First time voter ? my ballot has changed somewhat significantly from my prelim ballot, which shows the benefit of requiring comments (which in turn requires one to take a closer look). Here it goes.

1. George Davis ? peak + career + defense makes easy number 1 pick.

1. George Davis (new)

I use Warp as my base that I make all my adjustments to, so I am integrating some changes into my rankings. Fortunately, it occurs during a Dahlen/Davis week, where the changes wont make an immediate difference anyway. My ballot is somewhat different from my prelim.

1. Bill Dahlen (-) The new Warp numbers make the difference between him and Davis slightly more clear. Still close enough that they could be switched.

For Meyerle, Pike and the catchers I take adjusted hits as actual hits *130/actual games, normalizing them in each season to 130 games, with the exception of mini-seasons at the end where they were clearly winding down. I have also looked at another metric, total bases+ BBs/plate appearances and (TB+BB)/outs, which puts the 1890s players more into context, with each other although not with the 1870s players, who hardly ever walked (not surprising, with the pitcher allowed 9 balls!).

1915 adds Davis and Dahlen to 1914; with all these new guys and 1-a-year elections, it?s now a very crowded ballot:

1. George Davis (N/A) TB+BB/PA .446, TB+BB/Outs .691, a significant sliver better than Dahlen, and he ended up with 2,660 hits, getting into the range where it becomes special for us simple counting-stat lovers. Extra points for saving people from fires!

2. (8-9-8-14-13-11-8-5-4-5-4-5-4-2-2) Bob Caruthers ? a first class pitcher/position player, with a high peak on some top teams, but a significant AA discount. Only 1,047 ?normalized? hits, so only a moderate addition to his 218 wins, but 218-99 is kinda impressive. Don?t see that Rusie had much over this guy, except an overblown NY reputation, and Griffith clearly wasn?t as good. As a batter TB/PA .483, TB/Outs .793, so significantly better than McPhee and Sutton, close to Stovey and even beats Duffy and van Haltren slightly and Beckley by a significant margin. Compare with Ward, whose TB+BB/PA was .374 and TB+BB/Outs .545 and W-L was 164-102 (ERA+118) Caruthers close contemporary (4 years younger)and even after AA discount was a better hitter and much better pitcher ? so why have we elected Ward and not Caruthers?

3. (15-14-11-12-10-9-6-8-7-7-6-7-6-3-3) Mickey Welch ? 307-210 comes to impress me more and more (yes, I know it was mostly with the strong Giants.)1885 looks like a pretty good peak too; 44-11 with a 1.67 ERA is pretty impressive, compared for example to Clarkson?s 49-19 at 2.73 in 1889. Welch not as good as Clarkson, but not that far off. Slightly more impressive than Thompson, on review.

4. Bill Dahlen (N/A) Dahlen a helluva player, but NOT a clone of Davis ? less unique than Caruthers, less impressive counting stats than Welch. TB+BB/PA .434, TB+BB/Outs .670, only marginally better than McPhee, though SS is a more valuable position and he lasted a little longer. 2,457 hits pushes him up further, but it?s also significantly below Davis.

5. (--15-15-15-15-14-13-9-8-11-11-12-11-5-5) Harry Stovey Best years were in AA, and only 2,084 ?normalized hits (adjusting 1880-92 to 130 games). TB/PA .512, TB/Outs .800, puts him very high by this measure. However, even more than Thompson, he?s distinguished from the 90s outfielders by having his prime years in the 80s.

6. (N/A-13-13-14-12-11-7-6-6-5-6-5-4-4) Sam Thompson Only 2,136 hits adjusted to 130 game season. However TB+BB/PA was .534 and TB/Outs .865, among the highest figures on the ballot, so high peak, part of it in a more difficult hitting era than the 1890s guys (but this figure inflated by his having no decline phase, so down a couple.)

7. (N/A-6) Joe McGinnity. 246-142 is better than either Griffith (237-146) or Rusie (245-174) though not than Caruthers? 218-99. Peak at 35-8 (1904) better than Griffith or Rusie, too. Career ERA+ only 121, but I think that stat is artificially deflated during the peak (or trough) of the Dead Ball Era, when league ERAs were so low ? Pedro?s 285 ERA+ in 2000 is in reality much less impressive than Dutch Leonard?s 279 in 1914 or Mordecai Centennial Peter Brown?s 253 in 1906. Mathewson?s career ERA+ is only 135 compared to John Franco?s 144.

8. Jimmy Ryan (N/A-10-9-8-7-6-7) Counting stats very similar to Van Haltren and better than Duffy, peak slightly better than Van H, not as good as Duffy. TB+BB/PA .508, TB+BB/Outs .809, higher than Duffy.

9. Joe Kelley (N/A-8) You?re right, these outfielders really are pretty well indistinguishable ? Kelley manages to split Ryan and Duffy, which I had thought impossible. TB+BB/PA .501, TB+BB/Outs .830 in mainly 90s career, but 300 fewer hits than Ryan.

10. Jake Beckley (N/A-9-9) 2930 hits a lot closer to 3000 than Griffith to 300 wins, but TB+BB/PA .455, TB+BB/Outs .707 not as good as outfielder glut ? but more of his career was played in the dead ball ?00s, and as others have suggested 1B was a marginally more important fielding position than LF or RF then.

11. (N/A-6-5-9-8-9-8-7-10) Hugh Duffy TB+BB/PA of .489 and TB/Outs of .788, but this in the high-offense 1890s, and he?s way below Beckley on total hits. Like the 1894 peak, though ? and it?s ?94 not ?93, pitchers had had a year to adjust. Drops down because of flood of competition, now behind Ryan and Beckley on counting considerations.

12. Harry Wright (12-15-N/A-11-10-12-10-10-9-8-11) Better than Pearce, but how good was he really compared to the rest? But I?m convinced by the anecdotal evidence that he has to have been at least as good as this.

13. (N/A-9-12-11-14-13-14-12-11-12) Levi Meyerle. Normalize 1871-77 season by season to 130 games and he gets 1,577 hits, only 15 less than Pike in 1 less season, and he was only 2 months younger, so 1860s value presumably also close (was baseball better reported in local papers where Pike played?). Better peak, too. TB+BB/PA .482, TB+BB/Outs .751, though this, like McVey and Pike?s figures, includes no ?decline? phase. Also, he was a 3B. Why did Meyerle quit? -- unlike Pike, he was nowhere near done in 1877. OPS+164 vs 152 for McVey and 155 for Pike. Will move up my ballot rapidly in 20s.

14. (N/A-8-7-11-10-10-13) Frank Grant. The most plausible comparison I?ve seen was to Hardy Richardson, although others are comparing him to the (IMHO) somewhat inferior McPhee. Here he?s sliding down towards McPhee?s spot, as I?ve decided from the lengthy discussion that Meyerle was better. With the figures we have now got, TB+BB/PA .442, TB+BB/Outs .737, assuming (rough guess) 200BB, which makes him slightly better than Richardson and significantly better than McPhee, but against lesser competition. I think I?m happy having him here, and moving him up in 20s as more room appears.

15. George van Haltren (N/A-13-12-13-13-12-14) Counting stats almost like Delahanty, but again need to be deflated for the 1890s. TB+BB/PA .469, TB+BB/Outs .765, not overwhelming for the 90s. No peak to speak of ? what happened to him in 1893-95, when he should have been in his prime?

OFF LIST

16 Clark Griffith (N/A-14-13-15) He?s another Amos Rusie, but not quite as good (Rusie was my #12 the year we elected him, I?d have him about 10 on this ballot.) 237 wins is not outstanding, but his winning percentage is good and his 1898 peak is nice ? but he doesn?t match up even close to Welch or Caruthers, in my view (Welch?s 1885 is much better than Griffith?s 1898.)

17. Jimmy Collins (N/A) TB+BB .430, TB+BB/Outs .648 and 1999 hits compared to McPhee?s 2250. Very close comp to McPhee, since he was in top league in dead ball era for his non-90s career, rather than 80s AA. OPS+113 vs McPhee 106 for what that?s worth. So I?ve put him where McPhee would have been ? he too will move up list in the 20s.

