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Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Monday, July 09, 2007
2002 Ballot Discussion
2002 (July 30)—elect 3
WS W3 Rookie Name-Pos
325 138.7 1978 Ozzie Smith-SS
318 121.5 1978 Alan Trammell-SS
340 108.0 1977 Andre Dawson-CF/RF
248 90.5 1981 Tim Wallach-3B
201 70.5 1985 Lenny Dykstra-CF
188 55.3 1986 Danny Tartabull-RF*
141 66.6 1984 Mark Gubicza-P*
155 53.1 1986 Robby Thompson-2B
146 54.0 1987 Mike Greenwell-LF
138 53.4 1978 Scot Sanderson-P
130 51.9 1978 Rick Honeycutt-P*
117 53.0 1984 Sid Fernandez-P*
116 44.3 1984 Dick Schofield-SS
138 35.4 1985 Vince Coleman-LF*
104 44.1 1983 Jeff Russell-RP
Players Passing Away in 2001
HoMers
Age Elected
84 1958 Lou Boudreau-SS
69 1974 Eddie Mathews-3B
61 1988 Willie Stargell-LF/1B
Candidates
Age Eligible
92 1947 Jo-Jo Moore-LF
87——Hank Soar-Umpire
84 1958 Sam Jethroe-CF
84 1965 Hank Sauer-LF
83 1959 Bill Rigney-2B/Mgr
80 1961 Ferris Fain-1B
78 1968 Gene Woodling-LF
75——Phil Collier-Sportswriter
72 1972 Bob Buhl-P
64 1975 Bo Belinsky-P
58 1979 Tommie Agee-CF
57 1978 Curt Blefary-LF
Thanks, Dan!
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OZ 159 159 158 158 158 156 155 153 153 150 143 141 140 132 124 110 98 82 44
AL 157 151 151 149 146 146 142 142 139 139 128 121 112 105 101 76 74 66 29 19
How much convincing do you need that Trammell is significantly less durable?
Significantly less durable, yes. But your opening statement put the difference at 23 games per season (142:119), a difference Smith achieves only in seasons 13-19 as displayed by this favorite tool.
The revised difference of 18 games per season (142:124) he achieves in seasons 12-19.
No, my sheet doesn't automatically update when new BP WARP come in. Sorry.
DanR,
Did you collect all WARP (WARPn by Davenport) for some very long list of players approximately "at one time"?
Using his warp2 version of baserunning wins above average and fielding runs above average, I found an alltime top ten of:
Ozzie Smith, 36.3
Honus Wagner, 25.7
Willie Wilson, 23.5
Mazeroski, 23.3
Brooks Robinson, 23.1
Tris Speaker, 22.1
Max Carey, 21.5
Bill Dahlen, 21.3
Rickey Henderson, 20.8
Eddie Collins, 20.1
Now, that is a bit of a junk stat, but karl I think that explains most of why the electorate rates Smith high. Ozzie is more than 40% ahead of the #2 candidate, there's really no one like him in combining fielding and baserunning value.
I figured their average annual games by simply finding the percentage of the total scheduled or team games (scheduled for 162, team for strike years). 141 and 119 was what came out, what can I tell you. I checked my spreadsheet and the math is right.
Jim Sp--That's interesting, and looks like a pretty good and intuitive list. One very minor caveat about that (and my system in general) is that it has a bit of an Achilles' heel with multi-position players. I just used the Win Shares primary position list, so guys who played 82 games at one position and 80 at another will be considered 100% at the 82. This usually is not much of a problem, as the inevitable over- or under-rating of FWAA that would be caused by comparing a player's Fielding Win Shares at one position to the positional average of another position is counteracted by the application of a replacement level moving in the opposite direction--when I go in to correct it manually, the difference is very rarely more than 0.2 wins, 0.3 would be a *lot*. But if you isolate out the FWAA component, you'll find that guys who played something like 90 games at corner OF and 70 at CF, or 90 games at 3B and 70 games at SS, will have far more FWAA than they should, since their Fielding WS are inflated by the time at the tougher position but compared to the positional average of the weaker position. This is definitely the case with the early Willie Wilson years, where he is listed as a corner OF but has Fielding WS totals more appropriate for a CF. He's probably closer to 22 BRWAA + FWAA than 23.5. Not that it matters. (Also note that you're using the WARP2 version of baserunning wins above average and fielding *wins* above average, not fielding *runs* above average).
