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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Tuesday, March 09, 20041922 Ballot DiscussionWS W3 Rookie Name-Pos (Died) 496 176.4 1896 Nap Lajoie-2b (1959) 426 128.8 1901 Christy Mathewson-P (1925) 296 70.3 1903 Mordecai Brown-P (1948) 222 70.8 1904 Miller Huggins-2b (1929) 206 48.3 1905 Ed Reulbach-P (1961) 177 54.3 1907 Nap Rucker-P (1970) 158 30.9 1905 Solly Hofman-CF (1956) 138 34.6 1908 Chief Wilson-RF (1954) 120 31.9 1907 Otto Knabe-2b (1961) 135 28.8 1908 Doc Crandall-P (1951) 114 30.2 1906 Roy Hartzell-RF/3b (1961) 91 14.4 1902 Red Dooin-C (1952) Pretty strong entry class this year . . . let me know if there are any Negro League candidates, or anyone else that I may have missed. 1921 results should be up sometime tomorrow. JoeD has the Imperial March Stuck in His Head
Posted: March 09, 2004 at 07:13 AM | 225 comment(s)
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This is true, but since the vast majority of us use career as a major component for our evaluations, missing seasons can alter the ranking of a candidate to a significant degree.
<i>Alas, John, #228 will not be here when I next connect to the 'net and reload the Hall of Merit.
I would endorse that.
>That said :-) the "problem" of credit for missing seasons is crucial only for career voters... For example, it is only for a careerist that a vote for Charley Jones must be based on giving credit for two years on the blacklist.
And as always, Paul is correct. I mentioned Charley's case because I am a FOCJ. But as a peak/prime voter, I've had Charley as high as 6th on my ballot w/o any X-credit for his blacklist years. The thing that made a difference for Charley and for Sam Thompson, however, was when I decided NOT to define a peak by consecutive seasons only. Now I use 3 consecutive and any 5 (the opposite of James' definition). But even for "3 consecutive," I allow Charley's 1880 and 1883 as "consecutive;" ditto Ted Williams 1942 and 1946. If a player misses an entire season due to injury, then that doesn't count against the peak either, but if he plays, say, 80-100-120 games due to injury, that's too bad, that is part of his consecutive run.
Well, I've got Waddell at #15 (wow, do we actually agree?) and Willis at #21, which isn't really that big a difference in my system.
I account for the difference like this:
(1) Waddell has significantly higher 3-year, 5-year consecutive and 7-year WARP1 peaks, and more WARP1 per 1000 IP -- and doesn't lag much behind Willis in overall career (maybe a season's worth); and
(2) in LWTS, they are about the same career-wise, but if you factor NRA and DERA (from the BP cards) into the LWTS calculation -- for purposes of taking into account the quality of defensive play behind them -- Willis' LWTS drops significantly and Waddell's stays about the same.
Not claiming these are overwhelming factors in Waddell's favor -- that's just how I separated them.
(2) in LWTS, they are about the same career-wise, but if you factor NRA and DERA (from the BP cards) into the LWTS calculation -- for purposes of taking into account the quality of defensive play behind them -- Willis' LWTS drops significantly and Waddell's stays about the same.
I'm curious, Jeff - why didn't just use WARP3? Willis has 62.6 to Waddell's 61.6 (and Willis leads in spite of the questionable deductions that the system gives NL players from that era). WARP3 takes into account the quality of defensive play behind both of them, too.
BTW, I have some problems with all three WARPs (as I do with Win Shares to a less extent), so I don't want to be accused of propping up my argument with a system that I'm not really comfortable with. But the two major all-encompasssing statistical systems don't really show why Waddell is so much greater than Willis, so I'm still somewhat baffled about why the huge differential.
Because I don't know how they've computed the transition from WARP1 to WARP2, and I've always been skeptical of the adjustment factor. Plus, as I think you may have argued before (and/or Marc and Matt have argued, I think), I hate relying on a formula for which no explanation is provided.
But WARP3 doesn't make much difference for Waddell and Willis, in my system. Willis leads on career in WARP1 too, but it's fairly close. The peaks aren't that close, though. Waddell seems like the winner there.
Incidentally, although I often cite WARP1, I do make a season-length adjustment for hitters...so I sort of get WARP3 without the WARP2 adjustment. I don't do this for pitchers, on the theory that in the early years (where an adjustment would be meaningful), they were pitching about as much as they could anyway.