18. Deacon McGuire (N/A-15-N/A) No fewer than 2,821 hits, adjusted to 130-game seasons over 1884-1906, which works just as well for catchers as it does for 1870s players, with the same rationale behind it. Rate stats unexciting though ?TB+BB/PA .412, TB+BB/Outs .630, less good than McPhee (but catcher more difficult than 2B.) Unadjusted or adjusted, almost twice as many hits as Bennett; Bennett?s rate stats better, but this reflect his lack of McGuire?s extended decline phase. If you take the 15 seasons 1887-1902 (he missed 1889), and compare it with Bennett?s 15 year career, McGuire has 1,436 hits vs. 978, and rate stats of 435/675 vs. 454/689. Not much in it compared with Bennett, but a significantly longer career.

19. (N/A-14-N/A) Charlie Bennett Only 1,796 ?normalized? hits over 1878-93, but he was a catcher. However McVey and Clements were catchers too, and both better hitters, while McGuire went on much longer. TB+BB/PA.454, TB/Outs .689, but much shorter career than Start/Sutton. Further thought gets him above Pike and Clements, on edge of ballot, to return no doubt in a weak year, but now below McGuire

20. (9-12-12-11-9-10-10-13-12-15-14-N/A) Lip Pike ? Like Start, give some credit for missing 1860s. However, normalize 1871-78 season by season and he gets 1,592 hits after 26 ? not quite an obvious HOM-er. 4 ?normalized 200-hit? seasons, but only just, whereas Meyerle?s 1871 peak normalizes to 320 (obviously a random fluctuation, but in the right direction!)TB+BB/PA .478, TB+BB/Outs .713 Also, unlike McVey who was clearly damn good in 1880, Pike was through by 1881.

21. Mike Tiernan ? only 1,983 normalized hits, now some way off bottom of ballot. TB+BB/PA .518, TB+BB/Outs .850, so close to Browning though well behind Thompson

22 (N/A-15-N/A) Pete Browning (mostly AA -- Only 1,986 ?normalized? hits (adjusting 1883-92 to 130-game seasons, and with no AA discount,)However, TB+BB/PA .511, TB+BB/Outs .855.

23. (N/A-11-13-12-15-14-N/A) Jack Clements. Normalizing for Clements over 1885-1898 gives him a normalized 2,004 hits, not bad for the most difficult fielding position. TB+BB/PA .455, TB/Outs .696, pretty impressive for a catcher and slightly better than Bennett and McGuire, but he played more in the 1890s than Bennett.

24 Hughie Jennings: Great peak (though not a historic peak like Koufax, Radbourn or McVey.) But his career numbers are mediocre. TB+BB/PA .414, TB+BB/Outs .672, in the high-average 90s, so even his ?rate? stats not overwhelming.

25 Lafe Cross gets lots of points for length of career and hits, but his rate stats are appalling TB+BB/PA .404, TB+BB/Outs .599, substantially worse than McPhee, and it?s mostly 90s (Sutton was .404/.588, but 20 years earlier) ? if you knock out the decline phase, the rate stats are still unexciting and the counting stats then mediocre as well.

26 (N/A-15-N/A) Tom York 2,122 ?normalized? hits, doing it season by season as seasons were lengthening. Primarily OF. Never above 200 ?normalized? hits per season though ? really no peak at all TB+BB/PA.412, TB+BB/Outs.596, not very impressive.

27 Dickey Pearce, -- Poor 1872, so even if you add 1871-2-3 together it?s unimpressive. Not convinced.

1. Charlie Bennett (1) - Dahlen and Davis are recieving a lot of support in the prelim ballots b/c they were shortstops. I am one that believes there should be a balance in the position players throughout our HOM. I'll believe that Davis and maybe Dahlen should be in the HOM, but I feel that Bennett stands out above all other catchers of his era than Dahlen and Davis standout against the other shortstops of their era.

2. George Davis (n/a) - Had the same amount of at bats as Dahlen, but had 200 more hits, and beat Dahlen out in nearly every other offensive category. Not to shabby for someone that didn't even start out as a shortstop. He's definitely superior to Dahlen in my eyes.

3. Sam Thompson (4) - I'm not a big fan of peak, I much prefer career, but Thompson was a VERY dominate player for 10 years.

4. Bill Dahlen (n/a) - I don't really have much to say about him that hasn't already been said, but I don't believe that he was quite the player that Davis was. Very good, yes, as good as Davis, No.

5. Jake Beckley (8) - Being a career lover, I can't help but like Beckley. Maybe he didn't have much of a peak, but neither has Palmeiro and I wouldn't hesitate to keep Palmeiro out of the Hall.

6. George Van Haltren (5) - Still my favorite of the elegible outfielders.

7. Jimmy Ryan (6) - Amazingly close to Van Haltren

8. Jimmy Collins (7) - I honestly thought that he would be moving up this year, but Dahlen and Davis prevented that from happening.

9. Hugh Duffy (9) - Excellant peak, with a couple more productive years and Duffy could have been very high on my ballot.

10. Hughie Jennings (12) - Hughie has much the same problem that Hugh does. All peak, and not enough career.

11. Joe McGinnity (4) - Joe takes a huge nose dive this year. I might have severly overrated him on the previous ballot. Started a lot more games than most other pitchers which would account for the inflated stats.

12. Bobby Carruthers (13) - He's still hanging on

13. Joe Kelley (11) - just another OF in the glut

14. Clark Griffith (10) - A good pitcher, a good manager, a good baseball person

15. Mike Tiernan (n/a) - It's no secret that I'm no friend of Harry Stovey, but I did a lot of long hard work on my ballot this week and have concluded that with my current voting trends (Van Haltren, Ryan, Duffy, etc) that Tiernan has more business being on my ballot that Stovey does. I am just having a hard time now voting for the AA players. Thus no love for Pete Browning on my ballot. Stovey has been on my ballot for quite awhile, and I don't mean to take anything away from him, but I'm afraid he's gone the way of Frank Grant...off my ballot for quite awhile, if not for good.

1. Bill Dahlen (new). I had known for some time that various ?bermetrics have an uncanny knack for throwing Davis and Dahlen into a near-tie. I thought that Davis was "really" better and if I were only to look at it properly, I would be obvious why. Well, I've looked, and it isn't obvious. Davis's 23 points of batting average, blunted by the offensive peripherals leaning the other way, a likely defensive advantage for Dahlen, Dahlen a little better before 1900, Davis a little better after, Dahlen with a little more hitters park advantage, Davis moving to the AL - it all seems to come out as a wash. Dahlen was a little more durable - he tended to play a few more games per season. I'll let that be the tie-breaker.

1915 ballot

I'm mostly a peak and prime voter. Using '02 WARP (adj WARP 1, hopefully cancelling out the timeline) along with WS. I may never graduate to '03 WARP.

Must-Be HoMers

1. George Davis (new)--WARP prefers Dahlen by an even larger margin than WS prefers Dahlen. It is credible to me that Dahlen *might* have been more valuable overall based on extremely high defensive value. But it is equally credible to me that WARP overstates Dahlen's defensive edge. So I'm going with Davis, who provided a slightly more balanced or rounded package of skills. Slightly.

2. Bill Dahlen (new)

3. Charlie Bennett (1 last year-1-4)--Massive peak 1881-83. At least according to adjWS, he was as valuable as any eligible position player for a 3 year peak. Overall I have him as the #2 peak and the #7 career.

Clearly Deserving

4. Sam Thompson (3-13-15)--jumped way up when I made a small adjustment to my peak rating. I now accept any 5 years instead of just 5 consecutive. I also now consider a player's prime, and I have Sam's 9 year prime as the #2 prime.

5. Dickey Pearce (4-3-7)--yes, Howie, it's much too soon to slam the door on the early greats and I have Pearce a step ahead of Pike, though obviously he is a somewhat qualitative pick.

6. Jim McCormick (6-4-6)--I worry that we're shortchanging the pitchers, but then again it looks like WARP has discounted 19th century pitching further yet. Well, until I digest the new WARP numbers, I'm staying with the best available pitcher. Not as high a peak as Tommy Bond, but a better prime and a better career.

7. Lip Pike (9-6-9)--adjWS loves Lip Pike as much as adjWARP1 loves Charley Jones. Right now my confidence level in WARP is a little droopy, so I'll go with WS and Pike.

Deserving

8. Harry Wright (5-5-8)--another qualitative (subjective?) choice, but it seems clear enough to me that he was highly regarded for his playing as well as his leadership.

9. Tommy Bond (8-10-10)--highest peak on the board.

10. Charley Jones (7-12-x)--like Sam Thompson, moved up strongly with consideration of any 5 years (peak) rather than 5 consecutive.

11. Hughie Jennings (10-9-5)--has dropped just as a result of reevaluating Thompson and Jones. Still the best (peak) of the Orioles.

