As someone who has Rizzuto in a borderline slot, I'm not sure I care about his election one way or the other. However, it seems to me that, if it was decided that this is a 4 electee year in advance, the totals should be reworked (I'm assuming points for 4 elect me slots are different from 3) for a 4 electee election. I'm guessing the result would still be Rizzuto since he's way ahead of Tiant and the others. I can't imagine anyone's ballot would have been different in the 4 electee scenario. I know mine wouldn't be.

Re: Cone - I've asked Jay Jaffe.

Steven Goldman (BP) has promised to pass it on.

the totals should be reworked

I checked that already. There would be some very minor changes. Redding would go ahead of Tiant and Bonds would go ahead of Newcombe. Willis would gain the most points but still be behind Cravath. But there would be no change in the order of the first four.

But in this case, I'm pretty much with what karlmagnus said: leave the result alone for now.

As for Cone: it's a close call, but I'd be inclined to call him a Yankee. Reuschel would be a Cub and Palmiero a Ranger.

You call Cone a "Met and Yankee pitcher". Does that mean his cap is undecided?

rWAR as a Yankee: 18.6.
rWAR as a Met: 18.6.

Ridiculous. And he was actually at his best in the clump when he was with Toronto and KC.

Let's let Cone decide, then.

:)

I would say that Cone is very close, but his post season success was as a Yankee, and I think he's more remembered as a Yankee . . . I'm trying not to be biased, but since it's that close, that seems what makes sense to me.

LOL Howie . . . if he has a preference I think it's reasonable to listen to him in that case :-)

Regarding the elect 4 thing and retroactively changing this election . . . I'm kind of torn. I don't want it to seem like we are jury-rigging it to get him in. It just seems kind of slipshod to me at first glance. But I could be convinced otherwise I suppose.

So if we could re-work the numbers to show that we should have elected another player this year, I suppose it'd be OK, assuming we also un-elect someone if it shows we are over - see the rub? I don't know if I want to open that can of worms.

It's probably better to just recalculate and then see where we land, applying any changes going forward, adjusting by no more than one per year (i.e. if we are off by say 2 spots, we'd adjust the 2013 and 2014 elections).

Thoughts?

One other note on Cone, if you zero out his negative WAR years, it nudges him in favor of a Yankee hat. He had a -1.3 WAR in 2000 for the Yankees, only a -0.2 WAR in 2003 for the Mets.

But in this case, I'm pretty much with what karlmagnus said: leave the result alone for now.

It doesn't matter to me at all, but if you support Rizzuto...

As for Cone: it's a close call, but I'd be inclined to call him a Yankee. Reuschel would be a Cub and Palmiero a Ranger.

Cone was 6% better as a Yankee in ERA+, but had 31% more innings as a Met. Therefore... :-)

As for Reuschel and Palmeiro, you have them right, OCF.

Let's let Cone decide, then.

:)

Heh. :-D

I have a preference for keeping this as an elect-3 year and making sure we elect 4 next year.

I do not believe we should change the results after the fact. People make tiebreaker decisions with "elect-me" positions. The only options I would be in favor of are moving the elect 4 to next year or holding a supplementary elect-1 election. I don't think the latter is worth the bother.

Oooh . . . I like the supplementary elect 1 idea . . . should we decide we are 1-behind.

I don't see it as a bother. I see it as an extra project, and something to do!

The idea being that if we are behind, it's not fair to the current candidates to put it off a year - someone who was eligible before 2013 should get the 'catch-up' spot(s). I would still put that player in the class of 2012 though, for historic purposes.

OK . . . so first we need to come to consensus the assumptions for the calculation of where we should be right now. I assume a separate thread would be good for this.

OK, I resurrected the number of electees by year thread . . . you'll see it over on the sidebar. Let's move that discussion over there.

Question for the group - if you give Gooden another 700 IP (giving him roughly the same number as Reuschel) of ~100 ERA+ ball, does he get more support? He's still an inferior career candidate to Reuschel, but if I were a voter, I think that early peak would equalize things for me.

