"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."

If you can read that sentence again and still reach the same exact conclusion - I fear for you.

Some guys are helping the team by not playing the field. As long as the rules in his league allow a DH he should not have anything deducted beyond the normal positional adjustment.

One thing I once discussed with Bill James was his defensive spectrum. It's not JUST based on the defensive importance of each position. If a player throws LHed, he has no choice but to be an outfielder or a 1Bman. That's also part of the reason why players at 2B, SS, 3B and C don't hit as well as 1Bmen or OFers. Since most players who throw LHed also bat LHed, many of the greatest hitters of all time could not possibly have played 2B, SS or 3B, and were very unlikely to be catchers.

Babe Ruth played SS at the boys school when he was a young teenager, but that wasn't gonna happen in the major leagues.

The best combo is to throw RHed and Bat LHed (or switch hit). Then you can play anywhere in the field, AND have an advantage as a hitter.

Brock, that's not how defensive value accrues. If it did, we'd have a HoM of all catchers, since they get like 100 chances a game for a passed ball that they avoid, and maybe a smattering of first basemen. Defensive value is chances times difficulty of chances times run impact per chance. If you make one HR-saving catch in the outfield, which, say, only 5% of OF would make, then the other team's run expectancy on that play is (.95*1.44) + (.05*-.27) = +1.35 runs with an average OF, and -.27 runs with you, for a contribution of 1.62 runs. If a first baseman has a 99% chance of catching throws from his infielders, then the other team's run expectancy when the ball is thrown to him is (.99*-.27) + (.01*.5) = -.262 runs. After he catches it, it's -.27 runs. So his contribution is worth .008 runs. That means that one HR-saving catch is worth the same as 1.62/.008 = 202.5 throws successfully caught at first base.

Now, since DH's don't field, they are all league-average fielders for their position. What determines their overall value is the replacement level--how much better scrap-heap DH's hit than scrap-heap 1B. Historically, that's been about 10 runs a year. If you don't like that approach, you can ask how badly DH's would play 1B if they had to. I've studied the aggregate fielding at 1B of guys who DH at least 3/4 of the time, and they come out at around 9 runs below average a year. So whichever way you approach it, the magnitude of the DH positional value penalty is about the same.

It is flat out wrong to give the same defensive value to DH's as the worst fielding seasons in MLB history. If DH's were traded to the NL and forced to field, they would NOT be put at a position where they'd cost their teams 35 runs with the glove. They'd be put at first base, where they would cost their teams around 9-10 runs. There's no more reason to give DH's a -35 than there is to give, say, LF a -35 because he'd be -35 at shortstop.

It is flat out wrong to give the same defensive value to DH's as the worst fielding seasons in MLB history. If DH's were traded to the NL and forced to field, they would NOT be put at a position where they'd cost their teams 35 runs with the glove. They'd be put at first base, where they would cost their teams around 9-10 runs.

I usually assess around -25 runs defensively for a DH (positional adjustment plus defense), which is a little more punishing than that, but not outrageously so. You figure that a 1B ten runs below average is around -20, but that 1B suffers a bit more physical wear over the season due to fielding and allows the team a little more flexibility to put someone else at DH. I think that's worth something in considering a player's value.

Dan (#53) has " Defensive value is chances times difficulty of chances times run impact per chance."

This is exactly where I always end up; I agree with this sentence. But, for a DH, defensive value is, according to the sentence, zero times zero times zero (= zero). DH has no chances. No chances of any difficulty. No run impact per chance, because no chances. This is what I mean by "absolute zero." No chances accepted. No defensive value. I'm pretty sure I have the concept right. It's quantifying how much this version of zero is, compared to other systems' versions of zero, that causes me the problems. Pete Palmer has zero as the league average. WAR systems have zero at the replacement rate, which depends on the WAR system at hand. Bill James has zero at the margin. But all of those zero points have at least the theoretical possibility of playing worse than that - having a negative defensive number. I think, very strongly, that no one can have less defensive value than the DH. Zero times zero times zero may equal zero, but that particular zero has to be lower than anyone else's defensive number, and all other systems have some people with negative numbers. I don't think that should be possible. No one can field worse than a DH. No one else has the chance to have that little defensive value. So I have to set my DH "zero" somewhere below what other systems generate as a negative number. It's trying to figure out how far below other systems' zeroes that is causing me the problem.