I'm Thinking

12. Harry Stovey (11-8-12)--not much of a peak, but benefits a lot from my having added a prime analysis to my method. Not to mention the #3 career on the board.

13. Joe Kelley (12-new)--rises above a substantial part of the OF glut, but certainly not to the top. A nice peak, a solid prime and a nice career, but not dominant in any one.

14. Ed Williamson (14-11-x)--also benefits from consideration of his 7 year prime which WARP rates very highly. I see at least 4 IF primes that were longer, but none that were both longer and at a higher level.

15. Jimmy Collins (x-new)--I'm still a little mystified. Where's the beef? No player's number fail to match the reputation as much as Jimmy's. Still he is very close to Big Ed and sneaks into the top 15.

Falls out--

I had Freedom Bob as high as 3rd once upon a time but then became skeptical.

LOL

I had forgotten I had changed Parisian Bob's "unpatriotic" name many months ago.

Daryn wrote: "13. Lip Pike ? 4 monster seasons, career too short"

Daryn, you may want to consider 1866-1870 when Pike was a star second basemen in an era when infield defense was more important than today. If you add these years to what you consider a short career (but including 4 monster seasons), he clearly deserves to rank higher!

Andrew,

On Frank Grant: Well done! I think you got the wording exactly right.

Marc,

On the new Warp: The reason I use warp as my primary numbers is because of the methodology of the fielding numbers (as presented in BP '02 book). It made the most sense of any fielding analysis I have seen. What they have seemed to do (the description isnt as detailed on the changes, but I assume the basic formulae are nearly the same) for '03 is clearly an improvement, even if it does jumble up numbers I have previously been using. Anyway, my point is, to stick with the '02 numbers would be to choose an inferior product, unless you have some reason for doubting the '03 numbers (and they appear to be more in line with WS in the few cases I have checked [Thompson, VanHaltren]).

My problem with the '03 WARPs have nothing to do with the methodology but with the results--i.e. Fred Dunlap and Jimmy Williams at 100+. If '02 is inferior to that, then maybe I'll just go back to WS. But for now, I'll be in a holding pattern until I can digest them, with all of your help.

Marc,

If the methodology is sound then the results are too. I assume you meant to write that some of the results lead you to question the methodology, which is fine (but not what you wrote).

Anyway, I may take some time this weekend to see if I cant reverse engineer the warp system. I think there is enough info available to

philip,

based on primarily the same reasons, I think I'll be moving Pike and Grant up a bit next year. I have come to the conclusion that part of our job is to fill in the blanks where the statistically record just isn't there. It took me six months to become comfortable with this conclusion which is why I didn't vote early on.

RobC, thank you for understanding what I meant to say.

daryn, bravo! If we are not thinking outside the box, what good are we? The rest of the world already has a conventional HoF!

now if someone would just tell me what a "statistically record" is I'll be all set.

All right, I don't understand the new WARP numbers, but I didn't understand the old ones. Therefore, my ballot will not consist of Fred Pfeffer, Fred Dunlap, Cupid Childs, Jimmy Williams, Bobby Lowe, Claude Ritchey, Hobe Ferris, and Jack Burdock. Here it is:

1. George Davis - He's ahead because of his fire heroism.

All right, I don't understand the new WARP numbers, but I didn't understand the old ones. Therefore, my ballot will not consist of Fred Pfeffer, Fred Dunlap, Cupid Childs, Jimmy Williams, Bobby Lowe, Claude Ritchey, Hobe Ferris, and Jack Burdock. Here it is:

1. George Davis - He's ahead because of his fire heroism.

Hey, eliminate one of those ballots. I'm really not trying to vote early and often.

1915 ballot - read and enjoy.

1. George Davis (-). Feel he wins the argument over Dahlen. Not by much, but enough. Both had long careers, flashing both leather and bat.

"McGinnity left the majors after the 1908 season to pitch for and manage Newark (Eastern League). He went on for years in the minors, a steady winner, still throwing underhand and mixing in a spitball. He had racked up 171 minor league wins when he last took the mound at age 54. He returned to the Dodgers for a time as a coach. In 1946 he was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee."

? July 23, 1912: Iron Man McGinnity is still pitching doubleheaders, winning a pair of games for Newark against Rochester (International League) at age 41.

? May 11, 1925: In a Mississippi Valley League game, 55-year-old former Giants star Joe McGinnity hurls Dubuque to a 7?3 victory over 18-year-old John Welch of Ottumwa.

Ottumwa also known as the childhood home of what M*A*S*H character?

and finally...

Did you know ... that Joe McGinnity, famed for winning both ends of doubleheaders in his younger days in the big leagues, once turned the trick at the age of 44 with Butte of the Northwestern League?

Ok, not all these are exactly "edge of the majors"....

As for Frank Huelsman's major league record - I did get a kick out of this:

Transactions

May 30, 1904: Purchased by the Detroit Tigers from the Chicago White Sox.

June 16, 1904: Purchased by the St. Louis Browns from the Detroit Tigers.

July 14, 1904: Loaned to the Washington Senators by the St. Louis Browns.

January 16, 1905: Traded by the Boston Pilgrims to the Washington Senators for George Stone.

January 16, 1905: Traded by the St. Louis Browns with Jesse Burkett to the Boston Pilgrims for George Stone.

Here's my ballot. Again, I use a combination of peak and career for the rankings. I also view each position on an equal basis. This doesn't mean that I have a quota to fill each position for my top ten. Sometimes a position will not have a viable candidate for a certain "year."

Second "year" in a row that I jumped the gun:

As I have stated elsewhere, Kelley was the fourth best leftfielder of his time. If he had been close to the other three (Delahanty, Burkett and Clarke), I would have had him on my ballot. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't near those three.

I still don't know what to do about McGinnity.

Grant is in limbo until someone can persuasively show that the IA was close competition-wise to the early AA.

Ryan was knocked off because of Pike's return. Should return next "year."

1. George Davis (n/a) ? Slightly ahead of Dahlen based on his longer peak

1. George Davis

Does anyone have a spreadsheet with all of the Pennants Added and Win Shares information for eligible players?

From the Frank Husleman discussion above :

"July 14, 1904: Loaned to the Washington Senators by the St. Louis Browns."

"LOANED"?

Some of McGinnity's post MLB career, from Daguerreotypes:

Year IP W-L Club League

George Davis (in the 18 -22 slots) he wasn?t as good as Dahlen on defense or have as good a peak as Jennings. There were also a lot of good shortstops when he played I don?t see him rising above them.

I could "possibly" understand this ranking of Davis based on peak, except that you have Kelley and Beckley fairly high on your ballot. The latter two are inferior career and peak (especially peak) to Davis, so you got me scratching my head here.

Not that any of my picks are immune from developing an itchy scalp... :-)

1915

1. George Davis (-)--He?s good.

2. Bill Dahlen (-)--Him too. Really, I could go either way with these two. I?ll go with the slight hitting edge over the (maybe not so) slight fielding edge because hitting stats are more reliable. Or something.

I didn't want to clog up the "ballot" thread any further, but I did produce a chart on "who's who" of 1882-91 re HOMers and HOM candidates over on the "ballot discussion" thread. Idea being to show which stars were in the NL and AA (or UA or PL) in each year.

I thought there might be a few "quirky" ballots that didnt have Davis and Dahlen in the top 2 slots, but Davis off the ballot completely?!?

Wow. Just wow. And an additional huh? to go with it. I cant conceive of a ranking system that would have him outside the top 15. But, then again, the Hall of Fame didnt elect him until 1998.

In Joe's reply to yest about George Davis, he relied on OPS+ to discuss offense. There are a few offensive things not included in OPS+, and one of them is stolen bases. George Davis had 616 lifetime stolen bases. Yes, I know that without caught stealing being recorded, one can't judge the effectiveness against break-even. Yes, I know that in some years that includes things not now considered stolen bases. Stolen bases were very common in the 1890's, and Davis wasn't leading leagues - he finished 4th in the league twice and 9th three times. But 616 is still a large number. It's more career SB than Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley, Hugh Duffy, Mike Griffin, or Dummy Hoy, to name a bunch of fast outfielders. Stealing bases was part of Davis's game, and remained so throughout his career. I didn't mention it in my Davis vs. Dahlen debate because the SB was also a part of Dahlen's game.

