Gentlemen, start your engines!

1. Louis Santop (new). All the info I have on him (Cool Papas book Blackball Stars book the numbers I've seen) indicate that he was a fantastic catcher for an extended period of time & on the short list of best Negro Leaguers. Best cather between Ewing and Cochrane.

2. Jake Beckley (5,4,3,2,1). Began as the best non-ABC first basemen in the league & remained the best of the very good for almost two full decades as a starter. Even with his non-peak he was the best 1Bman in baseball at the turn of the century for a few years. 1 OPS+ under 100 in his first 18 seasons. I began this project as the #1 friend of Jake Beckley and now I'm happy to have him at the top of my ballot. 16.8 seasons worth of games by my reckonin'.

3. Clark Griffith (12,8,6,5,3). Personal favorite 1890s pitcher. Nice career, nice prime. The median winning percentage of his opponent one of the highest of the pitchers I've checked. Leaps ahead of BC as I'm more impressed by the level of competition he faced & his durability. Jumps past Welch due to both the overall quality of play in the 1890s & his Median Opponent W/L Pct.

4. Mickey Welch (7,6,5,4,4). Thank you retrosheet. Turns out he earned those 300 wins. Offensive support only gave him 3-4 wins. Defensive support, though a little above average, was actually worse the defensive support of all major non-Galvin pitchers in the 1880s. Usually matched up against tougher opposing pitchers when he & Keefe were on the same team. In 1885, against the Cubs, he faced off against John Clarkson 7 times & won every game.

5. Tommy Leach (10,9,7,6,6). Mutlitalented player. Terrific defense at two positions & he was a good hitter. Fine player for a long time (14.2 seasons worth of games by my reckonin').

6. George Van Haltren (13,12,9,7,7). Very good player for an extended period of time who could do numerous things well. Nice career. Nice peak. Could pitch. Played 14.2 seasons worth of games (including as pitcher) by my reckonin'.

7. Jimmy Ryan (14,13,10,8,8). GVH without the ability to pitch. Played 14.6 seasons worth of games, by my reckonin'.

8. Rube Foster (31,32,33,32,5). A slight bump for him. New info about him this week convinces me that he was good enough long enough beforing tunring into the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man. Plus he could freakin' hit. Falls a little due to some misgivings about him. I'm still high on him, but not as sure in my ranking of him as I am of others.

9. Cupid Childs (15,14,12,10,9). Looking at him again & I think he's better than the infielders I was putting just above him. Good fielder who had a great run & is very impressive (for a 2Ber) OPS+ undervalues his offense because he's so OBP-centric. The D & OBP keep him above Larry Doyle. 10.5 seasons worth of games by my reckonin'.

10. Larry Doyle (18,16,13,11,10). Don't have much time this or next week to take a closer look, so I'm leaving him here - he could move up when I have the time to really look at him more. Looking at him again, I'd say he's about as close to Childs as Ryan is to GVH, so they're now also yoked together. Played 11.5 seasons worth of games by my reckonin'.

11. Charlie Jones (19,17,14,12,11). Great hitter for a while. First really good Deep Southerner (first Deep Southerner of any type?) I get the feeling he would have been an NA standout from 1871/2 if he'd been born in Pennsylvania. Looks more like Sam Thompson every time I look at him. By my reckonin', he played 9.3 seasons worth of games.

12. Gavvy Cravvath (20,19,15,13,12). Toughie to figure. The late start of this CAer reminds me of the late start of the above NCer. Gets some minor league credit, but loses some due to park factors (a homer champion hitting all his homers at home? Sure you could argue that it shows he's really taking full advantage of his home park, but I'd like to see my sluggers be able to hit the ball in other parks also. In trying to weigh out the different factors, I'll give him enough credit for his minor league days to just get him on the ballot. By my reckonin' he played 8.1 seasons worth of games.

13. Bill Monroe (23,22,17,14,13). He looks better in comparison to the later negro league arrivals (Poles, Donaldson, Lyons) than the initial ones (Johnson, Grant).

14. Bobby Veach (14). Very good player for a time. A little longer or a little better and he'd be considerably higher. 12.4 seasons worth of games by my reckonin'.

15. Spot Poles (18,15,15). For me, he needs a longer career and a better prime. I don't see any reason to get too excited about him. I don't see him being better than any of the outfielders ahead of him.

Santop looks worth enshrining this year, although not a “no-brainer” by any means. Mendez, on closer inspection, probably not, though I have re-evaluated Foster up a bit (but a forward look at Williams convinces me we have much better Negro League pitchers to come.) New ML ballplayers all some way off the bottom of ballot, though Cooper makes the reserves list, just. Have reviewed pitchers and boosted several of them – Waddell, Leever and Willis arrive on bottom of ballot.

1.(N/A-9-9-10-7-7-5-5-4-3-5-6-5-3-4-3-4-4-3-2-2-1) Jake Beckley Adjust his 2930 hits to full seasons and he's up there with Nap, over 3200 hits, and OPS+ of 125 better than Van Haltren (BIG gap between the two, on career value, IMHO). Marginally ahead of Welch, as we have seen more 307-win pitchers (8 others among currently HOM-eligible) than 2930-hit hitters (5 others). TB+BB/PA .455, TB+BB/Outs .707 not as good as outfielder glut - but much of his career was played in the dead ball ‘00s, and 1B was a marginally more important fielding position than outfielder then. Played for un-famous teams. Better than Keeler, almost as good as Crawford. More than a borderline HOMer, somewhere in the reaches well above the border but below the immortals.

2. (15-14-11-12-10-9-6-8-7-7-6-7-6-3-3-3-2-3-2-2-3-2-4-5-4-2-3-2-3-3-2-3-3-2) Mickey Welch “Money” slot again, probably his last for some time unless Beckley gets elected. - 307-210 comes to impress me more and more, particularly as we get more and more of the short career dead ball era pitcher glut. 1885 looks like a pretty good peak too; 44-11 with a 1.67 ERA is pretty impressive, compared for example to Clarkson’s 49-19 at 2.73 in 1889. With 4802IP, OK at an ERA+of 113 (but he never heard of ERA) he was better than the 00s pitchers, all of whom were pitching in favorable conditions, none of whom (other than Young and Matty) got near 300 wins.

