Required disclosures (top returnees): Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Vic Willis, Phil Rizzuto, Ben Taylor, Dick Redding

2014 Prelim

1) Greg Maddux - top 25 player all time, 8th on my list of pitchers between Seaver and Spahn
2) Tom Glavine - top 60 player all time, ranked between Blyleven and Robin Roberts around 16th among pitchers
3) Curt Schilling - drops to 20th among pitchers. Ignoring early pitchers he's behind Blyleven and Roberts but ahead of Carl Hubbell, Gaylord Perry and Dazzy Vance. Top 70 player in baseball history.
4) Mike Mussina - top 100 player - around even with Gaylord Perry for 26th among pitchers
5) Frank Thomas - About a 50th percentile Hall of Merit inductee. 10th among 1B behind Buck Leonard and ahead of Mark McGwire
6) Tommy Bridges - Have been supporting Bridges since the 1970 ballot. Still think he's great.
7) Urban Shocker - gets WWI credit
8) Jeff Kent - 15th among 2B just ahead of Bobby Doerr, Joe Gordon and Roberto Alomar
9) Bus Clarkson - NGL and Mexican league credit
10) Phil Rizzuto - WWII credit
11) Gavy Cravath - minor league credit
12) Luis Tiant
13) Bob Johnson - on every ballot since I started voting in 1968
14) Ben Taylor - how do we induct Palmeiro and Beckley but not Ben Taylor? Taylor has the advantage of being the best 1B in the league and they don't. Great fielder during an era where it mattered quite a bit.
15) Bert Campaneris

16-20) Tony Mullane, Bucky Walters, Dave Bancroft, Hilton Smith, Norm Cash
21-25) Johnny Pesky, Dick Redding, Wally Schang, Sammy Sosa, Don Newcombe
26-30) Dave Concepcion, Babe Adams, Tommy Leach, Dizzy Dean, Jack Fournier

70) Vic Willis - too many contemporaries I like better - Babe Adams, Burleigh Grimes, Dick Redding, Wilbur Cooper

70) Vic Willis - too many contemporaries I like better - Babe Adams, Burleigh Grimes, Dick Redding, Wilbur Cooper

With the exception (barely) of Adams, none of these guys were contemporaries. Willis was done by 1910.

Not arguing with the placement, by the way. Willis got a good boost from Pittsburgh's defense, which from what I can tell wasn't far behind that of the Cubs. The Pirates of the aughts had a lot of one-year and two-year wonders who never did much anywhere else; their pitching staff was mostly Willis and a bunch of guys who would have been lucky to get 10 starts for the Giants or Cubs, they were usually near the bottom of the league in pitching strikeouts - and they were still usually about even with the Giants (who were usually the strikeout leaders) behind the Cubs.

-- MWE

Thanks for the comment, I was going mostly from memory.

While certainly Willis did benefit from the Pirates defense, he held his own pretty well too. For example, his FIP-based WAR from Fangraphs is between 15 and 20 wins higher than his teammates Leever and Phillippe. Of course, Willis' BBref and BG WAR is also way higher than his teammates, indicating that no matter how you look at it Willis was better than Leever and Phillippe. Willis' WAR numbers also rate favorably among the pitchers DL likes better as well.

Some RA+ Pythpat career records, with a "big years score" in brackets. Organized in order of Fibonacci win points on the equivalent record.

Clemens 359-187 [124]
Maddux 343-213 [106]
R. Johnson 275-162 [98]
P. Martinez 218-96 [91]
Glavine 284-206 [30]
Schilling 227-135 [50]
Mussina 236-147 [34]
Smoltz 234-152 [16]
Smoltz (as a starter only) 211-143 [16]
K. Brown 216-146 [46]
Tiant 224-164 [35]
Cone 190-132 [19]
Appier 154-119 [27]
Morris 226-199 ]9]
Rogers 194-173 [5]
Radke 154-119 [4]

I would describe Kenny Rogers as a poor man's Jack Morris, or as Morris without as much inning-eating durability. Rogers shares with Morris the fact that his actual W-L record is much better than his RA+ equivalent record, and by about the same amount.

Mussina I see as closely comparable to Schilling. Between the two of them, I'll put Schilling ahead for a slightly higher peak and slightly more post-season value. But it's a close call.

Johnson, Martinez, and Smoltz aren't on the 2014 ballot - they all become eligible in 2015.

Now, here is another table: by RA+ equivalent record, the best consecutive 7 year stretch of a pitcher's career. Going back to Lefty Grove. Ordered by Fib.WinPt. on that equivalent 7-year record. (Note that the 7-year interval is chosen to make Maddux look good.)

Grove: 151-63
Maddux: 139-47
Hubbell: 150-72
Martinez: 122-38
Seaver: 144-69
Clemens: 138-62
Gibson: 144-73
Johnson: 124-48
Feller: 145-75
Newhouser: 144-77
Roberts: 151-89
Koufax: 134-67
Marichal: 142-82
Perry: 151-98
Blyleven: 138-82
Schilling: 119-56
Jenkins: 144-94
Palmer: 137-84
Brown: 113-53
Spahn: 133-83
Pierce: 121-68
Bunning: 132-86

Probably no one needs to be reminded of this, but I'll say it anyway: Maddux had a helluva peak. Those seven years all by themselves are probably good enough for the HoM. Even more so if you extrapolate 1994 and 1995 out to normal season length, which I haven't done.

If you want to push that 7-year equivalent record thing back another quarter of a century, you get Walter Johnson with a 198-78 and Pete Alexander with 181-96. But times really were different back then.

