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Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Monday, April 18, 2005
1949 Ballot Results: Pitchers Rule This Year With the Election of Hubbell and Lyons!
In his first year of eligibility, New York Giants legend Carl Hubbell received almost 96% of the possible points to win the first spot for election to the Hall of Merit.
White Sox star Ted Lyons garnered enough votes to win the second spot in only his second year as a candidate.
Rounding out the top-ten were: Mule Suttles, John Beckwith, Eppa Rixey, Wes Ferrell, Earl Averill, Clark Griffith, Biz Mackey, and George Sisler.
RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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1 n/e Carl Hubbell 1171 51 39 7 3 1 1
2 3 Ted Lyons 818 47 1 14 8 4 3 3 4 2 4 1 2 1
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3 4 Mule Suttles 751 47 3 8 8 2 1 7 2 4 3 1 2 3 1 2
4 5 John Beckwith 649 43 2 5 4 10 2 1 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 2
5 6 Eppa Rixey 388 31 2 2 2 3 3 3 6 3 3 1 1 2
6 7 Wes Ferrell 358 29 1 4 2 3 4 1 1 4 1 3 2 3
7 8 Earl Averill 358 28 1 2 1 2 4 2 2 1 5 3 1 2 2
8 10 Clark Griffith 336 26 1 1 4 4 1 1 3 4 1 1 3 2
9 n/e Biz Mackey 329 33 4 1 2 3 1 1 2 4 5 4 6
10 9 George Sisler 303 24 1 3 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 4 2 1 1
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11 11 Hughie Jennings 303 20 5 1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 1
12 17 Cool Papa Bell 290 25 1 2 3 1 1 3 2 1 2 3 3 3
13 12 Jake Beckley 285 22 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 5
14 14 Joe Sewell 246 18 4 2 2 2 2 3 1 2
15 13 George Van Haltren 233 18 1 1 4 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 1
16 18 Edd Roush 229 19 1 1 1 1 3 2 3 2 1 1 2 1
17 15 Hugh Duffy 225 17 1 4 2 2 2 1 2 3
18 16 Mickey Welch 198 12 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1
19 26 Burleigh Grimes 170 14 2 1 2 3 2 1 2 1
20 23 Tommy Leach 169 15 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2
21 19 Rube Waddell 165 16 1 2 3 3 3 1 2 1
22 20 Cupid Childs 163 14 1 3 2 1 1 1 3 1 1
23 21 Dick Lundy 162 12 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 1
24 25 Charley Jones 140 10 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1
25T 28 Roger Bresnahan 138 12 1 1 2 1 2 1 4
25T 24 Cannonball Dick Redding 138 12 1 2 1 3 1 3 1
27 29 Wally Schang 132 11 1 1 1 1 3 2 2
28 22 Pete Browning 132 9 1 1 1 1 2 2 1
29 27 José Méndez 129 11 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1
30 31 Larry Doyle 97 8 1 1 1 1 1 2 1
31 36 Gavy Cravath 95 7 1 1 2 1 1 1
32 30 Bill Monroe 81 8 1 1 1 2 2 1
33 32 Sam Rice 79 7 2 1 1 2 1
34 n/e Chuck Klein 77 6 1 1 2 1 1
35 35 Dobie Moore 72 8 1 1 3 2 1
36 n/e Tommy Bridges 71 6 1 2 1 1 1
37 34 Dizzy Dean 71 5 1 1 1 1 1
38 33 Jimmy Ryan 69 6 2 1 1 1 1
39 39 Ben Taylor 44 4 1 1 1 1
40 48T Carl Mays 43 5 1 1 1 2
41 41 Vic Willis 42 5 1 1 2 1
42 40 John McGraw 41 4 1 1 1 1
43 38 Pie Traynor 38 3 1 1 1
44 42T George J. Burns 27 3 1 1 1
45 44 Ed Williamson 20 3 2 1
46 37 Lefty Gomez 20 2 1 1
47 n/e Lon Warneke 18 2 1 1
48 42T Ed Cicotte 16 1 1
49 47 Tony Mullane 15 2 1 1
50T 51T Buzz Arlett 14 2 1 1
50T 61T Addie Joss 14 2 1 1
50T 48T Hack Wilson 14 2 1 1
53T n/e Wally Berger 14 1 1
53T 53T Fred Dunlap 14 1 1
55T 53T Dolf Luque 13 1 1
55T 56T Bobby Veach 13 1 1
57 45 Kiki Cuyler 12 2 2
58 46 Tony Lazzeri 11 1 1
59T 50 Tommy Bond 10 1 1
59T 59T Fielder Jones 10 1 1
59T 59T Sam Leever 10 1 1
59T 56T Spotswood Poles 10 1 1
63 56T Wilbur Cooper 9 1 1
64 61T Buddy Myer 8 1 1
65T n/e Frank Chance 7 1 1
65T 51T Heinie Manush 7 1 1
65T 65 Urban Shocker 7 1 1
68T n/e Dick Bartell 6 1 1
68T 63T Harry Hooper 6 1 1
Dropped Out: Donie Bush(63T), Jack Quinn(55).
