best player on his team. That isn't always true, but it certainly is a factor.

A player might be the best player on his team due to hitting or fielding, or hopefully both, but IMO he ought to be right up there at the top. If a player is the third or fourth best hitter on the team, the second best outfielder on the team, and a poor defender, that doesn't say much for dominance. If you are a poor second baseman (defensively) and the third or fourth best hitter on the team, that also doesn't say much for dominance.

I don't have The Politics of Glory with me at work (surprise!) -- actually, I don't even know where it is at home -- but anyway, my recollection is that one of the Keltner questions is whether a player was the best player on his team.

It's just a factor to consider; not the only consideration.

And it is the same rationale that leads to not voting for an MVP from a losing team.
The qualiity of a player's teammates has very little to do with his own merit. If Player X has 30 win shares in 2005, that will be a great, MVP caliber season, regardless of if one of his teammates has a 31 win share season or if none of his teammates manage 10 win shares.
Besides, I still don't know why you think his record versus his teammates is poor: he was the best player on his team in 1871, 1874, 75, 76; he was consistenly the best power hitter on his teams.
In 1873, when Pike was not the best hitter on his team (Cal Mcvey and Davy Force and Everett Mills all had MVP caliber seasons) he still managed to lead the team in total bases and stole bases.
In 1872, when Pike was not the best hitter on his team (Force was having his best, 190 OPS+, season. George Hall also had an all-star quality season), he still lead the team in RBI, total bases, extra base hits, stolen bases, and times on base.
Pike's 1877 was worse than Charly Jones's, it was also Jones's second best season. He was also worse than Jack Manning's best season (151 OPS+). He still lead the team in total bases and times on base.
Pike was in Cincinnati for the first half of 1878. He was the second best hitter on the team behind Charley Jones (158 OPS+ vs. 144 for Pike). After that season, his career was essentially finished.
I don't understand how you can look at this record and see it is an indication that he was not a great player.
As for the grey ink. . .
Top ten in SLG every year from 1871-1877
Top ten in OPS 1871, 1874-1877
Top seven in total bases every year from 1871-1877 except 74.
Top 3 in OPS+ in 1871, 1874, 75 and 76, 8th in 77.
Top 7 in extra base hit every year from 1871-1877.

He was the most dominant power hitter of his time, consistently the best, or among the best players on his team and in his league.

I'm having trouble coming up with a player for the 2nd spot for my pHoM this year I have it down to Magee, Flick, Beaumont, Childs, or Buffinton I would greatly appreciate if some voters could tell me who they would chose and why.

Yep. That's a pretty good six years.

yest:

Go with the guy who dominated his position during the nineties in a one-league era during a very tough time for infielders. You can't go wrong with him. :-)

Yep. That's a pretty good six years.

And the 5 years before that were much the same.

Yest:

At the risk of busting copyrights,

PICK FLICK!!!

PICK FLICK!!!

If Max means Reese Witherspoon, I concur. If he means Elmer, go with Childs. :-)

For all of the wrong reasons, Joe Jackson is the youngest HoMer (turning 41 in 1930). So, who will be the first HoMer elected who was born after Joe Jackson?

My prediction is Cristobal Torriente, sometime around 1937 (assuming that I have the right birthdate for him). Among major leaguers, we might have to wait until the 1941 election and Babe Ruth.

Among major leaguers, we might have to wait until the 1941 election and Babe Ruth.

Might. Roush, Sisler or Heilmann might sneak in before 1941. Not that they are slam-dunks... but between the three of them, one of them might.

Picked up that Alan Schwarz "Numbers Game" book about the history of statistics in baseball.

Chapter One has some interesting pre-NA stuff in it. An 1858 Bro-NY all-star box (different game from the one in Early Innings), an 1861 Atlantic-Eckford box with Pearce/CSmith batting 1-2 for the Atlantics (although MWright has this game dated 10/29/60) and a much more complete summation of the statistics of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. George Wright bats .629/.632/1.271/1.903 -- though this includes games the games against the amateur teams as well as pro teams.

Nothing really to help us in our balloting directly, but interesting anecdotal information about Chadwick et al.

Starting with Chapter 2, the book moves at a more brisk pace... covering Rickey/LIFE article by the end of Chapter 3.

George Wright bats .629/.632/1.271/1.903 -- though this includes games the games against the amateur teams as well as pro teams.

Some guys just don't know how to take a walk!

I've decided I really don't like BP's FRAA--it seems way too variable from season to season, and too extreme. (I simply don't believe that a team that was average in every respect except for 1879 Charley Jones' fielding would go 86-76, or with 1881 Jim O'Rourke's glove of steel would go 77-85). Does anyone have access to a table of positional average Win Shares by year? If I knew that, say, an average left fielder in 1879 accumulated 1.9 Win Shares per 85 games (full season), and Jones accumulated 3.8, then I could simply add (3.8-1.9) = 1.9/3 = .63*(162/85) = 1.2 wins to Jones' WARP (including his fielding runs above replacement, but not average).

Some guys just don't know how to take a walk!


:-)

Different rules. GWright was so much better than his other teammates that the walk might have been a smart play much of the time. The intentional (or semi-intentional) walk might not have been possible at the time.

I'll consider voting for Andrew Foster when someone gives a coherent explanation why they have Foster ranked as one of the 5 to 7 best pre-1947 black pitchers. Right now I don't see it.

I'll try to come back for a more detailed case for Foster next discussion thread, but I'll start by saying personally I think it's a pretty big mistake to compare him to pitchers not yet on the ballot, and in most cases a long way from being on the ballot. You should be comparing him to all of the players/pitchers who are on the ballot now.