---

Ah, but the ideology of "small ball"... The dead ball days were soaked in offensive strategy, and that means small-ball strategy. They bunted and used the hit and run all the time, and they did it in part for negative reasons - to avoid the double play. Even the word "sacrifice" is a loaded choice of terminology, making it an honorable thing to do. Bill James speculated that the emphasis on strategy (even more so, the "for the good of the team" ideology behind the strategy) served a social function in knitting together teams drawn from a wide range of backgrounds. I have no idea whether it "worked" in serving that social purpose - but I'm sure that all that obsessive use of the sacrifice and the hit and run cost teams runs, that it was a factor in driving run scoring levels down to as low as they got in the late Oughts.

A case in point: in 1905, George Davis had 40 sacrifices. Forty! This is a man who slugged .340 in a .318 context and had an OBP of .353 in a .302 context. This is a man who had been 10th in the league in RBI the year before and would be 3rd in the league in RBI the next year. The player manager was Fielder Jones - he had only 16 SH in 1905 but more than 30 in each of 1904, 1906, and 1907. Frank Isbell had quite a few sacrifices, and he had as much power as anyone on that team. All of those noble sacrifices for the good of the team - how could it not, in net, cost the team runs?

1. Joe McGinnity (1)

" He was only a center fielder for four years, then moved to LF at age 29. Yes, I understand that Boston acquired Billy Hamilton, but isn't the point that Duffy was supposed to be this UNBELIEVABLE defensive fielder?"

Just wanted to make this important point again:

In the 19th century, the CF'er wasn't necessarily where the BEST outfielder was positioned. Due to many parks being configured like football fields, where Home Plate to the LF line was the long side, and Home Plate to the RF line was the "short" side, creating as much or more outfield to cover in LF than in CF, it paid for teams to position good, fast fielders in LF so that teams would not rack up a lot of triples and inside the park HR's.

My final 1915 ballot:

1. George Davis -- fully deserving HOMer

Yest said: ?I don?t buy OPS+ because in order to use OPS you have to think that a 400 on base% is equal to a 400 slugging avg which I think is laughable. Both stats should be used individually for what their meant for combining them to me makes both stats meaningless.?

This statement is false. OPS doesn?t say that a .400 OBP = .400 Slugging Pct.

Since others are picking on yest, Im going to back off and go after yardape instead :).

You said Grant fit in with Richardson/McPhee. I dont think there was a bigger supporter of Hardy and Bid than me. And I wouldnt put either even remotely near Davis. The only advantage that either of them has over Davis is that Bid was clearly a better defender. But at 2nd, not short. Ive got Grant in the middle of my ballot, so Im clearly willing to do some wild projecting of his career, but to put him above Davis seems beyond the realm of credibility.

All the above applies to Dahlen too. Especially since I had Dahlen #1 on my ballot.

Maybe I am off a little, but there are only a very small number of current HoMers that I would put above Dahlen/Davis. And most of them are first basemen. Hmmm.... Anson, Brouthers, Connor, Dahlen. Yeah, that might be about right. Its in alphabetical order at least.

Delahanty, Davis and Dahlen are in a pretty good fight for the 4th best HoMer so far.

A couple observations. 1) McVey went in despite being left off 4 ballots. G. Davis will do OK, 1 ballot is not a deal-breaker. 2) I too see Grant in the Richardson/McPhee/Childs class, but I too do not see any of them as G. Davis. 3) OK, 3 observations: I liked yest's pitcher count. Everybody should be aware of how many pitchers they're voting for, or not voting for. Not that there's a globally wrong number, just are you comfortable with your number? I have 2 and it probably isn't enough.

Just defending the oppressed a little. Yardape and yest, please don't take any of the attacks personally. yest, I also enjoy the e.e. cummings approach. Darn capital letters.

I'm glad that we have some dissension in the ranks. When I first started voting a couple of years ago, in the Kid Nichols I thought that years like the Nichols and Davis/Dahlen years would be without discussion, because we are all accepting of sabermetric analysis. Without such analysis, Davis and Dahlen don't look so hot.

The dissension probably won't keep Dahlen and Davis out. It does, however, eliminate unanimous selections. Right now, we have had no unanimous #1's. Dan Brouthers was the only "unanimous" selection, as he received all "elect him" #1's or #2's in the 1902 HOM 2-electee vote.

When you think about it, unanimity should be very rare. In fact, the real HOF has never had it, although Seaver came awfully close. Should Ruth, Young, Mays, et al be unanimous? Each had their miniscule flaws, and there could be other qualified competitors on their ballots.

I for one am extremely interested in the 1917 election, when it seems that we have an across-the-board unanimous no-brainer in Cy Young. Nevertheless, some voter may surprise us, and decide Cy should wait a year, or that we can't elect someone with the most losses, walks, and runs allowed in history, or something like that.

However, if you do attempt to make such a bold statement, know that your thinking will be severely criticized. Just don't take it personally.

Stupid early morning editors. My second sentence in the second paragraph above should have the word "election" between "Nichols" and "I".

I'm pretty much with Ron.

Delahanty, Davis and Dahlen are in a pretty good fight for the 4th best HoMer so far.

I have Davis, Dahlen, Delahanty at 7, 8, and 9, (Jim O'Rourke, Kid Nichol, and Paul Hines are ahead of them as well as the ABC RobC ranks ahead), but, yeah, they all have a good argument to be as high as fourth among all players eligible so far.

To put anybody else close to them, one has to do some or all of the following:

a) disregard the evidence of the comprehensive metrics

I challenge one to find ANY comprehensive metric that says Jennings, Thompson, Duffy, Browning, McGraw or O'Neill were better than Davis.

Since you feel like beating me up over Browning (:-), I have the Gladiator over Davis because he stood out to a somewhat greater extent than George at his position(s). Even though Browning's career was shorter than we usually would expect for an outfielder, most outfielders' careers were short during the '80s, so he doesn't get penalized for it under my ranking system. That decade appears to be the only one with those characteristics (except possibly during the 1940s).

I just have to echo what howie and ron said. Yest has clearly put a lot of thought into his ballot and just happens to disagree with the majority. He has also shown incredible class by calmly responding to what are close to ad hominem attacks. It is just arrogant, IMHO, to say that it is impossible to come to the conclusions yest has, particularly when we do know so little about many of the people on the ballots in these early years (like grant, start and pike, for example). When he puts Babe Ruth ninth on his ballot, then I might be skeptical, but not if he comes up with some logical basis for doing so.

The John Murphy Explaining Himself Talking Blues:

a) disregard the evidence of the comprehensive metrics

Not I.

b) place little importance on career value or prime value

Your words wound me, sir! I place equal importance on both.

c) have significant skepticism about the accuracy of statistical fielding assessments, either with respect to their capacity to identify good fielders or with respect to their capacity to accurately weigh fielding value with batting value

I don't resemble that remark.

d) weigh positions very differently and employ some sort of positional balance consideration

Hello!

e) use very little adjustment for quality of competition vis-a-vis pre-NA, NA, and AA play

The best players of a generation can make my ballot (with the caveat that there are more great players as we get closer to our time).

As for comparisons between two leagues in a season, I make adjustments when needed.

f) apply one's own criteria inconsistently

Are you talking to me? If anything, I'm too rigid (though I don't think so) with my ranking system.

"most outfielders' careers were short during the '80s, so he doesn't get penalized for it under my ranking system."

Exactly, and that comment also applies to Caruthers, who retired at 29 after playing 14 games with an OPS+ of 119, but not pitching, presumably because his arm had fallen off. About 1/3 of Caruthers' value is as an outfielder, even though his career hit totals look completely wimpy because he was only part time and had a short career. His rate stats are up there with Stovey. Add 50% to his pitching stats and assume he didn't bat significantly, or treble his batting stats and assume he didn't pitch, and you have a sure-fire HOM'er as a pitcher or a very reasonable contender as an outfielder. He gets less respect than he deserves because we're not used to players who did both so well; the only other player in history capable of it appears to have been the young G.H. Ruth.

Exactly, and that comment also applies to Caruthers, who retired at 29 after playing 14 games with an OPS+ of 119, but not pitching, presumably because his arm had fallen off.

Except he wasn't nearly the best pitcher of his time (even when adding his offensive skills). He was a direct contemporary to Clarkson, Galvin, Radbourn, Keefe, McCormick and Welch - all Freedom Bob's superiors.

As for him being the young Babe Ruth, I'd like to see any quotes from oldtimers comparing Caruthers to the Bambino. Since many pitchers hit well during the 19th century (plus played multiple positions during the season), he wasn't doing anything truly spectacular for his time.