3. (N/A-10-8-7-6-4-3) Eddie Cicotte. Only 208-149 and an ERA+ of 123, but 3223 IP, more than Waddell and should get about 25% of the bonus for the 300-win career he should have had (he was, after all, a knuckleballer, who tend to peak late.) By a significant margin the best pitcher on the current ballot – only loses to Welch on longevity.

4. (N/A-15-N/A-5-4) Pete Browning. Recalculating, to adjust ’82 as well as ’83-’92, he had 2,177 “normalized” hits, with no AA discount. However, TB+BB/PA .511, TB+BB/Outs .855. the same as Tiernan, not quite as good as Thompson, but he got no significant boost from the 1893-94 run explosion. Career OPS+162 vs. 146 Thompson and 138 Tiernan, but you have to discount a bit for AA

5. (N/A-14-13-15-N/A-15-N/A-14-N/A-10-8-7-6-5) Clark Griffith He’s another Amos Rusie, but not quite as good (Rusie was my #12 the year we elected him, I’d have him about 4 on this ballot, and would probably have elected him in 1930.) 3385 IP, 237 wins and an ERA+ of 121 not outstanding, but his winning percentage is good and his 1898 peak is nice.

6. (N/A) Luis Santop Under 2000 hits on I9, but that’s a lot more than Bresnahan and he was a full-time catcher. TB+BB/PA about .431, TB+BB/Outs about .669, not as good as Bresnahan, but partly in very dead ball NL 10s. Benefit of doubt puts him here, but not higher.

7. (N/A-8) Cupid Childs. OPS+119, almost the same as the 90s trio, and TB+BB/PA .470, TB+BB/Outs .797 highly competitive with them. Main negative is only 1720 hits, or about 1780 even if you normalize him to a 130 games played season. Nevertheless, he was a 2B, and I’ve been undervaluing him, significantly.

8. (N/A-10-9) Charley Jones. Short career – only 1,780 normalized hits, even when adjusted to nominal 130-game-played season (but that’s more than Pike, with much less of an adjustment, and Jones too missed two prime seasons.) But OPS+ 149, TB+BB/PA .473, TB+BB/Outs .722, so above Pike and non-CF 90s OF, and also on reflection above Tiernan

9. (N/A-6-5-9-8-9-8-7-10-11-8-9-7-7-6-6-9-9-8-6-6-6-5-4-8-7) Hugh Duffy TB+BB/PA of .489 and TB/Outs of .788, but this in the high-offense 1890s, and he’s way below Beckley on total hits. Like the 1894 peak, though - and it’s ’94 not ’93, pitchers had had a year to adjust. Significantly behind Beckley on counting considerations, and Browning on rate considerations.

10. (N/A-9-10) Mike Tiernan - only 1,983 normalized hits, so no higher than the middle of this weak ballot. Does well against the 90s trio, whose OPS+ and rate stats are distinctly lower. TB+BB/PA .518, TB+BB/Outs .850, so close to Browning (in an easier era for hitters).

11. Rube Waddell Short career but very high peak. 2961 IP, and W/L193-143 not at all special. Fielding and hitting negative, not positive – but he’s considerably better than Mendez, with ERA+ of 134 and moves up owing to pitcher dearth, although his unearned runs prevent him moving higher than this.

12. Sam Leever (N/A) Vaults onto ballot owing to upcoming pitcher dearth. 194-100 and an ERA+ of 123 get him above Van Haltren and Ryan, there being no outfielder dearth. Only 2660 innings, but appears to have been blocked till 27 by the one-league 1890s. Much better ERA+ than Tannehill, and W/L pct close to record territory. Believe he needs to be looked at seriously by others, and included in pitcher analysis.

13. Vic Willis Moved up owing to pitcher dearth 249-205 and ERA+ of 118 get him here. Lots of IP – 3996 --, but W/L pct nothing special

14. Rube Foster. Convinced by looking at Mendez that he was better than I thought, although I remain rather unenthusiastic about him as a player (as distinct from as a pioneer, where he’s clearly HOM-worthy). I9 241-176 doesn’t bowl me over, but his peak was impressive, and there’s enough of a career there to feature, though not towards the top. Will drop in ’34, but may be elected first.

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

OFF BALLOT

16. (N/A-9-12-11-14-13-14-12-11-12-13-11-11-9-9-13-14-12-14-14) Levi Meyerle. Normalize 1871-77 season by season to 130 games and he gets 1,577 hits, only 15 less than Pike in 1 less season. Better peak, too. TB+BB/PA .482, TB+BB/Outs .751, though this, like McVey and Pike’s figures, includes no “decline” phase. Also, he was a 3B. Why did Meyerle quit? -- unlike Pike, he was nowhere near done in 1877. OPS+164 vs 152 for McVey and 155 for Pike. Lower than Pike because not a huge pre-’71 career. Drops off in ’32, back in later 30s, hopefully.

17. (12-15-N/A-11-10-12-10-10-9-8-11-12-10-10-8-8-14-15-13-15-15) Harry Wright Unlucky to slip off ballot in ’32, but he’s toast by ’34 anyway.

18. (N/A-10-9-8-7-6-7-8-5-12-10-10-N/A-10-8-11-11) Jimmy Ryan TB+BB/PA .485, TB+BB/Outs .773.

19. (N/A-13-12-13-13-12-14-15-12-13-11-11-N/A-11-9-12-12) George van Haltren. TB+BB/PA .469, TB+BB/Outs .765, not overwhelming for the 90s.

20. Spotswood Poles.
21. Deacon McGuire
22. Tony Mullane
23. Jim McCormick Both these guys would be higher if their ERA+ were more impressive and there wasn’t a serious question mark over their best years.
24. Larry Doyle
25. Roger Bresnahan. Santop, not this guy, is by far the best catcher of the era. Short career, and only about half of it as catcher.
26. Harry Hooper.
27. Jose Mendez I9 has him below 200 wins and with a pretty unimpressive WPct. Pretty clearly not as good as Foster.
28. Wilbur Cooper gets on down here because of revaluation of pitchers.
29. Bruce Petway.
30. Jack Clements
31. Bill Monroe
32. Chief Bender
33. Ed Konetchy
34. Hughie Jennings Not a historic peak, and a very short career.
35. Jesse Tannehill
36 Bobby Veach
37 Tommy Leach
38. Lave Cross
39. Tom York

Off Ballot Productions present: Newbies & Consensus top ten returnees:

Haven't had as much time or computer access as I'd like this week, so some of the newbies may have their ranking alter notably in forthcoming elections:

20. Lip Pike (39,29,19,17,18). Keeps rising & rising. Now stuck in a glut of OFers at the edge of the ballot that could best be described as: "If only they'd been that good for a few more years. . ." By my reckonin', from 1871 onward he played in 7.5 seasons worth of games, so I'll figure he's worth about 11.5-12 seasons worth in his career.

