hot topics post

I am considering passing on all THREE "Rubes" on the ballot..

I have a research process question for the group. From time to time I'll be reading a baseball book and come across a fact about a player that is either directly relevant to HoM voting or at least unusual and interesting. Many times that player is a long way from eligibility.

Have any of you developed an efficient way to catalog that information, either for research you are doing or for purposes of this project? Do you use a database program? Index cards?

There was scheduled a presentation on baseball research at the SABR convention, but I couldn't make it to Cincy. Plus, all the people on the panel were in a position to make baseball research their profession -- a luxury I believe most of the people here cannot afford.

In connection with a SABR post, I ran a quick database search to see if anyone ever had 100+ RBI with 0 HR. There were two players:

Hughie Jennings in 1896 (0 and 121)
Lave Cross in 1902 (0 and 108)

Jennings had only 36 extra base hits and Cross had only 47. What do you think those two guys hit with runners in scoring position, since they hit .402 and .342 overall, respectively?

Of course, most of the low HR/high RBI guys played in the 19th century or the first half of the 20th century. No player after 1945 has fewer than 8 HR to go along with 100+ RBI. Two players, George Kell in 1950 and Tommy Herr in 1985, had 100+ RBI with only 8 HR.

This is a single inductee year, yes?

Tentative prelim (redundancies R Us)

1. George Van Haltren
2. Rube Foster
3. Jake Beckley
4. Mickey Welch
5. Harry Hooper
6. Lip Pike
7. Dickey Pearce
8. Jimmy Ryan
9. Tommy Leach
10. Bill Monroe
11. Hugh Duffy
12. Spotswood Poles
13. Clark Griffith
14. Cupid Childs
15. Jim McCormick

16-20. Mullane, Burns, Doyle, Powell, F.Jones
21-25. Willis, White, Cross, Konetchy, Gleason
26-30. Waddell, Milan, Cicotte, Bresnahan, Veach

No opinion on the Negro Leaguers yet; my general thought at the moment is that both Brown and Lyons will miss my ballot, but make my consideration set. That all could change with discussion on them.

I didn't like Hooper as much as I expected. New ballot system hurt him. A lot like Beckley, long career, no peak. I like him better than Beckley, but not much. He slides in the bottom part of my ballot, and I'm optimistic that he won't last long there.

Bobby Veach - Wow! I was completely unprepared for him, but he's going to do very, very well on my ballot. Nice hitter, high quality defender (gets a B from James, which is tough for a corner outfielder). And my system loves his peak: 7 years out of 8 in the heart of his career, he was a strong player. Bobby jumps to the top of the OF glut which, if you know my ballot, means he's doing pretty well. I have little doubt I'll be his best friend.

Other note; trying to rebuild my consideration set, and added a couple names this week. One of those names was Charlie Buffinton, who I like quite a bit. He moves on my ballot in the 12 slot. I'm guessing he suffers in a lot of peoples' systems because his best years are all non-consecutive, but that doesn't bother me one bit. 3 superstar years will get you a long way on my ballot (hell, I've got Jennings #2, so no surprise there).

Oops, meant to give the list:

1. Foster
2. Jennings
3. Veach
4. Ryan
5. Childs
6. Van Haltren
7. Poles
8. F. Jones
9. Griffith
10. Monroe
11. Hooper
12. Buffinton
13. Williams
14. Cross
15. Pearce


Burns had a solid career, but is nowhere near my ballot.

Paying extra attention to the Top 8/Bottom 7 Disctinction, as those in the Bottom 7 are unlikely to survive the flood of new candidates coming in 2 or 3 years. Also, I have expanded my consideration set somewhat.

1. Parisian B . . ., oh, wait.

1. Jake Beckley

Most Extra Base Hits, 1895-1915 (HoMers in Bold)

808 Delahanty
777 Beckley
726 Ryan
652 G.Davis
634 Connor
626 Thompson
602 Dahlen
577 Burkett
574 Kelley
567 Brouthers

2. Dickey Pearce -- After Beckley, I'm not 100% sure of anyone else, so if I have to err, I'll err on the 2nd or 3rd best of his era, rather than potentially to 22nd or 23rd best.

3. Roger Bresnahan --

Most Games Played, 1895-1915, among all players who caught at least 800 games:

1446 Bresnahan
1275 Dooin
1260 Kling
1146 Sullivan
1141 Gibson
1105 McGuire
1073 Warner
1045 Bowerman
1038 Peitz
1012 Criger
947 Bergen
886 McFarland
850 Kittridge

4. Mickey Welch
5. Rube Foster
6. Gavy Cravath
7. Lip Pike

Most Extra Base Hits in the National Association, 1871-1875 (HoMers in Bold)

135 Pike
130 Barnes
122 Wright
115 McVey
97 Meyerle
88 Eggler
86 Hall
85 Craver
83 Leonard
82 O'Rourke
81 Spalding
80 York
79 White


8. George van Haltren
9. Cupid Childs
10. Pete Browning
11. Harry Hooper -- a poor man's Jake Beckley
12. Clark Griffith
13. Frank Chance
14. Hughie Jennings
15. Jimmy Ryan -- still think he's the #4 CF, but realize I've been under-rating him, and that there should, in fact, be 4 CFs on the ballot.

I also like Veach better than Hooper, but i'm prepared to be convinced otherwise. Right now, they are both hovering around Van Haltren and Ryan, which is between 10 and 20 in my rankings.

I had a thought re Welch vs Keefe. Did Ewing's presence make any difference?

Throughout most of baseball history, the idea was stressed of the importance of the battery. The box score always showed who was pitching with what catcher. I'm not exactly sure why.

Presumably, in the early days, mainly before 1884(?) when overhand pitching was legalized, it made a big difference who the catcher was. You didn't just sit back and receive the ball like today. You were a fielder.

Anyway, I was hoping some retrosheet wizard could shed light on this: how much did Ewing catch Keefe and Welch? Was there much difference in the amount of games that The Great Buck caught for them? What were their records with and without him?

There were five years that all three were on the same team and Ewing was the team's main catcher, 1881-85-86-88-89.

Another difference between them to note is that Keefe's Fielding Average and Range Factor as pitcher are quite a bit better than Welch's. These were certainly more important than they are today and perhaps should be accounted for when comparing them.

Rest of the ballot:

#16-20: Bill Monroe, Ed Williamson, Spot Poles, Jim McCormick, Bruce Petway

#21-25: Bobby Veach, John McGraw, Vic Willis, Ed Konetchy, Tommy Leach

#26-30: Charlie Jones, Johnny Evers, Lave Cross, Hugh Duffy, George Burns

#31-35: Tony Mullane, Larry Gardner, Larry Doyle, Rube Waddell, Joe Tinker

#36-40: Herman Long, Mike Tiernan, Jack Clements, Ed Cicotte, Sol White

#41-45: Fielder Jones, Tom York, Tip O'Neill, Arlie Latham, Denny Lyons

#46-50: Tommy Bond, Bill Joyce, Addie Joss, Deacon, McGuire, Chief Meyers

#51-55: Del Pratt, Ed McKean, Fred Dunlap, Harry Wright, Jim Whitney

#56-60: Jake Daubert, Benny Kauff, Roy Thomas, Bobby Mathews, Johnny Kling

#61-65: Orator Shaffer, Dummy Hoy, Cy Seymour, Dave Orr, Harry Davis

#66-70: Dave Foutz, Ray Chapman, Fred Tenney, Billy Nash, Bill Hutchison

#71-75: Harry Steinfeldt, Elmer Smith, Levi Meyerle, Bill Bradley, Wilbert Robinson

#76-80: Joe Wood, Patsy Donovan, Miller Huggins, George Burns, Jake Stivetts

#81-85: Kip Selbach, Clyde Milan, Ginger Beaumont, George Hall, Jack Powell

#86-90: Patsy Dougherty, Chief Zimmer, Gus Weyhing, Hal Chase, Abner Dalrymple

#91-95: Hippo Vaughn, Jesse Tannehill, Jimmy Williams, Jerry Denny, Topsy Hartsel

#96-100: Jimmy Lyons, Art Fletcher, Mike Griffin, Heinie Zimmerman, Donie Bush

#101-105: Charlie Buffinton, Dode Paskert, Will White, Henry Larkin, Frank Schulte

#106-110: Jack Chesbro, Ed Reulbach, George Mullin, John Titus, Sam Leever

#111-115: Al Orth, John Anderson, Kid Gleason, Duke Farrell, Tom Daly

#116-120: John Davidson, Curt Welch, Doggie Miller, Mike Mowrey, Tom Brown

#121-125: Jocko Milligan, Chick Stahl, Sam Wise, Mike Donlin, Chief Bender

Independent of the comments on the 1930 ballot thread, I did a re-evaluation of my pitchers and it caused Waddell and Joss to jump about ten sopts each. No other changes, except Tommy leach has dropped a bit. I'm back to 5 pitchers on the ballot, which I also like.

1. Andrew Foster – Strong peak and long career. While his legend is a bit enhanced by his managerial and executive accomplishments, he was a truly great pitcher. Wagner said he might have been the best. McGraw and Chance said similar things. Career spanned 1897-1912. Undeniably great from 1902 to 1907 – four 50 win seasons, at least. Likely also great but without opportunity to prove it 1899 to 1901 and great but in a self-imposed reduced role from 1908 onwards.

2. Mickey Welch – 300 wins, lots of grey ink. RSI data is helping Welch – those wins are real. Compares fairly well to Keefe.

3. Jake Beckley -- ~3000 hits but no black ink at all. Baseballreality.com has him as the best first baseman in baseball for a long time.

4. Dickey Pearce – likely the best or second best player in the 1860s and played well for an old shortstop for about 5 of his 7 years post-1870.

5. Roger Bresnahan – Great OBP, arguably the best catcher in baseball for a six year period. Counting stats, like all catchers of this time and earlier, are really poor.

In/out line for me – if I had the choice, my ballot would have 6 players this year. Everyone below Pike is problematic for me, and Pike was off my ballot before the drought.

6. Lip Pike – 4 monster seasons, career too short.

7. Major Reevaluation Alert – I have decided to move Rube Waddell from 22 to here . I’m not sure what I was looking at before but I like the three times ERA+ lead, the career 134 ERA+ and, of course, all those strikeouts (plus the 1905 Triple Crown). As part of the re-eval, I have moved Joss from 23 to 10.