Again, the point about Smith is that his defensive peak was maintained for literally twice as long as any other "glove" in history. His peak seasons are no better than Concepción's or Bancroft's and not as good as Pesky's or Rizzuto's, but if you care an iota about longevity/prime/career he leaves them all in the dust.
Yeah, see post 49 on the Dan Rosenheck data thread. If you know all the BP playerids you can dump their entire "dt" directory to your local machine, takes about a half hour with a workplace-caliber network connection. Its not a bad way to take snapshots of their data as they do seem to be perpetually tweaking their formulas.
I don't have it 100% automated. The BP playerids don't line up exactly with lahman or bb-ref so there were a couple of dozen players that we had to do by hand. It worked great as a one time thing, but in order for it to be useful as a periodic snapshot tool, it would really need to be 100% automated. An archive of the pages preserves the state of the BP website, but it really helps to convert their data to CSV. For that tool, I used private inhouse software, but I'm sure there are other ways to extra raw text from HTML and parse it. (perl?)
Anyhow, this type of remote data dump is becoming more common among baseball analysts. (Sean Forman at bb-ref sometimes alludes to it when he mentions that format tweaks to his pages often give the remote-data-grabbers fits as they have to modify their scripts.) Perhaps someone has a tutorial out there somewhere.
So taking those same average-year numbers as before, but this time making a second line for Trammell that removes his 19 game cuppajoe.
NAME G AB H 2B 3B HR BB K SB CS SH SF IBB HPB GDP xr--------------------------------------------------------------
OZZIE 141 515 135 22 4 2 58 32 32 8 11 3 4 2 10 62.8
ALAN1 119 430 123 21 3 10 44 46 12 6 7 4 2 2 8 63.1
ALAN2 124 449 128 22 3 10 46 47 13 6 7 4 2 2 8 65.7
But this time around, I decided to look at them versus average. I like doing the mechanics myself sometimes, so I used the SBE to generate each guy's league SS total and generated an average SS line for his career, corrected for his actual outs. Then I figured XR for the league's SS and truncated it into the same outs as our stat lines above (I didn't subtract Oz and Tram, maybe I should have?). Finally, I park adjusted the league's SS's XR using the bb-ref pfs for each of his stadiums: XR * PF. Then I figured out how many runs our dueling SS were above average.
XR outs lgSSXR XRAA-------------------------
OZ 62.8 405 49.0 13.8
T1 63.1 326 42.8 20.3
T2 65.7 340 44.7 21.0
Karl is right that Trammell's a better hitter, we know that. On a per-out basis he far outpaces Ozzie. Ozzie simply has more opporutnities.
Meantime, I took DanR's eqBR spreadsheet and added up the eqBR totals. I believe eqBR is already an above-average type stat, so I should simply be able to tack it onto the XRAA I've just generated. Trammell was a better baserunner than I figured, Ozzie a little worse than I figured. Both were well above average. Finally, I recalibrated the FRAA I previously mentioned. Last time I talked about it, I didn't place it in the actual context of these guys' games played, I expressed it per 162. Sorry for the apples/oranges, and the corrected figures are below:
XRAA + EQBR + FRAA = TOTAL------------------------------
OZ 13.8 + 2.85 + 14.8 = 31.4
T1 20.3 + 2.22 + 3.58 = 26.1
T2 21.0 + 2.31 + 3.73 = 27.0
Smith comes out ahead thanks to durability, glove, and a teensy bit better baserunning (XR includes his high-volume/percentage steals, too). Actually, he comes out nearly a half-a-win ahead.
Again, this is a career mark, not a peak/prime. If I don't get to it, I hope someone else will take a look at peak and prime to see if there's a monstrous difference between them on that basis that's worth noting as we construct ballots.
OZZIE RAA-----------
1987 69.4
1985 57.0
1992 50.4
1988 43.1
1991 41.5
1980 38.3
1982 38.3
1984 36.3
1983 29.2
1978 28.1
ALAN RAA-----------
1987 71.8
1984 56.1
1983 49.8
1986 48.0
1990 44.2
1982 35.6
1980 35.1
1988 34.1
1981 27.8
1985 25.5
Difference TOP Ten SeasonsYR Ozzie Alan diff to whom?
