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1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: November 28, 2005 at 03:42 AM (#1749045)Williams has two whole-cloth years due to the war. I usue the usual surrounding-seasons-average method to come up with them.
NEGRO LEAGUES YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1943 NNL PHI 20 2B 38 1944 NNL PHI 21 2B 40 154 52 78 8 3 4 2 .338 .507 1945 NNL PHI 22 2B 40 15 56 22 41 1 3 4 1 .393 .732 1949 NAL PHI 26 OF 1950 NAL CLE 27 2B 42 22 84 21 27 4 1 0 1 .250 .321 MEXICO YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1945 MXL MEX 22 2B 90 51 221 80 140 18 6 10 7 18 14 .362 .634 1948 MXL MEX 25 2B 1B 88 78 302 99 176 13 11 14 8 41 26 .328 .583 1949 MXL JAL 26 2B 84 3 12 7 11 1 0 1 0 2 0 .583 .917 1951 MXL MEX 28 INF OF 84 80 296 95 159 18 5 12 8 49 33 .322 .537 1953 MXL MEX 30 2B 71 40 153 57 81 12 3 2 11 28 9 .374 .529 1959 MXL 2tm 36 1B OF 144 109 378 117 222 14 2 29 6 74 52 .310 .587 VENEZUELA YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1947 VZ PASTORA 24 2B PCL YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1950 PCL SAC 27 2B 200 38 120 30 54 4 1 6 3 11 19 .250 .450 1955 PCL SEA 32 1B 2B 172 35 117 27 52 6 2 5 1 21 10 .231 .444 NORTHWEST LEAGUE YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1954 NWL VAN 31 2B 168 119 456 164 274 32 9 20 15 .357 .601 ARIZONA-TEXAS LEAGUE YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1952 AZTX CHU 29 2B 3B 144 117 397 159 339 27 9 45 10 .401 .854 GULF COAST LEAGUE YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1953 GCL LAR 30 OF 23 86 24 46 7 3 3 0 .279 .535 SALLY LEAGUE YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1955 SAL CLB 32 3B 97 351 115 195 18 7 16 1 .328 .556 TEXAS LEAGUE YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1956 TEX TUL 33 2b52 1b52 3b37 of11 154 144 534 172 300 36 7 26 1 68 59 .322 .562 1957 TEX TUL 34 3b58 of38 2b24 1b17 154 134 466 118 171 23 3 8 2 61 52 .253 .367 1958 TEX TUL 35 1b144 152 144 524 154 250 33 3 19 2 68 63 .294 .477 1959 TEX VIC 36 PH 5 5 2 5 0 0 1 0 .400 1.000 1960 TEX 2tm 37 1B 3B OF 144 94 297 83 151 13 2 17 0 .280 .508 1961 TEX 2tm 38 3B 1B 116 354 98 148 16 2 10 2 .277 .418 PRWL YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1944 PRWL PON 21 2B 39 26 90 34 45 1 .378 1949 PRWL PON 26 2B 80 52 183 44 60 8 1 2 .240 .328 CWL YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1947 CWL LEO 24 2B 91 12 42 12 13 1 0 0 2 .286 .310 MXWL YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1957 MXW VER 34 2B 84 66 232 77 132 14 .332 .569 VZWL YEAR LG TM AGE PO TMG G AB H TB 2B 3B HR SB BB K AVG SLG 1946 VZW ? 23 SS 13Hank Snow is very depressed that you didn't mention him, too. :-)
Williams probably merits a close look from the electorate. He could very well be a better candidate than anyone might have thought. Seems to have good career value plus decent peak value while playing a key defensive position.
I was totin' my bat along the long dusty Northern League road
When along came a team bus painted in green and gold
If your goin' to Grand Forks, Mack with me you can ride
And so I climbed into a seat and then I settled down inside
He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand
And I said, "Listen! I've traveled every road in this here land!"