I'm still somewhat baffled about why the huge differential.
I assume you mean this with respect to the consensus, and not the difference between my #15 and #21 ranking. :)
I agree, though someone here stated that there is one (I haven't seen it as of yet). I wasn't, in any way, questioning your methods, but was just curious.
I assume you mean this with respect to the consensus, and not the difference between my #15 and #21 ranking. :)
Yes, the consensus. :-)
Well, I've got Waddell at #15 (wow, do we actually agree?)
As with OCF, I have eleven of your choices, so I'm not that far off with you, either.
By the way, what ever happened to Matt B? Does he still vote?
Since he submitted his ballot this week, I guess he still does. :-D
Pee Wee Reese is another that comes to mind.
Obviously the cases of Reese and Rizutto are trickier but at least you've got '41 and '46, pre- and post- to project from. The really tricky ones are the guys whose debut and/or career was delayed. Like Warren Spahn who pitched 4 games in '42 but then didn't pitch again until '46. The problem of course being he had no established level, but being "ready" at least for a cup of coffee in '42 and more than ready in '46, his career would have taken off somewhere in the interim. Ralph Kiner is another case and there are many, many more. Of course these are cases (Spahn especially) where it might not matter what if any credit you give them for that period. Williams either.
But back to Reese and Rizutto. It matters a lot what you do with '42-'45. I give them credit, not because they need it and not even because it is "fair" in any "moral" sense. Rather it is simply most likely that they would have played "every day" and would have had value much like '41 or '46. It's all a question of how big of an assumption you want to make. The idea that they would have been injured and had no value is too big of an assumption. Somebody should figure out the odds of that. In the whole history of baseball, how many regular players miss whole seasons to injury?
But here is where I differ from Joe. I also can't quite bring myself to assume or even to project that they would have a peak in '42-'45 that would be higher than '41, '46 or some other time. I project "flat" value, not a standard career curve. I cannot bring myself to rate Reese on the basis of his hypothetical 1945 peak. But he woulda/coulda/shoulda played and his (flatly) projected '45 value goes into his prime and his career. This is also where, in computing peak, that '41-'42-'46 is calculated as being consecutive seasons.
As you may recall, I am among the minority that disagrees with you on war credit. I would ask you to to leave room for the possibility that extremely intelligent people can nonetheless disagree with you. I am neither cowed nor convinced by you telling me that my position is ludicrous and indefensible. Fortunately, neither am I reactionary. I will listen to your views and ignore your rhetoric/insults. However, it seems very unlikely that telling people that their views are ludicrous will help this discussion.
I admire your fire and I admire your intensity. But there are going to be a lot of people you meet in your life who disagree with you and some of them are going to be really smart, even smarter than you are.
As to Cecil Travis, I think it is "wrong," not in a moral sense, but in a logical sense, to do anything other than extrapolate what they did before and after. If they were washed up in '46 then there is not much to extrapolate from.
The question is what is most likely to have happened, and guys like Travis, who had 5-6 great years then faded at an early age, they're a dime a dozen. It is not unlikely that he coulda faded without WWII. After all, other guys fought in WWII and came back strong. If Travis coulda kept going at a high peak for another 5-6 years, the evidence would be there in '46-'47-'48. Instead the evidence says otherwise.
So the basic questions are:
1. Should there be any credit at all given? I say yes.
2. Then, how much? What is most likely to have happened based on the evidence, especially the evidence of '41-'42-'46-'47? I'm not willing to go to either extreme of saying they get no credit or they would have been injured, nor that they would have played above their '41-'42-'46-'47 level. I'm in the middle.
"Courageously fighting with the 76th Infantry in the Battle of the Bulge, he went several days without food or water, incurring severe frostbite of his feet. Despite his injury and the fact that he was eligible for discharge, Cecil asked to be sent to the Pacific when the war in Europe was subsiding."
Again, I'm not trying to petition for Travis, I honestly don't plan on voting for him myself. I just wanted to offer some explanation as to why he didn't perform well after returning from the war.
I might be able to meet you halfway. The most convincing argument you provide is that if you give no credit for WWII service than a bunch of people who were born in or about 1920 would be prejudiced because they had to/chose to fought in the war.