8. Tommy Leach – 300+ WS has to mean something.

9. Bill Munroe – I think he was pretty good. Any blackball player that is even talked about as among the best 70 years later is pretty good. I’ll take McGraw’s word for it.

10. Addie Joss – I don’t like short careers much, but I cannot ignore the second best all-time ERA, the 12th best ERA+ and the nice winning percentage. I don’t think his career is HOM worthy, but those below are really just ballot filler for me. His high sim score with Ward the Pitcher sure shows what a great player Ward was.

11. Clark Griffith – 921 similarity score with mcginnity, who was 1st on my ballot when elected.

12. Cupid Childs – nice obp.

13. Pete Browning – Joe Jackson’s most similar player, and they are pretty close – I have him as about 4/5ths of Jackson, who was 2nd on my ballot when elected.

14. George Van Haltren – 40 wins, 2500 hits, never dominated.

15. Spotswood Poles – Van Haltren seems like a good comp.

16. Jimmy Ryan – 2500 hits, good speed, lots of runs.

17. Hugh Duffy – 10 strong seasons, good black ink.

18 and 19. Veach and Hooper – I don’t think they will make my ballot. But if one of them does I may defer to Hooper’s 321 Win Shares and 2500 hits.

Anyway, I was hoping some retrosheet wizard could shed light on this: how much did Ewing catch Keefe and Welch?

Retrosheet can't help on this one. It only lists, score, date, & starting pitchers for 19th century games. It has no daily splits prior to the 1960's.

The excluded players don't measure up to my top 25, though Brown almost certainly would have if his career had been longer. Hooper is in my top 25 but not in my top 15-- I see him as a poor man's Beckley and Beckley just makes my ballot this year. I like Veach a touch better--he's probably got the best skill set of any of the OF's on the ballot and put up some very strong seasons, but he doesn't have the career length of a VH or the peak of a Flick.

For my last two slots, I've considered about two dozen players and thought I'd share the reasons why most fell short:

Pearce--I'm willing to project the careers of the best players at the "neighborhood game" stage of baseball's development to see if I think they would have been stars if the game had actually been organized more broadly, but I'm not willing to induct anyone simply for being the best at the stage of the game's development. Pearce wasn't far enough ahead of his contemporaries for me to think that he would have been a dominant player if the player pool had been deeper than it was.

Foster--Everything I've read treats him as one of three or four pitchers of roughly comparable quality who dominated the Negro Leagues at the time he pitched. I think he's been picked as the representative pitcher of the era not because he was better than the others but because of his later fame. I can't see ranking him ahead of, say, Addie Joss.

Browning--Very short, injury-riddled career for someone so one-dimensional. Interesting to look at his most similar players--Ross Youngs, Elmer Flick, Joe Jackson. While Browning is obviously shortchanged by his shorter seasons, I think the comps are telling-- he was the Elmer Flick or Joe Jackson of the AA. When you discount for league quality, that's not quite enough.

Cravath-- I've been convinced to give him extra credit for the years between his two major league stints and that pulls him close to the ballot, but his career is still too short to earn a spot. If I could be convinced to give him credit for a few years before his first big league stint, then he might enter my ballot as high as 10.

Welch-- He's awfully close to the ballot and I might be doing him a disservice but I have a hard time seeing beyond the 113 ERA+ at a time where talent was spread very thin. Right now, I think that Keefe was about the 40th best player we've seen thus far and Welch about the 75th.

Dunlap--He's a very strong candidate for the last spot but my system has him just off ballot and I'm not stretching to include another player from his already well-represented era.

Monroe--Have re-read everything I can and just get the sense that he's more a Dunlap than a Richardson or Childs. Interestingly, I read Riley's write-up as much more ambivalent than the FOBM.

Griffin and Fielder Jones--Both are right in the mix. Slightly better players than VH, Ryan, and Beckley, but, in the end, I think a player of their quality needs a long career to make the HoM and both walked away a few seasons short.

Tiernan--Ranks with Thompson, Charley Jones, Cravath, Pike, and Browning as an offensive player, but the worst fielder of the bunch. He illustrates how thin the line between induction and oblvivion can be.

Cicotte--He's probably the next best pitcher of his era and the era might deserve another inductee but, right now, I can't see having him above Welch or Joss. I'm going to wait to give him full reconsideration until I can compare him to Marquard, Cooper, Mays, Coveleski, etc. No reason to rush and induct him just because he got banned from the game a few years early.

Joss--When I crunch the numbers, he comes up short but I still get the subjective sense that he was a dominant player in his time and place. I hope that, as the years go by, we can keep him on our radar screen.

Tinker and Evers-- If Evers fielded like Tinker or Tinker hit like Evers or either played as long as Herman Long, he'd be in.

Bond--Might have a Caruthers/Jennings argument but others of his era were able to stretch out their careers longer. Sense that he filled a void as the best pitcher for a few years, but don't feel the need to fill the short gap between Spalding and the 1880s guys.

Long--Not good enough after the mid-1890s.

Leach--Didn't hit enough for me, but didn't miss by much. Slots in with Hooper, one notch below Beckley.

Waddell--Comfortably behind Joss in my book.

Poles--Never going to make my Hall but a damn good candidate for the ballot. In the end, I'm slightly more impressed with Veach's skill set, but that's not a slight to Poles.

That leaves the following ballot:

(1) Van Haltren (2nd)
(2) Childs (3rd)
(3) Jennings (5th)
(4) Ryan (4th)--Drops a notch due to poor rankings among OF's for half of his career.
(5) Jones (9th)--Era over-represented but he's still the next best player on the ballot.
(6) Pike (11th)--The dominant power hitter of the 1867-1876 decade, with speed and the ability to play key defensive positions. Would have been better if he had a different personality, but damn good as is.
(7) Chance (10th)-- Despite his limited playing time, still ranks among the top 10 position players of the 1910s in raw WS. More comfortable enshrining him than any that follow.
(8) Duffy (8th)
(9) Doyle (7th)--Got a bit ahead of myself last time.
(10) Griffith (12th)
(11) Bresnahan (14th)
(12) Williamson (13th)
(13) McGraw (15th)
(14) Veach (new)
(15) Beckley (NR/17th)-- Even if it hurts VH, I need to be honest.

General Harry Hooper questions... because this is his week.

How good of a defender was Hooper? If you think RF at Fenway was big now, you should have seen in before the renovation.LF-324/CF-488/DeepRCF-550/RF-313.5

Source: Ballparks.com

Ruth hit only 9 of his 29 homers in 1919 at home.

Did the Sox need another CF out there in RF? Did the park dimensions really matter in the teens for the other hitters?

Unless there are timeline concerns, I can't see him ranking ahead of Van Haltren.

prelim ballot below, a few comments:
A few years back I was wondering where the love for VanHaltren was. He seems to be getting it now. Hooper moves into a high spot on my ballot, I like career value. Bresnahan has made my ballot despite barely being in my consideration set. We are scraping low. Pearce is up to 18. If you dont rush to induct him, he may make my ballot someday. Or maybe not. The same cant be said for Pike. Duffy had somehow been dropped from my consideration set. That has been corrected. He still came in at 28.


1. VanHaltren
-big dropoff-
Above are solid HoMers (there are no no-brainers this year).
Below are guys I think should get in, but if they dont, thats okay too.
2. Hooper
3. Ryan
-
4. Beckley
5. Cross
6. Veach
7. Pratt
8. Jennings
-big dropoff-
= end of HoMers
9. Long
10. Griffith
11. Childs
12. Jones, F
-big dropoff-
-Below here is a near indistinguishable mass of good but not great players.
13. Nash
14. Griffin
15. Bresnahan
16. Williams
17. McCormick
18. Pearce
19. Konetchy
20. Waddell
21. Tiernan
22. Pike
23. Foster
24. Mullane
25. Poles
26. Welch
27. Leach
28. Duffy
29. McGraw
30. Willis

Hooper looks to land in my top 5; Veach in my top 10, and Burns in my top 15. I think Hooper is the only HoM-worthy new eligible. He's got the nice long career that I like, and he leads the field in career W3. Veach and Burns have much better Ink, though.

Rube Foster will be my 1931 PHoM inductee.
Here's where I'm at on my ballot:

1. Mickey Welch (1)
2. Dickey Pearce (2)
3. Jake Beckley (4)
4. Rube Waddell (5)
5. Rube Foster (7)--I'm tempted to add Marquard and Benton here, too, but...Nah.
6. Roger Bresnahan (6)
7. Bill Monroe (11)
8. Lip Pike (8)
9. Spotswood Poles (9)
10. George Van Haltren (12)
11. Addie Joss (10)
12. Bruce Petway (14)
13. Cupid Childs (nr)--I've realized that I have been seriously overlooking him. He dominated his position for more than a decade, which isn't something you can say about many players eligible.
14. John Donaldson (nr)--I've had him on a yo-yo, and nearly put him on my 1930 ballot, but finally decided against it. After seeing the rationale others offered for putting him on their ballots, I feel pretty comfortable with putting him here.
15. Tony Mullane (13)

16. Tommy Leach
17. Jim McCormick
18. Harry Hooper--Were his defense a bit better, he might make my ballot. As it stands, I don't think he belongs ahead of Leach.
19. Clark Griffith--He has risen substantially over the past few ballots. He'd probably rank much higher had he pitched more in his last 5-7 seasons. For now, I think he belongs between McCormick and Willis.
20. Jimmy Ryan
21. Hugh Duffy
22. Larry Doyle
23. Jimmy Lyons--A speedy fielder, and good singles hitter with a fairly long career. I'll put him here for now.
24. Gavvy Cravath
25. Vic Willis

26-30: Burns, Konetchy, Tiernan, Browning, Daubert
31-35: Cicotte, Evers, Milan, Thomas, Huggins
36-40: Dave Brown, Gardner, Veach, Bond, Pratt

I think the most interesting comparison between ballots lies with Bobby Veach and George J. Burns.
Both have somewhat similar numbers, but WS likes Burns' fielding much better than Veach's fielding. In addition Burns gets a teens NL penalty. I think this election may provide some indication of WARP vs. WS. Based on the Thompson election, we seem to generally be WARP people. Veach will appeal to you. For WS people, Burns looks like the more appealing candidate.