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HOM pitching tandems (min 10 games pitched by each that year)
1881-82 PRV NL Ward and Radbourn
1888-89 BOS NL Clarkson and Radbourn
1890-91 BOS NL Clarkson and Nichols
1890----NYG NL Rusie and Burkett (!)
1892----STL NL Galvin and Caruthers
1892-94 CLE NL Clarkson and Young
1895-96 CLE NL Young and Wallace (!)
1902-08 NYG NL Mathewson and McGinnity
1924-33 CHI AL Faber and Lyons
1925-26 WAS AL WJohnson and Covaleski
1931----HOME GRE Williams and BFoster
He doesn't rank him that high (#52) for a few reasons: 1) his severe timeline, 2) he doesn't take into account the difference in scheduled games throughout the years, 3) his ranking system leans heavily on peak and 4) he doesn't take into account that first base was different back then.
Anyway, IMO I just don't think all those things add up to Beckley vaulting among the 25 best 1Bs ever. I've personally got him around 35th give or take here and there. And that's without really knowing yet where to place Leonard, Fournier, Taylor, O'Neill, and several currently active players.
Speaking of which, with a greater sense of Cravath's career under our belt, I believe it might be time to revisit Messers Jaques Fournier and Ken Williams to make sure we know as much about their stories as we can know.
True, but that also works against almost everybody else, except for the Ruth, Gehrig, Schmidt and Grove types.
karlmagnus, I support Eagle Eye, but only so far. I think he's a HoMer, but he's closer to the borderline than the inner circle, IMO. There's no way in my mind that he's close to being the 52nd player of all-time. He would need a lot more peak to merit that spot.
Jake Beckley's career spans the highest run-scoring era of ALL-TIME:
Year / runs per game Beckley's league
1888: 4.54
1889: 5.83
1890: 6.89
1891: 5.54
1892: 5.08
1893: 6.56
1894: 7.37
1895: 6.57
1896: 6.03
1897: 5.87
1898: 4.94
1899: 5.22
1900: 5.23
1901: 4.64
1902: 3.97
1903: 4.78
1904: 3.90
1905: 4.10
1906: 3.56
To place those years in context, I flipped to a year at random, NL 1988. The only year of Beckley's career where he played in a league that scored fewer runs per game than the National League in 1988 was 1906. The NL scored 3.87 runs per game in 1988. Was that a dead ball?
Beckley only played four years in leagues that scored fewer than 4.5 runs a game. He did not suffer from a "dead ball."
In terms of earned runs, the 1893-97 period (when Beckley for some reason benefited much less than others, and so looks relatively weak) was very high but the remainder of his career is not particulalry high scoring, and the latter years of Beckley's career, when he had some of his best years, were notably low scoring.
I agree, but he did suffer from "inside baseball" type of play, which I believe is what karlmagnus is referring to.
BTW, I'm am defending and criticizing Beckley on all three threads (just in case that you were curious :-).
LOL
The Dead Ball era didn't really suppress hits, though. The BP translations even give him less hits than he actually had after extending his schedule and adjusting for the modern era. Granted it gave him over 500 HRs though. I don't put alot of stock in those numbers, mainly because they don't explain how they were derived, but I'm just making the point from the first sentence.