DL from MN, I have two questions about your preliminary ballot--

First, why Glavine over Schilling/Mussina? I agree that those three are all close in value, and all in the top 5 on this ballot, but it looks to me like the only things Glavine has over Schilling/Mussina are IP and batting wins, which aren't enough to make up the difference in pitching quality. In many years, Glavine would be a top-of-the-ballot guy, but in this context, he looks to me like the one who should wait until 2015. What puts him over the top for you?

Second, what's your analysis of Jeff Kent? I like Kent, but my initial take puts him more on the borderline than solidly in--I see him as closer to Bancroft/Cash in the just off-ballot group with the current glut at the top than as the best available position player after Frank Thomas! What gets Kent up that high in your estimation?

DL, I'm surprised to see Thomas come in below the trio of pitchers.

My guess for the electorate is a whole is that we'll see Maddux elected in first (possibly unanimously), Thomas in second and one of the trio of similar pitchers in third (Glavine, Mussina and Schilling). Kent should also get decent support and join Sosa at the top of the backlog.

It's the extra bulk for Glavine (1200 innings). I'm a career voter, I don't look at peak at all except how it adds to career totals. Glavine has fewer PWAA but enough WARP2 to make up the difference. I haven't even looked at Glavine's 218 postseason innings for my initial ranking.

Shouldn't surprise you to see Mussina above Thomas. 26th among pitchers is better than 10th among first basemen.

Jeff Kent just barely scores higher than Bus Clarkson. He's the best available position player after Thomas because we've elected all the position players. He's waiting behind Biggio for my PHoM. That said, Dan R's defensive numbers for Jeff Kent give him a positive contribution over his career (+3 FWAA). Not sure that's correct and any adjustments downward could slide him down the list quickly. For example, changing that to -3 FWAA drops him below Norm Cash.

2014 Prelim

1. Greg Maddux, P: Led his league five times in ERA+ and five times in IP, including four years when he led in both. Easy #1.

2. Frank Thomas, 1B: 156 OPS+ is 20th all-time. Led league 3 times in OPS+ and 4 times in Runs Created.

3. Tom Glavine, P
4. Curt Schilling, P
5. Mike Mussina, P: As an Orioles fan, it pains me to put Moose third in this group but Glavine beats him on career (4413 innings to 3562) and Schilling beats him on rate (127 ERA+ to 123).

6. Ben Taylor, 1B: Renowned as a gloveman during the deadball era, Taylor was a better hitter than previously thought. Seamheads gives him a slash line of .339/.400/.467 for an OPS+ of 163. Those come down a little in MLE translations but Taylor's got room to spare.

7. "Cannonball" Dick Redding, P: I’ll keep making the case even though some are jumping off the bandwagon (while others shoot flaming arrows at it). #1 pitcher in 1914/15 (Cuban League), ‘17 and ’19. #1 player in 1917 (25.9 Win Shares in 153 innings). Top three in ‘12/’13, 1915, and ‘15/’16. Top ten in ’12, ’16 and ’21. Great peak, long prime.

8. Jeff Kent, 2B: Best available infielder. 123 OPS+ in 9537 plate attempts. Longer career keeps Kent ahead of Bando despite Bando's better defense.

9. Sal Bando, 3B: Best available third baseman. 119 OPS+, +36 fielding runs.

10. Vic Willis, P: 117 ERA+ in 3996 innings. Big peak, solid prime.

11. Don Newcombe, P: 114 ERA+ in 2154 innings not enough but not the whole story. Negro League, minor league and military service fills out a solid career around his big years.

12. Luis Aparicio, SS: My hobby horse. His 51.7 WAR is no illusion. +92 baserunning, +28 reaching base by error or avoiding double plays, +149 fielding. Did everything well that isn't included in OPS+.

13. Tommy Bridges, P: Top ten in ERA+ 10 times, including 2nd in '32, '33 and '43.

14. Fred McGriff, 1B: Scratching my careerist streak but a 134 OPS+ in over 10,000 plate attempts is nothing to sneer at.

15. Sammy Sosa, RF: Edges out Bob Johnson for the last ballot spot and the best available outfielder.

Required Disclosures

I've voted for Phil Rizzuto has in the past but at this point I prefer the career numbers and consistent prime of Aparicio and Bancroft respectively.

Looking further on Kent, DL from MN wrote:

That said, Dan R's defensive numbers for Jeff Kent give him a positive contribution over his career (+3 FWAA). Not sure that's correct and any adjustments downward could slide him down the list quickly. For example, changing that to -3 FWAA drops him below Norm Cash.

What is your source for these Dan R defensive numbers? The latest Dan R WARP numbers that I have (which go only through 2005 and may have been superseded), show Kent at -1.2 FWAA through 2005. Most of the fielding assessments that I am aware of show Kent as an above average fielder for his career, though the extent to which he is below average varies significantly:

Dan R: -1.2 FWAA (through 2005)
BBRef WAR: -42 fielding runs
Fangraphs WAR: -18.4 fielding runs
DRA: -1.9 fielding runs

The one exception is

Baseball Prospectus: +3.6 FRAA

As you note, the quality of Kent's fielding is key. In my way of looking at merit, Kent shows as clearly but narrowly above the in-out line in BP's WARP, right around the in-out line in Fangraphs and Dan R, and solidly below the in-out line in BBRef.

The fielding assessment you have from Dan R is more positive by two full wins than any others I have seen, so I am particularly curious about its source.

Kent provides a good occasion for considering the relative merits of the various fielding metrics available.