------------------------------
1 69.4 71.8 2.4 A
2 57.0 56.1 0.9 O
3 50.4 49.8 0.6 O
4 43.1 48.0 4.9 A
5 41.5 44.2 2.8 A
6 38.3 35.6 2.7 O
7 38.3 35.1 3.2 O
8 36.3 34.1 2.2 O
9 29.2 27.8 1.4 O
10 28.1 25.5 2.7 O
==============================
5 yrs 261.3 269.8 8.5 A
10yrs 431.5 427.9 3.6 O
Trammell has a slight 8.5 run advantage on short peak, Ozzie makes it all up, then some over the 10 year prime. Huh. I definitely thought Trammell would show a little more separation ont the 5-year increment and still take Ozzie on the full prime. Guess not.
So now it's congitive dissonance time...system says Trammell by a nose...more research says Ozzie by a nose. What to do???????????? How about i just disclaim FRAA and stick with my system! ; )
So for example Gene Tenace is overrated in your system?
Trammell and Smith are both great ballplayers. You can't go wrong.
Populations of MLB cities in 1882 (from the US Census of 1880).
AA: 2 Million
Phi 847K, StL 350K, Bal 332K, Cin 255K, Pit 156K, Lou 124K
NL: 1.5 Million
Chi 503K, Bos 363K, Cle 160K, Buf 155K, Det 116K, Prv 104K, Wor 58K, Troy 57K
Only 6 teams, and the AA market is still 33% bigger than the 8-team NL market. Long term, the NL is in trouble unless it can change this (or the AA messes up).
Plus, I think the AA drew more fans because they played baseball (HORRORS!) on Sunday, served lots of beer, and tickets were 25c instead of 50c.
I very much appreciate your interest in my work. Let me know if there's any other way I can be helpful.
The NL of the 90's had its antecedents in 1880's AA play.
IIRC, the HBP rule was introduced by the AA to discourage head-hunting.
Paul,
I figured their average annual games by simply finding the percentage of the total scheduled or team games (scheduled for 162, team for strike years). 141 and 119 was what came out, what can I tell you. I checked my spreadsheet and the math is right.
I didn't mean to question the arithmetic, only to call you on a low blow like Karl's on Rich Gossage's ERA+.
That 22-game arithmetic mean difference (23 was my clerical error) is one that occurred only in seasons number 13 to 17 as ordered by that favorite tool (13-17 of 19 Smith and 20 Trammell). That makes it a grossly misleading statistic. You retracted significantly by dropping Trammell's 20th season (his debut stint), recalculating on the basis of 19 seasons and 19 calendar years for both. The revised 17-game difference is one that occurred in seasons number 12 to 17.
For what it's worth, I would toss the favorite tool ordering of the whole careers in favor of some restricted focus on the prime seasons. . . .
Defined by playing time, Smith enjoyed a 16-season prime to Trammell's 13. Both careers are clean in that Smith put up his three lowest game played in his final three calendar years; Trammell his six lowest games played (after prorating 1981) in his final six calendar years --the non-prime year for both players.
Here it seems natural to interpret the difference between 16 and 13 seasons as one of longevity and that between playing time in their best 13 calendar years as one of durability.
El Chaleeko's rejoinder
OZ 159 159 158 158 158 156 155 153 153 150 143 141 140 132 124 110=>162 98 82 44
AL 157 151 151 149 146 146 142 142 139 139 128 121 112 105=>156 101 76 74 66 29 (19)
How much convincing do you need that Trammell is significantly less durable?
Note in post 109 I deal with their ten top seasons which should provide the counterbalance you're looking for.
Italic in parentheses is Trammell's debut stint, his "20th" season that we have both dismissed.
Italic and underlined is the 1981 strike season, which I have prorated to 162 team games played (=>).
The twelve numerals in plain font/face, plus that one prorated, represent Trammell's 13 prime years and ipso facto the first 13 of Smith's 16 prime years.
Here is the obvious :-) re-presentation.
OZ 162 159 159 158 158 158 156 155 153 153 143 140 124 ; 150 141 132 98 82 44
AL 157 156 151 151 149 146 146 142 142 139 139 128 121 ; 112 101 29 76 74 66 (19)
The difference is 8-1/2 games per season during the 13-year shared prime, 1978-1990 with 1981 prorated. Plus 181 games in three seasons that I have reinterpreted as a longevity rather than a durability difference. Plus 10 games in the 3-year shared denouement.
Yes, Smith was significantly more durable, playing 95% of team games to Trammell's 90%. But the cumulative effect in 13 years is only 2/3 of the difference achieved in those merely three years when Smith was still in his prime and Trammell was past, 1991-1993.