25. Rube Waddell (27,26,26,24,26). The king of unearned runs - and considering how important his ERA+ is to his candidacy, that really hurts. Entry of Vaughn and Cicotte helps him.

27. Hugh Duffy (32,27,27,26,28). Needs either better rate stats or more games. He's a tweener - in a bad way. Periodic re-evaluation boosts him a little. I reckon him at 12.5 seasons played.

29. Roger Bresnahan (36,36,37,37,30). Not enough games at catcher to get in as a catcher & not nearly enough games to get in as anything else. I reckon him at 9.5 seasons played - only 65% at catcher.

30. Babe Adams (new). Very good though never great pitcher. I keep altering how much credit to give his minors, but I think something was going on for at least that last season to keep a worthwhile pitcher down there.

35. Wilbur Cooper (new). Very nice pitcher, but not good enough nor around long enough.

39. Jose Mendez (new). Had a nice stretch, but not quite enough. From what I hear of him, he reminds me of Hippo Vaughn.

42. Dobie Moore (new) A truly great player, but I vote for great careers over great players & he died too soon.

43. Ross Youngs. (new). What might have been. 130 OPS+ that's high on OBP.

72. Hooks Dauss (new). Many innings, but not of high enough quality, even if you factor in the woeful defense.

99. Stuffy McInnis (new). The Enos Cabell of his generation.

1932 Ballot (MVP candidates, All-Star candidates, and total HOM seasons are my own generalizations based on raw WS and yearly competition. I'll gladly incorporate WARP when they finally complete their fix.)

1. Louis Santop We’ve been waiting for another catcher. Welcome to the HOM Louis. PHOM 1932.

2. George Van Haltren Never an MVP candidate, All-Star candidate 1888-1901. That is 14 consecutive solid years, the majority in a tough consolidated league. (14 HOM seasons) PHOM 1929

3. Jake Beckley In his 16 All-Star seasons, he only averaged about 60% of MVP value, so that hurts him with peak voters, but I’m a career/prime man. Never an MVP candidate, All-Star candidate 1888-1895, 1897, 1899-1905. (16 HOM seasons) PHOM 1928.

4. Jimmy Ryan My system likes Jimmy about as much as Van Haltren and Sheckard. MVP candidate 1888. All-Star candidate 1886-1887, 1889-1892, 1894-1899, 1902. (14 HOM seasons) PHOM 1930.

5. Harry Hooper Its hard to support Beckley, Van Haltren and Ryan, and to ignore Hooper. MVP candidate 1918, All-Star candidate 1910-1917, 1919-20, 1922, 1924. (13 HOM seasons) PHOM 1931.

6. Rube Foster The value he brought to his teams seems to surpass that of short-career contemporaries like Waddell and Joss, and seems akin to Walsh or Spalding. PHOM 1932.

7. Mickey Welch Solid pitcher is losing his luster as more 1880’s contemporaries join the HOM. With the lack of 1890’s quality, I think he still rates here. MVP candidate 1884-1885, All-Star candidate 1880-81, 1883, 1886-1889 (9 HOM seasons)

8. George J. Burns I think I was overrating outfielders last week. I also don’t discount the teens NL, but I am actively researching whether I should. The teens Giants could be like the aught’s Cubs, many good players, not many HOMers. MVP candidate 1917, 1919, All-Star candidate 1913-16, 1918, 1920-23. (11 HOM seasons)

9. Hugh Duffy Part of the now underrepresented CF block, but significantly below Van Haltren, Sheckard and Ryan. Very comparable to Burns. MVP candidate 1893-1894, All-Star candidate 1889-1892, 1895-1899. (11 HOM seasons)

10. Fielder Jones Solid player will never make the HOM. Very comparable to Duffy, but played in the wrong offensive era. MVP candidate 1908 (his last real year). All-Star candidate 1896-1898, 1900-1907. (12 HOM seasons)

11. Jose Mendez I think that the lack of pitcher analysis in one of our bibles, the NBJHBA, may cause some problems with rating Negro League pitchers. I’d really like to see a single comprehensive pitcher summary.

12. Tony Mullane I don’t see much between Welch and Mullane. I know this puts me in the minority. MVP candidate 1882-1884, All-Star candidate 1886-1893 (11 HOM seasons)

13. Tommy Leach Solid player for many years, the HOM won’t be lacking without him. MVP Candidate 1902, All-Star Candidate 1901, 1903-09, 1913-14. (11 HOM seasons)

14. Roger Bresnahan I think this unique talent belongs on the ballot. Benefits from my catcher bonus, which while substantial, has obviously not overrun my ballot with receivers. MVP candidate 1906, 1908 All-Star candidate 1903-1905, 1907, 1911, 1914. (8 HOM seasons)

15. Spotswood Poles Seems similar to a Hugh Duffy, with a few big years, followed by some hanging around above average value. Probably a Roy Thomas type of player, though. If anyone deserves war credit, it’s this man who won medals and Purple Hearts while serving a country that wouldn’t let him play in the majors.

MISSING OUT (new Cooper #20)

16-20 – Thomas, Monroe, Griffin, Doyle, Cooper,

21-25 – Petway, Pike, Milan, Gardner, Willis,

26-30 – Tinker, C. Jones, Konetchy, Long, Veach.

Lip Pike – Number 22 on my ballot now. MVP candidate 1876 All-star candidate 1871-75, 1877-78. (7 HOM seasons)

Clark Griffith –I think that he had a relatively short productive career, and didn’t have nearly the peak of a Caruthers, Walsh, or perhaps even Waddell. As Kelly from SD pointed out, did not have a stellar record against other HOM, and had decent run support. He needs to get a pretty steep 1890s pitcher premium to make my ballot. All-Star candidate 1894-1901 (8 HOM seasons)

Hughie Jennings – I just don’t put much stock in a five-year peak, especially for non-pitchers. Six years is a little better. Seven years would probably get you in (see Ed Walsh.) Five just doesn’t give me enough. MVP candidate 1894-1898. (5 HOM seasons)

Sorry. Put this on the Santop thread by mistake.