Veach                   Burns
1912-1925               1911-1925
AL - LF                 NL - LF
.310/.370/.442          .287/.366/.384
W1 - 98.6               W1 - 93.4
W3 - 82.1               W3 - 63.3
WS - 265                WS - 290
FRAA - 99               FRAA - 54
FRAR - 368              FRAR - 339
W1 Peak - 6 10+         W1 Peak - 2 10+
WS Peak - 3 30+, 7 20+  WS Peak - 3 30+, 10 20+
OPS+ - 127              OPS+ - 114

That should be Burns gets a teens NL penalty from WARP, not WS as my sentence implies.

Prelim:

1) Pearce
2) Childs
3) Pike
4) C. Jones
5) York
6) Willis
7) Konetchy
8) Bresnahan
9) Foster
10) Monroe
11) Duffy
12) Chance
13) Waddell
14) Beckley
15) Welch

Hooper: I know he had to face tough competition in AL outfields because of Cobb/Speaker/Veach/Heilmann/Jackson/Ruth, but he just doesn't do well enough to make my ballot. NO black ink. An OPS of only 114. Only 22.5 WS/162 games - among players with at least 90% of his WS, he is ahead of only Beckley. His peak (3 best cons yrs) is about 16th. James rank: 43rd in RF.

Veach and Burns are in consideration for the ballot. Good Black Ink for each. Some of the higher 3 cons yr and best 7 yrs WS among eligibles. 4 or more WS league AllStar teams and each was among WS major league AllStar teams at least once. Both players got at least 1 WS Gold Glove despite being LF. James ranks: Burns 26th, Veach 33rd.

Rube Marquard: I think Jack Chesboro is going to have company in his HoF, but no HoM votes Club.

15) Welch
John what changed your mind?

Rube Marquard: I think Jack Chesboro is going to have company in his HoF, but no HoM votes Club.
Jack Chesboro got a few votes his first few years on the ballot but he'll join Bender

prelim ballot:

1. Welch

I don't know how the following will fall out, but they are under consideration for ballot spots:
2. Childs
3. Browning
4. Pearce
5. Beckley
6. Duffy
7. C. Jones
8. Leach
9. Veach
10. G.Burns
11. GVH
12. Monroe
13. Pike
14. Chance
15. Konetchy
16. Ryan
17. Griffith
18. Foster
19. Bresnahan
20. Jennings
21. F. Jones
22. Doyle
23. Joss
24. J.Lyons

These are not ballot spots, the order will definitely change by the ballotting.

Jack Chesboro got a few votes his first few years on the ballot but he'll join Bender

Sorry, I thought I remembered some post saying he had never received a vote and I haven't read every ballot results thread - still making my way through them.

Well, I guess Jack will just be able to lord if over Bender and, presumably, Marquard.

Rube Marquard: I think Jack Chesboro is going to have company in his HoF, but no HoM votes Club.

Yeah... Rube is not much of a candidate. A nice little career, though. Pitched on five pennant winners. The first four of those seasons represent his best four years (1911-13, 1916).

Other those four years, there is just not much there. Some half-decent/half-mediocre seasons, some mediocre season and some seasons that were pretty awful.

Jimmy Sheckard's ascension finally gives Three-Finger an HOM teammate - 1906-12 with Chicago and 1913 with St. Louis.

I was thinking Caruthers wouldn't have any HOMer teammates, but there he is with John Ward in 1891 in Brooklyn.
More remarkably, Caruthers went 2-10 with St. Louis in 1892 NL with Gore, Glasscock, and Galvin also chipping in as part of the Browns' over-the-hill gang that year.
The team finished 11th, with Glasscock, Gore, and Caruthers among the FIVE managers they tried that year. Gore, Galvin, and Caruthers never played again in the majors; each appear to have been desperate midseason additions by the hapless Browns.

15) Welch
John what changed your mind?

Nothing really. He's just moving up as more backlog players keep getting elected.

Rube Marquard: I think Jack Chesboro is going to have company in his HoF, but no HoM votes Club.

I think "Happy Jack" should be retired from posting from now on and Rube should get the position instead (since he'll be the worst HoF pitcher who will get a pass from us).

I am considering passing on all THREE "Rubes" on the ballot..

Things I didn't know: yet another Rube. I was fishing around in bbref checking out the Tigers and Red Sox of the late teens when I ran into Rube (George) Foster, major league pitcher. Pretty good in a short career: 58-34 lifetime record. Are we sure he wasn't Andrew with good cosmetics?
More to the point, was his nickname any sort of homage to the "real" Rube Foster? Or was it just the usual reference to George Foster's rural background?

As for Rube Marquard: I have his RA+-equivalent record at 193-174. This is even with Al Orth and a hair behind George Uhle, Slim Sallee, and Sad Sam Jones. He did at least have a three year stretch (1911-1913) in which his equivalent records were 20-11, 21-12, 20-12. A good pitcher, to be sure, but not good enough to vote for.

Gore, Galvin, and Caruthers never played again in the majors

Caruthers never pitched again, but he played one more year. In 1893, he played a game for Chicago in CF and 13 games for the Red in RF. He hit fairly well for the Reds, but committed 4 errors.

Token appearances, yes, but important. His 1893 service gives him ten years and makes him eligible for Cooperstown-HOF consideration.

Some background on the 3 outfielders:

Burns: 1911-1921 NY Giants, 22-24 Cin, 25 Phil N.
68% OF games were LF/ 10% CF/ 22% RF. Leadoff hitter 1913, 1915-1919, 3rd 1914.
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 33/165
OPS+: 114
WS: 290 total/ 89 - 3 cons yrs / 193 - 7 best yrs. 10 seasons with 20+. 3 with 30+.
Stats AllStars: 2 / WS AllStar NL: 5 / WS AllStar Majors: 3
Top 10s: 9 in walks, 5 1sts. 9 in SB, 2 1sts. 11 in runs, 5 1sts. 8 in hits. 5 in OBP, 1 1st.
James: 26th in LF
EQA: .276
WARP1/3: 93.4 / 63.3

Veach:
1912-23 Detroit, 1924: Boston AL, 1925: 3 teams AL
96% LF, 1% CF, 4% RF (rounding)
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 22/170
OPS+: 127
WS: 265 total/ 88 - 3 cons yrs / 189 - 7 best yrs. 7 seasons with 20+. 3 with 30+.
Stats AllStars: 2 / WS AllStar AL: 4 / WS AllStar Majors: 1
Top 10s: 10 in RBI, 3 1sts, 8 in hits, 8 in total bases, 8 in doubles, 8 in triples, 6 in OPS+, 6 in BA, 4 in OBP, 5 in SLG.
James: 33
EQA: .289
WARP1/3: 98.6 / 82.1

Hooper:
1909-1920: Boston AL, 1921-25: Chi AL
3% LF, 1% CF, 96% RF
BlackInk/Grey Ink: 0/113
WS: 321 total/ 77 - 3 cons yrs / 163 - 7 best yrs. 8 seasons with 20+. 0 with 30+.
Stats AllStars: 0 / WS AllStar AL: 1 / WS AllStar Majors: 1
Top 10s: 10 in walks, 10 in runs, 8 in SB, 7 in triples, 4 doubles, 3 in OBP.
James: 43
EQA: .280
WARP1/3: 107.8 / 96.8

Sorry I forgot Hooper's OPS+:

Hooper:
1909-1920: Boston AL, 1921-25: Chi AL
3% LF, 1% CF, 96% RF
BlackInk/Grey Ink: 0/113
OPS+: 114
WS: 321 total/ 77 - 3 cons yrs / 163 - 7 best yrs. 8 seasons with 20+. 0 with 30+.
Stats AllStars: 0 / WS AllStar AL: 1 / WS AllStar Majors: 1
Top 10s: 10 in walks, 10 in runs, 8 in SB, 7 in triples, 4 doubles, 3 in OBP.
James: 43
EQA: .280
WARP1/3: 107.8 / 96.8

Three new outfielders to consider: Hooper, Veach, and Burns. What does my normalized RCAA system say about them.

It sees Hooper as having substantially less offensive peak than Jake Beckley. Or to put it more clearly, he got less out of his biggest offensive years than Beckley. The only good offensive player I've worked up with less on the big-years bonus than Hooper is Sam Rice, with Fielder Jones the same. That's where I see Hooper: Fielder Jones with an additional 500 games as a near-average player.

Veach doesn't have that much of an offensive peak either, although it's better than Hooper. I see Veach as the offensive equivalent of Ed Konetchy.

But George Burns - there's my kind of player. A real leadoff hitter. Roy Thomas plus 400 near-average games. My offensive system puts him in the same overall neighborhood as Thomas, Doyle, Beckley, and Cravath.

What's wrong with Burns, especially in W3? He was a National League player, and he wasn't a CF. At least, McGraw wouldn't play him in center, using many other players in center when he didn't have Kauff. When Burns went to the Reds, he played center there.

However: this same system still puts Van Haltren, Duffy, and Ryan ahead of any of these guys. So, for the short run, my order of outfielders:

Van Haltren
Ryan
Duffy
Cravath (nod to his Minneapolis years)
Burns
Thomas
Hooper (well, it is 2300 games)
Tiernan
Veach

- or something like that.

Thanks Kelly, did you do that for Cravath already? He's a contemporary candidate.

Here is Cravath:
I should have put total seasons at 162 games so people can see the advantage of bulk seasons to bulk totals.

Cravath:
1908: Bos AL, 1909: Chi, Wash AL, 1910-11 Minneapolis Millers (frequently called [by James at least] the best/one of the best minor league teams ever) 1912-20: Phil NL. Didn't start major league career until age 27.
10% LF, 4% CF, 86% RF
BlackInk/Grey Ink: 46/110
OPS+: 150
WS: 202 total/ 92 - 3 cons yrs / 175 - 7 best yrs. 5 seasons with 20+. 1 with 30+.
Stats AllStars: 5 / WS AllStar AL: 3 / WS AllStar Majors: 1
Top 10s: 8 in HR, 6 1sts. 8 in XBH, 4 1sts. 6 in OPS+, 2 1sts. 7 in SLG, 2 1sts. 6 in OBP, 2 1sts. 5 in RBI, 2 1sts. 5 in doubles. 5 in walks.
James: 29
EQA: .306
WARP1/3: 63.6 / 51.8
seasons of 162 games: 7.46

Burns:
seasons of 162 games: 11.43
Veach:
seasons of 162 games: 11.25
Hooper:
seasons of 162 games: 14.25

Does anybody know how come Hank Gowdey did so good in the hall of fame voting

Does anybody know how come Hank Gowdey did so good in the hall of fame voting

He hit .545/.688/1.273 in the 1914 WS. How early was he getting support? Some of the pre-1960 balloting was done purely on fuzzy memories.