I've hit everywhere, man
I've hit everywhere, man
In Mexican stadia bare, man
Homered in the mountain air, man
Hitting - I've had my share, man
I've played everywhere
Played in:
Hilldale
Homestead
Fargo
Nagshead
Nuevo York
New Laredo
Pastora
Columbia
Topeka
Victoria
Jalisco
Idaho
Ponce
San Jose
Veracruz
Santa Cruz
Walla Walla
Chihuahua
Venezuela
I even faced Valenzuela
I've hit everywhere, man
I've hit everywhere, man
In Mexican stadia bare, man
Homered in the mountain air, man
Hitting - I've had my share, man
I've played everywhere....
Just to toot my own horn, I've done the whole song at karaoke a few times...and without screwing up the words or running out of breath! :-)
1)John, I didn't see this on the list of Negro League players (found it in the Archives).
2)What 2 years did he miss due to war?
3)Was the Texas-Arizona League one of those ridiculously high-scoring ones in the thin mountain air? Those numbers might need to be deflated a bit.
4)Was he ever in an MLB farm system? Even Clarkson got a "tryout".
But, in any case, he does have a similar argument to Clarkson, and somehow I'd missed him.
I'll look into that later, Marvin.
Fine, I'll be waiting with this horrible pain in the diodes on my left side.
Oddly, 1946-1947 appear to be the two years. I don't have Riley or anyone handy to double check, but those are the years that there is simply no data for in my e-files. I don't have his story memorized, but I suspect he must have been in the service, because otherwise I think I would have queried everyone to see if he'd been injured, in prison, or something else that would have caused him to fall off the map.
3)Was the Texas-Arizona League one of those ridiculously high-scoring ones in the thin mountain air? Those numbers might need to be deflated a bit.
I don't know. And I don't have any sense of the league's cumulative totals either. As is the case in all instances where I don't know the origiating league's totals, I've used the NL's totals for comparison purposes (you gotta use something). Obviously, this would bump him up a lot if his league were particularly offense-happy. My discount factor for the AZ-TX league is particularly steep because I couldn't find much on it, and what I found gave me the impression that the league wasn't a high-quality one, .80/.64 for avg/slg. Most of the discount factors fall into the .85-.9 range.
4)Was he ever in an MLB farm system? Even Clarkson got a "tryout".
As noted earlier in the thread, Marv got a tryout with the BoSox alongside Jackie and Jethroe. As far as I know his highest classification was the PCL, but he played there in two non-consecutive years for two different teams (see above). It appears that he was never invited into any organization.
Applying the NgL averages from the new HOF numbers, Williams gets a neglible boost:
old MLEs: .282/.354/.433/111/323.4
new MLEs: .282/.355/.435/112/326.1
Do people think the projected 326 WS is not credible? Or that a 326 WS 2B is not ballot-worthy?
That said, Marvin hit like the dickens everywhere he went, so I'm not inclined to think there's too too much volatility here. The man could hit. Like Clarkson his peak's a little soft for me, and so both he and Buster end up just outside my spheres of electability and ballotworthiness.
The big thing for me, however, is Sunny's question. Are people seeing this projection as realistic or not. Feedback is appreciated.
1. Williams, 2B 323 WS, 111 OPS+ with peaks of 28 WS and 161 OPS+
2. Clarkson, SS-3B 315 WS, 120 OPS+ with peaks of 32 and 159
3. Wilson, SS 262 WS, 95 OPS+ with peaks of 29 and 126
4. Scales, 2B, OPS+ 109 with peak of 144, no WS available (10 seasons above 100 OPS+ versus Williams 13 years)
They might all be very close, though they will probably string out over a good 40-50 places on my top 100 and Scales (and even Wilson) might miss altogether. But as we get into the "backlog years," I wanted to consider these guys whom I never really looked at very closely. Sure, they're not HR Johnson or John Beckwith or Frank Grant, but their competition is not exactly Arky Vaughan or HR Baker or Charlie Gehringer either.
Luke Easter, OTOH, looks like Cepeda or Cash, and for the short periods we know for sure about not unlike Mize and Greenberg.