Ah . . . feels like the good old days, circa 1924, when half my ballot was filled with Negro League players and pitchers. Then, the electorate starting catching up to my PHoM, inducting Grant, Johnson, McGinnity, etc.

After a few years dominated by Caucasian position players like Beckley and Pearce, my ballot is back to its old lopsided self, as 4 of my top 5 are either black or a pitcher (including 2 black pitchers!), followed closely by the "short-career squad" of Cravath, Pike, Browning, Bresnahan, etc.

Okay, so maybe some of them would be no-shows for seasons at a stretch, but if you ever got then all of the field at the same time, my PHoM would so completely wipe the field with your PHoM. (Santop and Mendez inducted this year, and my PHoM goes down to Browning at #10).


1-2 Definites

1. Louis Santop (n/e) -- He caught, he was the best catcher of his era, and while I don’t see him as a “first ballot no brainer only a moron who can't tell a baseball from a hole in the ground wouldn’t vote for him” pick, and I wouldn’t have had him first had he been eligible 5 or 10 years ago, there’s really not anyone close this year.

2.Jake Beckley (1) – Career AND peak. If you think he had no peak, then I don’t understand your definition of the word.

Most Extra Base Hits, 1885-1905, inclusive:

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

3.-11. These are my “Maybes”. They all have some sort of deep flaw, but were so good in their own way that that I’d rather overlook their flaw and see their greatness, than vote for anyone 11 or lower, who was just “very good.”

3. Rube Foster (5) – Nice to see the stat translations on the other thread giving him the extra round of attention he deserves. Convinced me, and I was already one of his bigger supporters.

4. Mickey Welch (4) – Is he as good as Tim Keefe or not? My view is that he was seen as better and placed in tougher matchups. A HoM that contains both Tim Keefe and Pud Galvin needs to also have Mickey Welch.

5. Jose Mendez (n/e) – Best of the black Cubans. Best of the Cuban pitchers. Best Cuban player. Played on Negro League “All-Star” teams even in years that he could not pitch. Bested U.S. Caucasian All-Star teams in years that he could pitch. Placing him fifth below Welch is very conservative, I think, and the lowest I could justify.

6. Gavy Cravath (6) – Any reasonable consideration of his Los Angeles and Minneapolis years demands a ballot space.

7. Lip Pike (7)– Most Extra Base Hits in the National Association, 1871-1875 total:

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


8.Roger Bresnahan (3) -- The opposition is to his career length. Here are a list of total games played by all individuals between 1895 and 1915 who caught at least 800 games (Bresnahan caught 974).

1446Bresnahan
1275Dooin
1260Kling
1146Sullivan
1141Gibson
1105McGuire
1073Warner
1045Bowerman
1038Peitz

So compared to other catchers in his peer group, he had the best rate stats, and played in the most games. I can’t see what more could be asked of a player at the toughest defensive position on the diamond. Loses subjective points this week, being only the second best catcher on the ballot.

9.Cupid Childs (8)– WARP1/162 games among all second basemen with at least 1000 games played:

Bid McPhee, 14.49
Nap Lajoie, 14.40
Hardy Richardson, 13.23
Cupid Childs, 12.06
Jimmy Williams, 11.40

10.Pete Browning (9)– The greatest AA player not currently in the HoM.

11.Bill Monroe (10)– Re-read his Biography in the Biographical Encyclopedia, and would prefer him as perhaps the #2 black player of his era to any of the non-best Caucasians.

12-15.Filler who will likely slide off my ballot in short order as the competition increases.

12.George van Haltren (11) -- Excellent player who could pitch, but just the number 3 Centerfielder on my ballot.

13.Clark Griffith (12) – Not among the best, but without a doubt among the best who are left.

14.Harry Hooper (13) – the poor man’s Jake Beckley at a lesser defensive position, but still has career value.

15.Frank Chance (14) – some good info on him presented this week. I could see re-considering him up to 11 by next week as an expansion of the “Maybe” category, but not higher.

16.Jimmy Ryan (15) slides off, for perhaps a very long time.

Charlie Jones ... First really good Deep Southerner (first Deep Southerner of any type?)
IIRC, it was noted earlier that his family moved north when he was still a boy. Similar story for Parisian Bob.

The first truly southern player of note was Ty Cobb. Similar to the NL superiority of the 50's being based on tapping the Negro Leagues first and getting the super-stars (Mays, Aaron, Robinson), the AL superiority of the 10's was based on tapping the South first and getting the super-stars (Speaker, Cobb, Jackson).

I use Win Shares as the base for my ranking system, though I am now using a modified version (any negative values are converted into zeroes) of BRAR, FRAR and PRAR for the NA.

I am integrating the conclusions made by DERA with Win Shares for all pitchers.

I do place (to a certain degree) domination of one's position during the player's era. That doesn't mean that domination-by-default will necessarily help you though (Gil Hodges may have been the best first baseman of his era, but I doubt he'll make my ballot when he becomes eligible).

1) Louis Santop-C (n/a): He would have been number one even if Pearce was still on the ballot. He was that good. Greatest catcher of his era.

2) Cupid Childs-2B (2): Best second baseman of the '90s. Too short of a career to knock out McPhee for tops for the 19th century, but not that far behind. Considering the average second basemen of his era, he was fairly durable. Best major league second baseman for 1890, (almost in 1891), 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1897.

Childs was the best major league second baseman more times in a season than Doyle was the best NL second baseman. IMO, there's no way that the Laughing One goes above the Little Fat Man.

Cupid has the most seasons as the best player at his position who is not in the HoM and compares favorably in that regard with the majority of HoMers, IMO. I honestly don't think any other player that becomes eligible from this point on with as many seasons as the best at his position will have to wait anywhere nearly as long Childs has had to endure. That doesn't mean he belongs as high as I have him, but he should be hitting everyone's ballot somewhere. Please take another look at him.

3) Lip Pike-CF/RF/2B (3): Considered the fastest man of his time. Major star prior to the NA. Two things hold him back somewhat: durability and how good of a player he was at his position compared to his competition pre-NA (Pearce is not affected as much by the latter in my analysis, obviously). Best major league rightfielder for 1871 and 1873. Best major league centerfielder for 1874-1876.

4) Charley Jones-LF/CF (4): Like York below, he was playing a more difficult position than the one that it evolved into. I gave him a little more credit for his (unfairly) blacklisted years. Best major league leftfielder for 1877, 1879 and 1884. Best AA centerfielder for 1883. Best AA leftfielder for 1885 (close to being the best in the majors).