(Note, if you go half way with me and drop only the last three years when they were over the hill together (bold), the measured difference increases a bit; it is 18+ games over Smith's 16-year prime iicc.)
Yes, but it's not every day longevity and durability (differences) can be distinguished analytically. Very neat matching careers. It happens only in fiction. And of course in Detroit with Trammell and Whitaker. What a trio.
#119.
The last six lines, including two blank, should be marked as quotation.
Good night.
"Coleman had trotted in from the
outfield on his way to the dugout, then
turned to throw his glove to a teammate
when the mechanism was raised from
below ground level on the first-base side
of homeplate. The metal cylinder
apparently rolled up behind Coleman
while he wasn't looking, knocked him
down and ran up his left leg, causing
scrapes and bruises."
That's a funny word, if indeed it's a compound.
1) STDEVs like Roger Bresnahan. A lot. My standard catcher bonus doesn't begin to compensate for how bad catchers were in that era. I'm moving him up, though not to the top of the ballot like stdevs would want.
2) I'm overrating Buddy Bell. I thought this was true before but I've confirmed it now and am sliding him down.
3) I'm overrating Tony Perez and Rusty Staub - will slide down also, bats have a high threshold in the 70s.
4) Stdevs more or less agree with me Norm Cash, Reggie Smith, Bob Johnson, Gavy Cravath and Jack Clark were good. Also agrees with me that Cepeda wasn't.
5) Graig Nettles should be getting some of the love given to Willie Randolph.
But, enough of poor-supported 19th Century guys :-) About the newbies.... Trammell and Ozzie will be 1-2, in that order. Dawson surprised me, I thought he could challenge for a spot on the lower half of my ballot, but is found wanting. He is about equal to Browning on my rankings. Wallach doesn't seem to even make my consideration set. I haven't completed Dykstra yet.
This is one record which we can reasonably say will never be matched :)
-- MWE
Very cool. There's a four-peat in there extending things as well. 1914-19 was six teams in six years.
1998-2005 NL was 8 teams in 8 years.
Ditto 1981-1988 AL. Of course, more teams makes that easier. More impressive (perhaps) is the six different teams winning the AL East from 1981-1986 (everyone but the poor Indians).
Sports Illustrated thought it would happen:
Cover
... but they ended up losing 101 games. :-)
It was at least 'bold' prediction :), but anybody with unsmeared glasses on could've seen how dumb it was.
1) Trammell
2) Ozzie
3) Cravath
4) Clarkson
5) Tiant
6) Ch. Jones
7) Bresnahan
8) Oms
9) Lazzeri
10) Concepcion
11) V. Willis
12) Fred Dunlap
13) Taylor
14) Perez
15) Schang
There's a good chance my PHoM will be up to date by election week, and since I'm using it as an opportunity to recalibrate my relative rankings of pitchers and position players, there may be some movement here.
This is one record which we can reasonably say will never be matched :)
I think we can normalize the metric so that modern leagues can compete on a fair basis. That was 13 years for 8 teams, so 26 years for 16 teams should be a fair equivalent target for the modern NL. Or 22 years for 14 teams for the AL (maybe 23, if you're generous).
The old-time AL record was 27 seasons for 8 teams from 1918-1944. Which would translate to 47 years for the modern 14 team AL.
The NL has another relatively short cycle from 1945-1961.
It's interesting to note that for both the 8-team NL and AL, the first cycle completed remained the shortest one.
The post-expansion leagues have yet to compete even one span. Houston finally got its first pennant, but other NL teams are still waiting (Montreal/Washington, Colorado, Milwaukee). In the AL its Washington/Texas, Seattle, and Tampa Bay.
1) Alan Trammell Trammell gets ahead of Ozzie on the basis of four +10 WARP3 seasons. There's no question that these two are the class of the new candidates.
2 Ozzie Smith
3 Bill Mazeroski Maz's Win Shares credentials may look unimpressive, but where WARP is concerned he's a champion. He's certainly got a better case than inductee Nellie Fox, and not far behind inductee Bobby Doerr.
4 Tony Perez Maybe Dave Concepcion offers a little more career value than Perez, but Perez has a better prime.
5 Dave Concepcion Concepcion stands out at his position and has more career value than anyone else except the two shortstops above him.
6 Kirby Puckett Every one of Puckett's 12 seasons was +5 WARP3. I find him and Dawson to be very close, and for the preliminary I'm giving Puckett the first
7 Bob Johnson I like him for his 12 +5 WARP3 seasons.
8 Luis Tiant I don't much like any of the pitchers remaining, but Tiant has the most valuable prime, albeit mainly by virtue of its length.