Thanks to the tip on the Treder article, I've made a better esimation for Williams's 1952 season. I retained the QoP discount of 20% (the article noted it was a Class D league), but I revised the league averages. Treder gives the leaguewide AVG and R/G totals for one of those down-west leagues, and I just used them as a simple guideline...and improvement over having no info on their quality. Figuring those leagus all played at altitude and likely had similar high-octane R/Gs, I reverse engineered runs created from a .300 league AVG and a 6.7 R/G. That gets me to league AVG of .300 (duh) and SLG of .464. The NL was at .262/.396. Applying to Williams's numbers changes the line and total as you'll see below. (In 154 notation)
YEAR VER LG AGE PO AVG OBP SLG G PA AB H TB BB ops+ sfws--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1952 OLD NL 29 2B .320 .401 .546 125 497 438 140 239 59 161 28.2
1952 NEW NL 29 2b .280 .356 .458 125 489 438 123 201 51 124 19.5
==========================================================================
TOTAL OLD .282 .355 .435 2197 8600 7735 2185 3367 864 112 326.1
TOTAL NEW .280 .352 .430 2197 8592 7735 2167 3329 857 110 317.4
This does reduce Williams's peak a good bit since 1952 previously looked like a very strong season.
Year by year now, this time expressed in 162 notation.
1943 ?
1944 21.5
1945 30.5
1946 24.9*
1947 23.9*
1948 22.7
1949 18.6
1950 6.8
1951 23.0
1952 20.5
1953 19.7
1954 19.5
1955 23.1
1956 20.0
1957 9.6
1958 17.1
1959 21.1
1960 10.8
1961 ?
==========
TOT 333.2
*There's no little or no info for these seasons, so they are composites of previous and surrounding seasons and what's available.
In addition 1o 1946-1947, there are several years and leagues for which I don't have leaguewide averages for, and for which the MLEs substitute the NL averages for lack of better information. And, there are no park factors. Of course, this is true for many, many seasons in many of our MLEs.
First off, a big tip of the cap to KJOK for locating MiL data that I thought would be forever inaccessible. For instance, did you know the AZ-TX league (much speculated about above in this thread) was a 7.08 R/G league! Which actually is a nice lead-in to the Marv Williams re-eval.
I've worked Williams through my new MLE process. He comes out a little different, though not nearly as dramatically as Clarkson. Which if you look at their careers makes sense. I think Clarkson was a superior player; he played in superior leagues; he posted superior stats; he was a SS/3B, not a 2B/3B/?. That Williams, upon a more granular scrutiny should emerge as not as electable as Clarkson makes a lot of sense. I don't know if anyone will change their mind about Williams either way, but I do think that we now have so much more data on the context of his leagues that we can say with greater certainty that this MLE is significantly more accurate than the previous MLE. The new MiL data and the new NgL data remove the data-based doubts around Williams and help us reveal more of the player he was.
Anyway, other than using the new method, a lot has changed, and here are the key things to know:
-I now have (thanks to KJ) stats for all of the minor leagues and teams Marv played for. For some I have been able to estimate park factors, others not. The influx of data is vitally important since some of his leagues were very high scoring, and a couple very low scoring. For example:
1952 AZ-TX: 7.08
MxL 1945: 5.83
1954 NWL: 5.48
1955 PCL: 3.92
1957 TxL: 3.98
Keep in mind the NL of this era is usually a 4.25-4.50 league.
These run levels are part of the reason that he goes from .280/.352/.430 to .265/.340/.448. The other reason was discussed at length on the Clarkson thread, but to summarize, it's because I'm translating on runs instead of AVG/SLG and applying a more reasonable SLG discount.
-1946 is undocumented, and I have made it up from whole cloth using the neutralized career average.
-1947 he played for Pastora of the VZSL, and no stats are available. I've therefore used the same method.
-On defense, his record is a bit strange. He's clearly a 2B for his early career, but the second half of his career is a mix of 2B, 3B, and 1B. I just made him a 3B for that half of his career, though in this era when 1B was not populated by sluggers, he may have been able to play 1B in MLB. I suspect he's athletic enough to have played 3B, however. I welcome any ideas in this direction.