Nonetheless, I am unwilling to fabricate what isn't there. Ted Williams simply did not hit 522 homeruns, nor did he reach 3000 hits. His peak did not include the years 1943-1945. It simply didn't happen.
However, I will recognize that I could readjust my career standards for those affected by a war or a strike. Instead of having 20 years to make a career, they only had 17. This makes their career stats look approximately 15% better. I'll think about that. It is easy to do with the realities we face, since the wars were relatively short. But if the war was from 1943-1951, I just wouldn't do it. It is too much conjecture. Too much what might've been. And that position makes me question the validity of the first position -- giving the 15% credit. If I wouldn't give 50% credit for a longer war, I shouldn't give 15% credit for a shorter war.
I'll give it some more thought when we hear more opinions on a person for which it counts (Rizzuto).
That's roughly what I'm doing. While I'm totally against the notion of zero credit for the war years, I think a conservative approach is necessary.
What about Maranville and 1918? Will one year be enough to push a borderline HOMer over the top?
Or what about Hank Gowdy and 1917-1918? Could he be a viable candidate with some credit for those years?
I'd like to see a list of players who served in WWI, which we should be considering very soon, if anyone has access to it. (Part of me thinks it is in one of my encyclopedias at home, I should probably check before asking.)
The WWI test will be a good one for WWII players, because it is shorter, and not as many players missed time for service.
That's why I said roughly. I don't think you can create a one-size-fits-all approach for the WWII guys, so I am in agreement with you.
What do you do with guys like Kiner, who started in '46 at age 24 by leading the league in HR, but had no ML experience previously? Actually I can answer my own question to this degree: If I had his minor league records (assuming he played pre-war), I would try to infer the best (most accurate) flat line from that.
Or a Spahn, who had a cup of coffee in '42, threw 24 games in '46, then was a star in '47...or Bob Lemon who like Kiner started in '46...but guys who unlike a Reese or a Rizutto had no real established level prior to the war but whose debut was clearly delayed. What do you do with that?
You pull out your hair and scream! :-)
Ron Wargo #258
You have to be very careful with pitchers, and Spahn in particular. Of course, Spahn is a "shoo-in" or "no-brainer" anyway. But ask this: what happened to most of the pitchers who acheived great success before the age of 24 or so? Because they were successful early, they pitched a lot of innings early in their careers - and many of them peaked early, never matching in their later careers those great early years. Dwight Gooden, Vida Blue - you could name a dozen more stories like that. Spahn was prevented from pitching in his early 20's, and he when he did get started he went on and on, pitching with great effectiveness into his 40's. With Spahn, there's a very real possibility that without WWII, he might have had less of a career.
Bob Feller did peak young and rack up the miles on his arm early. When he missed nearly four years, was that four years in which he would have been great? Or was it time for his arm to rejuvenate that gave his career a second wind? We'll never know.
Flip side of coin. Prince Hal Newhouser. It stands to reason that his '44-'45 seasons would be discounted. Except, hey, he was almost as good in '46.
Lou Boudreau, Vern Stephens...how much of a discount. They were spectacular after the war.
Very tricky.
Early Wynn is another one (to a lesser extent).
From my reading around in Riley, it looks like a lot of black players fought in WWI, though I can't off the top of my head think of any likely candidates whose standing would be affected. Once the thread gets started, I'll see if I can give better info.
Dobie Moore played ball in the Army for a number of years before he left the service to play ball in the Negro Leagues, but that's a somewhat different matter. I think his candidacy is going to generate lots of discussion . . .
Joe Jackson is marked for "war work". He is also marked as a "hold-out", so it will take somebody with better sources than I have to figure out how much time he lost voluntarily at the beginning of the season, and how much he lost involuntarily at the end.
A caution on the "war work". There are only a few players marked as such and they are all from the 1917 World Series participants (White Sox-Giants), so I don't know if this would indicate incomplete records overall and a source only covering these two teams, or just random chance, or some other explanation.
People have already mentioned many of the notable players with military service. A few others: Pete Alexander (like he'll need the extra credit), Sam Rice (age 28), and young Herb Pennock. The latter will require some discussion as he was not a regular starter in 1917 but moved into the "rotation" in 1919; was he ready in 1918?
The length of service can also vary widely as some players were drafted mid-season. It looks like Eddie Collins lost maybe a month to his service in 1918, young Harry Heilmann maybe two, tops.
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