I'm going to need some explanation as to why he would have benefitted less than other hitters. To me, taking less advantage of a league or park situation than other players in the league or on your team makes you less valuable(relatively speaking of course).
Nevertheless, the ball was dead. It was a dirty mushy ball, rarely replaced, similar to that used in the 00's, and was difficult to hit for long distances.
However there were some significant offensive differences.
The 1890's was a fastball hitter's paradise. Most established breaking balls were made obsolete by the change in the pitcher's field position and had to be redeveloped for the new distance. This took time. Apparently, pitching mounds were introduced in the late 1890's. The 00's saw a new fad, applying foreign substances to the ball, and/or scuffing it. Gloves continued to develop.
The 1900's also saw the introduction of a new rule, the modern foul strike rule. At the beginning of the 1890's, no foul balls were strikes. Around mid-decade, to discourage repeated drag bunting (for hits), bunts that rolled foul were declared strikes. Then foul tips caught by the catcher. Finally, during the AL/NL war, the remaining foul balls became strikes (unless they were strike 3). This rule change, reinforced by breaking balls and spitballs and pitching mounds and new gloves, dramatically increased the number of strikeouts and caused scoring to drop.
Average runs scored per game, AL 1925-1938 (i.e., Gehrig's leagues): 5.14.
Not adjusted for park factor, or weighted by the playing time of the player in question, but you get the idea. And yes, because of schedule length, there were more runs scored per team-season in Gehrig's time than in Beckley's. But let's not overuse the words "dead ball."
And this still doesn't take into account that he was never one of the 10 best players in baseball duirng his career and rarely one of the 20 best.
Of course, all of these are great reasons to vote for . . . Duffy, GVH, Ryan, and probably Long.
Speaking of which, with a greater sense of Cravath's career under our belt, I believe it might be time to revisit Messers Jaques Fournier and Ken Williams to make sure we know as much about their stories as we can know.
I've already collected the info to do MLEs for Fournier's PCL years and will probably run the MLE calculations this weekend.
I'm pretty sure that Ken Williams, however, spent only a season and a half in the PCL (see Portland Beavers site for his batting statistics); the one full season looks great, but IMO he needs more than one more big season to become a viable HoM candidate. So I think I'll pass on doing MLEs for Williams. (Williams also deserves some WWI credit, but I still think it's not enough.)
Good find Brent. Also note the link to the 1930's. Ken Williams went back to Portland in 1930 and at age 40 put up some good numbers. I assume at that time he would have made a good DH - plenty of bat still but fielding was probably subpar.
Of note is a Portland teammate in 1930, one who is HOM eligible in 1951 - Indian Bob Johnson. Johnson spent 1929-1932 with Portland, putting up some excellent years before heading to join the Philadelphia A's.
In WS, all the runs are credited to the offense. You're implying that Beckley's Batting WS are overly inflated.
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He doesn't rank him that high (#52) for a few reasons: 1) his severe timeline, 2) he doesn't take into account the difference in scheduled games throughout the years, 3) his ranking system leans heavily on peak and 4) he doesn't take into account that first base was different back then.
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Good answer here, Murph, and I will merely pick at one perceived nit. While James employs a timeline as a proxy for league quality, 'severe' seems to me to be quite an inaccurate description - and I've heard many use it before in theis onctext. The timeline does a fine job IMHO from 1901 to 1965 or so, because MLB quality really did grow pretty steadily (altho with some bumps) for 75 years. If anyone thinks the timeline is severe, how can you explain that of James' top 30, 18 or 19 men played mostly before WWII? His top 4 pitchers are pre 1940.
Beckely's prob is that when you compound the shorter schedules of the 1800s with the one-league 1890s, he and others are hosed.
Would it be OK if once Brent is ready to post his MLEs we had a Fournier thread?
The question was Beckley versus the comparable Paul Waner in terms of hits, walks and total bases, where the run level in the 1890s is inflated by errors compared to the 1930s -- 5.34 runs per game were scored in the 1890s compared to 5.14 in the 1930s, but in terms of earned runs, those that actually accrue to batter totals, the position will be much closer, or very likely reversed.
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