Another way I phrase this to myself is this: We start out with absolute zero as a player who has never played or at least has never accepted a chance. When he does play, and accepts chances successfully, then we can attribute the value of those accepted chances to the player. Anyone who actually plays a position will accumulate some defensive value over that starting point zero, because, no matter how bad he is, he will accept some chances successfully. You could put me out there at shortstop, and eventually someone would hit an easy grounder right at me and I'd successfully accept the chance. But a DH won't. He just stays there, at absolute zero. That's my starting point in the analysis. No one has been able to talk me out of that starting point, although I'm very willing to listen to people try. I'm aware that my starting point and zero point are, if not unique, very unusual in sabermetrics. That doesn't mean I think I'm wrong, but it does imply that I ought to listen to opposing opinions. So, I do appreciate your taking the time to put up your opinion. And I agree with your sentence. But when all the numbers in an equation are zero, and all you're doing is multiplying, then all you're going to get is zero. You can't get a positive number and you can't get a negative number, either. That's where I'm hung up. - Brock

Brock,

Do you deal with DH-era AL pitchers' hitting in the same way? If you don't, then your reasoning for dealing with pitchers who never get an at bat differently that you deal with batters who never get a fielding change might be the starting point for convincing yourself that you need to handle DHing differently.

It seems to me that the key issue for DHs, from a Hall-of-Merit perspective, is that players' merits be evaluated fairly. Quantifying players' value accurately is probably the single most beneficial approach to evaluating merit fairly, but it's not the sole consideration. In this case, the question as I see it is whether your approach to the DH is fair to the DHs and fair to the first basemen. It looks to me like your quest to identify absolute zero, while an interesting intellectual problem, is simply unfair to HoM-discussable DHs, most of whom could and would have been playing first base if there had been no DH, because, even with their defensive liabilities, they still would have been more valuable to their teams than any alternatives at first base. A fair evaluation (which, to my mind, is what DanR and Crosbybird are aiming for), would use overall replacement level assessments to adjust DHs in relation to first basemen.

Since the DH exists, and since teams decided these players' value to the team would be maximized by having them assume the designated hitter role, why try to find some abstract penalty that distorts their actual value to their teams?

Chris - Yes, I do treat AL pitcher hitting in the same way as I do DH fielding. In some ways, I actually regard the two players - the pitcher and the DH - as occupying one roster slot. One guy gets all the run prevention credit and the other gets all the runs created benefit. This is, of course, a value evaluation rather than a rate evaluation. And first basemen proved to be such a big pain to deal with that I started looking for other ways to define absolute zero instead of "what would happen if you had no 1B out there at all." I realized that the result would be so catastrophic that teams would have to short another position to move someone to 1B. 1B doesn't have much defensive value because value is related to how close to you all your competitors are. Since 1B get 90-95% of their accepted chances on things that you or I could handle - easy, on-target throws from infielders, all 1B look pretty much alike until you get rid of those pesky catches. Bill James does some of this in the Win Shares system.

Pitchers are actually easier to evaluate than hitters, because their absolute zero can be at least estimated. You start with Win Share' margin for hitters (half the league average runs created) as your starting point, and then try to figure out how much value is contained in that "half the league runs created" in terms of final contribution. You take the margin, subtract the value of half the league runs scored, and you've got a zero point that is very close to absolute zero. The trouble with trying to do this to defense is that Bill's run prevention margin is 1.5 x the league ERA, while the upper bound is undefined, and there are actual pitchers who have had ERAs of infinity. The open-endedness is the problem. Neither Linear Weights or WAR systems solve the problem. They have different zero points from Bill's margin, but they are still open-ended in terms of defining absolute zero on defense. Unable to get a decent definition out of any of the systems I could find, I resorted to "at least a little worse than the worst season anyone actually played in the field for a whole year." I've done enough checking to find out that this doesn't result in DHs with negative values because their defensive lacks overcame their bats' gains. A guy playing out the string at DH will still have positive value. But he will have a lot less than he would have if he had been able to play the field (so to speak).