Hank Gowdy and the Hall:

I think that Gowdy was heavily supported for a few reasons:

1. He was a war hero, as the first active player to enlist during WWI, and he had additional service in WWII.

2. He played for McGraw in New York, albeit for a short time.

3. He played very well on the national stage in the 1914 World Series, and then was infamously on the national stage in 1924 when his mask bit him.

He played with Frankie Frisch, but didn't appear to make an impression, so the VC never seemed to consider him (Frankie did need a catcher to make his team complete though.)

All Frankie Frisch team:

MGR - Frankie Frisch (1947)
1B - George Kelly (1973)
2B - Frankie Frisch (1947)
3B - Fred Lindstrom (1976)
SS - Travis Jackson (1982)
LF - Chick Hafey (1971)
CF - Jim Bottomley (1974) (OK, I have to put him somewhere)
RF - Ross Youngs (1972)
P - Jesse Haines (1970)

I think none of the above will be elected except for Frankie.

Now, Frankie can't be blamed for all these guys, because he died on March 12, 1973. His influence seemed to stay with the VC for Bottomley, Lindstrom, and maybe Travis Jackson.

I know this is early, but Gowdy got mentioned and the first FOFF is eligible next year.

Some of the pre-1960 balloting was done purely on fuzzy memories.

True. The first baseball encyclopedia wasn't created until 1951 (and only included games played, batting average and won-loss percentage).

As I read the history, Gowdy almost got into the Hall during the patriotic fervor of WWII based on his heroic service in WWI. It makes more sense than you think: The Hall hadn't been around that long and hadn't firmly established that it was going to be simply an honor society for the best players. It had elected a bunch of pioneers and contributors. And it was a musuem after all. Some voters or bigwigs or combination thereof thought it would be great for Gowdy to have a plaque both to honor his service and to represent the heroism of all the players who served.

(While I'm sure it didn't hurt that he had a reputation as a defensive wiz and a world series hero, I don't think that was the prime reason people thought about putting him in the Hall.)

IIRC, Landis endorsed Gowdy as the type of player he thought should be enshrined (good role models, not just guys with good stats).

Top 3 AL Outfielders 1910-1925 (by WARP1)

1910  14.2 Cobb      11.4 Speaker    9.5 Milan
1911  15.4 Cobb      13.4 Jackson   10.7 Speaker
1912  17.5 Speaker   15.5 Cobb      13.1 Jackson
1913  13.9 Speaker   12.4 Cobb      11.6 Jackson
1914  15.1 Speaker   10.7 Walker    10.2 Crawford
1915  15.7 Cobb      10.9 Speaker   10.2 VEACH
1916  13.4 Cobb      13.0 Speaker    9.9 Jackson
1917  16.7 Cobb      12.1 Speaker   10.8 VEACH
1918   9.4 Speaker    9.1 Cobb       9.0 HOOPER
1919  15.1 Ruth      10.9 VEACH     10.4 Speaker
1920  16.0 Ruth      13.4 Speaker   10.2 VEACH
1921  17.2 Ruth      10.8 Cobb      10.4 VEACH
1922  10.8 Williams  10.2 VEACH     10.0 Cobb
1923  18.9 Ruth      13.9 Speaker   11.5 Heilmann
1924  15.2 Ruth      10.8 Heilmann   9.3 Cobb
1925  11.5 Simmons   10.5 Goslin     9.5 Speaker

Veach has 6 WARP All-Star selections during his career against some famous competition (compare to Jackson's 4).

Hooper's best season is masked by it's shortness, losing a month plus to the WWI shutdown.

At first glance, I see Hooper as somewhat similar to Van Haltren or Keeler, in that he had a long career (17 seasons as regular) with not much peak. (Hooper has the highest WARP-3 career total of anyone eligible, edging Van Haltren.)

Veach is more like Flick or Jackson, with a short career (12 seasons as regular) and a high peak (but is it high enough).

They will appeal to different segments of the HOM voting public.

Some info from SABR 34 that pertains to the HoM:

David Shiner had a presentation about the Cubs from 1906-10 which included a handout of the leader in Win Shares by position players in the NL in those years. The leaders (Cubs in boldface):

1. Honus Wagner 221
2. Sherry Magee 151
3. Fred Clarke 124
4. Art Devlin 124
5. Tommie Leach 121
6. Johnny Evers 119
7. Jimmy Sheckard 109
8. Harry Steinfeldt 109
9. Frank Chance 106
10. Joe Tinker 106
11. John Titus 105
12. Hoffman 98
13. Wildfire Schulte 93
14. Hans Lobert 83

19. Johnny Kling 76

The 7th best Cub is better than the 7th best non-Cub. FWIW, Kling made it to 19th despite missing 1909 under very strange circumstances. He was a heckuva pool player & won a national or international pool title & decided to open a pool hall for the year. It fell through, he lost his title & he went back to baseball. Figuring that his worst year in that stretch was a 14 win share season, you could argue that the 8th best Cub was better than the 7th best non-Cub starter. For me, Joe Tinker had been on the edge of my ballot. He'll falter now.

Also, a man named Herm Krabbenhoft did an audience-interactive presentation on lead-off hitters. He'd done the grunt work finding out the leadoff hitter for every game since 1900 (!!) & had 18 separate lists as to who the 10 best leadoff hitters of all-time were. He let the audience choice among 2-3 different choices in 3 different categories to determine who the best ever were. Category one: minumum # of games started (500, 750, 1000), category two: stat (OBP, OPS, Total Average), category three: adjust for context or leave unadjusted. He let people e-mail him if they wanted the lists & I've done that so here's how potential candidates fair on them (note: this doesn't include 19th century guys like Billy Hamilson):

ONE: 500 games, OBP, unadjusted:
4) Roy Thomas

TWO: 750 games, OBP, unadjusted:
4) Roy Thomas

THREE: 1000 games, OBP, unadjusted:
2) Roy Thomas
10) Topsy Hartsel

FOUR, FIVE, & SIX: 500/750/1000 games, OPS, unadjusted:
No available candidates made it

SEVEN, EIGHT: 500/750 games, TA, unadjusted:
No available candidates listed

NINE: 1000 games, TA, unadjusted:
10) Topsy Hartsel

TEN: 500 games, OBP, adjusted
1) Roy Thomas
3) Topsy Hartsel

ELEVEN: 750 games, OBP, adjusted
1) Roy Thomas
3) Topsy Hartsel
9) Miller Huggins

TWELVE: 1000 games, OBP, adjusted
1) Roy Thomas
2) Topsy Hartsel
7) Miller Huggins

THIRTEEN, 500 games, OPS, adjusted
2) Topsy Hartsel
5) Roy Thomas

FOURTEEN, 750 games, OPS, adjusted
2) Topsy Hartsel
5) Roy Thomas

FIFTEEN, 1000 games, OPS, adjusted
1) Topsy Hartsel
4) Roy Thomas

SIXTEEN, 500 games, TA, adjusted
2) Topsy Hartsel
5) Roy Thomas

SEVENTEEN, 750 games, TA, adjuted
2) Topsey Hartsel
5) Roy Thomas

EIGHTEEN (the one the audience choose), 1000 games, TA, adjusted
1) Tospy Hartsel
4) Roy Thomas

Also, as I've mentioned in the SABR threads at primer, not only is the convention a lot of fun & worth going to, but the difference in quality between the standard presentation & what many primates here could do with a good idea & time/energy to really delve into it is not much at all. I'd encourage everyone here to join SABR, go to SABR 35 next year in Toronto & submit a presentation. Be kinda fun to see someone like John Murphy try to spread the gospel of Dickey Pearce to others or even see Joe Dimino do a presentation on the HoM itself.

1931 Prelim ballot

1. Pearce
2. C. Jones
3. Pike
4. Browning
5. Foster
6. Williamson
7. Childs
8. Jennings
9. Monroe
10. Duffy
11. Van Haltren
12. Leach
13. Griffith
14. Poles
15. Willis

Burns and Veach don't make my ballot. They're in my top 30 though. Hooper just doesn't have enough of a peak. I have him ranked behind Beckley.(and I'm not a FOJB)

Be kinda fun to see someone like John Murphy try to spread the gospel of Dickey Pearce to others or even see Joe Dimino do a presentation on the HoM itself.

If I was doing a Dickey Pearce presentation, it would be over in less than five minutes.

What might be interesting is a presentation highlighting some or all of the members of the HoM (Sutton, Richardson, Gore, Caruthers, hopefully Pearce, etc.) that have been ignored by the HoF. Hmm...

Joe definitely should present the HoM at one of the conventions. It would be nice to see what type of feedback we would get.

BTW Chris, how was your presentation received? From what I have heard about some guy named Steve who did a presentation about records at the convention, you would still have been better than him even if you had been comatose. :-)

can some one who will vote for Harry Hooper please explain why?

Hooper, Veach and Burns were very good players, but they weren't very dominant at their positions. They would have had to extend their careers a little bit more to make it on to my ballot.

I'm still looking at the newly eligible Negro Leaguers.

Marquard? Pass.

BTW Chris, how was your presentation received? From what I have heard about some guy named Steve who did a presentation about records at the convention, you would still have been better than him even if you had been comatose. :-)

It went well. No one threw things - that's always a good sign. Plenty of questions at the end. Got to most of the best stuff. Chris Dial sure loved it - told me everytime I saw him over the next day how great he thought it was.

It went well.0

How long was it, Chris?

As far as putting stuff up on the Yahoo! site, can you change it easily? (I was thinking about sticking the count of HoMer at-bats/year up there, if it's easy for me to update it as we go along.)

How long was it, Chris?

You're given a half-hour. That includes time for question & a few minutes to let anyone transition to the next presentation. I went about 20-22 minutes with a few/couple minutes for questions.

My view of the Burns/Hooper/Veach trio is pretty similar to John Murphy's. Among 1910s outfielders, they trail, in my estimation, Cobb, Speaker, Jackson, Wheat, Torriente, Magee, Carey, Poles, and Cravath. Half of those players aren't eligible yet, but we're talking the 10-12th best outfielders, possibly lower if Jules Thomas, George Shively, or Jimmy Lyons comes up looking very good (I'm doubtful, but still not done with anaylzing these three). Among outfield eligibles, they are also matched up against the 6-8th best outfielders of the 1890s in Van Haltren, Duffy, and Ryan, so even with a nudge up for tougher competition they fall short.