9 Pie Traynor A very good 3b for a long time.
10 Thurman Munson Depending on where you bookend Freehan's prime, Munson is better or almost as good. His career value is almost equal. Why isn't he attacting more votes?
11 Alejandro Oms My leading right-field candidate at the moment.
12 Andre Dawson He and Puckett are close, but for the moment I prefer Puckett’s more intense achievements.
13 Tommy Bridges Bridges hasn't got the same career value as Dave Stieb, but he's got more +5 WARP3 seasons and fractionally more peak.
14 Dave Stieb One of the things I’ll be looking at between now and posting my final ballot is whether Grimes ought to be here instead.
15 Norm Cash He’s got the best prime of positional players not already on my ballot.
Top tens not on ballot.
Cannonball Dick Redding has too short a peak for me, and not enough of what I’d call a prime.
Browning, Duffy, Jones, Bresnahan all fall short on length of prime, although Jones mounts a strong case.
New Guys
Tim Wallach I was surprised to find he is a very good candidate, going head-to-head with Bando for number two on my 3b rankings which are all very close anyways. May yet get a ballot spot.
Omissions
Phil Rizzuto falls off with two better SS candidates this year.
George Van Haltren doesn’t seem quite as strong as Dawson.
It does in the AL.
1. Smith
2. Trammell
3. Dawson
4. Perez
5. Walters
6. Staub
7. Murphy
8. Trout
9. Ryan
10. Stieb
11. Johnson
12. Cravath
13. Puckett
14. Nettles
15. Tanana
AJM, that's far enough from what I'm going to guess Dawson's consensus placement will be that I'd like to see you make an affirmative argument for him.
On the other hand ... Perez 4th, Staub 5th, Murphy 7th, Puckett 13th. I guess you like recent OF/1B candidates - with a mixture of career (Perez), prime (Puckett), and peak (Murphy) cases.
Sure.
119 OPS+, 314 steals, over 10000 PAs, excellent defender in center. 350 Win Shares, 110 WARP3, his peak in centerfield was excellent.
Basically I see him as Perez or Staub, but with more defensive and baserunning value.
Smith, Ozzie
Trammell, Alan
Clarkson, Bus
Tiant, Luis
Johnson, Bob
Cash, Norm
Bridges, Tommy
Nettles, Graig
Reuschel, Rick
Cey, Ron
Smith, Reggie
Bell, Buddy
Staub, Rusty
Perez, Tony
Trucks, Virgil
Cravath, Gavy
Elliott, Bob
Taylor, Ben
Clark, Jack
John, Tommy
Bresnahan, Roger
Bancroft, Dave
Here's who is OUT
Terry, Bill
Thompson, Sam
Minoso, Minnie
Jennings, Hugh
Kelly, King
Keller, Charlie
Ashburn, Richie
Foster, Rube
Fingers, Rollie
Mackey, Biz
Bell, Cool Papa
Kiner, Ralph
Brown, Mordecai
Freehan, Bill
Averill, Earl
McGinnity, Joe
Jackson, Joe
Brown, Willard
Sisler, George
Lemon, Bob
Fox, Nellie
Ferrell, Wes
I'm fairly certain if I re-created it chronologically some of the more modern players wouldn't be in yet and others would probably be elected. I ignored reviewing all the 1870s guys on purpose. That's close though and I would still have some of the OUT guys high in the backlog. If the HoM reflected my PHoM, my current ballot would look something like this:
1) Ozzie Smith
2) Alan Trammell
3) Jack Clark
4) Frank Tanana
5) Darrell Porter
6) Orlando Cepeda
7) Bill Terry
8) Sam Thompson
9) Minnie Minoso
10) Hugh Jennings
11) Tommy Leach
12) King Kelly
13) Charlie Keller
14) Richie Ashburn
15) Bobby Bonds
16-20) Thurman Munson, Dick Redding, Johnny Evers, Jack Quinn, Vic Willis
21-25) Alejandro Oms, Rube Foster, Rollie Fingers, Urban Shocker, Luke Easter
26-30) Dizzy Trout, Biz Mackey, Lave Cross, Cool Papa Bell, Mordecai Brown
I still wouldn't have Dave Stieb, Pete Browning, Charley Jones, Hugh Duffy or Bucky Walters in the top 30. I might have Browning or Jones in ahead of Joe Start, Lip Pike or George Gore but I don't have the 1870s figured out by a long shot.