Dan R FWAA2
1992 -0.3
1993 -1
1994 1.4
1995 0.5
1996 0
1997 0.9
1998 0.5
1999 -0.2
2000 -0.8
2001 0.4
2002 -0.3
2003 -0.2
2004 1
2005 -0.1

Then I zero out 1992-1993 because they don't contribute to his overall numbers. Total is 3.1. I have him as -0.1 post 2005.

I'm certainly interested in a thorough assessment of Jeff Kent's defensive contribution. It is critical to his placement.

Taylor was a better hitter than previously thought.

How much? I have him in the spreadsheet comparable to Jake Beckley offensively - another low peak, long career first baseman. If he was 10% better than that he moves to 7th (behind Bridges) on my ballot. Is anyone planning on redoing the MLEs?

Is anyone planning on redoing the MLEs?

Yes. I'm working on converting my rankings of major-league players to be based on the second- and third-generation WAR stats now available. Once I finish that conversion, I plan to start re-doing MLEs for Negro League players based on the improved statistical record. I'll start with Ben Taylor and Dick Redding, because Gary Ashwill's research project has been most significant for the pre-1920 stars.

How much? I have him in the spreadsheet comparable to Jake Beckley offensively - another low peak, long career first baseman. If he was 10% better than that he moves to 7th (behind Bridges) on my ballot.

The problem with describing Taylor as a low peak, long career first baseman is that MLEs tend to flatten a player's peak as they often incorporate regression to the mean.

In my case it doesn't really matter. I don't look at peak.

2014 Prelim:

1 Greg Maddux - Top 10 pitcher - in the discussion with Pete Alexander, Lefty Grove, and Christy Mathewson.
2 Curt Schilling & - Fergie Jenkins, Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan, Ed Walsh territory
3 Mike Mussina - Top 25 pitchers
4 Frank Thomas - Top 70 position player - Well below Hank Greenberg and Jeff Bagwell, well ahead of Jim Thome and Willie McCovey
5 Tom Glavine - Top 30 pitcher - Kevin Brown, Hal Newhouser, Red Ruffing, Juan Marichal territory
6 Sammy Sosa - near HOM median line, a touch below Sam Crawford and Tony Gwynn, a notch ahead of Harry Heilmann and Enos Slaughter
7 Phil Rizzuto - last no brainer from the deep backlog with war/malaria credit.
8 Tommy Leach
9 Buddy Bell
10 Don Newcombe
11 Hilton Smith
12 Bert Campaneris
13 Gavvy Cravath
14 Johnny Pesky
15 Urban Shocker
Vic Willis - PHOM, but off ballot
Ben Taylor - potential for PHOM, waiting for MLEs
Dick Redding - close to PHOM, but seamheads hasn't helped his case

Check out the mainland thread for Jeff Kent, particularly Dan R's comments:
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/mlbcom_jeff_kent_retires/

My no vote for Jeff Kent prevented him from being elected to a different shadow hall of fame:


Some Dan notes:
67. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: January 21, 2009 at 08:03 PM (#3057611)
Kent definitely falls short for me. Here's how he looks in my WARP.

Year SFrac BWAA BRWAA FWAA Replc WARP
1992 0.50 -0.1 0.0 -0.3 -1.0 0.6
1993 0.79 0.5 -0.2 -1.0 -1.3 0.6
1994 0.93 1.4 0.0 1.4 -1.6 4.4
1995 0.84 1.2 -0.2 0.5 -1.3 2.8
1996 0.69 0.6 0.3 0.0 -0.8 1.7
1997 0.95 0.5 0.2 0.9 -1.4 3.0
1998 0.86 3.4 0.0 0.5 -1.4 5.2
1999 0.84 2.0 -0.3 -0.2 -1.4 2.9
2000 1.00 6.0 -0.1 -0.8 -1.5 6.7
2001 1.02 3.7 -0.3 0.4 -1.5 5.3
2002 1.00 4.3 0.4 -0.3 -1.5 5.8
2003 0.81 1.6 0.0 -0.2 -1.3 2.7
2004 0.88 1.7 -0.4 1.0 -1.5 3.9
2005 0.93 3.1 0.1 -0.1 -1.5 4.7
2006 0.69 1.8 -0.3 -0.9 -1.1 1.7
2007 0.81 1.6 -0.1 -1.0 -1.4 1.9
2008 0.69 -0.2 -0.2 -0.9 -1.2 -0.1
TOTL 14.23 33.1 -1.1 -1.0 -22.7 53.8
TXBR 13.54 33.3 -0.9 -0.1 -21.5 53.9
AVRG 1.00 2.3 -0.1 -0.1 -1.6 3.8


In my salary estimator, that comes out to $141 million, where $150M is roughly the Hall in/out line. The combination of 2B being easier now than it was before 1980 and the high standard deviation of the high-scoring, doubly-expanded NL after 1998 just sets him back too far. There are a lot of supposedly borderline modern players I support--not just Larry Walker and Jim Edmonds who I think are no-brainers but Brian Giles and Jason Giambi--but Kent isn't one of them.

Dan explains the defensive metrics he uses for Kent:

69. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: January 21, 2009 at 08:41 PM (#3057620)
It's my fielding wins, which are a weighted average of Zone Rating and Retrosheet data that shows an overwhelmingly high correlation (r > .85) to an average of modern PBP metrics.

That said, Kent wasn't bad with the glove; he was average. He just didn't hit well enough for long enough to meet the Hall standard for average-fielding, average-running, 1990's/2000's NL 2B.