They were very good players, but Hooper doesn't have enough peak, Veach doesn't have enough career, and Burns is a little short on both sides. WARP3 loves Hooper, but some of that comes from their "all-time" adjustment for right fielders, which boosts them and hurts left fielders. I don't think any of them will make my ballot, though the best of the three might just reach the bottom. I'm not certain who that is yet, but WS likes Burns, and I trust it more than WARP for outfielders.

yest said:

can some one who will vote for Harry Hooper please explain why?

jimd said:

At first glance, I see Hooper as somewhat similar to Van Haltren or Keeler, in that he had a long career (17 seasons as regular) with not much peak. (Hooper has the highest WARP-3 career total of anyone eligible, edging Van Haltren.)

That's about as good as we've seen so far on this thread. I agree with Chris Cobb in having him behind the three 90's outfielders and behind Burns as well. Can anyone else answer yest's challenge or is what jimd said as good as it gets?

1931 prelim. Except for cases where statistics are not available, rankings are completely determined by a system. The system follows what appears to be the logic of Cooperstown: rating = (stength of prime) plus (function of length of prime). The strength component is based on performance in compared with peers. For position players, ratings are determined relative to all position players and also relative to players at same position, and then weighted more heavily toward the rating that favors the player. In this system, Cooperstown players as varied as Bresnahan, Beckley, Waddell, Hooper, Jennings, Chance, Duffy and Joss show up as ballot-worthy. Amusingly, many of these are called "mistakes" by Bill James in The Politics of Glory .

One newcomer makes the ballot, and it is Harry "I don't get no respect" Hooper. On the surface, he doesn't look like a great choice, but his trump card is his career length. Unless I've omitted somebody, the players with the most careers games at RF are:

1. Clemente 2302
2. P. Waner 2256
3. Hooper 2192
4. Aaron 2184
5. Ott 2167
6. Gwynn 2144
7. Dw. Evans 2092
8. Keeler 2013.

Sure, he has no peak (114 OPS+; 142 max OPS+, 0/113 black/grey ink), but lack of peak is relative. Tommy Griffith (102,137,1/34), Max Flack (100,137,0/46), and Shano Collins (90,111,0/36) are contemporary RF with decent career lengths and even less of a peak than Hooper. And don't forget AL superiority. I take WARP with a grain of salt, but WARP3 sees something in Hooper, having him as the eligible player with the highest career WARP3. Hooper will soon be put to shame by other outfielders, and could just as easily be put off-ballot as in the top half of a ballot, but, as I balance peak and career, he makes #6 on my ballot.

The newcomers who belong in the Hall of the Very Good are Veach and G.J. Burns. I feel that the HoM has enough LF already, with Wheat in serious contention soon, and I don't think that Veach and Burns make the cut.

Now for the prelim.

1. Rube Foster
2. Roger Bresnahan
3. Jake Beckley
4. George "Rube" Waddell
5. Eddie Cicotte
6. Harry Hooper
7. George Van Haltren
8. Hughie Jennings
9. Lip Pike
10. Frank Chance
11. Jimmy Ryan
12. Dickey Pearce
13. Cupid Childs
14. Hugh Duffy
15. Addie Joss or John McGraw

PRELIMINARY BALLOT

Since my first ballot last week, I've been tinkering (with a lower-case t) with my rankings system to find a better mix between peak and career. I also spent some time with NgL translations. I'm still thinking about the 1870s and 1880s, but I'm starting to discount them more heavily in the subjective portion of my rankings. And still trying to figure out how best to mix in the pitchers. Anyway, so there's a couple changes from my initial ballot, especially down-ballot.

1. Pearce (3)
2. Van Haltren (7)
3. Childs (5)
4. Jennings (6)
5. Veach (/)
6. Griffith (8)
7. Ryan (10)
8. Duffy (11)
9. Browning (4)
10. Poles (off)
11. C. Jones (9)
12. Cravath (13)
13. Bresnahan (off)
14. Pike (off)
15. Monroe (off)

GVH sees a boost, Browning and Jones both slide downward. Poles's entry into my ballot shows how close I think he is to the Ryan/Duffy duo in value; Bresnahan's and Pike's ascension are more about a reconsideration of my feelings about Welch and Mullane, each of whom fell off my ballot (Welch, just off; Mullane further down). Finally, a closer look at Monroe (thank you KJOK!) suggested to me that he merited a place near slot 15-20, though not a higher one because the statistical record is shaky. The other players in that 15-20 vicinity didn't stand out to me either, so given that I gauged Monroe's defense as B+, it was possible for him to be better than I estimated, and that made the difference. Welch follows just after him, and the two are really close at this point.

Ah, I posted it anyway. It doesn't look like I can change it, but it doesn't seem like too much of a hassle to delete and repost it every so often.

Ah, I posted it anyway. It doesn't look like I can change it, but it doesn't seem like too much of a hassle to delete and repost it every so often.

Yeah... I was worried about this, too. The "delete and repost" mechanism was the plan I was going to use if I ever updated my file. The Edit command only edits the description and Cut/Paste looks like its just for moving from one folder to another.

the players with the most careers games at RF are

I don't find that particularly persuasive. Right field isn't a position as sharply defined as SS or C. There are a lot of guys who moved through RF as a transition.

Here's an example: Frank Robinson. Robinson had a 2800 game career, including 2450 games in the field (he ended his career as a DH). Of those, he had about 100 games in CF, 1280 in RF, 820 in LF, and 300 at 1B. What does that make him? It makes him a baseball player with a long career, who might as well be primarily identified as a right fielder. By only counting games in RF, you miss him. Or Andre Dawson: over 2300 of his 2600 games in the outfield, divided nearly evely between CF and RF. That makes him a long-career "RF+", but he's not on that list. Dave Winfield missed your longevity-in-RF list by 135 G, but he has nearly 700 other OF games, over 200 of those in CF.

Hooper does have the reputation that suggests he might, like Dawson, be a "RF+" - that he would have played CF except that he was Speaker's teammate. I'll grant that his longevity is an asset. I don't know that that's enough.

Although RF may have a little more defensive challenge than LF, I don't see much reason to keep RF and LF as separate pools of candidates. Maybe the scale goes something like this:

CF wizard: Speaker, Mays
CF (mostly): Cobb, Mantle
CF/flank mixture: Dawson, Duffy
Strong flank OF: Clemente, Sheckard, Barry Bonds
Ordinary flank OF: Ted Williams, Babe Ruth
Ya gotta put him somewhere: Luzinski, Tiernan

Hooper does have the reputation that suggests he might, like Dawson, be a "RF+" - that he would have played CF except that he was Speaker's teammate. I'll grant that his longevity is an asset. I don't know that that's enough.

He sparingly played a few games in CF when he was young (and Speaker was still there). Once Speaker was gone, they went and got Tilly Walker, then they got Amos Strunk. Babe Ruth even played a dozen games there in 1918. Wally Schang played 40+ games there in 1919-20 as well. When he went to Chicago, it was the same story. Not one game in CF. He was older by then though.

Anyhow, RF was enormous in pre-renovated Fenway, and his assist numbers are decent. Not sure how to rank him there.

I will agree with you that I treat LF-RF as basically the same position. I am a bit more willing to give RF more defensive credit, though, but its not like I have a quota of each to fill.

That slight defensive bias towards right field might be based on today's game though. In lower-level leagues, you need to put the better players at LF/3B because those players get the most chances (and you have to reach to find a kid with an arm strong enough to play 3B). You can often hide players at RF and 2B. At higher leagues the spectrum shifts to favor RF/2B. There are more LH batters, RF requires more of an arm and 2B requires the agility to turn the double play. I rambled a bit there, but included in there is my off-the-cuff theory for the swap between 3B and 2B in the defensive spectrum.

I will agree with you that I treat LF-RF as basically the same position.

For what it's worth, the WS system treats RF and LF as equal. Among HoFers, the average RF has about 2.2-2.3 WS per 1,000 innings played, and the average LF has about 2.3-2.4 WS per 1,000 innings played. That obviously spans the entire history of MLB (except the NA), so maybe there was a bigger gap or a shift somewhere along the way. Nevertheless, from WS perspective, the difference won't mean much over the course of a career.

If you gave an extra .5 WS to one position over the other (which is pretty big), over 2,000 games that will amount to a difference of about 9 Win Shares.

I will agree with you that I treat LF-RF as basically the same position.

For what it's worth, the WS system treats RF and LF as equal. Among HoFers, the average RF has about 2.2-2.3 WS per 1,000 innings played, and the average LF has about 2.3-2.4 WS per 1,000 innings played. That obviously spans the entire history of MLB (except the NA), so maybe there was a bigger gap or a shift somewhere along the way. Nevertheless, from WS perspective, the difference won't mean much over the course of a career.

I'm obligated to point out that treating RF and LF the same is wrong for the 19th century. Most parks had much more territory to cover in LF than in RF. Even after the turn of the century, Fenway was one of the few exceptions where the LF territory was smaller than the RF territory.

I can't sleep so more info about our 3 new candidates: team rank among position players in WS and rank among all outfielders in league in WS.

Hooper:
year: WS TmRk LgRank
1909: 9 9th, 24thTied
1910: 19 2ndT/w 2, 9thT
1911: 20 2nd, 10thT
1912: 15 5th, 12th
1913: 21 2nd, 8th
1914: 20 2ndT/w 2, 6thT
1915: 19 3rd, 9thT
1916: 26 2nd, 5thT
1917: 22 2nd, 8thT
1918: 29 2nd, 3rd (depends on how list Ruth)
1919: 17 3rd, 12th
1920: 24 1st, 7th (5th if throw out 2 Black Sox)
1921: 15 2nd, 15th
1922: 21 3rd, 9thT
1923: 15 5th, 14thT
1924: 19 3rd, 9thT
1925: 10 9th, 22ndT

Veach:
1912: 3 11thT
1913: 13 4th 18th
1914: 18 4th 11thT
1915: 30 2nd 3rd
1916: 27 2nd 4th
1917: 31 2nd 3rdT
1918: 17 2nd 6thT
1919: 32 1stT 2ndT
1920: 25 1st 5thT (3rd if throw out 2 Black Sox)
1921: 22 3rd 10th
1922: 22 3rd 6thT
1923: 9 8thT 22nd
1924: 13 4th 16thT
1925: 3 teams

G.Burns (NL)
1911: 0
1912: 2
1913: 22 3rd 3rd
1914: 31 1st 1st
1915: 24 2nd 3rdT
1916: 25 2ndT 6thT
1917: 34 1st 1st
1918: 23 1st 1stT
1919: 32 1st 2ndT
1920: 24 2nd 5thT
1921: 22 5th 6thT
1922: 19 3rd 7thT
1923: 20 3rdT 5thT
1924: 6 10th
1925: 6 11th

Burns is by far the more dominant player in his league. 11 years and the worst he finished was 7th.
Hooper beats Veach at the beginning of Veach's career, 1913, 1914, the end 1923, 1924, and WWI.
Totals:
Top 3: Burns 6. Veach 3. Hooper 1.
4th-6th: Burns 4. Veach 4. Hooper 2.
7-12th: Burns 1. Veach 2. Hooper 10.