The main reason that I started thinking about DHs this way is that I noted that hitter careers are getting longer, as the better hitters are able to play for several years after they have become so bad on defense that no one will play them in the field any more. This is queering the numbers of Hall candidates coming up. It got started over in the Hall of Merit, when someone wanted to say that Dave Winfield had a long career, and Harry Heilmann did not. This is only true if you count the years where Winfield was a DH. Otherwise, Harry's career is just as long as Dave's. I realized that the DH rule was gong to produce more of these guys, and we were in serious danger of having even the Hall of Merit overrun with DHs, because they can accrue so much value in years when, in earlier times, they would not have been able to play at all. Buzz Arlett, for example, had only one MLB season, although everyone knew he could hit at MLB level, because he just could not play right field (which was, at the time, a less demanding defensive position than 1B). To treat Frank Thomas' DH years as if he were playing average defense would lead me to give MLE credit for Arlett for about 18 seasons of PCL play, because the lack of a DH rule was hardly a circumstance over which he had any control. I'd end up adding about 5 year's to Heilmann, to represent how long he could have played had there been a DH rule. And Arlett and Heilmann are only the tip of that iceberg. Babe Herman. Gavy Cravath. Dick Stuart. There are a LOT of big hitters whose careers were shorted or nonexistant because they could not DH.

In my mind, what I am trying to do is give fair credit to players from all eras and leagues. To do that, I either have to give Frank Thomas deductions for inability to play the field or I have to do a HUGE amount of minor league research to determining who could have been a career DH if he had only been playing now. Option #1 is the one I'm willing to deal with. Option #2 is a nightmare.

I hope that helps to explain not just what I'm doing, but WHY I'm doing it. Trying to be fair to all seasons and leagues. I'd much rather take a DH deduction for those guys who play DH than try to figure out how long Babe Herman's career would have been if he had not had to go out and risk his head in the outfield. - Brock Hanke

Oh! I have another question to ask, just for timing. When does the ballot thread start? I haven't seen it, and the discussion thread here started in December. My life will be much less complicated if I know when the ballot thread begins and when the final deadline is. Thanks in advance to whoever knows! -Brock

Yearly HoM ballots start around Thanksgiving. We have all year to discuss this.

From Mike Gimbel:

I just became aware of this discussion, so excuse my late entry.
I've been rating all players from 1900-2012 using a modified form of the RPA rating system. These ratings, after year and stadium adjustments, are based upon the value, in runs, plus or minus, over average pitcher or player that season and each year added together for the total career run value.

Here is the RPA list of the top pitchers in MLB since 1900. Note that the total value for Cy young includes only his years that started with the 1900 season. His prior seasons, therefore, are not added into his rating.

Here's the list with the career total run value above the average pitcher:

1. Roger Clemens 537.30 runs
2. Walter Johnson 468.58 runs
3. Greg Maddux 467.04 runs
4. Pete Alexander 395.01 runs
5. Randy Johnson 360.74 runs
6. Lefty Grove 356.10 runs
7. Christy Mathewson 335.27 runs
8. Pedro Martinez 334.42 runs
9. Tom Seaver 309.86 runs
10. John Smoltz 284.00 runs
11. Mike Mussina 275.97 runs
12. Curt Schilling 271.66 runs
13. Bert Blyleven 265.22 runs
14. Bob Gibsn 263.43 runs
15. Gaylord Perry 262.27 runs
16. Fregie Jenkins 251.73 Runs
17. Cy Young 246.97 Runs

From Mike Gimbel:

This is a follow-up to the previous comment, this time in regards to the career run values of the top hitters in MLB fom 1900-2012. It must be noted that defensive ability is not included, even though I have very good defensive ratings for recent MLB performers. By not including defensive performance this penalizes many excellent defensive performers such as Rickey Henderson, but this was unavoidable since there is no way to rate the defensive abilities of historic performers. The only fair way to compare is on the same scale. Therefore I had to ignore defense in these ratings:

1. Babe Ruth 1,326.16 runs
2. Barry Bonds 1,046.19 runs
3. Ted Williams 988.32 runs
4. Mickey Mantle 911.91 runs
5. Lou Gehrig 891.47 runs
6. Ty Cobb 818.17 runs
7. Mel Ott 813.14 runs
8. Rogers Hornsby 734.21 runs
9. Stan Musial 733.89 runs
10. Willie Mays 712.02 runs
11. Hank Aaron 688.03 runs
12. Frank Robinson 676.76 runs
13. Jimmie Foxx 670.49 runs
14. Tris Speaker 656.42 runs
15. Joe Morgan 622.04 runs
16. Eddie Mathews 621.33 runs
17. Frank Thomas 618.24 runs
18. Eddie Collins 578.53 runs
19. Manny Ramirez 561.38 runs
20. Rickey Henderson 555.06 runs
21. Mark McGwire 535.89 runs