I once saw a cross word puzzle that basicly asked (I don't remember the axact quistion)
only player who has more NL hits than Tony Gwynn besides Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Robin Yount Hank Aaron, and Stan Musial
I also completed my PHoM (yayy!). I don't have the spreadsheet in front of me right now, but IIRC I ended up with 15-20 PHoM-not-HoMers, and viceversa (not counting this year's new eligibles).
> > 1914-1926 NL is the shortest span in which all of the teams in a league win a pennant.
> This is one record which we can reasonably say will never be matched :)
I think we can normalize the metric so that modern leagues can compete on a fair basis. That was 13 years for 8 teams, so 26 years for 16 teams should be a fair equivalent target for the modern NL. Or 22 years for 14 teams for the AL (maybe 23, if you're generous).
Regarding what is "fair" I suspect that several people here can quickly simulate a probability model or three.
Alternatively one can largely even the field by comparing the 6- and 7-team divisions of 1969-93 with the traditional 8-team leagues. Even looking forward and counting Texas '94, Cleveland '95, Seattle '95 (yet smaller divisions), that 1914-1926 "cycle" is not routinely matched by modern major league/divisions.
Other metrics may be based on the annual numbers of seasons
(a) back to the winner's preceding win: '1' is a successful defense, '2' is a repeat after missing one season, etc
(b) back or forward to the winner's closest win: '1' is the first or second win in a consecutive repeat, etc.
http://northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxMTImZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcxNzI2NjcmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2
Thoughts?
1) Ruth
2) Johnson
3) Williams
4) Gibson (hopefully Dial doesn't see this :-))
1. Ruth
2. TWilliams
3. Bonds (although 2007 will push him past Williams)
big
dropoff
4. Wagner
5. Cobb
big
dropoff
6. Speaker
7. Mays
8. Hornsby
smaller dropoff
9. Musial
10. Collins
11. Mantle
12. Aaron
13. Lajoie
14. Morgan
15. Schmidt
16. Gehrig
smaller dropoff
17. Rickey
18. A-Rod (yes, already)
19. Ott
20. Ripken
21. Vaughan
22. Foxx
23. F. Robinson
24. DiMaggio
end of inner circle
1. Ruth
2. Bonds (Could possibly move past Ruth after next year)
3. Cobb
4. Johnson
5. Wagner
6. Mays
7. Aaron
8. Speaker
9. Musial
10. Clemens
1 Ruth
2 Bonds * based solely on accomplishments, and tentatively. VERY hard to rank active guys (like the Rocket) without the perspective of ease-of-dominance-in-era that 5-10 yrs after retirement will bring
3 Wagner
4 Mays
5 Johnson
6 Williams
7 Aaron
8 Gibson (not Bob!)
Musial, Cobb, Mantle
BTW, the story of how Teddy R got his bust on the big mountain with the other three is a good one....
PS We did fight the Chinese in the Korean War...right?
PPS IT'S A JOKE. AJM, I'm not actually calling you a Nazi. But I definitely don't see how Williams or DiMaggio are less great because they served their country bravely in wartime.
2. Yeah, they never would have been in those pennant races to begin with without Williams. Why is a hit on the last day of the season worth more than a hit on the first one? All the games count the same....
2. Agree.
And it's not like I have him in the mid 30's. He's 11th, behind some pretty good players.
Mike Webber in "2002 Ballot"
20. Mike Webber Posted: July 23, 2007 at 04:14 PM (#2451771)
I’ll be in St. Louis this weekend at the SABR Convention, and I know Dimino will be too. Hope to see some of you guys this weekend.
Paul Wendt will be thoroughly exhausted by the weekend, for he will arrive early tomorrow (Wed) afternoon and immediately begin to convene. He expects to meet Kevin Johnson there and to see Mike Webber again. He will be there Sunday evening and night and wonders who else will still be around.
37. mulder & scully Posted: July 24, 2007 at 03:56 AM (#2452761)
PS: See y'all in a week. Anyone else making it to the Con?
Webber, Dimino, Wendt, Johnson (KJOK) are real names.
mulder & scully = Kelly at San Diego = whatname in St Louis?
Wendt will not be on any list prepared in advance by SABR or any of the Hotels, but easily recognizable by constant companionship with paper and pencil, constant height and hair (tall and curly), typical dress in tie-dye or other deco shirt.