-Some small stats included below are estimates based on a few seasons of data, thus the GIDP are pretty low (like 5 a year). This data comes solely from Mexico, where they committed more errors (though I'm not precisely sure how many more), and so it's possible that their DP rates were simply lower than MLB's. Take these with salt, though I wanted to retain them since they provide some balast in the RC calculation.
-Marv Williams was a very durable player. In none of his seasons do I see evidence of his having missed more than one third of a season. I only see him missing a third twice. I'm showing him just under 10K PAs. I gave him 4.1 PAs per game, and that means he's around 2416 games played, 134 a year for 18 years---63rd all time (through 2005), right behind Appling, right ahead of Wheat. I think that's optimistic myself, but it's not wild.
-I have done two pieces of career shaping, filling in 1946-1947 and assigning him 4.1 PA per game. However, I think that I would advocate for shaping his final season differently than you'll see below. In the MLE, he's at .262/.344/.409, 13.4 BWS, 99 OPS+ in 512 PA. However, his real-life line is .277/.365/.418 in AA TxL in 408 PA (playing 116 of 143 games). That translates to .255/.337/.385 in 398 PA in the NL of 1961. My routine then adds 114 PA to that at the average of the previous three years weighted against career. I think it would be best to let the translated line stand by itself (projected into the 1961 NL), rather than augmenting it through my usual playing time procedures. That would result in a final line of
1961: .255/.337/.385 in 397 PA, 9.1 bws 2.6 fws 11.7 ws 91 OPS+.
It wouldn't change the career totals all that much:
9791 PA, 8696 AB, 2300 H, 3888 TB, 1022 BB, 1427 RC, .264/.339/.447, 275.9 bws, 71.6, fws 347.6 ws, 110 OPS+
Just that little tweak would take him from 63rd in games to about 90th, between Hooper and Gary Carter.
-Here's the discount schedule I used:
PCL (Class: Open) and NgL (pre-1947): .90
NgL (1950), TxL (Class AA), MxL (Class: N/A, after 1955 Class AA): .825
NWL (Class A) and SAL (Class A): .75
GCL (Class B): .70
AZTX (Class C): .65
Marvin Williams
Revised MLE, version 1.0
year age pa outs ab h tb bb sh sb cs hpb gdp rc avg obp slg
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1944 21 628 412 556 150 246 66 5 6 2 1 5 92 .270 .347 .443
1945 22 595 397 539 148 258 53 4 9 3 1 5 92 .275 .337 .478
1946 23 539 368 482 119 203 54 4 5 2 1 4 71 .247 .320 .421
1947 24 556 368 493 131 223 59 4 6 2 1 5 82 .266 .342 .453
1948 25 558 372 499 132 231 57 3 9 3 2 7 83 .265 .338 .462
1949 26 555 366 492 132 224 59 4 6 2 1 5 83 .268 .344 .456
1950 27 414 284 370 91 151 41 3 5 2 1 3 53 .246 .318 .407
1951 28 601 391 528 143 241 69 4 9 3 1 6 92 .271 .353 .457
1952 29 520 359 471 118 234 45 3 7 2 1 3 79 .250 .314 .497
1953 30 487 311 425 122 199 58 4 11 3 1 5 79 .287 .369 .468
1954 31 612 400 546 154 259 62 4 12 4 1 5 98 .282 .353 .474
1955 32 613 393 535 148 258 74 5 3 1 1 5 100 .277 .361 .482
1956 33 581 372 517 150 262 59 5 1 0 1 5 99 .290 .361 .506
1957 34 538 368 476 113 165 58 4 2 1 1 4 59 .238 .318 .346
1958 35 594 399 529 136 221 60 5 2 1 1 5 80 .257 .330 .418
1959 36 600 402 534 138 226 61 5 2 1 1 5 82 .258 .331 .423