Dan muses later in the thread, post 79:

1. 2B is not what it used to be. In the 1970's, 2B was truly a "middle infield" position, second only to shortstop in terms of how poor hitters replacement players at the position were. Scrap heap catchers and third basemen were far better offensively than their 2B counterparts. After 1985, that was no longer the case--replacement 2B improved their hitting substantially, to the point where today they are indistinguishable from 3B and CF (as Tangotiger also notes). As a result, Kent (and all modern 2B) need to be held to a higher standard offensively than their historical predecessors, because the position has evolved into a mid-defensive spectrum role.

2. Kent compiled his highest OPS+ marks in one of the easiest eras to dominate in major league history, the 1998-2002 NL. The combination of two expansions and extremely high run scoring meant that hitters' performances were spread out substantially more than they were in, say, the early 1980's NL. A given OPS+ mark (100, 125, 150, whatever) in 1998 "bought" notably fewer pennants than it would have 15 years before. (Note that there is no mention of steroids in this statement).

3. Given these contextual factors, you simply can't compare Kent's 9,537 PA at a 123 OPS+ to, say, Bobby Grich's 8,220 at 125 and conclude that they had similar offensive value, or that Kent was slightly superior. (In fact, if we ignore baserunning and fielding, I have Grich at 65.2 wins above replacement and Kent at 54.9). Given how easy it was for teams to find a "decent" OPS+ at 2B during Kent's career, he simply didn't separate himself enough from that benchmark to meet the Hall's overall standard. (For the same reason, I am much less friendly to Alomar than most, although I still think he deserves enshrinement).
He further explains his method for calculating replacement in post 93:


the *overall* replacement level doesn't change, just the *relative* replacement levels of the different positions. My system only attempts to measure players' contextual value as accurately as possible. I don't know for sure why middle infielders hit so much better now than they used to, although I have a pretty strong hunch it has something to do with the reduction in turf fields and the changing emphasis in the game on power over speed. But it indubitably has happened, and that's what counts when we are trying to determine how many wins a player was worth to his club.

I trace the evolution of the defensive spectrum over time by looking at the performance of the worst 3/8 of MLB starters over rolling nine-year periods. That means that for Kent, we're talking about literally 100 player-seasons (which exclude the performance of all above-average players that might skew the curve with their once-in-a-generation excellence). The odds that a sample this large would be influenced by fluctuations in the talent are sufficiently small that I see no reason to doubt the results.

I'll have to update with the new 2006-2007 numbers.

Mike (#3) has "The Pirates of the aughts had a lot of one-year and two-year wonders who never did much anywhere else; their pitching staff was mostly Willis and a bunch of guys who would have been lucky to get 10 starts for the Giants or Cubs...."

I have GREAT respect for Mike's analyses, but this simply is not true. The Pirates in the oughts had Sam Leever and Decaon Phillippe, who would certainly have been in the rotation of the 1906 Cubs, although Three-Finger Brown would still have been the ace. They also had some people like Ed Doheny and Lefty Leifield, who would have been on the 1906 Cubs' rotation in their good years. Besides that, Willis only pitched 4 years for the Bucs: 1906-1909. He did pitch a little better for the Pirates than he had pitched previously for Boston, where he actually led the league in Losses twice. The Pirates of this period had few strikeouts because they were ground ball curveball pitchers with tremendous control. That meant that everything went down, and was a strike, but you could hit a grounder off of it any time. Fred Clarke collected curveball pitchers, including Willis, Deacon and Sam, Jesse Tannehill, and Babe Adams. He did have very good infield gloves out there, but the pitchers he collected knew how to use that - induce grounders. That is probably why Willis pitched a bit better in Pittsburgh. He knew how to induce grounders. He also may have suffered from some large workloads in Boston. - Brock Hanke

here's my top few as of now. i would personally vote for 8 in hof:

1) maddux - i have him as 4th best pitcher ever (johnson, young, clemens) both in raw terms and adjusted for historical epoch

top four stay the same by both calculations but after that they differ:
raw 5-10 alexander, mathewson, nichols, pedro, grove, randy (seaver)
adj 5-10 pedro, randy, grover, grove, seaver, mathewson (nichols)

so as you can see, i have a consensus group of four, then a consensus group of 7 for a consensus 11. big gap after #11 in both cases

2) thomas - my deduction for 1b is low compared to bad fielders at other positions so he doesn't drop off like in bbref war. 1b is my basis b/c highest # chances, lowest error rate. also he quit fielding after a while. i have him 16th in my hitting score b/w wagner and lajoie, with a gap to lajoie (and another big gap after 18th)

for my top hitters if you are wondering, i have ruth, gap, bonds, gap, cobb, williams, gap, usual suspects

3) schilling - i have him as 15th best pitcher, between gibson and perry

4) mussina - i have him as 21st best pitcher, b/w walsh and marichal

5) babe adams - i have him as 40th best pitcher, led league in whip 5 times (1 was only 160 IP though)

6) tom glavine - i have him as 41st best pitcher, and he does have 300 wins

7) sosa - i have him 83rd on my hitting score, way below mcgwire, walker, mcgriff, palmeiro. surprisingly low. above general hof standard still, but does not look good compared to contemporary candidates. haven't evaluated him for fielding or baserunning yet.