DL - Thanks for the timeline note. If you look at my comments in the 2013 ballot thread (which I had to look up, you'll find that I was sick. That illness lasted three weeks, and cost me most of December. In the process, I actually forgot that I did vote in the 2013 election. When you said that there are months ahead of us on the 2014, I realized something was wrong. I thought that this was the thread that should have had its ballot up a couple of months ago. I'm straightened out,now. I just had forgotten that I voted in the 2013. I was sicker than I thought. - Brock

Mike (caiman) - That's certainly a plausible and defensible list. There's only one third baseman and no catchers, which sounds right, given what you're listing. Just to check, there's nothing like WWII credit or minor league credit or negro league credit or anything, is there? You say MLB 1900-2012, and I think you mean just that. I don't think that it would make a lot of difference anyway (Williams would pass Bonds, but not Ruth; Musial would pass Hornsby, some negro leaguers would show up on the list, Honus Wagner would probably make the list if you started with his rookie year instead of 1900), but I thought I'd ask, just in case. - Brock

Hi Brock,

How would I add these credits and remain accurate and defensible? The credits, such as WWII, would be nothing more than educated guesses. While I'd love to include the Negro League players, I can't, simply because there is no statistically defensible way to make an accurate comparison, as far as I'm aware.
Note: My excel files are massive and comprehensive. I'd love to get them up on a website. Any suggestions? --Mike

You can upload to the yahoo groups hall of merit site if you wish.

I can upload to the Yahoo site my large excel files? Please explain in more details. - Mike

Mike - I agree with you completely. I just wanted to make sure that your list really limits itself to MLB players after 1899. I was hoping you'd respond that there's nothing besides What you said was there. The lack of anything that requires MLs or war credit or whatever are good to have for evaluation, but just the raw list of hitters is a very good tool, and I intend to use it. What I didn't want was to get a response saying that the list had this bias or that bias. Now, I feel safe quoting from it. - Brock

Join the yahoo Hall of Merit group. Then it should be pretty easy to figure out how to upload.

Not sure where to put this, so I'll put it here. For those who missed it, FanGraphs posted a copy of Dan R's Sloan Analytics presentation: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/hitting-em-where-they-are/

I've been lurking since the early 1900s and I never had the urge to vote because you all were doing such a great job and I didn't think I would add any value. I've decided to give it a shot now, not because you're all doing any worse, but partly because the number of voters seems to be falling a bit and because I my curiosity about how I would do this got the better of me.

I'm a modified career voter, and use B-R WAA as my base metric. But I have a principle to make each candidate look as good as he can look, so I give credit for peak, postseason heroics, wars, unfair placement in minor leagues, Negro, Cuban, Japanese and other foreign leagues, and I zero out negative values in a given year. I don't penalize pitchers for having bad peripherals but I do give bonus points for excellent peripherals. I depend almost entirely on the work of Chris Cobb, Dr. Chaleeko et al for Negro League performance evaluation, but I do look at the real stats from seamheads.com and the player thread as a reality check. I do not penalize Negro Leaguers or anyone else for higher error bars regarding their career value. Just as you guys did, I started in 1898 and went year by year with all the candidates in the discussion threads, except that I did it over the past three months and used the latest B-R WAA figures. So I've run about 1400 players through my "system". I'm pretty happy with the balance I've gotten with Jake Beckley and Hughie Jennings scoring about equally well. I have a PHOM. I welcome any questions or critiques -- I may not change my ballot, but I promise to try to understand anything that anyone takes the time to say.