I am thinking of presenting something on the Hall of Merit at a SABR Convention, but I was thinking I should wait until we are finished though. But maybe not . . .

I think maybe doing something on the non-HoF HoMers would be cool. Presenting their case, why they were overlooked, etc.. Of course any presentation would also need an explanation of our methods, etc. - and you only get about 20 minutes.

Any other ideas for something I could present?

Can someone summarize the charges or innuendo regarding Lip Pike? I may have missed what someone originally presented. The Lipster is in an elect-me spot on my ballot, but I would move him if there were credible evidence that his value to his team winning games was less than his playing stats indicate.

Harry Hooper

I give him a small boost for his World Series play; part of 4 winners, nice hitting stats when most games were very low-scoring, and he hit 2 dingers in the 1915 WS clinching game, a one-run win over the Phils.

He looks to slot in around #12 on my ballot, close to Beckley, which is fitting.

I'm obligated to point out that treating RF and LF the same is wrong for the 19th century. Most parks had much more territory to cover in LF than in RF. Even after the turn of the century, Fenway was one of the few exceptions where the LF territory was smaller than the RF territory.

I agree with respect to the park dimensions, but I don't think that necessarily means that players in leftfield were better -- maybe it simply means more hits fell in for safeties in left than right. The argument would be, of course, that given a choice between two corner outfielders, the manager would put the better one in left b/c there's more territory to cover. But I'm not sure that necessarily translates into more value for the leftfielder. He still has to make plays, and those ought to be reflected (at least somewhat) in the metrics. My earlier point was even if there is extra value for one of the corner outfield positions, I wonder whether it is statistically significant over the course of a career.

After all, they were still corner outfielders and corner outfielders don't really contribute a lot of wins based on their defense. So the difference between someone at the tougher corner OF spot and the weaker corner OF spot wouldn't seem to matter much, it seems to me.

I am thinking of presenting something on the Hall of Merit at a SABR Convention, but I was thinking I should wait until we are finished though. But maybe not . . .

I'd say definately not. I'm nowhere near complete with my RSI stuff. All you have to do is mention at the outset that it's an ongoing project. One advantage of doing it before we're done is you might pick up some new voters from the SABR talk. (Of course, you should also probably mention that all new voters should read the constitution before voting - but ultimately if you only focus on the basics of the background info, you should be able to move through it pretty quickly).

I think maybe doing something on the non-HoF HoMers would be cool. Presenting their case, why they were overlooked, etc.. Of course any presentation would also need an explanation of our methods, etc. - and you only get about 20 minutes.

Skim over the background as quickly as possible & get to the results & interesting things we've found. If people are going to show up, that's what they're going to want to hear about. One thing that you should definately mention is that the participants often tend to focus on, favor & use new stats like Win Shares, WARP, & OPS+ over traditional stuff.

Any other ideas for something I could present?

I like you're idea. Also might toss in most well-known HoFers not yet elected & why not. Could look at people who've either risen dramatically & dropped completely in their support & explain why.

Having posted this in Sox Therapy I'll post it here, too, because it's soemthing we need to think about when relying on the more arcane sabermetric measures:

I've no idea why Arizona and the Cubs' offense isn't working; there's clearly some random fluctuation. However the Sox are 30 runs clear of the next worst, so there's fairly clearly something in there.

My Bayes point is one I've written about professionally, in the context of business forecasting and options valuation. Bayes Theorem states that the probability if two things happening is the product of their probabilities, if they are probabilistically independent. Rev Thomas Bayes (1703-61) was not trying to use this to select a baseball team, or to price options, he was drawing different colored balls from urns, an exercise in which his theory works perfectly.

Probabilistic independence, quite difficult to define is in practice a very strong requirement, which most real world situations don't satisfy. In baseball, it requires each at-bat to be independent of the previous one. In reality, we know this not to be the case; in last night's game, once there had been several hits and Ortiz' homer, the probability of Manny hitting a homer was dramatically increased, because the pitcher was toast. Therefore Bayes' Theorem doesn't apply, and much sabermetric analysis, which rests on Bayes' Theorem, doesn't work.

There is a philosphical problem here; Bayes' Theorem requires the events to be random, but many events (next year's sales, the movements of the S&P500;, Manny Ramirez' next at-bat) are at least partly or completely not random at all but simply unknown. For those events, you have to use fuzzy logic, not probability. In fuzzy logic, the belief of two events happening is the minimum of the two beliefs, not the product. The real world is partly probabilistic, partly fuzzy, but this is why bad stuff often comes in bunches -- Bayes may say the probability of 4 bad 1 in 10 events is 1 in 10,000 but fuzzy logic says it's still 1 in 10.

Epstein has concentrated all his hitters except the legacy Nomar and Damon in the "walk 2 people and hit a 3 run homer" basket, which may increase your OPS but doesn't produce as many runs as Bayes says it should, and produces them in bunches, which is generally not optimal in terms of winning games. You need some scrappy singles hitters and base stealers, too.

More Hooper defenses:

1. From 1915-1920, he was the best RF in the strong American League. Of course, this time period coincides with the move of Jackson from LF to RF, the retirement of Crawford, and the Ruth P-LF era.

2. He played a long time. Oh wait, that's already been said.

3. He was a good guy. Just read The Glory of Their Times.

4. John McGraw really liked him.

No, I think that jimd's measure sums it up. Still, as a career voter, Harry's got enough of it to rate pretty high on my ballot. Burns will be just below him, and Veach will be just off the ballot.

Re Kelly in SD's post at #64 on WS league rank:

This is helpful data, and Burns was clearly the most dominant player in his league context. In weighing the relative strength of their peaks, I think I would weigh finishing in the top 6 among AL outfielders as equivalent, during this period, to finishing in the top 3 among NL outfielders, as Cobb, Speaker, Jackson & Cobb, Speaker, Ruth were consistently better than any outfielders the NL had on offer. In terms of peak value, I'd have it Veach, Burns, Hooper.

It'd be interesting to see how Zack Wheat and Max Carey look by this measure.

I give him a small boost for his World Series play; part of 4 winners, nice hitting stats when most games were very low-scoring, and he hit 2 dingers in the 1915 WS clinching game, a one-run win over the Phils.

Both homers in the 1915 WS clinching game were into temporary seats installed in the outfield for the Series by the greedy Phillies ownership. Talk about screwing up the home field advantage....

Note to Bud Selig- don't get any ideas.

Harry Hooper

I give him a small boost for his World Series play; part of 4 winners

I mentioned this a few years ago, but Hooper is one of the few non-Yankees to play in four winning WS. I believe he may be the only one to do it all for one team.

So, yes, he was the only member of the Red Sox on the 1912,1915,1916 & 1918 teams -- otherwise, there was complete turnover. It helps to have a superstar at each end (Speaker, Ruth) but still there is probably a nice how-the-GM-did-it story behind that.

In the continuing search for "lost" players who have fallen out of sight unfairly, I've been looking at Fred Dunlap. Dunlap was the best NL second baseman in 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1886, and 1887 (and best UA second baseman in 1884). He was also the second best second baseman to HoMer Hardy Richardson in 1885 and 1888. That's 9 consecutive years of being best in his league or second best to a HoMer.

Next, I constructed a pool of the Top 12 eligible second basemen. Let me know if I missed any obvious omissions, but my list of Top 12 is the 4 Homers (Barnes, Lajoie, McPhee, Richardson), Fred Dunlap, and 7 other guys who have gotten some support or discussion (Cupid Childs, Johnny Evers, Larry Doyle, Del Pratt, Miller Huggins, Kid Gleason, Jimmy Williams).

Ranking the 12 Offensively by OPS+:

1. Barnes
2. Lajoie
3. Dunlap
4. Richardson
5. Doyle
. . .
10. McPhee

Now, look at defense, Put Outs per Game at 2B:

1. Barnes
2. Lajoie
3. McPhee
4. Dunlap
5. Richardson

Assists per Game at 2B

1. Richardson
2. Barnes
3. Dunlap
4. McPhee
5 Childs
6. Lajoie

Double Plays per Game at 2B

1. McPhee
2. Dunlap
3. Lajoie
4. D.Pratt
5. Barnes
. . .
11. Richardson

In terms of holistic stats like WARP-1, Dunlap is at the bottom of a tight group. All of the non-HoMers (except Doyle at 93) are between Dunlap (101) and Evers (110), but most of the others all earned theirs in between 50-100% more games, so necessarily at a much lower rate.

With the induction several years ago of the "Black Dunlap", might it be time to reconsider the paler variety?

Any other ideas for something I could present?

Once you get beyond the basics of the project (i.e., "Something Better"), I agree with those who have suggested you focus either on HoMers who aren't HoFers, or vice versa, and why. The hard part is the "why".

You'd have to be careful about which players you select, though, because the group here doesn't have consensus about many of those players. For instance, HoMers who aren't HoFers may be true consensus HoMers (e.g., George Gore?), or they may have simply accumulated enough points up and down the ballot to get elected...even though we aren't really in agreement on them (e.g., Bob Caruthers).

In short, the difficulty of such a presentation is that we have widely differing views among the electorate as to why someone is or isn't a HoMer. It's hard to attribute an approach to the project itself. It may be difficult to explain "why," independent of your personal thoughts about whether the candidates should have been elected.

