I have a feeling Chino is going to be the "John McGraw" candidate for the Negro Leagues - Probably led the league on OBP most years, but a relatively short career...

I don't know about the "John McGraw." I would rank him higher than that. Chino was MVP twice in his short career, McGraw was never that. I see Chino as more like Dobie Moore, for obvious reasons, which means like Hughie Jennings, except he was an OF. So maybe more of a Ross Youngs, only better.

But in the end, even a peak voter like me has Dobie Moore at around #25. Dobie only won 1 MVP, but was an All-Star 6 times to Chino's twice, and Dobie played SS. So Chino is clearly below Dobie, which means below Hughie and well, maybe down there with McGraw after all. I don't have McGraw in my top 50 and in fact not even on the waiting list for top 50. Chino might be top 50 and it is right that his named should be remembered and bandied about. What an awesome hitter--best other than Josh Gibson according to one report.

But not a ballot contender until after we've elected Dobie Moore.

According to the Baltimore Afro-American, Smith's 1927 stats were:

G-34
AB-114
H-50
R-26
Ave-.439

What are Smith's i9's? Right now he is between Poles and Hooper on my ballot (about 42 or so).

No i9s for Smith. Their project hasn't gotten to him yet.

Just can't see him as a ballot candidate for me. Moore is just off my ballot, and I think I'd definately take him over Smith.

Just can't see him as a ballot candidate for me. Moore is just off my ballot, and I think I'd definately take him over Smith.

I have to agree with that.

Stats I could find on Chino Smith:

1924 Phil Giants No stats (Played 2B?)
1925 Brooklyn Royal Giants (Played 2B/SS)
Ave - .341
1926 Brooklyn Royal Giants
Ave - .326
1926 Cuba Winter League
Ave - .348
1927 Brooklyn Royal Giants
G-34
AB-114
H-50
HR-11 (Led League)
R-26
Ave - .439 (Led League)
1928 Brooklyn Royal Giants (played 2B)
G-9
AB-36
H-13
D-2
T-2
HR-1
R-9
BB-0
HBP-1
Ave-.361
OBP-.378
SLG-.611

FIELDING 2B
G-9
Def Innings - 76
PO-18
A-20
E-2
DP-2
PCT-.950

1929 Lincoln Giants
G-67
AB-255
H-118
2B-28
HR-24 (Led League)

1930 Lincoln Giants (Played RF?)
Ave - .492, .488 or .429 (Led League)

One strang fact - In all the boxscores I could find from 1925-1930, Smith ALWAYS batted 3rd. I have yet to find any games where he batted anywhere except 3rd...

Missed 1929 AVE = .463 (Led League)

In all the boxscores I could find from 1925-1930 ...

KJOK, or anyone else who might know, is there any evidence in those boxscores that he ever walked?

In Riley's Encyclopedia it says "he had a good eye at the plate and rarely struck out." Later on it also says "he hit everything thrown to him" which, combined with no BB in 36 ABs in 1928 doesn't make me think he put up Bondsian OBPs. If I knew he was getting on base 50% of the time, even in such limited samples, I would give him serious consideration for my ballot.

Not that it's going to change anybody's rankings, but I thought the first sentence in Riley's entry on Chino is notable:

"This compact dynamo who, according to Satchel Paige, was one of the two greatest hitters in the Negro Leagues, was a scrapper, arousing the fans and intimidating pitchers as he shot through the world of black baseball like a meteor, with a career as brief as it was bright."

I haven't found any walks for Chino, but without play by play walks are hard to find in most Afro-American boxscores which are like this:

Name R H PO A
Smith 1 2 4 1
...
Jones 0 0 5 3
TOT 4 8 27 9

then at the bottom of the boxscores
Base on Balls - Off Redding, 3, Off Mendez 2...

without any indiciation which batters walked. So, without AB info or specific batters walked, it's usually impossible to tell....

In the one year we have "good" data, 1928, in the Eastern League, there were 778 Walks in 2,725 innings, so not many batters (not just Chino) were up there drawing a lot of walks...

I have always wondered...

The Negro Leagues seems like a very low walk enviroment. Should we give their players a little boost in walks because of this, much like we would give say, Willie Davis, a boost in home runs?

Good Question.
1928:


Doesn't look like a lot of difference between MLB and Negro Leagues in 1928...

Lost my headers - they are AB and BB...

I don't know, 9.3% and 7.1% seem like a big difference. Isnt' that like 20 points of OBP or so?

Of course I also have no clue about historical norms so I really dont' have a point of reference.

It's very roughly about .013 points of OBP, which is a little more than I was thinking, but stil wouldn't call it a BIG difference....

I would call it a huge difference. That's 31% more walks in MLB than NLB. That's pretty big.

AVG MLB 650 PA - 60 BB
AVG NLB 650 PA - 46 BB

That's 22 or so points of OBP, which is a pretty huge difference. It's bigger than the difference between the historical norm of say 1965 vs. 1982, for example.

That's 31% more walks in MLB than NLB. That's pretty big.

You're selecting a non-representative sample.

Take a look at 1933, 1934, 1949, 1935, 1936, 1932, 1938, 1916 & 1915. In all those years, the AL had a higher difference of walk rate vs. the NL than we're talking about here.

It is significant, but HUGE seems a little extreme.

Answer to Sunnyday2
Chino Smith enjoyed a 6 year career in the Negro leagues, hitting a torrid .405.
He also played 5 years in the strong Cuban Winter League, against the best Negro league talent, the cream of Cuba, and major league players like Charlie Dressen, Eddie Brown, Jakie May, and Jess Petty, batting .335
In my books, 'Baseball's Other All-Stars' and 'King Of Swat', I developed formulas for converting a player's statistics from the Negro leagues, Cuba, or Japan, to their major league equivalent. The Japanese stats, which were developed in 2000, have since been confirmed by the experience of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and others.
Based on his NL and CWL stats, Chino Smith could have been expected to hit about .349 in the major leagues with 39 doubles, 12 triples, and 20 home runs a year.

Columbia, SC's newspaper, The State, ran a long article about him last weekend. I never really took note of him until I saw the article, but this thread has some impressive numbers. Do we have updated numbers from the Hall of Fame project for him? Might we need some MLE's?

The HOFs pdf did not include Smith, but it did include league averages. On the other hand, this was before I was doing them, so Chris might be the man to ask here.

I'm a newcomer here, so I'm going to read all the Negro Leagues threads before I start giving a bunch of opinions. But I just want to emphasize, in this instance, that this is the player with *the highest lifetime BA of any player in any legitimate major league, ever*. No matter how you crunch his numbers, it's going to be hard to stare that one down.

As to brief careers, I must say there are a whole lot of conflicting theories out there. Bill James, for instance, feels that no one should be penalized for missing years spent in the military during WWII. OK, so we're conflating patriotic sentimentality with career value here. I'm not saying that isn't a legitimate opinion, I'm just pointing out how weird this discussion can get.

One point I would add is this: it might be useful to differentiate between voluntary acts of self-destruction shortening a career (Hack Wilson) and players who (I am quite confident of this) had absolutely no desire to get sick and die at age 30.

Among shortened NEL careers, I see Chino and Dobie Moore as roughly comparable. Moore's career was slightly longer, and he played a significant role on defense. But, as wonderful a hitter as he was, I would put him somewhere between 15th and 20th on the NEL list on offense. Smith, on the other hand, has to be right up there with Gibson, Charleston and Jud Wilson for peak value. That's really a consensus opinion among researchers.