1) Greg Maddux -- #5 Pitcher, Top 25 player among All-time HOM Eligibles thru 2014 ("HOM Candidate List")
2) Curt Schilling -- Most postseason credit of any player on HOM Candidate List, and great peripherals (PHOM 2013)
3) Mike Mussina -- #15 Pitcher on HOM List
4) Tom Glavine -- Mediocre peripherals but great at stranding runners; #19 pitcher on HOM Candidate List between Steve Carlton and Phil Niekro; big gap between him and…..
5) Luke Easter -- Career obliterated by WWII, demise of Negro Leagues, post-Jackie racial discrimination; #9 1B on HOM Candidate List (PHOM 1960)
6) Orel Hershiser -- #2 postseason credit of any player on HOM Candidate List (PHOM 2006); as an A's fan….ugh
7) Frank Thomas -- Great hitter, terrible fielder; #13 1B on HOM Candidate List between Buck Leonard and Dick Allen. I fully penalized him for his terrible fielding in part because he didn't like DHing and hit worse when he did
8) Luis Tiant -- #42 Pitcher on HOM Candidate List between Ed Walsh and Rube Waddell; 119 ERA+ in 3000 IP 1964-1978 (PHOM 1988)
9) Artie Wilson -- Career value ruined Easter-style, somewhere in the range of Bobby Wallace and Joe Cronin with credit given for WWII and minor leagues (PHOM 1964)
10) Leroy Matlock -- Somewhere between David Cone and Dwight Gooden in career value (PHOM 1965)
11) Dwight Gooden -- Bonus points for dominant peripherals get him on the ballot (PHOM 2006)
12) Kenny Lofton -- 19th CF on HOM Candidate List; between Cool Papa Bell and Richie Ashburn among comparable players
13) Sammy Sosa -- 14th RF on HOM Candidate List between Tony Gwynn and Enos Slaughter; career shape sort of like Dwight Evans but higher peak
14) Kevin Appier -- 140 ERA+ in 1600 IP 1990-1997; overall value similar to Stan Coveleski (PHOM 2009)
15) Bus Clarkson -- Another 1940s Negro whose numbers were beat up by WWII and discriminatory desegregation; bit worse career value than Dick Lundy (PHOM 1968)

Required Comments:

21) Ben Taylor -- Similar to Jake Beckley who is also in PHOM, but the competition is much tougher now (PHOM 1936)
44) Dick Redding -- WWI credit; excellent but not a high enough peak 1915-1919 and not enough outside of that; last made PHOM "ballot" in 2012
51) Vic Willis -- Behind Young, Mathewson, Walsh, Brown, and Plank among contemporaries; doesn't get peripheral credit like Waddell, and below Rube Foster
79) Phil Rizzuto -- Even with WWII credit behind Art Fletcher and Joe Tinker among non-HOM SS, just above Johnny Pesky

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Glad you decided to take the plunge, Ivan. I like the internal consistency within your ballot (for example, it's hard to like one of Hershiser or Gooden without liking the other). And I'm glad to see that you gave due consideration to Negro League players. One question though: He's not a required disclosure yet but newcomer Jeff Kent figures to place on quite a number of ballots. How do you rank him?

#73 -- Chris, I have Kent #90...he seems pretty similar in overall value to Chuck Knoblauch, Tony Perez and Robin Ventura who are in that same vicinity. They're all a bit above Jim Fregosi among good hitting infielders.

Ivan, glad you're in. Looking at your picks, I was wondering, where do you rate Hilton Smith and Marvin Williams? I would think they would be comparable to Wilson and Matlock and Clarkson.

#75 - theorioleway, I have Smith at #41, with a dominant peak but only 4 really good years in his career; I think I need to look at Williams again. I seem to have been underrating him. He is likely to be on my ballot someplace, maybe in the 5) thru 10) range which would displace Clarkson. Thanks for pointing him out to me.

Welcome, Ivan, with your prelim...

Whatever your opinions of Frank Thomas he was still considered a better fielder than Luke Easter. That's what helps to keep Easter off my ballot, dreadful defense. He was a born DH.

It also takes some pretty generous MLEs to turn Artie Wilson into Joe Cronin.

#77 -- Thanks Howie

#78 -- DL, can you provide some numbers on Easter's defense other than what's in his thread? Also which MLEs are you using for Artie Wilson? I'm happy to reconsider both of these guys if additional information is available that I haven't yet seen.

DL -

As Luke Easter's now second best friend, I don't know where this opinion of Easter's defense is coming from. Most of the WAR metrics for his ML years have him as at worst, an average defensive 1b. And this is when he is in his mid to late 30's with two bad knees.

I know the new BP metrics are not a big fan of his D, but B-R, FG and old Clay Davenport numbers all have him as above average for his ML years.

It's anectdotal but Luke Easter was described as a "statue" for his AAA career. I think he may have been fine when younger but the known injuries caught up with him. I like Easter but even with good offensive numbers and proper credit I'd have a very hard time ranking Frank Thomas below him just based on defensive ratings.

I don't have recent MLE's for Artie Wilson but you'd have to basically give him a 100% translation from the PCL to the majors to make him Joe Cronin.

3) Conversion rate: .90 for 1944-1946, 1947-1948 I went with .88, AAA level. The PCL was an open-classified league at this time, with lots of NgLers of MLB caliber, so I used .90 for it. If the group thinks the PCL of that era was as strong as Japan today, then I'll ratchet up to .92.