John, (since it's beat up John day) this is a criterion that is hard to support:

>I have the Gladiator over Davis because he stood out to

Caruthers' .688 winning percentage as a pitcher is the 7th best of all time, and he was in 1888 the highest paid player in the AA at $5,000. He was certainly considered a lot better than the 7th best pitcher in the league in the mid/late 80s, and the name "Parisian Bob" was due not to his being slim and looking like a French dancing master, but to his transatlantic cable salary holdout, after the 1885 season when he was 21. He was clearly NOT considered a run-of-thge-mill player, or anything close, but a true superstar. When Ruth developed as a home run hitter, his value went beond Parisian Bob's, but in 1917-18, when Ruth was 23-24 and established as a top player (the best on the '18 pennant winning Sox), he was Bob's alter ego.

In my previous post analyzing the approaches to ranking that lead to voters placing other eligibles ahead of Davis or Dahlen, I said that a voter would need to use "some or all of these". That is a mistatement: I should say "one or more."

And I'll repeat, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to do any of these things (except apply one's criteria inconsistently), but in my view one would have to place too much weight on any one of these approaches to find any eligible player better than Davis or Dahlen, except Dahlen or Davis. In the larger scheme of things, it's better for the process, for the most part, for the voters to bring a variety of priorities to the balloting. _Thoughtful_ challenges to the consensus position strengthen the process by getting us to go back to Bob Caruthers or Pete Browning and think again and think again. Right now, I think Caruthers' supporters are more right than Browning's, but I'm thinking again about both.

Wht About Bob?

I had Caruthers as high as 3rd on an early ballot and then more recently he dropped off completely. Why?

Early on, my "consideration set" consisted of players with top 25 (currently eligible) peaks, based mostly on adjWS (adjusted for season length plus the AA discount) in 3 consecutive and 5 consecutive seasons. Caruthers had one of the top 25 peaks on that basis (and still does).

Then I became a little more rigorous about peak value, recognizing that as time went by my method favored early players with large adjustments for season length. So I shifted to a method comparing active peaks at any given time, and determining which players were among the highest active peaks and for how many seasons. Caruthers dropped out of the top 25 because he was overshadowed at his peak by guys like Radbourn (early) and Clarkson (late). His "relative" as opposed to "absolute" peak was not nearly so impressive. Now that his nemeses are no longer in the eligible pool (they're elected), Caruthers on these terms would be back in the pool.

But now I'm not quite so rigid in my consideration set because I recognize that, while I like and prefer a good high peak, I was not giving adequate consideration to the long/valuable careers (McPhee, et al), so now I consider any and every peak and any and every career (and also any and every prime) at least insofar as the available hours in a day allow. The difficulties with that are two:

1. Timeline. I don't like to timeline. But adjWS gives too much of an advantage to the old-timers and WS penalizes the old-timers too much (except, in terms of peak, the pitchers).

2. Pitchers. How to compare 19th century pitchers and their massive numbers of annual innings not only to 20th century pitchers but to any other player?

Caruthers obviously is problematic on each dimension, as are Bond and McCormick and others. But in addition, then, is Caruthers' offensive value.

I've come full circle. My gut tells me that Caruthers was the greatest player in the AA. He had a short career but, hey, the AA had a short career (10 seasons). I'm not sure somebody from the AA HAS TO BE in the HoM (of course, somebody already is), but IF somebody (else) from the AA should go in, it should be Caruthers. Yes, even ahead of Stovey.

If Bill James can have a bullshit dump, I can have a bullshit dump. So method be damned, I think Parisian Bob will be back near the top of my ballot next time around. And while I have not even looked at the new WARP numbers (other than I happened to see that Caruthers' had increased A LOT), and my judgment of Caruthers is not "based upon" the new WARP numbers, you can nevertheless blame the new WARP numbers for focusing my attention back on Bob.

and the name "Parisian Bob" was due not to his being slim and looking like a French dancing master, but to his transatlantic cable salary holdout, after the 1885 season when he was 21.

from Baseballlibrary.com: "He earned his nickname when he traveled to France after the 1885 season and engaged in a trans-Atlantic salary battle, settling for the then-huge sum of $3,200."

I assume they know what they're talking about. Post-season vacations in Paris for a 21 year old Midwestern ballplayer would have been pretty rare in 1885, so I can see how it would give him a nickname/reputation. Apparently he was keen on booze, billiards and poker, which is why von der Ahe sold him off at the end of '87.

BTW the canard about "Caruthers was only good because he pitched on good teams" is a little unfair. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms were a 60-74 team in 1887, then Caruthers joined them and they went 88-52 in 1888 and 93-44 with the pennant in 1889 (C. going 40-11 in the latter year.) He made them good, in a way Galvin was unable to do elsewhere. For Brooklyn, he was primarily a pitcher, his better ability, but it appears to have blown his arm out after a few years, judging by his poor 1892.

This is my first ballot. I've changed it at least once every day this week, but I believe it's as good now as it will ever be, so here goes...

I use both Win Shares and WARP numbers to the best of my ability. The subjective element in my ranking process comes in the form of "eyeball" numbers like OPS+ and ERA+, as well as Ink tests and general forum discussion.

1. Bill Dahlen- As has been reiterated many times on these threads, Dahlen and Davis are, indeed, extremely close in most statistical evaluations. Of the two, I chose Dahlen primarily because of his A+ WS rating at SS (vs. Davis' B rating). Call it the tiebreaker.

2. George Davis- WARP numbers, at any level, point out the vast difference between these two and the rest of the field.

3. Harry Stovey- I'd love to see this guy make it in.

4. Sam Thompson- Another player that I think gets discounted for his fielding position, and perhaps too much for the competition he faced.

5. Hugh Duffy- Two-time HR champ, two-time RBI champ, all-around great hitter.

6. Joe McGinnity- Great peak. Nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in the iron industry during winters, then grew into the name as a pitcher. Pitched both games of a double-header 5 times and won 9 of the 10 games. The perfect complement to Mathewson in the Giants early heyday.

7. Joe Kelley- What d'ya know? Another outfielder.... Kelley had great power and speed.

8. Jimmy Collins- The best corner infielder on the board?

9. Jimmy Ryan- Another Irishman, and yet another outfielder. Great career, 5-year WS.

10. Frank Grant- the black Al Dunlap? Needs a better endorsement.

11. George Van Haltren- Excellent WARP numbers/Career Win Shares

12. Pete Browning- Okay, so I'm a bit heavy on the OFs. How can I omit a guy with an OPS+ of 162?

13. Bob Caruthers- Still a nice 5-yr. peak, but hurt by new WARP figures.

14. Jake Beckley- The "other" corner on my list. Wonderful career numbers, not such a great peak.

15. Tip O'Neill- Sorry, had to fit one more OF in. Awesome peak, esp. '87-'88, but just doesn't get much respect around here (probably deservingly so.

Guys bubbling under:

This is my first ballot. I've changed it at least once every day this week, but I believe it's as good now as it will ever be, so here goes...

I use both Win Shares and WARP numbers to the best of my ability. The subjective element in my ranking process comes in the form of "eyeball" numbers like OPS+ and ERA+, as well as Ink tests and general forum discussion.

1. Bill Dahlen- As has been reiterated many times on these threads, Dahlen and Davis are, indeed, extremely close in most statistical evaluations. Of the two, I chose Dahlen primarily because of his A+ WS rating at SS (vs. Davis' B rating). Call it the tiebreaker.

2. George Davis- WARP numbers, at any level, point out the vast difference between these two and the rest of the field.

3. Harry Stovey- I'd love to see this guy make it in.

4. Sam Thompson- Another player that I think gets discounted for his fielding position, and perhaps too much for the competition he faced.

5. Hugh Duffy- Two-time HR champ, two-time RBI champ, all-around great hitter.

6. Joe McGinnity- Great peak. Nicknamed "Iron Man" because he worked in the iron industry during winters, then grew into the name as a pitcher. Pitched both games of a double-header 5 times and won 9 of the 10 games. The perfect complement to Mathewson in the Giants early heyday.