8) jeff kent - have him in 100-150th range for best hitter score, good for 2b, don't see a huge penalty for fielding or baserunning but haven't evaluated him on those yet.

other notes:

tommy bridges - have him as 61st best pitcher
urban shocker - have him as 70th best pitcher
bucky walters - have him as 86th best pitcher
vic willis - 96th best pitcher
--brad radke line--
don newcombe - 123rd best pitcher

don't really want to vote for any of these pitchers if i can help it but i'll just put them on the end in order if i have to (unless one of them was a really terrible fielder or something). newcombe is below my brad radke hellz-2-tha-nah line, though. (i am reading colbert's book)

and yes, morris is also below all of those guys. but he's still above marquard.

fred mcgriff - 53rd hitting
norm cash - 67th hitting

these 2 are below sosa/kent to my fan-heart but should i put these 2 above sosa/kent? that's what i'll be considering. i'll do fielding/baserunning evaluations on these 4 guys to see if it enlightens me at all.

aparicio - top 5 running score (so far), good fielder except first (one) and last two seasons, obviously bad hitting score (ahead of only maranville and vizquel at this point and barely - yikes)

pitcher rank is just pitcher score, fielding not considered. score curved for historical epoch and anomalous UER percentage in a season. taken around league averages. i also do a historical curve for fielding that is less steep. but i am only up to the 1890s as far as doing actual ratings (plus a few modern test cases). i do not curve historically for baserunning or hitting, since i use stats that are already accounting for year to year fluctuations and there is no obvious "worse" state in the past to base said curve on (lower fpct for fielders, high uer/er ratio for pitchers).

disclaimers: i do not use pbp data, i do not consider leagues outside of na, nl, al. no ua, aa, fl, pl, nnl, nal, cl, wl, etc. credit from me

sorry if you are swamped by my commentary, i just started commenting on here again and i was eviscerated last time i tried to vote on one of these (i had only done a pitching score then) so i feel compelled to give more detail

jdennis - for a hall of merit ballot you just rank your top 15 players. Make sure you look at the required disclosures.

disclaimers: i do not use pbp data, i do not consider leagues outside of na, nl, al. no ua, aa, fl, pl, nnl, nal, cl, wl, etc. credit from me

Just a clarification: you'll eventually need to look at players in these leagues, in order to be fair to all players from all eras. The PL is pretty easy since it was nearly NL quality (or maybe a bit better); the AA/FL/UA are a bit tougher but I think there was some work done on AA/NL and UA/NL conversions on an old thread somewhere. The Negro Leagues are tougher still but the Negro Leagues players' threads are a very good source of info and opinions; additionally both BBREF and Seamheads.com have (incomplete) Negro Leagues statistics.

Thanks for those numbers. I was overestimating his 2006-2007. Kent now drops just behind Sosa for me. Borderline 2B candidate but beats the hell out of Nellie Fox.

Kent was pretty good in the postseason - .840 OPS in 189 PA. A lot of these new candidates have an extensive postseason record to consider.

I just had to comment somewhere that the next HOF vote is going to be CRAZY.
It was already a super crowded ballot and no one was elected.
Now you add into that Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Mussina, and Kent.
That's unreal!

So, Maddux is the obvious #1 and I’m assuming he’ll be unanimous. But the separation between Schilling, Glavine, and Mussina is far less obvious. Watching them in their prime, I would’ve taken Mussina, but then again, I was biased then because I’m an Orioles fan. So, how do the stats compare among the three? We’ll progress from basic to advanced.

Innings pitched: Glavine (4413.1), Mussina (3562.2), Schilling (3261).
200+ Inning Seasons: Glavine (14), Mussina (11), Schilling (9).
Top Inning Season: Schilling (268.2), Glavine (246.2), Mussina (243.1).
Innings per game: Mussina (6.6), Glavine (6.5), Schilling (5.7).
So Glavine has a big edge in innings pitched, although his rate per game is virtually the same as Mussina’s. In Schilling’s big years, however, he put up slightly more innings than Mussina or Glavine.

Strikeouts: Schilling (3116), Mussina (2813), Glavine (2607).
200+ K Seasons: Schilling (5, with 3 being 300+), Mussina (4), Glavine (0).
Top K Season: Schilling (319), Mussina (218), Glavine (192).
Schilling with the big edge in strikeouts, although I’ll admit I was surprised Glavine never reached 200 K in a season.

Career ERA-: Schilling (80), Mussina (82), Glavine (86). Thought Glavine would be closer to Schilling and Mussina, but let’s take a look at each pitcher’s 5 best ERA- seasons and how they compare to each other:
1. Glavine (59)
2. Mussina (63)
3. Mussina (64)
4. Schilling (65)
5. Schilling (66)
6. Schilling/Glavine (67)
8. Schilling/Schilling/Mussina (69)
11. Glavine (70)
12. Glavine (71)
13. Glavine/Mussina/Mussina (72)

If you add the rankings up (so lower the number the better), Schilling ends up with 31, Mussina with 39, and Glavine with 43. Overall, though, no one stands out too much as the numbers are all pretty close. Let’s do the same thing with FIP (Schilling career 74, Mussina career 81, Glavine career 94)-:

1. Schilling (54)
2. Schilling (58)
3. Schilling (60)
4. Schilling (63)
5. Schilling/Mussina (68)
7. Mussina/Mussina (71)
9. Mussina (76)
10. Mussina (77)
11. Glavine (79)
12. Glavine (80)
13. Glavine (81)
14. Glavine/Glavine (82)

As you can see, Schilling dominates, with a score of 15, Mussina follows with 38, and Glavine finishes with 64. It is pretty amazing that Mussina’s best seasonal FIP- is the same as Schilling’s fifth-best, and that Glavine’s best is worse than Mussina’s fifth-best.