5) Tom York-LF (5): I know some here looking at his OPS+ must be saying to themselves "Murph has him over guys like Sheckard?!?" Fair question, but, IMO, York was a more dominating player at his position than Sheckard was during his time. Long enough career and many times as the best at his position (when left field was more like centerfield today) deserves a ballot spot.Best leftfielder of the 1870s. Best major league leftfielder for 1873, 1875, 1877 and 1878 (extremely close in 1872 and 1881).

6) Vic Willis-P (6): Why does this man receive such little respect? Willis pitched a ton of innings at an above-average rate for a long enough time for his era. Best major league pitcher for 1899. Best NL pitcher for 1901.

7) Rube Foster-P (9): Jumps a few places this week. High peak and long enough career allow him to fall in at #9.

8) Ed Konetchy-1B (7): Best first baseman of the Deadball Era, IMO. Best major league first baseman for 1910, 1911 and 1916 (very close in 1909 and 1912). Best NL first baseman for 1909, 1912 and 1919.

9) Rube Waddell-P (13): Moved him up a little. If he had been a little more serious and quit the horse playing... Tied for best major league pitcher for 1902. Best AL pitcher for 1905.

10)Jose Mendez-P (n/a): Looks a lot like Waddell quality-wise, so I'll place him right here. Very impressive player.

11) Roger Bresnahan-C/CF (8): Greatest catcher of the Deadball Era not named Santop. The poor man's Buck Ewing (Johnny Kling was the poor man's Charlie Bennett) is still good enough to be here on my ballot. Slightly better than Noisy behind the plate, but the Duke played longer and at other positions. Best major league catcher for 1905, 1906 and 1908. Best major league centerfielder for 1903.

12) Bill Monroe-2B/3B (10): I think he's worthy. Long career and nice peak. Many considered him a better hitter and fielder than Jimmy Collins as a third baseman. McGraw said (I'm assuming somewhat hyperbolically) that Monroe was the greatest of all-time. This may be too low for him.

13) Hugh Duffy-CF/LF/RF (11): "Only" the third best centerfielder of the '90s, but that position was very strong for that decade. Best major league rightfielder for 1890 and 1891. Best major league centerfielder for 1892, 1893 and 1894.

14) Frank Chance-1B/C (12): Best first baseman for the first decade of the 20th century. Even more so than Beckley, the Peerless Leader shouldn't be compared with the ABC boys or the post-1920 grouping of first baseman. The cream-of the-crop from Franklin Adam's famous trio. Best major league first baseman for 1903, 1904. 1905, 1906, and 1907 (close in 1908). Best NL first baseman for 1908.

15) Jake Beckley-1B (14): Not much peak, but plenty of career. Better than his numbers suggest since first base was tougher during his time than during the ABC boys' era. Best major league first baseman for 1900.
Because of my late inning addition of Mendez, Welch was knocked off my ballot.

Van Haltren, Ryan, Jennings and Griffith are close.

1932 Election Ballot

1. Mickey Welch: See my previous posts. I think the wins are real and his achievements merit inclusion.

2. Louis Santop: Regarded as a top 3 NegroLeague catcher behind Gibson and then arguments start. He is excellently qualified. The numbers provided by Chris Cobb, KJOK, i9s, Riley, and Holway demonstrate he had about 15 years as a regular (including credit for WWI years) and 7-10 years as an all-star. He comes in at second because of the assumptions needed to translate to MLE and I prefer to start players where there are questions to the lower range of where I think they rank as opposed to the higher. (He is still in an elect-me position)

3. Pete Browning: Dominant LF/CF in AA. 5 WS AllStars, 8 STATS AllStars. He has the most WS/162g among eligibles - 31. 162 OPS+ is highest among eligibles.

4. Tommy Leach: The best fielder eligible - WS "A+" at both 3rd and OF. 328 WS is one of highest available. 189 WS over best 7 yrs is 3rd best. Combined position totals: 3 STATS AllStars, 5 WS AllStars. 7 top 10 WS in National League. Gets bumped up because I think was instrumental in the number of Pirate pitchers having good seasons year-in, year-out (see Leever, Phillippe, Chesboro, Adams, Tannehill, etc.)

5. Cupid Childs: Dominant Second Baseman of 1890s. 7 WS AllStars, 6 STATS AllStars. 2nd highest OBP among eligibles. 6th most WS in 1890s among position players. 7 top 10 in OBP. 11 top 10 in walks.

6. Hugh Duffy: 5th most WS 3 cons yrs, most WS 7 best yrs. "A+" defensive CF. 5 WS AllStars. Black Ink total is 2nd behind Cravath, Grey Ink is 2nd C.Jones. I think he was a key reason (along with Nichols and Hamilton) that the Beanneaters were the best of the 1890s.

7. George Burns: Best/second best NL outfielder of the 1910s and best leadoff hitter. 7th in career win shares, 5th in 3 cons. yrs, 2nd in best non-cons 7 yrs. Only GVH has more 20+ WS (12-10) and he is tied with Veach for most 30+ with 3. 2 Stats AllStars, 5 WS AllStars, 3 times in Major league all star outfield. Top 10 runs 11 straight yrs, leading in 5. OBP 5 times, BA 4 times, SLG 3 times. Walks 8 times, leading in 5.

8. Jake Beckley: A long career, that is either all peak that is really low or no peak at all. Still, 3 WS AllStars and 3 STATS AllStars. Also, 318 career WS is 5th among eligibles and his 280 batting WS is the best. Good ISO of .127. Great career totals among players retired by 1926: 6th most career hits behind 5 HoMers, 6th most XBH behind 5 HoMers, 11th most runs behind 8 HoMers and Ryan and GVH, 4th most RBI behind 3 HoMers, 5th most 2B behind 4 HoMers, 3rd most 3B behind 2 HoMers.

9. Charley Jones: Another power-hitting LF. His 30 WS per 162g is one of the highest among eligibles. 5 Stats AllStars and 4 WS AllStars despite having 2.2 yrs stolen by owners. Great Grey Ink - 162.

10. Bobby Veach: 127 OPS+. 7th most WS 3 cons yr. 3rd most 7 yr. Tied with Burns for most 30+ WS. 4 WS AllStars. 4th Most Black Ink, Most Grey. 3 WS Gold Gloves.