1960 37 402 274 357 86 154 42 3 1 0 1 3 54 .241 .319 .432
1961 38 512 337 450 118 184 58 4 3 1 1 4 70 .262 .344 .409
==========================================================================
9906 6570 8797 2329 3937 1035 73 98 29 23 84 1446 .265 .340 .448
bws fws ws
---------------------
1944 20.5 5.5 25.9
1945 19.4 5.2 24.6
1946 16.2 4.7 20.9
1947 16.3 4.8 21.1
1948 17.1 4.9 22.0
1949 16.8 4.8 21.6
1950 8.6 3.6 12.3
1951 19.6 5.2 24.8
1952 17.9 4.5 22.4
1953 15.7 4.2 20.0
1954 20.5 5.3 25.8
1955 21.7 3.9 25.6
1956 24.1 3.7 27.9
1957 9.7 3.5 13.2
1958 15.7 3.8 19.5
1959 16.2 3.8 20.0
1960 11.1 2.6 13.7
1961 13.4 3.3 16.7
=====================
275.9 71.6 347.6
pa ab obp slg lgobp lgslg obp+ slg+ ops+
----------------------------------------------------
1944 628 556 .347 .443 .335 .376 104 118 121
1945 595 539 .337 .478 .343 .377 98 127 125
1946 539 482 .320 .421 .338 .368 95 114 109
1947 556 493 .342 .453 .349 .406 98 111 109
1948 558 499 .338 .462 .343 .398 99 116 115
1949 555 492 .344 .456 .344 .405 100 112 112
1950 414 370 .318 .407 .347 .418 92 97 89
1951 601 528 .353 .457 .341 .405 104 113 117
1952 520 471 .314 .497 .334 .389 94 128 122
1953 487 425 .369 .468 .345 .427 107 110 117
1954 612 546 .353 .474 .345 .424 102 112 114
1955 613 535 .361 .482 .337 .421 107 114 122
1956 581 517 .361 .506 .331 .417 109 121 130
1957 538 476 .318 .346 .332 .416 96 83 79
1958 594 529 .330 .418 .338 .421 98 99 97
1959 600 534 .331 .423 .336 .418 99 101 100
1960 402 357 .319 .432 .329 .404 97 107 104
1961 512 450 .344 .409 .337 .421 102 97 99
====================================================
9906 8797 .340 .448 .339 .406 100 110 110
Notes to follow.
YEAR LG REAL TRANS----------------------
1944 nnl .338 .311
1945 nnl .393 .344
1945 mxl .362 .276
1948 mxl .328 .268
1949 mxl .583 .500
1950 nal .250 .209
1950 pcl .250 .235
1951 mxl .321 .265
1952 azt .401 .248
1953 mxl .373 .306
1953 gcl .279 .221
1954 nwl .360 .277
1955 pcl .231 .236
1955 sal .328 .284
1956 txl .322 .298
1957 txl .253 .239
1958 txl .294 .260
1959 mxl .400 .404
1959 txl .310 .254
1960 txl .279 .238
1961 txl .277 .255
Note that the .404 in the trans column was in less than 10 games.
Using the SBE, I looked for similar MIs and 3Bs. Using Williams' MLE averages, and comparing them to the NL non-pitcher league averages he is projected into I got these ratios of player to league
Williams 9906 PA 100 AVG 100 OBP 110 SLG
I queried SBE to see what players in baseball history had posted similar ratios to their leagues in over 500 PA. I culled out the throwing infielders, and created a little sim score that looked only at playing time and the three ratios. I assessed 1 point for every 100 PAs of difference and 3 points for every point of difference in the relative averages. A perfect score would be zero, the maximum is around 100. Here's how the sims came out---the lower the sim score the more comparable:
Graig Nettles 24
Tommy Leach 33
Don Money 44
Doug DeCinces 46
Ken Caminiti 49
Cal Ripken 51
Rico Petrocelli 52
Ken Keltner 54
Bill Bradley 56
Miguel Tejada 57
Juan Samuel 65
Sam Wise 66
Ray Boone 76
Jimmy Williams 80
The problem with this list is that most of these guys have 2000 or more fewer PAs. Only Nettles, Leach, and Ripken have careers of more than 7000 PAs (though Money is at 6998.