This is cut and pasted from the Artie Wilson thread. I re-checked the numbers and it looks like Cronin had negative WAA in 1927, 1928, 1936, and 1944. His WS for the remaining years were 317 in 7990 PA. Dr. Chaleeko puts Wilson at 311 WS in 8135 PA. Yes, Cronin's better and had he been eligible in 2014 I would have had him higher than Wilson on my ballot, but the difference isn't very big. I guess one could argue that Cronin had a 119 OPS+ for his career and in Dr. Chaleeko's MLEs Wilson has a 94, and yet their BWS aren't that far apart so there might be something strange there, but I didn't re-calculate BWS partly because I don't think I could do it any better than he did, and partly because it looks like Wilson's OPS+ numbers were dragged down by three years where the OBP+ was fairly OK -- 1950 (OBP+ 90, OPS+ 69), 1951 (OBP+ 90, OPS+ 68), 1956 (OPB+ 99, OPS+ 81). It also looks like Cronin's OPS+ was somewhat SLG-driven while Wilson's was very OBP-driven. Still, it could well be that Dr. Chaleeko's WS estimates are not directly comparable with seamheads's WS estimates. I'll look into it again. Thanks for pointing it out.

Regarding Thomas, I didn't mean that I demoted him because his fielding was bad. I just meant that I used BR-WAA's numbers as is and didn't cap his negative fielding runs at a DH level in part because he didn't like DHing and he hit worse as a DH.

Ivan - This is a perfectly defensible ballot. I don't know what exactly you did where, but I see the possibility of comparing Luke Easter as an old man (which includes AAA) to Frank Thomas' entire career. Overall, I think Easter was probably the better defender (Thomas is the worst glove I've seen since Dick Stuart, and sigh, yes, I'm old enough to have seen Dick Stuart). But avoiding comparing them at different ages would involve comparing Easter's early defense to Thomas' early defense, and that means Negro League translations. I, personally, tend to be a little conservative about Negro League rankings, and have no shortstops except Pop Lloyd and Devil Wells. I know nothing about Artie Wilson. My current hobbyhorse is comparing Sammy Sosa to Bobby Bonds. They end up, by my methods, as almost exactly the same in value. Bonds is a little ahead in career, Sosa in peak and prime. The only systematic complaint that I might have is that there are no really early guys on your ballot. Granted, we've had years to pick them clean, but I think there are a few gems left to discover.

Brock - My highest "early" players were:

18) Babe Adams (PHOM 1933) -- Postseason credit and peripherals help
25) Chief Bender (PHOM 1927) -- Postseason credit helps
26) Wally Schang (PHOM 1976) -- Catcher bonus
29) Dizzy Dean (PHOM 1985) -- Postseason credit and peripherals
30) Ned Williamson (PHOM 1930) -- New BR WAA helps, and I have him above Ezra Sutton but both are PHOM
31) Fred Dunlap (PHOM 1931) -- Also helped by new BR WAA and I have him above Hardy Richardson who just misses PHOM

Regarding Luke Easter, I basically used Dr. Chaleeko's WS numbers shown in his thread, and looked at James Newburg's and Alex King's numbers as a check. I made no other adjustments for defense since I have no outside knowledge of Easter's defense.

As for Bobby Bonds:
20) Bobby Bonds (PHOM 1987) -- Not that different from Sosa, but Sosa has some postseason credit and peak bonus points

Ivan - Hah! So there are TWO of us who think highly of Babe Adams, although you don't have him on your ballot. I do. Please feel free to look at my ballot this year, or in prior years if you want, and make comments. There is, all things considered, a reasonable amount of support for the six guys who passed through Pittsburgh in the early part of the 20th century - Phillippe, Leever, Tannehill, Willis, Cooper, and Adams. What there is NOT is any agreement on which one of these six to focus on. My favorites are Adams and Phillippe, because I give credit for being control outliers. There are Willis supporters (he IS in the HoF), and, I think, one guy who likes Cooper and one who likes Tannehill and one who used to like Leever. If we could all decide on one to attract our focus, he'd probably get elected. Just to check, you do massively adjust Dunlap's superdominant season in the Union Association, don't you? - Brock

85 - Brock, I adjusted the Union League 40%, which is the biggest adjustment I made to any league/year.

Regarding the other Pirate hurlers, none was particularly close to the ballot nor in my PHOM:

52) Vic Willis
64) Wilbur Cooper
119) Jesse Tannehill
322) Deacon Phillippe
342) Sam Leever

I confess I didn't look that closely at any of them other than running their numbers through the system.