11. Bill Monroe: Generally a middle of the order hitter per Riley. McGraw called him the best player ever per Riley. I wish I had more to go on. But McGraw's comment will lift him over Doyle for sure.

12. Jose Mendez: The work done on the Mendez Thread has convinced me he is worthy. I have him higher than Foster because I like his level of competition better and the quality of his competition is better quantified.

13: Frank Chance: Best 1b of 1900s. Excellent 30 WS per 162g. 6 STATS AllStars, 6 WS AllStars, 4 WS best in majors 1B. Great speed. Excellent 135 OPS+. Stopped playing regularly b/c severe cumulative effects from beanings - 10 out of 11 years he was top 10 in HBP.

14. Roger Bresnahan: I didn't realize his level of dominance at the position between 1900-1915. Only Kling came close to him in WS at catcher and it took 20% more games for Kling. His versatility is an added bonus (CF and pitching - see 1897). His huge difference in OPS helps as well.

15. Rube Foster: I am not convinced he was better than Griffith, but I do see them as similar. I take him over Griffith because I think his peak is higher, though less quantifiable. Much appreciation to Chris Cobb and Chris J. for their postings on the Foster thread.

Top 10 Returnees Not on Ballot:

Van Haltren: Long enough prime and good career totals, but not enough peak, not enough defense. Could reevalutate back on ballot either in 1933 or in late 30s.

Griffith: After doing a career breakdown and with a reevaluation of Foster plus the eligibility of Mendez, Griffith drops off the ballot into a knot of pitchers along with Wilbur Cooper and Vic Willis. His numbers just don't match with other 1890's/very early 00s pitchers who are in the HoM.

Pike: One of a number of outfielders that are close together. He is on the edge of the ballot. Issues include the frequent team changes and questions about his "effort" at times.

Jennings: I want a longer prime. He has a great peak, but the most important factor to me is 7 year prime. Jennings just doesn't have it.

Ryan: Great start to his career, but an average or below average regular for 8 of his last 9 years is not what I consider a HoMer. Will not make my ballot.

My ballot. I'm awake this week not like last, so I won't vote for a nonexistant player.

Santop and Griffith make my PHOM.

1. Louis Santop - Only possible argument to keep him from my top spot would have been if NL catchers were overated because of weakness of ML catchers. I don't think that is the case, but I did consider it.

2. Jimmy Ryan - I'm not sure what else to say. I still think we haven't adequately accounted for the hitting position players of the 1890s.

3. George Van Haltren - Before I was discounting his Win Shares too much for his pitching. Maybe he should be above Ryan.

4. Hugh Duffy - I guess the CF glut has just taken over the top of my ballot. Every time I do a re-analysis, Duffy or Ryan turns out to be slightly in front of the other and it flip-flops each time. Now Ryan has the slight edge.

5. Tommy Leach - Another point towards the CF glut. I guess he is my type of player, lots of career Win Shares. 3b was still a key defensive position while he was playing there, so the defensive Win Shares make sense.

6. Jake Beckley - Hard to ignore his entire career. Even though the peak is not very high, he was still often the best first baseman. Moved up slightly this year.

7. Gavvy Cravath - I'm right now giving him a middling bump up for his missed years (about half a full year) but could give him more.

8. Clark Griffith - I have now realized pitchers are a little underrepresented so Griffith moves up a slot. Also when it came time to say who belongs in he had the strongest case.

9. Harry Hooper - Yes, he doesn't have much peak. However, his career is strong. Yes, he doesn't look like the best outfielder of his era. However, OF in the AL in those years is loaded.

10. George J. Burns - All those walks. Kind of like Sheckard lite. Very close in value to Hooper. Hooper has a little more from the longer career and playing in the stronger league. Burns
has the higher peak.

11. Larry Doyle - Definitely questions about his defense. Based on WS he'd probably be a couple of slots ahead. He fell a few spots, not because I dislike him more but because the others moved up.

I suspect everyone below this point is going to disappear from my ballot for a while in a few years. The others should be competitive after a little while.

12. Ed Williamson - Still a strong candidate, but of all the candidates the one who needs the strongest non-statistical boost.

13. Mike Tiernan - I always thought he was a little inferior to Thompson. The two are pretty close but that slight difference could be pretty important at this level.

14. Spotswood Poles - Not as strong as the elected NLers but given the weakness of the ballot gets a slot.

15. Wilbur Cooper - Gets a boost from underrepresentation of pitchers.

Next groups. Listed alphabetically. Like what I do with grades, I tried to find break for these groups.

16-22: Bresnahan, Chance, Childs, Evers, Konetchy, Veach and Welch.

23-26: Foster, Jennings, Mendez, and Tinker.

27-31: Monroe, Mullane, Pratt, Pike and Waddell.

1)SantopArriving at the end of the candidate drought, an easy #1 selection.
2)Doyle— His hitting is legitimately outstanding, he played 2nd base, and the competition on the ballot is not strong. C+ defender by Win Shares, terrible by WARP. My rating of Doyle I think is out of sync with the electorate because I don’t discount the NL during this time, I treat 2nd base as a defensive bonus position until 1920, and I use Win Shares defensive ratings not WARP. Compare to contemporary George Cutshaw, who was a regular 2B for 11 years with an OPS+ of 86. Doyle’s 126 OPS+ at 2B is only exceeded by Hornsby, Lajoie, Collins, Morgan, Robinson, Richardson, and Dunlap. #19 all time in innings at 2B. Regularly in the 2B defensive Win Shares leaders, WS Gold Glove in 1917. Top 10 in Win Shares 1909-12, 1915.
3)Beckley— Behind the big 3, much better than other dead-ball 1B. Win Shares best fielder at 1B in 1893, 1895, 1899, and 1900. Add in 2930 hits, with power and walks. No peak but a lot of consistent production.
4)Waddell—Waddell has a run of 7 years (1902-1908) in which he was blowing people away, striking out people at rate that is extremely high for the era. Each year allowing at least 20% fewer runs than an average pitcher, in three of those years with an ERA+ over 165. 134 ERA+ in 3000 IP is worthy, his W/L record isn’t impressive because his run support wasn’t impressive. A seven year peak for a pitcher is much more rare than a seven year peak for a hitter, I give the short peak pitchers a lot more credit than the short peak hitters.
5)Cravath— Great peak, great high minor league play.
6)Bill Monroe—Riley’s Biographical Encylopedia likes him a lot.
7)Bresnahan--Best hitting year was as a CF, not a C, so that hurts him a bit.
8)Griffith—Comp is Marichal, plus he could hit.
9)Joss—Comp is Koufax…a terrible hitter.
10)MendezI rate him right below Joss.
11)Lave Cross—great fielder. Caught some too. Only hit well in weak leagues, but still that’s a lot of career value…2645 career hits with a lot of defensive value. All time leader in Win Shares / 1000 innings at 3B.
12)Del Pratt--Well, if I like Doyle then of course I will like Pratt a little too. Good hitter and good fielder at 2B.
13)Welch— Better than Galvin. His 1885 season (44-11, 1.66 ERA, 492 IP) is a great peak year, he had 3 other great years (1884, 1888, 1889) plus another 6 good seasons. Welch played every year in the toughest league. He could hit a little (68 OPS+). Career 307-210…he deserves some of the credit for that.
14)Leach--Great fielder at both 3B and CF. Historically a unique player, if only he hit a little better. Or had stayed at 3B.
15)Cicotte—Could rank higher, but I have no enthusiasm for that.