So to sum up this section, it’s clear that Schilling > Mussina > Glavine based on rates, but that Glavine > Mussina > Schilling when it comes to career innings pitched. So how to weigh this information to see who to rank where? Well, let’s see how the various WAR systems illustrate it:

B-R: Mussina (78.1), Schilling (76.9), Glavine (69.3)
FG: Schilling (86.1), Mussina (85.6), Glavine (68.5)
BG: Mussina (78.6), Glavine (76.4), Schilling (73)

B-R JAWS: Schilling (62.3), Mussina (60.3), Glavine (53.7)
FG JAWS: Schilling (69.7), Mussina (63.9), Glavine (51.4)
BG JAWS: Mussina (61.3), Schilling (59.6), Glavine (59.2)
AVG JAWS: Schilling (63.9), Mussina (61.8), Glavine (54.8)

This ranking is the same as the rate rankings, although there is not a lot of separation. Rather than listing the top 5 seasons for each pitcher for each metric, here is the total top 5 season WAR for each pitcher via each metric:

Schilling: 36.2 B-R WAR, 41.8 FG WAR, 35.4 BG WAR
Mussina: 32.1 B-R WAR, 31.3 FG WAR, 33 BG WAR
Glavine: 29.6 B-R WAR, 25.4 FG WAR, 31.4 BG WAR

When also considering playoff performance, it would seem Schilling also adds to his advantage although Glavine and Mussina aren’t slouches either:
Schilling: 133.1 IP/2.13 ERA/13 starts 7+ IP, 2- ER/120 K
Mussina: 139.2 IP/3.42 ERA/8 starts 7+ IP, 2- ER/145 K
Glavine: 218.1 IP/3.30 ERA/16 starts 7+ IP, 2-ER/143 K

However, there are some other considerations. Both Glavine and Mussina were great fielders, while the same cannot be said of Schilling. Mussina always had to face a DH, which Glavine didn’t and Schilling only had to do at the end of his career. Schilling and Glavine’s postseason opportunities coincided with their best seasons, something not always true for Mussina. But most importantly, two of Mussina’s best years according to ERA- were the strike years of 1994 and 1995, something that can’t be said for Schilling or Glavine (Schilling in fact was below average in 1994). I haven’t adjusted for this in the above, as people disagree on whether to flat adjust or adjust with some regression. While I’m not sure it’s enough to put Mussina ahead of Schilling, right now I’m thinking of ranking Mussina just barely ahead of Schilling, with Glavine bringing up the vaunted rear, even though I greatly respect his innings total.

Glavine was the best hitter of the three. How significant is that going to be in the consideration (not much, but it had to earn the odd win here or there).

Normally, I don't really care about pitcher hitting, but with Glavine it looks like it worth really incorporating. That being said, I don't know if it's enough to change the rankings of these three. I also didn't want to include it in my analysis above since for Mussina, there really isn't any hitting data since he spent his whole career in the AL.

One good thing is that pitcher hitting replacement level is that of the average hitting pitcher. No one chooses pitchers for their offense, so the replacement level is league average. Which means (luckily) that AL pitchers aren't hurt or helped by their not being allowed to hit in comparison with NL pitchers, on average.

I've emailed Sean Forman about how B-R calculates replacement level for pitcher offense . . . I don't think they are doing this. I get Jim Kaat at 29 RAR hitting, but B-R has him at 56, so my first inclination is that they don't use average pitcher hitting as replacement level. Haven't checked the other sites.

Regarding comment 26, i performed an analysis in the maddux thread that included hitting stats, showing mussina and schilling as a coin flip weighting equally sean smith, baseball reference, baseball gauge, and fangraphs war.

Glavine pulls up the clear rear using sean smith and fangraphs, fangraphs is based upon fip, and glavine made great use of weak contact.

With war and integration credit, i have don newcombe at the top of the backlog.
with wwi credit, urban shocker falls next in line.
a cluster forms after these 2 two.

The most baffeling to me is how well george uhle comes out, no one has voted for him, but he comes out hall of merit worthy with the 4 systems, thanks to hitting value...does anyone else like uhle?

JoeD/29:

BR describes their positional adjustment for pitchers here: they set replacement level such that pitchers sum to zero WAR for their position-player contributions (batting, baserunning, GIDP), rather than zero for hitting alone. There's also a list of the yearly pitcher position adjustments. It seems like this shouldn't make a huge difference, though, since pitchers are rarely on base enough to do much harm with their terrible baserunning.

As an aside: this assumption may fall apart in very early baseball, when many "pitchers" were in fact two way players, and therefore selected partially on the basis of their non-pitching skills. For instance, Jack Stivetts' BR page shows a weird relationship between RAR and WAR--an RPW of nearly 30 when he was primarily a pitcher, dropping abruptly to 10 when he became a full-time OF. Other pitchers, also, have a much higher RPW than position players during this era. I'll look into this effect more but it may be that BR WAR unduly penalizes two-way players when they were common.

Good commentary alex, bob caruthers was one of the biggest losers in the new baseball reference war.

Tom Glavine is a great argument to ignore FIP entirely.

I don't remember evaluating George Uhle.

Upon further review I'm not really sure what's going on here...I looked at 1922 and 1923 pitcher batting and indeed, the total pitcher* hitting WAR was zero. But for 1876 and 1881, this was not the case. In 1881, total pitcher RAR was 32.3, which is I think as it should be: pitchers who were better hitters received more PT as position players, skewing the averages upward. But total pitchers as hitters WAR was negative 4.7 WAR, which is bizarre. I may email Sean Forman to see if he knows what's going on here, but this is a pretty minor point. Joe, has he responded to your question yet?

*Using BBREF's demarcation of pitcher/not-pitcher, which defines someone as a pitcher if they were a pitcher in a plurality of their games played.

Quick look:

1) Maddux
2) Thomas
(gap)
3) Mussina
4) Glavine
5) Schilling

Yes, Glavine is Tommy John plus. But we're under-rating John (and groundball-heavy pitchers in general, though we latched onto Rick Reuschel).