7. Joe Kelley- What d'ya know? Another outfielder.... Kelley had great power and speed.

8. Jimmy Collins- The best corner infielder on the board?

9. Jimmy Ryan- Another Irishman, and yet another outfielder. Great career, 5-year WS.

10. Frank Grant- the black Al Dunlap? Needs a better endorsement.

11. George Van Haltren- Excellent WARP numbers/Career Win Shares

12. Pete Browning- Okay, so I'm a bit heavy on the OFs. How can I omit a guy with an OPS+ of 162?

13. Bob Caruthers- Still a nice 5-yr. peak, but hurt by new WARP figures.

14. Jake Beckley- The "other" corner on my list. Wonderful career numbers, not such a great peak.

15. Tip O'Neill- Sorry, had to fit one more OF in. Awesome peak, esp. '87-'88, but just doesn't get much respect around here (probably deservingly so.

Guys bubbling under:

Whoa! Check that second ballot! Sorry...

BTW, if Caruthers' and Ruth's value was so high as a pitcher/outfielder, why didn't management keep them there?

That's a very interesting question.

Why not let Ruth take a turn in the rotation and play OF on the other days?

Welcome Brad. Thank you for passing the "I have both Frank Grant and Bob Caruthers on my Ballot" test. You are welcome all the more for that.

Hey, how about a new form of strategic voting! We can skip voting one week, and in exchange have our votes count twice as much next time!

1)George Davis

I assume they know what they're talking about. Post-season vacations in Paris for a 21 year old Midwestern ballplayer would have been pretty rare in 1885, so I can see how it would give him a nickname/reputation. Apparently he was keen on booze, billiards and poker, which is why von der Ahe sold him off at the end of '87.

Ninetenth Century Stars says the same thing. I don't know where I got the Paris, NY story from.

The Brooklyn Bridegrooms were a 60-74 team in 1887, then Caruthers joined them and they went 88-52 in 1888 and 93-44 with the pennant in 1889 (C. going 40-11 in the latter year.) He made them good, in a way Galvin was unable to do elsewhere.

Except you're missing two other additions to the '88 club - Dave Foutz and Mickey Hughes. Foutz and Oyster Burns helped the team in later seasons. You're giving too much credit to Caruthers then he deserved (though I would agree he was the best player on the team for a few years).

"I thought that years like the Nichols and Davis/Dahlen years would be without discussion, because we are all accepting of sabermetric analysis. Without such analysis, Davis and Dahlen don't look so hot."

Actually, there are very good non-sabermetric arguments to include Davis in the HoM.

2368 games--75th all-time

> George Davis is probably one of the top 3-7 SS's in the history

Joe dosn't Bill James rank him much lower then that?

1. Timeline. I don't like to timeline. But adjWS gives too much of an advantage to the old-timers and WS penalizes the old-timers too much (except, in terms of peak, the pitchers).

adjWS is Win Shares prorated to a uniform number of games played. If you think that is biased (too biased to be tolerable) in favor of the short-season stars, try nonlinear adjustment for length of schedule rather than prorating plus a linear timeline.

Clay Davenport uses the nonlinear adjustment factor of multiplication d=x**2/3 where x is the ratio between normal and actual length of the schedule in games; ie, x is the adjustment factor for linear prorating. (That is one adjustment en route from WARP1 to WARP3.)

For example, consider the 70-game schedule used in 1876 and the normal 140-game schedule used in 1888-91, 1900-03, and AA 1886-87. http://world.std.com/~pgw/19c/schedule.games.html

Paul:

Are you using "**" to denote an exponential function? Haven't seen that before, so just checking.

Jeff

P.S. I usually see a carat (^) for exponential functions.

<i>Are you using "**" to denote an exponential function? ...

Beat me by picoseconds, **.

I knew this was a crusty group, but my god. (For-what?)

<i>Karlmangus:

1915 ballot. Season-by-season ratings for each player determined relative to peers, and based on (unadjusted) win shares per plate appearance (for batters) or ERA+ (for pitchers). The best string of consecutive seasons (the "prime") is then determined for each player. Final ratings are based on "stength plus length" of prime.

1. George Davis (N) 3B/SS. Prime 1890-1908; 398 wins shares during prime in 10067 plate appearances (PA); 23.7 WS/600 PA.

2. Bill Dahlen (N) SS. Prime 1891-1909: 394 WS/10384 PA; 22.8 WS/600 PA.

Why does Davis come out ahead? Davis generally beat Dahlen in individual seasons when both were SS. In seasons where Davis was a 3B and Dahlen a SS, Davis was typically the best 3B, but Dahlen typically rated behind Jennings.

3. Hughie Jennings (8-8-3-1 last year) SS. 1894-1898: 150 WS/2989 PA; 30.1 WS/600 PA. Players such as Jennings and McGraw deserve to be rated on their own terms, not put into inappropriate one-size-fits-all career value systems. Has the strongest prime of any player on the ballot.

4. Lip Pike (3-2-4-4) IF/RF/CF. Prime 1866(?)-1878. 158 OPS+ in 2006 PA in NA/NL. He was probably a "character"; nonetheless, the numbers look good.

5. Jake Beckley (N-5-3) 1B. 1888-1906: 318 WS/10348 PA; 18.4 WS/600 PA. Never great, but could be counted on to be average to very good for 17 straight years of full-time play. How many other players can make this claim? Career is similar in many ways to that of Eddie Murray, though Beckley was not quite as good.

6. John McGraw (12-15-9-5) 3B. 1894-1901: 169 WS/3618 PA; 28.0 WS/ 600 PA. Best 3B of 1890s. 2nd strongest prime of any player on ballot.

7. Cupid Childs (7-7-7-6) 2B. 1890-1898: 208 WS/5312 PA; 23.5 WS/600 PA. Best 2B of 1890s. Pike and Childs were best at position 5 times, more than any other players on ballot.

8. Frank Grant (13-9-8-7) 2B. The primary basis for picking players from eras and leagues where the statisical evidence is lacking is their career length. Grant had a long career and a reputation as the best black player of the 19th century. I have chosen to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his career was nearly at a McPhee/Childs/Richardson level.

9. Dickey Pearce (X-4-2-8) SS. Subjective rating. If I were sure that he should be in the HoM, he would be near the top of my ballot. I am sure that he was at least this good.

10. Joe Kelley (N-9) LF/CF/1B. 1893-1904: 272 WS/6644 PA; 24.6 WS/600 PA. Strong prime raises him above contemporary OF.

11. Jimmy Collins (N-11) 3B. 1896-1907: 257 WS/6520 PA; 23.7 WS/600 PA. Was very good, but below the level that would make him an automatic.

12. Jimmy Ryan (X-13-10-10) OF. 1885-1903: 310 non-pitching WS 9106 PA = 20.4 WS/600, + 6 pitching WS. Long career raises him above his OF peers.

13. George Van Haltren (10-X-X-12) P/OF. 1887-1903: 303 non-pitching WS/8979 PA = 20.2 WS/600, + 41 pitching WS. Separated at birth from Jimmy Ryan.

14. Hugh Duffy (6-6-11-13) OF. 1888-1904: 294 WS/7827 PA = 22.5 WS/600. Outside of fluke year 1894, was a "run of the mill" 1890s OF.

15. Charley Jones (12-X) LF/CF. 1875-1886: 150 WS/3492 PA; 25.8 WS/600; 155 OPS+. Great peak. Credit given for blacklisted years.

16. Harry Stovey. 1B/OF. 1880-1893: 265 WS/6832 PA; 23.3 WS/600 PA. The AA from 1882 to 1885 was decidedly minor-league. Up through those years, Stovey played at 1B, where he was not as good as the ABC group, then switched to OF, where his level of play does not raise him above the glut.

17. Mike Tiernan. Bumped off due to new arrivals. See Sam Thompson.

18. Harry Wright

19. Charlie Bennett. C 1880-1893: 155 WS/4116 PA; 22.6 WS/600 PA. Without giving special treatment to C, this is where he ranks. How, for example, could he be rated above Jimmy Collins? Cal McVey, Deacon White, and Buck Ewing give catchers enough representation in the HoM, for now.

20. Herman Long, 21. Fielder Jones, 22. Levi Meyerle 23. Lave Cross, 24. Tom York, 25. Tip O'Neill,

26. Sam Thompson. RF 1885-1898: 236 WS/6470 PA; 21.9 WS/600 PA. The top 4 years for runs per game in the history of the National League were 1894, 1895, 1893, and 1887. Remarkably, the only 4 times that Thompson was in the top 5 in OPS+ were: 1887, 1893, 1894, and 1895. 1893-1895 were affected by the change in distance to the pitching mound, and 1887 was the one season in MLB history where it took 4 strikes for an out. In short, Thompson was a monster hitter only in years with historically unusual batter-favoring conditions. In years less favorable for batters, Thompson was mediocre. Of course he should get credit for his good seasons, but I suspect that measures such as EQA overrate the performance of sluggers in extreme batter's years.