Lip Pike-- The quality of competition was not good. I think we’ve taken enough of the 1870’s crowd.
Van HaltrenGood player, part of the OF glut with Ryan and Duffy.
RyanI place him equal with VanHaltren, which puts him off the ballot.
Hugh Duffy—Good hitter, great fielder. Duffy, Van Haltren, and Ryan are even in my estimation, but off the ballot.
Rube Foster--The discussion thread has convinced me that he was more like Joe Wood than Addie Joss. Definitely goes into the pioneer/executive wing, but as a player he faded too quickly.
Hughie Jennings—If he played SS his whole (short) career, I’d be listening. He played a lot of 1B, though. His peak is impressive but it’s just not enough career.

Top 10 missing ballot:

Childs and Bresnahan would be 16th and 17 (as they were 14th and 15th last year). I go back and forth on how much bonus credit to give Bresnahan for catcher, but I don't think it is enough to elect him. Childs was the 2B of the 1890s but that isn't enough for me to elect him. Beckley can make the same claim at 1B (well not the 90s but the later part of the decade) and has the stronger statistical case.

Welch - Pitcher may be underrepresented as a whole but I doubt it is for the 1880s. 300 wins does suggest a pretty good career, but I'm as of yet not convinced to elect a 6th pitcher from the 1880s.

Foster - I do have him as the best pitcher so far (just in front of Mendez), but he doesn't have enough career for me.

Here's my 1932 ballot. Jose Mendez and Louis Santop join my PHOM this year.

1. Louis Santop (ne) Best player to become eligible since Eddie Plank.

2. Mickey Welch (1,1,1,1,1,1) Still hanging around.

3. Jake Beckley (6,3,5,4,4,3) 2,930 reasons to vote for him.

4. Jose Mendez (ne) A bit lower than I expected. He probably had less value than Foster as a pitcher, but significantly more value as a hitter.

5. Rube Waddell (5,8,8,6,5,4) The best marbles-player to ever win 20 games.

6. Rube Foster (9,7,5)
7. Bill Monroe (15,nr,14,12,11,6)
8. Clark Griffith (11) 46 wins above team is downright antihistamine.

9. Lip Pike (13,14,12,10,8,8)
10. Roger Bresnahan (9,11,9,7,6,7)
11. George Van Haltren (14,15,13,13,12,10) Deserves to be in the Hall of Very Good

12. Spotswood Poles (11,9,9)
13. Jim McCormick (15,nr) Not quite as good as Mickey Welch, with not quite as long a career.

14. Bruce Petway (14,12) 3 catchers on my ballot? We need to induct one of these guys.
15. Cupid Childs (13)

Off-ballot:
16. Addie Joss (10,9,10,8,10,14)
17. John Donaldson
18. Tommy Leach
19. Tony Mullane (12,13,11,14,13,15)
20. Harry Hooper

21-25: Willis, Ryan, Duffy, Doyle, Cravath
26-30: Tiernan, Burns, Konetchy, Browning, Mathews
31-35: Daubert, Cicotte, Evers, Milan, Cooper
36-40: Thomas, Shively, Lyons, Buffinton, Huggins
41-45: Gardner, Veach, Will White, Bond, Pratt
46-50: Adams, Bush, Jennings, McInnis, Dauss
51-54: Vaughn, Marquard, Dave Brown, Youngs

Constitutionally-obligated comments:

22.Jimmy Ryan: I'm not sure how he slipped this low--but I also can't see ranking him ahead of anyone listed above him. I'm open to persuasion from friends of JR.

48.Hughie Jennings: I only give him credit for playing about 9.5 seasons, which is too short for me. His black ink total of 0 leaves me critical of his "peak."

Charlie Jones ... First really good Deep Southerner (first Deep Southerner of any type?)

IIRC, it was noted earlier that his family moved north when he was still a boy. Similar story for Parisian Bob.

Well, that's interesting. Thanks for the info, jimd.

Mainly WARP3, with some Win Shares emphasis to my analysis. OPS+ and RA+ (basically ERA+ with an eye out for high unearned run totals) are also used as a sanity check.

This ballot's really Negro League heavy (shocking coming from me, I'm sure). I think that's reasonable, the quality of Negro Leaguer added to our ballots recently has been a great deal higher than the quality of major leaguer.

1. Louis Santop (new) - Easy #1 on this ballot. First vote I've ever given to a catcher in any ballot position (I joined after Charlie Bennett was elected). Great hitter for a little while. Not an exceedingly long career, but damn good career length taking into account that he was a catcher.

2. Andrew Foster (--,11,11,10,7,1,1) - High peak, plenty of career. Chris Cobb's excellent work only confirms my impression.

3. Hughie Jennings (--,--,--,--,--,2,2) - The argument I used for Caruthers all those years works even better for Hughie. Crammed so much value into a short career that he's more valuable than guys with productive careers twice or three times as long.

4. Hugh Duffy (--,--,--,--,--,--,3) - Hugh was a strong hitter with a good offensive peak and a hell of a defender. A+ rating from Win Shares, despite playing more corner than center? Sign me up. Not sure what I was (or wasn't) looking at before on him.

5. Mike Griffin (--,--,--,--,--,--,4) - About the same level hitter as Duffy, just not quite as long of a peak. Very nice defender, too, almost entirely in center.

