I've got room to consider some pitchers, and I'm more intererested in hearing about these guys than I am in Thompson, Tiernan, and Griffin. What about Mickey Welch? I hope someone puts some information here.

Some of my earlier Whitney/Caruthers refs: A, B (#10 on the ballot; Caruthers at #12), C (lot's more discussion if you search for Whitney), D, E, F, G.

No need to repeat them here.

Overall, I agree with your assessments here Jason, except that I think you are either understating Whitney's impact or overstating Caruthers. I see them as roughly equivalent (PBC with a small career edge) before applying any AA discount.

The Galvin/Radbourn debate about the quality&effect; of the fielding behind them is present here, but even more dramatically. BP claims that Whitney was affected by bad defense even more than Galvin was, and that Caruthers benefited far more from great defense than Radbourn did. This isn't that surprising a conclusion when examining the teams that Whitney and Caruthers played for.

DERA-NRA, i.e. how much team fielding helped (+) or hurt (-) career ERA

Somebody gave a good Welch-better-than-Keefe argument a few months back. Didn't totally convince me, but it was interesting. Don't at the moment have time to find it, but it goes to their parallel careers...

To echo what Brian H. said, a whole lot of runs scored while Whitney was pitching. I've been looking at this from a run average/league perspective, and I don't see anything in Whitney to lift him ahead of the likes of Larry Corcoran, Gus Weyhing, or Will White, and I would put Silver King and Tommy Bond ahead of that crowd.

I'm leaning toward putting my pitchers into this order:

Radbourn, Galvin, McCormick, Welch, Caruthers (would be lower except for his hitting), Mullane. McCormick and Welch ahead of Caruthers and Mullane as an AA discount.

(Oh - Weyhing isn't eligible yet, but he would be if he'd retired when he was still good.)

My order for pitchers is: Radbourn, Galvin, Spalding, Caruthers, Welch, Mullane, McCormick. I think the first three belong in the HoM. The rest, I am not so sure of.

Rusty,