I anticipate #6-#12 being the same as 2013:
6) Dolf Luque - receives color line credit
7) Wally Schang - mystified why he earns so little support
8) Tommy John - cf. Glavine comment
(gap)
9) Sammy Sosa
10) Hilton Smith
11) Buddy Bell
12) Luis Tiant

Some movement at the bottom:
13) Ben Taylor (new)

I was trying to justify "Norm Cash on, Fred McGriff off", which led me to a general reappraisal of 1B and the conclusion that Ben Taylor stood out farther from his contemporaries than either of the two. This is a cautious placement; he may rise even higher (into the Luque/Schang/John cluster).

14) Lee Smith (was #13)
15) Kenny Lofton (unch.)

Jeff Kent just misses the ballot. He's the Larry Doyle of his era. In the "post-integration 2B/3B" realm, Kent sits above Bando but below Bell.

Rizzuto and Willis are "top 25, not top 15". I'm conservative with war credit and think we made a mistake by inducting Charlie Keller.

Redding is a Bobo Newsom clone; great fastball, bounced around, not a consistent plus pitcher. Hilton Smith (a "Bucky Walters plus" candidate) should be ahead of him in the NeL queue.

I WANT badly to vote for Boomer Wells, but being Herb Pennock 2.0 doesn't qualify you for the Hall of Merit.

33. DL from MN Posted: January 13, 2013 at 10:41 AM (#4346077)
Tom Glavine is a great argument to ignore FIP entirely.

I don't remember evaluating George Uhle.

Tango suggests a 70/30 rWAR/ fWAR split:
insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/gwar_the_latest_in_the_war_implementations

Back to Glavine/Mussina/Schilling

B-R: Mussina (78.1), Schilling (76.9), Glavine (69.3)

That includes negative WAR seasons for Glavine at the beginning and ends of his career. Let's zero those out for everyone. I also zero out seasons where WAA + WAR < 0.

Altered B-R PWAR: Mussina (78.1), Schilling (77.8), Glavine (69.6)
Altered B-R PWAA: Mussina (48.9), Schilling (55.1), Glavine (41.6)

This makes Glavine look like the player to place at the bottom until...

you add in BWAR: Mussina (0.1), Schilling (-0.8), Glavine (7.3)

That makes the numbers:

WAR: Mussina (78.2), Schilling (77.0), Glavine (76.9)
WAA: Mussina (49.0), Schilling (54.3), Glavine (48.9)

They're within the error bar in WAR. I think it requires a systematic look at postseason records to really separate these pitchers. Also, any peak analysis is going to require postseason records get tacked on to their best seasons.

Overall postseason records:

PSPitcher W  L  W-L%  ERA  G  GS  GF  CG  SHO  SV  IP  H  R  ER  HR  BB  IBB  SO  HBP  BK  WP  BF  WHIP
ToGlavine 14  16  .467  3.30  35  35  0  3  0  0  218.1  191  91  80  21  87  11  143  7  1  3  912  1.273
MiMussina 7  8  .467  3.42  23  21  0  0  0  0  139.2  121  56  53  19  33  7  145  3  0  2  571  1.103  
Schilling 11  2  .846  2.23  19  19  0  4  2  0  133.1  104  37  33  12  25  0  120  3  0  1  525  0.968

I think Schilling pretty clearly bests Mussina (who is no slouch) in around the same number of innings. Glavine (once again) has the bulk argument. Glavine does have 11 UER which is pretty high.

PSBatter G  PA  AB  R  H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  SB  CS  BB  SO  BA  OBP  SLG  OPS
ToGlavine 36  70  59  4  10  1  1  0  5  0  0  5  18  .169  .234  .220  .455
MiMussina 23  4  4  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  4  .000  .000  .000  .000
Schilling 19  28  24  1  2  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  12  .083  .083  .083  .167  

Glavine provides a lot more postseason value with the bat.

All I can shake out is that Mussina belongs on the bottom of the list.

DL, I'm sold. New prelim, which should stay the same for awhile. Parentheses indicate 2012/2013 ballot placement.

1) Greg Maddux
2) Frank Thomas
3) Tom Glavine
4) Curt Schilling (NA/5)
5) Mike Mussina
6) Adolfo 'Dolf' Luque (1/6)
7) Wally Schang (2/7)
8) Ben Taylor (off/off)
9) Tommy John (3/8)
10) Sammy Sosa (NA/9)
11) Hilton Smith (4/10)

[Break point - I strongly believe that the top 11 deserve HoM enshrinement, but I'm not 100% certain for those below]

12) Buddy Bell (7/11)
13) Luis Tiant (6/12)
14) Lee Smith (10/13)
15) Kenny Lofton (NA/15)

PSBatter G PA AB 
ToGlavine 36 70 59

There are 6 sac bunts in there for Glavine too which I consider a positive.

A peak analysis is going to arrange things differently but I wouldn't consider a peak analysis that didn't take into account postseason innings or hitting. Schilling's peak is going to look pretty great with those postseason innings tacked on.

The way I consider "fair to all positions and all eras" the #30 pitcher is about even with the #10 first baseman. That's what keeps me from ranking Thomas ahead of the pitchers.

Sorry, no unanimity for Maddux... but awfully close.