As for defense, I don't trust the WARP numbers. Case in point: Thompson vs. Tiernan 1891. Thompson played 131 games in RF; Tiernan played 130 games in RF and 4 in CF., so they're almost a perfect match. Thompson made 18 errors in 247 chances, had 31 assists and 6 DP. Tiernan made 17 errors in 155 chances, with 16 assists and 4 DP. Yet, Thompson is rated 36 (!) FRAR1 better than Tiernan. I can't believe that the 1891 Phillies would have allowed 36 more runs if they had had Tiernan playing for them instead of Thompson. Are total chances, which are outside a fielder's control, influencing BP fielder ratings?

27. Clark Griffith, 28. Deacon McGuire, 29. Fred Dunlap, 30. Ned Williamson,

35. Joe McGinnity. Prime 1899-1908. 121 ERA+ in 3441.3 innings pitched. My current best estimate of the percentage of pitchers that belong in the HoM is 28%. As it happens, the percentage of pitchers on my list of top players remains significantly lower. The two main reasons are (1) pitchers tend to have shorter careers than position players and (2) pitchers tend to have less consistent careers than position players. As historical perspective is gained over the years, I plan to slowly introduce weak quotas to keep the number of pitchers from becoming unreasonably low. In the meantime, I will remain a straggler. As for McGinnity, I am not that impressed. His claim to fame largely rests on his "black ink", but his high black ink total is mainly a consequence of pitching large numbers of innings per season. To me, pitching 400 innings in a season and getting 30 wins does no more to helping your HoM case than 2 seasons of pitching 200 innings and getting 15 wins each year, even though the former will earn you a lot more black ink.

42. Bob Caruthers. P/OF. 1884-1893: 123 ERA+ in 2828.7 IP. 77 non-pitching WS in 2906 PA; 15.9 WS/600 PA. Deserves an honorable mention, not the HoM. 1885 accomplishments must be discounted. About 7 years worth of pitching and 5.5 years worth of batting in 10 seasons. If he had done nothing but pitch at his level for 12.5 years or bat at his level for 12.5 years, he wouldn't make my ballot, so he doesn't make it by combining the two.

ed wrote (#75):

I am surprised that Pike has so much votes while somebody like Levi Meyerle has a tiny, puny, insignificant 9 points and seems ripe to fall off the ballot. Meyerle was born in the same year as Pike, [there is evidence he may have been born four years later] played almost the same seasons, was clearly the better offensive player and he played harder positions like 3B and 2B, yet Pike has 290+ points more than he does? Bizarre.

OK, Meyerle?s 164 OPS+ jumps out at you, the highest on the ballot. But he is not really in the same class overall as Pike and McVey. Once again now, Pike played 13 years at the highest level (1866-78). Meyerle played only nine (1869-77).

There is not conclusive evidence that Meyerle was a better hitter than Pike. Pike?s career OPS+ was in the same range (155). Despite some undocumented prime years for Pike, their top five seasons in OPS+ are equal, summing to 884:

Philip, I agree with your approach, except that you've taken the top 7 seasons of all the other pitchers and compared them with Caruthers' career of 9 seasons (he had one OK season and one bad one at the end of his pitching career.) IF you take his top7 seasons, 1884-90, to make him comparable, he's 198-75, a WPCT of .753, which would come second on your list after Spalding and ahead of all the others.

Incidentally, your list if correct suggests that Waddell won't get my vote and Rusie shouldn't have (actually, I only had him 12th.) Both short career guys, and unimpressive peaks too.

Sorry, wrong math. 198+75 is 273 not 263, so he was .725 not .753. Still ahead of anyone except Spalding.

1915 ballot:

<b>1. Dahlen

yest, you have drawn an incorrect inference from the ballots. Nobody would say that there should be more shortstops than pitchers on one's ballot. Rather, well, at least I would say, the correct inference to draw from my ballot is that Davis, Dahlen, Pearce and Jennings collectively are better than McCormick, Bond, McGinnity and Caruthers, my top four pitchers, the latter two of whom are not on my ballot (the other six characters all are). That is all one can infer.

It would be equally incorrect for me to infer from your ballot that, just because it happens to work out that way one year, that one less than half of one's ballot (7 of your top 16 actually) "should" consist of OFers.

In 1915, George Davis and Bill Dahlen blow away the backlog while Jack Chesbro challenges us to discover why Cooperstown picked him. In 1916, Keeler and Flick try to show they ain?t glut while Waddell (deceased), Joss (deceased) and Willis continue the pitcher flood. In 1917, Young and Clarke gain election over a stellar crop of newbies.

1) G. Davis ? The Hall of Fame, Bill James, and the overwhelming consensus here put him over Dahlen. I have no compelling logic to override that and I agree he is probably among the top 100 players all-time.

2) Dahlen ? About 30 spots behind Davis on the all-time greatest list.

3) H. Stovey (2,3,5)? I like the total package. Proved he could handle centerfield, as he played more than 25 games in CF in five different seasons. James grades him B+ in the outfield, excellent for a corner OFer, and C+ at 1B.

4) Bennett (3,4,6)? Catchers with highest OPS+, 1876-1921 (3500+ PA):

DanG, with all due respect, your commentary begs the questions:

Why not Browning over Ryan? Why not Cross or Nash over Collins? Why not Gleason over Childs?

DanG, with all due respect, your commentary begs the questions:

Why not Browning over Ryan? Why not Cross or Nash over Collins? Why not Gleason over Childs?

BTW I liked your Dr. Evil impression :-)

Marc,

The exhibits presented with my ballots are hardly the sole support behind any player's ranking. Usually, the perspective they offer is very limited, showing a traditional stat where the player does well.

It's mainly to add to people's knowledge something they may not have known before.

I suppose it begs the question, "Just what is your justification for your rankings?" My method is similar to the approach used by Howie.

I've been considering these issues for thirty years, so I'm not starting here from square one. I don't have the opportunity to conduct too many extensive studies like I did years back, so I make sure to read every post and add discoveries made here to those made before. There are wonderful comprehensive metrics readily available, so I don't try to reinvent the wheel, I try to integrate all new information into an existing framework of knowledge.

I don't recommend this approach to anyone else. Just keep those studies coming, because I depend on the new perspectives developed here.

As someone without any pitchers on my ballot, I figured I would explain it, especially since I consider positional balance. I keep track of positions elected, and for positions that are underrepresented (3B and RF, currently) I will give a slight nudge to players at those positions. Basically, give them all of the benefits of the doubt within their possible range of positions. For positions that are overrepresented, I do not push downward.

All other things being equal, I would at this time have ~2.1 pitchers for every other position on my ballot (this started at a 1:1 for early baseball and is slowly rising over time). Of the pitchers in the HoM, all but Spalding are in my personal Hall, and he would be in the top half of my ballot if he were still eligible. So, I dont have a problem with any pitchers in the HoM. It just so happens that despite the fact that I would expect ~3.12 pitchers on my ballot, there are none this year. Mostly because all the pitchers I would vote for have already been elected.

Just want to say I was fascinated by this from EricC:

"The top 4 years for runs per game in the history of the National League were 1894, 1895, 1893, and 1887. Remarkably, the only 4 times that Thompson was in the top 5 in OPS+ were: 1887, 1893, 1894, and 1895. 1893-1895 were affected by the change in distance to the pitching mound, and 1887 was the one season in MLB history where it took 4 strikes for an out.

I should know better than to disagree with Howie (or Eric for that matter), but I guess I don't see Thompson as mediocre in other years. Not MVP certainly but no more mediocre than Ryan or Van Haltren or most other players in something other than their best 4 years. His 10 year totals are as good as anybody's.

But if hitting was so easy in those years, where were all these other guys. The point is that in any given year, I don't care how wierd the rules were (fair-foul hits, whatever), unless Sam Thompson was the only guy who got 4 strikes, he rose to the top and the other guys, who had the same opportunity, did not. I won't discount peaks that happened in those years.

I look at 8-year peak, 3-year peak, 5-consecutive year peak, career and WS per 162. I start with a composite ranking = 4xCareer + the 3 peaks + WS per 162 and make adjustments justified by individual components. (Number in parenthesis shows composite rank.)