I decided to also run the list for all players of 8000 or more PAs. I changed the sim score to reflect the more narrow PA distribution with 100 PAs still assessed at one point, but now the variation from Williams in relative averages now worth 2 points each. Perfect score still 0, the maximum is now about 60:
Steve Finley 14
Don Baylor 15
Gary Carter 17
Graig Nettles 17
Tino Martinez 21
Tommy Leach 25
Tim Wallach 32
Wally Pipp 33
Larry Parrish 35
Johnny Callison 37
Lance Parrish 41
Ken Caminiti 42
Ron Gant 42
Cal Ripken 44
Wildfire Schulte 45
Eric Karros 46
Gus Bell 48
Mike Higgins 52
So Williams is hitting like 3rd-tier corner OFs and 1Bs, like one HOF catcher and another possible HOM catcher (I reserve judgment on Lance) as well as some middle-length career 3Bs, and Cal (who is illusory, his rates dragged down by his latter years). Nettles and Leach stand out as potentially important points of comparison here as well. Given that he has little if any defensive reputation, I think it's probably safe to say that these crude comp lists support the notion that he was a hitter first and fielder second. I've made him average in the MLEs, which is my policy in the absence of any oral history, it could be that he should be lower, maybe a C- fielder.
Finally, I personally had two other questions about Williams.
1)What kept him out of MLB after integration?
It's possible that Marv didn't fit the then-current thinking about what an MLB infielder should be like. Dandridge fit that paradigm better, but he was too old. Williams wasn't Kell or Fox or Schoendienst, nor Al Dark. He certainly wasn't Temple, McMillan, or Aparicio either. Nor again Gilliam. But he also wasn't Vern Stephens or Ernie Banks, though he was more like them than the little guys. He was Tony Lazzeri in a league that was forgetting about Tony Lazzeri---the middle infield had, with notable exceptions, become the province of lighter hitters with very good to excellent gloves.
2B between 1947 and 1961 with around 750 games:
Fox, Schoendienst, Avila, Temple, Bolling, Priddy, Martin, Balsingame, Maz, Pete Suder, Billy Gardner, Jackie, Gilliam.
SS between 1947 and 1961 with around 750 games:
Reese, McMillan, Dark, Logan, Charrasquel, Rizzuto, Banks, Groat, DeMaestri, joost, Aparicio, Smalley, Miranda, Hamner, Grammas, Kuenn.
Just for kicks, 3B between 1947 and 1961 with around 750 games:
Yost, Puddin' Head, Mathews, Kell, Rosen, Hoak, Randy Jackson, Boyer, Carey, Hatton, Elliott, Jablonski, Malzone, Billy Cox, Majeski, Freese.
Even with guys like Mathews, Banks, and Rosen in the rolls, there's a lot of poor-to-merely-below-average hitters, and lots of gloves....
I think the big leagues quite possibly had chosen to emphasize other aspects of a 2B's game (gloves and speed), aspects that weren't Williams's strength. And the power-hitting 3B was still kind of novel, and many teams were giving lots of 3B time to below-average hitters. If they even knew he existed, they may have been hesitant to go against the current 2B paradigm for a guy who was black and who they didn't, therefore, necessarily have great scouting on since he'd played in a lot of placees.
2) What kept him from getting into AAA leagues?
I think that Marvin Williams may have kept himself out of these leagues. Look at Williams' teams. Lots of Texas, Arizon, and Mexico. He was born in Houston, and I think Williams may have been a homebody. He'd played in Philadephia and Cleveland in the Negro Leagues, and he jumped to Mexico after just two or three yeras. Maybe he didn't like the north, the far west, the midwest, and he decided that making a good living in the Texas League was vastly preferable to spending summers chasing the last slot on an MLB roster in Milwaukee, Toronto, or Sacramento. The majors then were very white, still probably very racist, very difficult for blacks to get into, more difficult for them to stay in, and very East Coast- and Great Lakes-oriented. It's not always simple to know what motivates people, but knowing nothing about his personality, I think Williams wanted to play near his home.
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