1. Frank Thomas
2. Greg Maddux
3. Sammy Sosa
4. Jeff Kent
5. Fred McGriff
6. Tommy Leach
7. Mickey Welch
8. Tony Perez
9. Bobby Bonds
10. Luis Gonzalez
11. Vic Willis
12. Buddy Bell
13. Hugh Duffy
14. Tom Glavine
15. Jim McCormick

16-20. Lofton, Schilling, Finley, Grace, Redding
21-25. Redding, Mullane, Brock, Cash, Olerud
26-30. Streeter, Bando, John, Grimes, Greene

Both Rizzuto and Taylor are late in my Top 100

The way I consider "fair to all positions and all eras" the #30 pitcher is about even with the #10 first baseman.

With the much larger number of pitchers required on a team than 1B, shouldn't that be more like #40-50 (Or MAYBE even higher?)

I am not a big fan of relative rankings by position (as could be seen in my relative lack of support for Mike Piazza), but if you are going to do them...

Rusty- no Mussina?

#30/#10 is about 27% pitching in the Hall of Merit, which is around where the % is at the moment. I'm just slightly kinder to pitchers than the overall Hall of Merit. Thing is, I don't really adjust the numbers much to get there. I have thought about making that adjustment but held back partly because there wasn't always a 5 man rotation and partly because the value for pitchers is spread out much thinner after the development of the modern bullpen. I think 30% pitching is a fairly conservative amount and I could see 33% based on the pitching/defense/offense value split. That would make the #33 pitcher even with #10 at any position and would give a quota of 83 pitchers elected. We've elected 67 pitchers and two of those (Dihigo and Caruthers) aren't full-time pitchers. Even I can't quite get to being 26 pitchers short.

I don't understand your ballot in the slightest. Every GM in baseball would have traded Frank Thomas to obtain Greg Maddux. They also would have dealt Luis Gonzalez to get Glavine or Schilling or Mussina (who isn't even listed) too. It's one thing to disagree with ranking between eras (Welch over Glavine) but I don't grok your ranking of modern players.

#30/#10 is about 27% pitching in the Hall of Merit, which is around where the % is at the moment.

Okay, now I understand what you are getting at. As I say, I am not a fan of ranking by position so it doesn't affect me, but all knowledge is good knowledge!


And so you know, Luis Gonzalez is the player I am most 'uncomfortable with' at the moment. He could easily drop.

As for Thomas and Maddux... I would rather have Thomas, but there is a hair's-width between them.

I have Mussina around 50. He could move up, theoretically, but not likely enough to get on the ballot. I think he is overrated.

Scanning the nubmers in the header, another way to look at it is that I think that WS (Where he is below Kent, Gonzalez and Alou) are a better gauge of his value than WAR (where he is above Glavine).

You sure, DL from MN? Given the relative attrition rates for hitters and pitchers, it wouldn't've surprised me at all if most GM's would have preferred Thomas. Maddux certainly has a ton more career value than Thomas does, but are his best 8-9 seasons (arbitrarily endpointing to benefit the Hurt) really that much greater? Frank Thomas was the best pure hitter (at peak) between Ted Williams and late-career Barry Bonds, was he not?

Maddux certainly has a ton more career value than Thomas does

Nuff said

Does Joe still calculate his Pennants Added? I would guess that Maddux would be ahead of Thomas, but that it would be fairly close.

So I redid the JAWS figures with giving credit to Mussina and Glavine for time missed in 94 and 95 and for hitting for Glavine. The results below:

B-R JAWS: Mussina (62.5), Schilling (62.3), Glavine (60.1)
FG JAWS: Schilling (69.7), Mussina (64.8), Glavine (57.5)
BG JAWS: Mussina (63.8), Glavine (63.3), Schilling (59.6)
AVG JAWS: Schilling (63.9), Mussina (63.7), Glavine (60.3)

Mussina didn't do as well as I thought, and I don't see how one can rank Mussina ahead of Schilling, as Mussina's better fielding is more than trumped by Schilling's postseason excellence. Adding Glavine's hitting certainly brings him right into the fold, but it's not enough to rank him ahead of Schilling or Mussina for me.

Also, in case anyone's wondering about the other two big additions to the ballot (these are adjusted for 94 and 95):

B-R JAWS: Maddux (80.6), Mussina (62.5), Schilling (62.3), Glavine (60.1), Thomas (59.1)
FG JAWS: Maddux (90.7), Schilling (69.7), Thomas (65.8), Mussina (64.8), Glavine (57.5)
BG JAWS: Maddux (88.6), Mussina (63.8), Glavine (63.3), Thomas (59.7), Schilling (59.6)
AVG JAWS: Maddux (86.6), Schilling (63.9), Mussina (63.7), Thomas (61.5), Glavine (60.3)

As you can see Maddux is really in a world of his own on this ballot. While Thomas does have a better AVG JAWS than Glavine, I'm still going to rank Glavine ahead of Thomas on my ballot due to the positional argument that DL has eloquently explained along with the fact that I also deduct Thomas some in ballot rankings due to the amount of time he spent as a DH (although no where near as extremely as Brock does).

Yeah. I have no idea where Thomas will end up on my ballot, but this is going to be the biggest DH deduction I have ever made. Right now, I'm trying to figure out some way of assigning a negative value to zero performance within Bill James' Win Shares model, where the zero point is half of the league runs scored or 1.5 times the number of league runs scored, depending on whether you're looking at offense or defense. But at minimum, I will deduct Thomas as much as the worst full season in MLB history by a full-time field player, on the grounds that anyone playing the field would have at least one chance successfully accepted in a season, which is more than a DH can say. I tend to regard Tom Glavine as being the modern Pud Galvin, rather than Tommy John plus, but I don't really know if there's any difference between the two viewpoints. Both are essentially saying lots of IP, not a great rate. - Brock