1. Davis (2) ? By WS, 2nd best offensive player on board, and he?s a shortstop.

Read previous ballots if you want more depth on my reasons for all but the latest eligibles. Major ongoing shakeup due to the revisions in WARP-3 (which I'm still attempting to digest, particularly the rehabilitation of the AA pitchers). Duffy and C.Jones took major hits with the WARP revisions. Some of the pitchers aligned more closely with the WS peak evaluations of them. I now have a minor pitcher glut replacing some of the minor OF'ers.

1) B. Dahlen -- As a fielding true-believer, I give Dahlen a yoctoscopic edge over Davis.

2) G. Davis -- Both of these guys dominate this ballot, which is a good thing as I attempt to get comfortable with a somewhat different world view.

3) C. Bennett -- Best catcher available; stands out from the other catchers far more than any of the other OF'ers do from their pack.

4) J. Kelley -- Still better than the glut; the revisions have reinforced that.

5) B. Caruthers -- Tentative for now; I have to examine the WARP pitching adjustments. At the moment, he looks like he is the best pitcher available.

Following are the guys that I might not have in my HOF, but then again I'm a small hall advocate, smaller than the one that exists now.

can someone please explain to me why they think that their number of shortstops should be approximately equal to pitchers when there were always more pitchers in the league then shortstops

As the person with 3 shortshops in my top 3, and no pitchers on my ballot, let me assure you that I agree there should be more pitchers than shortshops in the HoM, at least in the long term.

I should know better than to disagree with Howie (or Eric for that matter), but I guess I don't see Thompson as mediocre in other years. Not MVP certainly but no more mediocre than Ryan or Van Haltren or most other players in something other than their best 4 years.

My characterization of Thompson above as "mediocre" was wrong. He was almost always among the top third of RF when he played, and that is not mediocre. Keeping in mind that I don't give Thompson much defensive credit, I do see his top 4 years as better than the top 4 years of players such as Ryan, Van Haltren, and Tiernan. On the other hand, I see the remainder of his career as weaker than the remainder of the others' careers, more than cancelling his advantage in his best years.

I can see how one can reasonably rate Thompson higher than the others, depending on how one balances peak and career, and how much credit is given for defense. My observation that Thompson's 4 best years were the 4 highest-scoring years in NL history was meant to articulate a possible source of the unease that I have rating him so low when his stats look so good. Because he was an extreme player in extreme years, I don't think that the raw sabermetric offensive value formulas are getting his value right. I don't know if Win Shares (which I use) is underrating him, EQA is overrating him, or both.

Marc,

I haven't done any research on this but I wonder 1) what were the four lowest scoring years in MLB history? and 2) who were the best pitchers those years?

Discount them?

Marc -

This isn't a direct answer to the question you asked, but I immediately thought of 1968. No, that wasn't one of the "four lowest scoring years in MLB history", but it was the most extreme and emblematic year of a particular time stacked in the pitcher's favor. It was also my time to be a fan - I can quote you many details of Gibson's June-July hot streak.

Bob Gibson towered over the NL that year, easily winning the MVP. He had an ERA+ of 258, compared to his second-best ERA+ of 164 and his career ERA+ of 127.

Beyond Gibson, it's not all that clear who the second best NL pitcher was. Marichal had the W-L record, but only matched his career ERA+. Seaver was a 23 year old second year pitcher who hadn't fully developed yet. Drysdale had the famous scoreless inning streak, but his 129 ERA+ doesn't stick out above his whole career. It is a spike sticking out above his decline phase. It was, at age 31, his last good year.

In the AL, there were some striking years:

Luis Tiant had a 184 ERA+. His second best was 169 in 80 fewer innings and his career was 114.

OCF, that was exactly the kind of analysis I was too lazy to make, except if I may supply the final point: Do we throw all of these guys out because they took advantage of an advantageous opportunity? I don't think so.

Joe - As long as you're doing minor editing to improve the readability of the thread without changing its content, how about deleting Ron Wargo's post #22? It's not causing any major harm because ballot counters, if careful, can step around it, but it would be a little easier if it weren't there. (I'm not picking on Ron - we all know how easy it is to inadvertently double post.)

Just sent in my register-to-vote e-mail & this is my first ballot. Wish I'd done it earlier.

1) George Davis. His numbers would be great if he were an outfielder. As a SS he's a top-of-the-ballot guy.

2) Bill Dahlen. I don't see these two being as close as others. One has an OPS+ of 122 & an EQA of 287. The other has 110 & 273. Sure they're only quick thumbnail stats to get a player's value, but they ain't even close with these two. Still, Dahlen was a great HoM worthy player, especially considering his defense at short stop.

3) Jake Beckley. Clearly I'm a career value fan. For me, enough years of very good can make a great career. He had 17-18 straight years where he did a good job, hitting for average, with some consistent power. I've heard him compared to Tony Perez but he was better than Perez as he had about 4 more good years than Perez, which boosts him career value up some. Was his career elongated by expansion in 1901? Maybe, but as late as 1905 when Beckley was 37 and beginning his decline he still had the 6th best OPS+ of an first baseman in either league.

4) Joe Kelley - the best of the outfielders on the list. Ryan & Van Haltren had longer careers & as a result some better & larger final numbers. But they weren't that much better or around that much longer to overcome the fact that Kelley was a better player. Terrific player with a fantastic high in the mid-1890s.

5) Joe McGinnity. Great mixture of quantity & quality for a few years. He does terrific on the black & grey ink tests. The main knock I read about him is that he was more quantity than quality. There's some truth to that as his black/grey ink results are largely a result of his workhouse ability to throw huge numbers of innings for several years. However, it's not like he was league average pitcher when he was the Iron Man. In 1904 he led the league in ERA+ while leading the league in IP. In 1903 while almost throwing 20% more innings than anyone else in the NL he had the 4th best ERA+. He was one of the best pithers in terms of quality, pitching far more quantity than anyone else. FWIW, I figured out his run support using the game logs at retrosheet for his career from 1901 onward. In that time period his run support (adjusted for park & league) was 6.75% above league average. The 1900 Brooklyn team had a very good offense but the 1899 Orioles had a bad offense, so I guesstimate his career run support at around 6% above league average. That explains some wins, but not a .634 team winning percentage. How good was his team's defense in backing him up? I'll all I for sure is that from 1903-8 the Giants team H% ranked: 3, 1, 2, 3, 3, & 8 in the NL. Good & probably explains a few more of his wins, but rarely the best.

Those are the guys I'm high on. Now for the rest of the ballot.

6) Frank Grant. Reputed to be the best black baseball player of the 19th century. That's good enough to garner a high vote from me.

7) Jimmy Collins. The best 3Bman of the era. Bill Dahlen with a shorter career & moved over one slot on the infield.

8) Sam Thompson. I may end up revising him downward in future ballots because his career was so short, but what he did in that short time is just astounding. The guy could mash that ball.

9) Jimmy Ryan. Terrific career. Very similiar to George Van Haltren, but I'd rate him a little better because he had more power & a better peak.

10) George Van Haltren. 95% of what Jimmy Ryan was. Had more stolen bases, but that's his only major advantage.

11) Clark Griffith. Very nice career. Not quite as impressive final career numbers as Welch or Mullane, but he did most of it in the 12-team 1890s. He also had a better career ERA+ than those two did.

12) Harry Stovey. Gets some points deducted for playing in the AA, but dang could he hit the ball. Only played 1486 games but that's in part because of how the schedule was when he started, & so I'm not going to penalize him as much for that as I would if he'd played in the 1890s with that many games.

13) Tony Mullane. Again, an AA deduction. But he could pitch, as he showed when he moved to the NL. No, his numbers weren't great in the NL, but he had already passed 30 & logged in over 3000 IP by that time. His performance in the NL shows that what he did in the AA wasn't just a result of the weaker competition. Caruthers was better in the AA but his career was just too dang short for me.

14) Cupid Childs. I may want to reconsider this one due to career length, but the OBP machine was a terrific player for almost a decade. Best 2Bman that I have numbers for that's eligible for the ballot, IMO.

15) Mickey Welch. 4802 IP at an ERA+ of 114. That's more quantity than quality but enough of both to justify the last slot on my ballot; at least for this year.

Others:

>If

I feel the same way about pitchers after about 1985. Maybe.

Me thinks you were being somewhat facetious here. As you would expect, I agree with your point.

Just sent in my register-to-vote e-mail & this is my first ballot. Wish I'd done it earlier.

I hope you enjoy yourself!

Remember: if your ballot doesn't match mine, you're doing something wrong. :-D