Give Gooden 700 IP at 100 ERA+ (or the equivalent after accounting for team defense) and he'd be pretty high up my ballot. He's close as it is. But his peak was short and his career wasn't long enough. If you like Gooden, you have to like Bucky Walters. They are basically the same value case. Take 3-4 more league average seasons onto their careers and you are talking Palmer, Bunning, Reuschel. That's that difference.

I also think the peak voters need to starting touting Albert Belle more...

I thought I'd like him more, but really he's Ralph Kiner, light by about 2 seasons. I only voted Kiner 15th the year he was elected. The career just wasn't long enough, and the peak is a little overrated once you throw in defense and adjust for era.

I can't wait for the 2013 player pages to open. So much to mull over:

- Is there a case that Clemens was more meritorious than Bonds?
- Who's third - Biggio or Piazza? (Remember Biggio was not a career 2B; he debuted as a catcher.)
- And, most importantly, how do we rank the other newly eligible players? Everyone needs to carefully consider Schilling, Sosa, Lofton, and Boomer Wells relative to the backlog. (Steve Finley and Julio Franco are interesting but seem to be Very Good types.)

It's awesome that Reuschel and Cone got in. I have never thought of them as all-time greats, and now I have to revise my opinion.

You were right the 1st time.

I think we elect 3 this year. We have elected 3 how many years? A change should have been crystal clear to everybody and it wasn't. I say this as a Rizzuto supporter. And I'm with Joe, no way we say "3 or 4 depending on the results." It's either 3 or it's 4 and it's clearly established before the voting.

Personally I would stay with 3 and I would rather not get too much out of step with the chicken Coop.

And I voted for Belle (pretty high up my ballot) but there's no use "touting" anybody if you're not a number cruncher. Qualitative arguments like WWII credit and racial quotas and how the 19th century game was different (if not strictly measurable), all of that is declining in interest to the electorate, I think. I mean, yeah, Rizzuto gets WWII credit and he almost made it, but isn't that the point? Almost and now 10 years? I also agree that changes in future electorates will render any "history" moot. Luke Easter? Who's he? Ed Williamson? Well, hell, those 27 HR were cheap! MLEs? What's that?

Sorry. I'm finished whining now.

These upcoming years really are an embarrassment of riches!
Makes me wish I managed to (finally) get a semblance of a system up so that I could have voted in this backlog election.
Not that it would have changed anything except help some faves of mine like Luke Easter and George Van Haltren.
But they're so far down it's not like anything would have changed.
Still kinda wish I had, though!

Agreed, but consider the following:
2013 - Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Schilling, Biggio
2014 - Maddux, Thomas, Mussina, Glavine
2015 - Johnson, Pedro, Smoltz
2016 - Griffey
2017 - Ramirez, I-Rod
2018 - Chipper

That leaves Edmonds, Guerrero, Kent, Sheffield and Sosa (among others) to duke it out with the best of the 2012 backlog.

But looking ahead? In the 3-5 years after 2018 we'll probably see Jeter, Mo, Thome, Rolen and A-Rod, but those are about the only shoo-ins. The bulk of the other potential retirees for those years (2013-2018) are largely A-/B+ type candidates who will slot in AMONGST our backlog and not necessarily AHEAD of it. Guys like Abreu, Beltre, Beltran, Ichiro, Hudson, etc.

Point being, fear not!. In spite of the historic glut of worthies Cooperstown will face over the next several elections - and which we will no doubt better parse - our backlog will have plenty of chances just as soon as that bubble subsidizes. No different than any other temporary spike in "no brainer" candidates the HOM has had in elections past.

All the more reason to work on sorting that backlog out while their election isn't riding on such decisions.

I cannot figure out why this will not link on the Important Links page. It's driving me insane. Anyone have any ideas?

Testing this link. It should take you right back to this thread.