I do NOT wish to start a team-based / fanboy flame war
*disclaimer*
But I notice in the update of the HoM plaque room that the Yankees have fewer HoMies than a some other franchises, despite the obvious largest amount of team success over most of 100 years. Any coherent thoughts on this?
It also doesn't hurt to have inner circle players at RF, C, 1B and 2 in CF.
Exactly. Since we somehow took a blind eye to Happy Jack Chesbro :-). The Yankees indeed got a very late start in the cap game.
Another issue is dynasties (and mini-overlapping dynasties). The Yankees have been very efficient at winning championships in bunches with the same core of players. The Indians won a championship in 1948 with several HOM-ers (Boudreau, Feller, Doby, Lemon) and then the Yankees follow with 14 pennants and 9 rings in the next 16 years with (Berra, Ford, Mantle and DiMaggio). The Indians did win another pennant in 1954 (Boudreau out/Wynn in) but that's a large descrepancy of success with the roughly the same number of caps.
Lastly, the Yankees have usually had very deep teams with excellent HOVG casts and also very good role players. Guys like Reynolds, Raschi, McDougald, Lazzeri, Rizzuto, Rolfe, Henrich, Woodling, Pennock, Combs, Meusel, Bauer, Maris, etc etc. When the Yankee Juggernaut was rolling there weren't many holes in the lineup.
Of course. They had a 20-25 year headstart over the Yankees. Which doesn't explain the Indians, of course.
no they don't the last 2 game of the 1949 season counted more then most games due to the fact that they were playing the Yankees so assuming they won those 2 games but lost 2 other games to other teams the Redsox would have won the pennant with a
96-58
95-59 (record by the yankees)
as opposed to the actual record of
97-57 (Yankees)
96-58 (Red Sox)
on a sligtly off topic quistion for some reason my computer doesn't show an icon of open document on the taskbar any more. making it that I can't open minimized files (by clicking on the link (which is not there) on the task bar) if someone knows how to fix that please let me know
I'd tremedosly aprichate if someone could help with this thank in advance
I'd tremedosly aprichate if someone could help with this thank in advance
Ahhh... the ShowDesktop icon has disappeared from your QuickLaunch bar? Sounds like that is what the problem is. Is the quick launch bar there at all? Right-click the bottom bar and then click properties and then make sure that "Show Quick Launch" is checked.
Is the ShowDesktop icon still not there? I've had that happen before and its not obvious how to get that back. Create a new text file on your desktop. Fill the textfile with the following text:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
Rename the textfile to be "ShowDesktop.scf". Then drag it to the Quick Launch area.
Also, it should be mentioned that even if your ShowDesktop icon is missing you should be able to manually reopen windows by clicking their icons on the bottom bar. If the bottom bar is missing, check to see if it pops up only when moving your mouse down there... someone may have switched the "auto-hide" option on. If so, uncheck that option in taskbar->rightclick->properties. If its still not there, the WindowsKey (between Control and Alt with windows logo on it) brings up the start menu. In the process of bringing up the start menu, it makes sure that the taskbar is not missing (by restarting explorer.exe).
Still not working? Don't fret. These things are impossible to debug on message boards. :-) Call one of your computer savvy friends and he/she can walk you through it. Its often just a little bit of hunting around that is impossible to describe in text. :-)
The defensive standards required of shortstops by clubs, and the offensive expectations for them, do wax and wane, particularly as the runs and balls in play context changes. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with the actual reality on the field but pure fashion. What we do know is that over 3/4 of the shortstop's plays are at him or up the middle. These are on balance no more difficult than a second baseman's workload (harder on the at him ball which shortstops convert about 95% of the time anyway and easier on the ball up the middle).
Giving some credit for runs created above position, or positional scarcity, if you like, is reasonable, but giving full credit is probably unrealistic.
Artificial turf puts a premium on defense - you have to have plus range or the ball is by you. I don't think it was a just that no one realized you could but a big guy at SS. I don't think many of the big guys could have played SS in that era. Ripken was in a grass park in the grass league and he's kind of an exception (he came up as a 3B and Weaver just tried him there on a whim and it worked out). Vern Stephens was 5' 10" 185 (Miguel Tejada is listed at 5' 10" 170, for comparison). Honus Wagner was as strong as anyone in the game. Ernie Banks was 6' 1" 180.
But on turf, you can't have marginal defenders at SS/2B/CF or you'll get killed. It was a different game. Once they went back to the old grass ballparks the players you could put there changed as well.