Michael, I understand the difficulties with comparing Foster to pitchers from the 1930s. But my problem is that the task of contemporary comparison is so difficult, AND it would seem liek we ought to have some reasonbale upper limit of blackball pitchers we're going to honor.

One source of best black pithcers is the NBJHA, which lists Foster as the best NL pitcher for 3 years (1904-06). However, it also lists Danny McClellan for 3, Walter Ball for 3, Dick Redding for 3, and Harry Buckner for 4. Not exactly a resounding call to elect Rube, is it?

It may be difficult, but I think that's what we are called on to do.

If we're comparing everyone on the ballot to those who will become eligible over the next 20 seasons, there isn't anyone who would look worthy of a vote for 1931, because we're so deep into the backlog. So I don't think it's fair to do that for Foster (or pick your NLer) when we're not doing it for anyone else.

Second post in a row...sorry about that.

Didn't mean to ignore the second half of your question. But I think it's safe to say we're pretty well off the NBJHA reservation, given that Grant and Johnson were more or less off his radar (I don't think the latter was even mentioned in his book), while he was rather unenthusiastic for Hill, and certainly would have elected Poles already.

Even taking it on face value, my understanding is that Foster was the best pitcher more like 5-6 years from 1903-1908. Moreover, one has to distinguish between "Best Pitcher" designations where the winner is just slightly ahead of the pack (think, Eric Gagne 2003) and the ones where the winner has blown away the pack (think Pedro's easy wins).

Now, if someone is to present evidence that the guys you mentioned dominated like Foster did at his height, then I'd be willing to reconsider my stance on him. But I suspect strongly that if they'd been anywhere near as good at their peak as Foster was at his, we'd already be discussing their candidacies.

One source of best black pithcers is the NBJHA, which lists Foster as the best NL pitcher for 3 years (1904-06). However, it also lists Danny McClellan for 3, Walter Ball for 3, Dick Redding for 3, and Harry Buckner for 4. Not exactly a resounding call to elect Rube, is it?

Some other notables from the NBJHA:

Walter Johnson- 4
Pete Alexander- 3
Satchel Paige- 1

I just glanced at the book quickly before leaving work, so I may have missed it, but I do believe Smokey Joe Williams never was named best pitcher by James.

1914 to 1916 is listed as "Smokey Joe Williams or John Donaldson"

And you're right, Satchell's only listed as the best pitcher once. Later in the chapter, James then argues that Paige deserves consideration in the discussion as the best pitcher ever.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking James half-assed the year-by-year "Best Pitchers" list (as he did many other things in the book). Either that or he has one hell of a bizarre argument for Paige being the greatest ever when he was only the greatest in the Negro Leagues once.

Some other notables from the NBJHA:
Walter Johnson- 4
Pete Alexander- 3
Satchel Paige- 1

Considering Walter had to compete with Pete every year, that ain't that bad. Kinda like Mickey and Willie.
And of course, they had a larger set to compete against (all of MLB) than Foster did.

Paige, I suppose, is like Spahn or Cy Young: often among the best, for 25 years. Never quite Pedro or Lefty Grove.

Is there a consensus that Foster was much better than Mendez?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking James half-assed the year-by-year "Best Pitchers" list (as he did many other things in the book). Either that or he has one hell of a bizarre argument for Paige being the greatest ever when he was only the greatest in the Negro Leagues once.

I would say that James "half-assed" most of the pre-1920 Negro League stuff in NBJHBA. For example, Riley's encyclopedia says that the four best 1900-1910 black pitchers were Foster, McClellan, Ball, and Buckner, so each one gets a three-year chunk from James. Foster's years as best pitcher line up, more or less, with his actual peak (which is well known), but his dates for McClellan, Ball, and Buckner don't fit their careers quite so well.

James's treatment of Paige, however, is fairly close to John Holway's. Holway has Paige as best pitcher in the Negro Leagues only once also. James says 1936; Holway says 1934. I suspect that Paige is not listed as best pitcher for more than a season or two by both historians because he did a lot of pitching outside the organized negro leagues during his prime. He was pitching in North Dakota, or in a Colorado tournament, or in Santa Domingo, or barnstorming wherever, during much of the 1930s. Holway's designations are explicitly for negro-league play. James's are not so designated, but I suspect he was relying heavily on available stats for the negro leagues in making his rankings for this era.

I'd guess that Paige could have had an argument as 'best pitcher' almost every year. Just looking at 1928:

Willie Powell 144 innings, 10-6, 2.50 Runs/G
Satchel Paige, 126 innings, 11-4, 2.93 Runs/G
Laymon Yokely, 208 innings, 16-6, 3.15 Runs/G
Ted Trent, 205 innings, 20-4, 3.16 Runs/G
Daltie Cooper, 135 innings, 10-5, 3.26 Runs/G
Willie Foster, 230 innings, 15-10, 3.60 Runs/G

Hard to say who the "best" really was...

Is this still open?

OK the period before these things close is more than 10 days, but it's less than 1 month because Mendez (last post 7/02) was shut yesterday, 7/28

Karl, I don't understand about Mendez being shut. It looked open in the 'engine' and I was able to post to it fine.

I don't think even my superpowers would allow that if it were closed.

What type of error were you getting?

Joe, I think your superpowers are more potent than you think -- you can open threads that are closed for mere mortals (Mendez just refused to accept my new post, which disappeared.) The publishing system at my office works the same way -- surprising new capabilities open up as you get promoted.

surprising new capabilities open up as you get promoted.

I heard he doesn't have to use the public bathroom like the rest of us... he gets to use the "Gentleman's Lounge".