That got me thinking that maybe your presentation could focus on a couple of voting "types" to illustrate different approaches to the issue or a particular player. Some examples:

1. the peak voter
2. the career voter
3. the timeliner
4. the pre-NA advocate
5. the anecdotal voter
6. the weak competition voter
7. the "I can see the future and 'player X' is better" voter
8. the "all positions have equal value" voter
9. the "all positions don't have equal value, but catchers need a boost" voter
10. the WARP/WS-type voter
11. the Avg/OPS/RBI-type voter
12. the WARP/WS-type voter who makes significant adjustments to those metrics
13. the Keltner list voter

I'm not trying to catalog all of the "types" and very few of us fit into one category. For instance, I'm clearly a #9 and #12 type and clearly not a #3 or #7 type, but the others are fuzzier. Nonetheless, for most of us, one or two of those "types" best define our approach, even if we sprinkle in some of the others.

I probably could have done a better job listing the "types" by looking at the "Voting Theory" thread, which ought to have some good examples of voter approaches.

With the induction several years ago of the "Black Dunlap", might it be time to reconsider the paler variety?

Did you do WS too (either total WS or fielding WS)? I could do it, of course, but I thought I'd ask just in case you already put the list together.

OPS+ isn't a particularly good correlator with runs, and the more comprehensive WARP1 metric seems to treat Dunlap less favorably than OPS+ if I read your post correctly.

Too bad we don't have all this info for Frank Grant and Bill Monroe to throw into the mix.

I would hate to think after all this work that we are going to turn around to the outside world and say there are two kinds of HoMers--consensus ones and the unwashed "other." IOW Joe, if you are going to present this, apologizing for Bob Caruthers would not be the way to go.

I would hate to think after all this work that we are going to turn around to the outside world and say there are two kinds of HoMers--consensus ones and the unwashed "other." IOW Joe, if you are going to present this, apologizing for Bob Caruthers would not be the way to go.

Well, I don't think that's what he meant. We induct 200-odd guys into the HOM. Surely some players will be near-unamimous while some others are hotly debated. Most of the time our near-unamimous guys will line up quite well with the HOF's near unamimous guys. It is quite interesting to see guys like Gore, Hines & Dahlen who fly into the HOM with little objection while generating little or no support from the HOF's BBWAA or VC balloting. Maybe just point those guys out.

Caruthers won fair and square in an election with over 50 ballots cast total... and it really wasn't that close between him and the 3rd place guy. A few others below him on the 1930 ballot will eventually get inducted as well. No apologies necessary.

Prelim and sundry.

1. Dickey Pearce--PHoM 1913. Tops my ballot for the 8th or 9th time, I don't have that exact info in front of me. Am I the only one who has a two inch thick file that is not particularly referencable plus, now, about 100 docs on my computer?

And BTW, we have now elected Wright, Glasscock, Davis, Dahlen, Wallace, Wagner, and I still have Pearce #1 and Jennings #2. Well, the truth is that many of the greatest athletes throughout history have played SS and that was even more so in the 19C. I have no problem with a position imbalance in favor of a position that has always drawn the best athletes.

2. Hughie Jennings--PHoM. Best peak among 19C position players post-NA.

PS. My hot list of SS is now Pearce, Jennings, Long, Tinker and Fletcher (a little underrated here I think, nice peak, sim to Long and better than some of the bigger names like Bush and Chappie)

3. Lip Pike--PHoM. Whoever said we don't have an OF glut but a CF glut was right. I've got Pike, Browning, Poles, Duffy and Van. Ryan, Cy Seymour and Jimmie Lyons follow--Jimmie the new guy is obviously never gonna make my ballot.

4. Rube Foster--PHoM 1931. Just below the obvious 6-7 Negro League pitchers. And BTW, yes, be careful, Dave Brown is not the (Ray) Brown who is sometimes rated among the top 6-7. Ray is in that second tier with Rube Foster, Brown is in the third tier probably below Donaldson.

5. Charley Jones--PHoM. No LF glut, but that's only because we have concentrated many of our dreaded non-consensus, borderline, Class B/C HoMer choices in LF. I would put Veach and Burns, in that order, right behind Charley and ahead of O'Neill and York. I especially like Veach, who could make my ballot someday, though I doubt it. Better than a large handful of HoF OFers. Burns, too, but a half-step behind Veach.

6. Tommy Bond-PHoM. Adjust his WS, WARP, whatever to 162, then give half of it to his fielders, and he still comes out here. Other pitchers of his era also fare well under that scheme, but not this well.

7. Larry Doyle--could be a PHoMer someday, unless you think the WARP league difficulty adjustment is appropriate. I think it's steeper than hell.

PS. Thanks for the info re. Fred Dunlap. I've had him on my ballot as recently as 6-8 years ago, I may be the last voter to do so. Of course, it is very tough for a 19C guy who remains only second best at his position for his decade to get elected. Well, Childs came just a tad later, but... But if we've elected the Black Dunlap, I would think the White Grant would get some consideration. And when you consider the White Grant and it becomes obvious that Childs was better, then I'd expect to see Childs on more ballots.

Right now at 2B I've got Doyle, Childs, Monroe, Dunlap and Sol White, who also comps Grant fairly nicely. A very, very comnpetitive group who all seem to be taking one another down.

8. Pete Browning--emerging from CF glut but not yet PHoM.

9. Cupid Childs--PHoM

10. Ed Williamson--PHoM. Now here's a positional imbalance, though I acknowledge it is in part because so many in the 19C played there part-time. My 3B candidates are Williamson, Leach, Bradley, Gardner (or Gardner, Bradley), McGraw. Soon to change fairly dramatically.

11. Bill (the Pearl) Monroe--maybe a nickname will help his cause.

12. Jim McCormick--Tommy Bond lite.

13. Rube Waddell--I've been underrating Rube and pitchers generally, still working on it. If I move them up as a class, that still doesn't say which ones.

14. Spot Poles
15. Hugh Duffy--my current calculations suggest that Duffy may never make my ballot again after this year. i.e Assuming we elect Pearce, Santop and Van, Johnson and Wheat and then the obvious guys, my 1938 ballot projects like this:

1. Jennings, 2. Groh, 3. R. Foster, 4. Sisler, 5. Pike, 6. Redding, 7. Mendez, 8. C. Jones, 9. Bond, 10. Carey, 11. Bancroft, 12. Doyle, 13. Browning, 14. Dobie Moore, 15. Childs. So a whole 6 players in today's backlog will (might) be superceded by a new backlog of better second and third tier candidates. (I think I got the eligibilities right but I'm not sure.)

Not on my ballot but among the top 10 holdovers:

I like Van, really--I think some of the discussion understates his peak value and his career is pretty much undisputed. But I'm more of a peak voter and his peak is short of the above. He is around #25 for me.

Beckley--a truly low peak, around #35.

Griffith--I will never be satisfied that I've rated the pitchers correctly, but whatever method I try he still comes in around #30 at best.

Ryan--definitely below Van, about #30ish.

Bresnahan--I'm thinking, I'm thinking. His totals don't add up on their own and how much of a catcher bonus does he get? Around #20. Top catchers, BTW, are Bresnahan, Clapp, Clements, Carroll and Zimmer.

Welch--well, there's this little thing of those 300 wins. That is impressive no matter what. But his WARPs and ERA+ are killers. Not convinced he wasn't the luckiest sumbitch ever. I mean, yes, it's a stretch to think he was THAT lucky, but it's a stretch to explain his 300 wins any other way, too.

That got me thinking that maybe your presentation could focus on a couple of voting "types" to illustrate different approaches to the issue or a particular player. Some examples:

1. the peak voter
2. the career voter
3. the timeliner. . . .

Really have to disagree with this. That, to me, seems to be a really good way to get bogged down in excessive details about how the HoM works rather than what the results of it are. And ultimately, people attending your talk would be more likely to be interested in the results & what sorts of things you/we found than how we all went about finding it out.

As for the eligibles, I'm having a hard time coming to grip with Harry Hooper. The career voter in me (& that's most of me) says how can I not put him on the ballot, while everything else in me says he wasn't good enough. I recall mentioning around the time that Wallace entered teh ballot that I see myself as something of a career/primer candidate leaning (somewhat heavily) toward career.

I look at Hooper & I see what some of you must notice when you see Beckley: nice counting stats but nothing else impressive. The problem for Hooper with me is that the two main stats I use are games & OPS+. He's got games, but with tn OPS+ only a little over 110 I wonder how much was the difference between him & the average outfielder (if 100 is league average for OPS+, then the average OPS+ for an outfielder should be higher. Also, compared to Beckley it's pretty bad as Beckley is well over 120). Kelly's info in post #64 is interesting & should help Hooper with me. My tentative guesstimate is that he'll either be on the very bottom of my ballot or just off of it.

No, I don't have WS handy to do that calculation. My point, though, was that even though all of the "out" second basemen have similar WARP numbers (100-110), Dunlap acquired his in 965 games, compared to, for example, Larry Doyle's 1766 games, Cupid Childs's 1456 games, Johnny Evers's 1784, or Del Pratt's 1836.

WARP, as a counting stat, isn't going to put Dunlap is as bright a light as the rate stats I cited do, but the fact is that if you look at "career value", Dunlap looks like one of the pack, but if you adjust it for the fact that Dunlap acquired the same career value in 500-1000 fewer games, his accomplishments seem to stand out a lot more.

That got me thinking that maybe your presentation could focus on a couple of voting "types" to illustrate different approaches to the issue or a particular player.

If you were interested in the types of voters as a matter of process, you might survey the HOM electorate and ask them to identify with the
type(s) of voters that Jeff N identified. In fact, with 14 or 15 types in Jeff N's list, you could even format the survey in the manner of our ballots so that a voter could identify most strongly with a couple/few categories most strongly. Then you could find out what the most popular type of voter is and find out what an "average" HOM voter is (especially if you weight results by the number of elections each voter has participated in).

As Chris J. said it might not be a top priority for the attendees of your presentation, but it seems like it would be interesting (even important?) to know as background information as you prepared your notes on various candidates and electees.

If you were interested in the types of voters as a matter of process, you might survey the HOM electorate and ask them to identify with the type(s) of voters...

I thnk that's wrong-headed. All of us have the capacity to wiggle out from under any label you try to stick on us. I can't think of anyone whose position on the peak/prime/career scale is either totally fixed or completely one-sided. We all wrestle, in a constantly evolving way, with issues like peak/career or league quality/timeline. Those debates are never totally resolved, and our collective decisions emerge from the tension of those debates.

It might be more interesting to mention the dozens of home-grown metrics used either as public debating points or in private to inform an individual ballot. We all know about WARP and WS, and none of us accept what such comprehensive metrics say without some skepticism or modification.