I rank them Concepcion, Campaneris, Bancroft, Fregosi, Rizzuto. I wouldn't have an issue with electing any/all of them.
Also I have issues with this statement from your ballot "Traynor far outhit his 3B peers relative to Boyer and his"
You have to ignore Beckwith, Dihigo and Jud Wilson (and to a lesser extent Judy Johnson and Oliver Marcelle) to make this statement. I'd consider them his peers.
I do, too. That's why Pie finds himself near the bottom of my ballot.
What he has over Bartell is context. Bartell played in easier-to-dominate leagues with better replacement level shortstops--in his day, a freely available SS would typically have an OPS+ around 60, in a league where the leader was usually around 180. By contrast, freely available SS when Campaneris played often posted OPS+ of 50 or below, in a league where the leader generally had only a 160 (who knew that Reggie Jackson lead the AL in OPS+ his one year in Baltimore with a line of .277/.351/.502?). The contextual difference adds up to about 10 wins over the course of their careers.
For one, I'm not sure defensive position translates well between NeL and NL/AL. I just look at the best from each. Traynor was by far the best 3B in the majors during his time. We are deep into the backlog now, and I think he's worth voting for.
I wouldn't say _completely_ uncorroborated by reputation. He outhit Willard Brown in the Texas League. He was named to two NgL All-Star teams, once when he was pretty young. He played in the high minors until he was 41. He certainly isn't one of the guys the old-timers bring up but neither was Quincy Trouppe.
re 176, there's more to the decline in SS offence than the arrival of turf. In the AL of the late 60s/early 70s of Campy, there was no artificial turf until KC moved to to Royals Stadium in 1973. Turf was definitely a National League phenomenon predominantly until much much later.
So, if you look at the regular shortstops of the AL of 72, you have Campy, Fred Patek, a 34 year old Gene Michael, Danny Thompson, a 33 year old Leo Cardenas, a 22 year old Rick Auerbarch, a 23 year old Toby Harrah, a 38 year old Luis Aparicio, Mark Belanger, Frank Duffy and Rich Morales. It's a sorry collection of hitters. The one thing you could say is that run-scoring was down (3.47 runs per game), and that was part of the reason Belanger (and perhaps several of the others) had a job.
the problem is that there are no icons (of open files) appearing in the bottom bar despite the fact that the files are open
though the all the other functions of the bar at the bottom seem to be working (addrass, links desktop, the star menue quick launch the clock) just that where there should be open file icons on the bottom bar is gone.
I like to apolagize to anyone who dosn't like reading about computer trobele on a baseball site
the ShowDesktop icon is still there
Otherwise. I think you may have to bring your most computer savvy friend over to look at it in person. There's often a link trial-and-error tinkering done to get to the bottom of stuff like that.
Not until Sunday, DL.
BTW, I found out that famed director Tod Browning was "The Gladiator's" nephew. As a fan of horror films, that's a nice merging of two of my hobbies.
I don't know exactly what happened in the AL of 1972. HRs were off over 15% from 1971. You can take a look at any of the teams, and you'll see numbers that look really strange- age 27 Graig Nettles in Cleveland, age 31 Yaz in Boston. The only thing that happened was baseball left Washington and came back to Milwaukee. The park and pitching were no more favourable though.
I suppose that one could chart positional variances for each position against runs/game rates across the decades.
Campaneris did have an interesting career. His last good season was at age 33. I decided to check his BBRef comparables at that point (http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/scomp.cgi?I=campabe01:Bert+Campaneris&st=int&compage=33&age=33). The names are some that you might expect (Maranville, Aparicio, Vizquel), some you might not (Willie Randolph) and one very, very close comp (Joe Tinker). Tinker of course played at the same time, and in the same league, as Honus Wagner, and so naturally he did not dominate the shortstops, offensively, as Campaneris did. If a Honus Wagner had come along in the AL in 1964, would he have remained at shortstop? Well, the closest things were Tom Tresh and Jim Fregosi and they basically did remain, but for one reason or another were not valuable offensive players in the early 70s. Rico Petrocelli was moved to third, but I see no reason why his situation in Campaneris' time would have been any different than it would have been in Tinker's time.
Anyways, Campaneris did have 2 useful seasons after age 33, and Tinker did not, so you'd probably want to rate Campy ahead of Tinker leaving aside questions of the offensive standards of the shortstops of their time (assuming that you thought that their defence was about equal).
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