PhillyBooster,

I think you can get a decent thumbnail sketch of Monroe's WS value using KJOK's translations. The stats KJOK provides can be used to figure short-form OWS pretty quickly. Then if you assume that he's a B+ 2B, you assign him roughly 4.25 WS per 162. Using that method I came up with an estimated 345 career WS. I adjust WS for season length (and in some cases I make adjustments for league quality), and here's how he stacks up against a few 2B:

Monroe 345
Doyle 311
Evers 283
Childs 275
Pratt 263
Dunlap 226

At work, without the book, I don't recollect off the top of my head whether short-form WS take league scoring levels into account or not. If not, then Monroe's 270 or so OWS are probably on the high side. The big leagues scored about 4.00 r/g during Monroe's career or about 6% less than the 4.25 the NL averaged from 1955-2003 (the time KJOK translated Monroe into). So if you wanted to discount the OWS by 6%, you'd be down to 254. Adding back the 75 DWS, you're at 329 WS.

Anyway, it's just one way to interpret his career, and it's by no means set in stone. I'm concerned that I may be over-reaching the utility of the translations, but it's a nice thumbnail sketch.

Not listed among the new eligibles is another player whose ML career ended in 1925. Elmer Smith was a slugger who would have fit in well as a DH type. Not a real candidate but what the heck. Here are some of his achievements pre and post major league. Info is from a SABR article delving into Sandusky, OH and its major league players over time.

1913 - Duluth White Sox of the Class C Northern League. Elmer Smith led the league with 13 homers.

1914 - Elmer Smith began the season with the Waterbury Frolickers of the Class B Eastern Association and won the batting crown with a mark of .332. On September 20, he made his big league debut at Cleveland.

1918 - Elmer Smith spent the season serving his country in the armed forces.

1920 - On October 10, Elmer Smith blasted first grand slam in World Series history.

1922 (July on) & 1923 - As a Yankee stuck behind a couple guys named Meusel and Ruth. Lots of pinch hitting.

1924 - The Yankees acquired the Kentucky Colonel, Earle Combs, from the Louisville Colonels, for whom he had banged out an American Association-leading 241 hits the previous year. With no room in the New York outfield, Elmer Smith joined the Louisville club and led the league with 28 homers for manager Joe McCarthy.

1926 - Elmer Smith kept busy as a full-time outfielder for the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League, topping the circuit with 46 home runs.

1927 - Another year in Portland resulted in another home run crown for Elmer Smith, this time walloping 40. He lost the MVP award to Lefty O'Doul of the San Francisco Seals.

1931 - Rookie manager Bill Wambsganss led the Springfield Senators to the Three-I League pennant. Old friend Elmer Smith hit .289 as a part-time outfielder for the team.

1932 - Second-year manager Bill Wambsganss led the Fort Wayne Chiefs to the Central League's second-half pennant. Elmer Smith, 40 years old at season's end, tagged along and racked up 70 extra base hits, but lost the loop's batting crown .372 to .371 to Babe Phelps of the Youngstown Buckeyes. In 1936, Phelps hit .367 to set a record for Dodger catchers which still stands. Elmer Smith ended his professional career with 70 major league homers, 224 more in the minors, and one very memorable World Series clout.

Interestingly, Elmer Smith of the Waterbury Frolickers is not even the best Elmer Smith of all-time. The Elmer Smith who was the best pitcher in the AA in 1887 at the age of 19 and looked like he was going to be a Bob Caruthers clone but petered out quickly holds that honour, I believe.

To clarify, only Elmer Smith the Elder's pitching career petered out -- he continued as a pretty good hitter for about a decade. He got 1.5 votes in his first year of HoM eligibility in 1907, dropped to one vote in 1908 and fell off the ballot in 1909.

George Gore isn't consensus; I still don't think I'd have him in my PHOM, though he'd be close in these last few years. Start may be closer, or better still Deacon White or Hines (I started voting in '00, so didn't opine on Gore/White/Hines).

I think it's fair to say few HOM non HOF are slam dunks; HOF's faults are more those of commission not omission. Would be fun to recreate on some neutral software a match between HOM not HOF and HOF not HOM, maybe all taken in say their 4th best seasons, so as not to overweight peak. Hope we'd win, but not absolutely confident if the HOF not HOM team was picked intelligently, and not just a bunch of Tommy McCarthys and Frisch buddies.

Hope we'd win, but not absolutely confident

I am. We would win.

More on Dunlap--

How he ranks depends entirely on three factors:

(1) How important do you find infield defense in the 1880s? If you use, season-length and league-adjusted WS he has about 229; if you make those double-defensive WS, he has about 283. That's the difference between being off the board and being electable with a good enough peak.

(2) Are you a peak or career voter? Using double-defensive WS, Dunlap has five seasons over 30 and another that's damn close, but only 7 seasons over 20 and 10 over 10.

(3) Do you timeline? If you accept double-defensive WS and are a peak or prime voter, Dunlap's run of 40-36-36-32-33-24-28 from 1880-1886 would probably get him in if achieved in another period. But should it get him in given that it doesn't make him one of the top handful of position players for his era because of the ease of dominating an underveloped game.

Let me try to present the same data above in a more compressed WARP-1 way, expanded to include all eligible second basemen:

WARP1/162 games for all eligible second basemen:

1. Ross Barnes, 23.1
2. Fred Dunlap, 17.0 (half credit for UA season brings him down to 15.1, still second place)
3. Bid McPhee, 14.5
4. Nap Lajoie, 14.2
5. Bill Craver, 13.6 (only 339 games in the NA)
6. Hardy Richardson, 13.2
7. Cupid Childs, 12.1
8. Jimmy Williams, 11.4
9. Miller Huggins, 10.7
10. Jack Burdock 10.6

(Evers in in 16th place with 10.0, Del Pratt in 22nd with 9.1, and Larry Doyle is in 25th place with 8.5)

I think it's fair to say few HOM non HOF are slam dunks; HOF's faults are more those of commission not omission. Would be fun to recreate on some neutral software a match between HOM not HOF and HOF not HOM, maybe all taken in say their 4th best seasons, so as not to overweight peak. Hope we'd win, but not absolutely confident if the HOF not HOM team was picked intelligently, and not just a bunch of Tommy McCarthys and Frisch buddies.
LETS SEE

HOF not HOM
P Mickey Welch
C Roger Bresnahan
1B Jake Beckley
2B John Evers
SS Hugh Jennings
3B John McGraw
OF Hugh Duffy
OF Tommy McCarthy
OF Harry Hooper

HOM not HOF
P Bob Caruthers
C Cal McVey
1B Harry Stovey
2B Ross Barnes
SS Bill Dahalen
3B Deacon White
OF George Gore
OF Paul Hines
OF Pete Hill
I'm eliminating Joe Jackson for obvious reasons

Welch--well, there's this little thing of those 300 wins. That is impressive no matter what. But his WARPs and ERA+ are killers. Not convinced he wasn't the luckiest sumbitch ever. I mean, yes, it's a stretch to think he was THAT lucky, but it's a stretch to explain his 300 wins any other way, too.

well I see 3 possible explanations

1. He was the luckiest person ever
2. He gave up a lot of runs in losses and very little runs in his wins in other word when he pitched good he pitched really good (he won he gave up 1 or 2 runs) and when he pitched bad he pitched really bad (when he loss he gave up 6 or 7 runs)
3 He was pitching to the score in other words trying harder in close games then in clear cut wins giving up runs that way

3B John McGraw

McGraw wasn't picked as a player.

I would also have Ezra Sutton on our side instead of White (who I would have as our catcher). We would win both (especially since their team has no third baseman :-)

1. He was the luckiest person ever
2. He gave up a lot of runs in losses and very little runs in his wins in other word when he pitched good he pitched really good (he won he gave up 1 or 2 runs) and when he pitched bad he pitched really bad (when he loss he gave up 6 or 7 runs)
3 He was pitching to the score in other words trying harder in close games then in clear cut wins giving up runs that way


4. He played for great teams that scored a lot of runs for him.

(I'm not saying that's true, but its an important explanation that you left off of your list)

It is important to recognize that all of these "explanations" of Welch's record are just hypotheses. My suggestion that he is a lucky sumbitch is a hypothesis, the idea that he pitched to the score is a hpothesis, etc. etc. None of these is proven.

My only point with Welch is whether you give him the benefit of the doubt or not. Thus far I am reluctant.

Benefit of the doubt is something I have thus far reserved for players about whom the "doubt" arises from lack of statistical information (early Dickey Pearce, Frank Grant) or lack of a sense of what the statistical information means (Rube Foster's 56-1 record against...whom?).

When we have the data and we know what the context (opposition) is, I'm less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to "explain away" apparent weaknesses (low ERA+), at least when there are players eligible who don't require a benefit of the doubt to be rated a little higher.

Have said that, he has moved up from about #50 to about #30 on my ballot (or off my ballot) and until the doubt can be erased he will probably continue to rank behind a number of pitchers with better ERA+ and WARP.

3B John McGraw

McGraw wasn't picked as a player.
In their hall their no diffrence beetween players and mangers examples are Frank Chance who's plaque says
FAMOUS LEADER OF CHICAGO CUBS. WON
PENNANT WITH CUBS IN FIRST FULL SEASON
AS MANAGER IN 1906-THAT TEAM COMPILED
116 VICTORIES UNEQUALLED IN MAJOR
LEAGUE HISTORY - ALSO WON PENNANTS
IN 1907, 08 AND 1910 AND WORLD SERIES
WINNER IN 07 AND 08. STARTED WITH
CHICAGO IN 1898. ALSO MANAGER
NEW YORK A.L. AND BOSTON A.L.


and Fred Clarke who's plaque says
THE FIRST OF THE SUCCESSFUL
"BOY MANAGERS," AT TWENTY-FOUR HE
PILOTED LOUISVILLE'S COLONELS IN
THE NATIONAL LEAGUE. WON 4 PENNANTS
FOR PITTSBURGH AND A WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP IN 1909. STARRED AS
AN OUTFIELDER FOR 22 SEASONS

I would also have Ezra Sutton on our side instead of White (who I would have as our catcher).
I never saw what others saw in Sutton

We would win
I agree

4. He played for great teams that scored a lot of runs for him.


but why him more than Keefe?

In their hall their no diffrence beetween players and mangers

Except your examples of Clarke and Chance are listed at the HoF site with the left fielders and first basemen, while McGraw is not listed with the third basemen.