6. Bobby Veach (5) - Sort of a Jennings/Caruthers-lite case. Superficial career numbers only good, but much better when you realize most of that value came in a compressed period.

7. Spotswood Poles (9,8,9) - A slightly lesser Pete Hill. Moves up a little, my placement of him was outdated with the various system changes the last couple years.

8. Fielder Jones (9,8,8,8,10,9,6) - Now that a second system confirms his placement, I'm pretty comfortable with Fielder here. I guess I like defense more than the group as a whole, but he had 4 really nice seasons in a nice career.

9. Jose Mendez (new) - Very similar to Waddell pitching-wise. His hitting moves him to one spot above him.

10. Rube Waddell (--,--,--,15,--,--,7) - Takes over for Griffith as my top MLB pitcher project. ERA+ overrates him because of his unearned runs, but love, love, love the strikeouts. Deserves more credit for his run prevention that other pitchers of that time because of them.

11. George Van Haltren (6,5,3,3,3,7,8) - Suffers in comparison to the similar guys ahead of him because he simply didn't have the same number of high-calibre years to go with his long productive career. I still like him a lot, though.

12. Dobie Moore (new) - If you like Hughie Jennings, you should like Dobie. Peak not as high as Hughie's, but more value outside of it if you give any credit at all for his army years. Much lower than Jennings on my ballot because his value isn't as concentrated.

13. Lave Cross (--,--,--,--,--,13,10) - A player I was overcorrecting for on my earlier ballots. Never a great hitter, but an amazing fielder at what was a critical position in his day. And he did this seemingly forever.

14. Cupid Childs (14,14,13,11,11,6,11) - Bumps back down some; WARP doesn't like his best years as much as they did before, and a further analysis from me agrees. Not as much career as Cross, better peak, but not quite enough better.

15. Bill Monroe (--,--,14,12,12,11,12) - I like to see more hitting and a better peak from my NLers than what I see from Monroe, but he still had a very nice career that is not to be overlooked.


Harry

Jimmy



Top 10 Returners not on my ballot

22. Clark Griffith - I had been giving him something of a bump, because I wasn't comfortable with a ballot with 14 hitters and one pitcher. Under the new system, Waddell gets his spot above on his own merits, and Griffith's numbers suffered a little. This is where he landed.

23. Lip Pike - My main problem with Lip is that his best years are clustered away from the late 60s years he needs credit for to get on my ballot. Not really that far off the ballot, valuewise, these guys are clumped together pretty close. I probably should revisit him before he gets lost in my backlog.

26. Jake Beckley - Lotta career, but never really that great of a player. Complete lack of peak.

19. Roger Bresnahan - OK, I like him quite a bit more under the new system. Not quite enough to vote for him, mind you, but I don't think he'd be a huge mistake (Beckley, on the other hand, would). Catcher bonus gets him here.

17. Jimmy Ryan - Geez, half the returning top 10 not on my ballot. Anyway, Ryan's been on my ballot every year before this one. Just been passed by too many other OFs due in large part to the WARP3 changes, for better or worse.

16-20: Hooper (14), Ryan (7,6,6,5,5,5,15), McGraw, Bresnahan, Thomas
21-25: Tiernan, Griffith (13,10,10,9,8,10,--), Pike (12,12,12,--,--,--,--), Leach (15,15,13,13,14,--,--), Burns
26-30: Beckley (--,--,--,14,15,--,--), Browning, Willis, Bond, Buffinton

37. Williams (--,--,--,--,--,12,--)
38. Pratt (15,--)

Using OWP, playing time, and defense (Win Shares/BP) for position players, applied to .500 baseline. Using Runs Saved Above Average and Support Neutral Fibonacci Wins for Pitchers.

1. JOHN McGRAW, 3B. .727 OWP. 459 RCAP. 4,909 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Was CAREER ALL-TIME OBP% leader until Ruth qualifies in 1923, EVEN adjusting for League, and is STILL #3 behind Williams and Ruth. AND he played 3B, where offensive output was generally very low.

2. PETE BROWNING, CF/LF. .745 OWP. 478 RCAP. 5,315 PAs. Def: POOR. Baseball’s premier hitter in the 1880’s. Much better hitter than Thompson.

3. HUGHIE JENNINGS, SS. .607 OWP. 263 RCAP. 5,650 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Best SS of the 1890’s. Great offensively and defensively.

4. DOBE MOORE, SS. Estimated batting career very similar to Jennings, but little evidence that he was quite as good as Jennings defensively.

5. ROGER BRESNAHAN, C. .651 OWP. 282 RCAP, 5,373 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Best Catcher between Ewing and Cochrane/Dickey.

6. LOUIS SANTOP, C. Estimated 120 OPS+ MLE over approx. 6,673 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Cross between Wally Schang and Bill Freehan.

7. RUBE WADDELL, P. 254 RSAA, 222 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 134 ERA+ in 2,961 innings.

8. FRANK CHANCE, 1B. .720 OWP. 308 RCAP. 5,099 PAs. Def: VERY GOOD. Excellent hitter and good fielder back when 1st base was MUCH more important defensively.

9. CUPID CHILDS, 2B. .609 OWP. 354 RCAP. 6,762 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Best 2nd baseman of the 1890’s.

10. BILL MONROE, 2B. Estimated 115 OPS+ over 8,276 PA’s. Def: VERY GOOD. Comps are Hack, Alomar, and Sandberg.

11. LARRY DOYLE, 2B .632 OWP, 273 RCAP, 7,382 PA’s. Def: FAIR. Best hitting 2B between Lajoie and Hornsby. Won MVP in 1912, finished 3rd in 1911. Finished in Top 10 in OPS+ 8 times.

12. LIP PIKE, CF. Perhaps best hitting CF of the 1870’s. Similar to Hack Wilson.

13. BRUCE PETWAY, C. Estimated 102 OPS+ over 5,739 PA's. Best Negro Leagues Catcher of the 1910’s. Def: EXCELLENT. An Elston Howard/Sherman Lollar comp.

14. SPOTWOOD POLES, CF Estimated 117 OPS+ over 8,331 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Oscar Charleston and Pete Hill the only Negro League contemporary outfielders that were better. Comp somewhere around Cesar Cedeno.

15. MIKE TIERNAN, RF. .678 OWP, 350 RCAP. 6,722 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Compared to Van Haltren’s .620 OWP, 167 RCAP, and average defense, Tiernan looks superior.

LEFT OFF THE BALLOT:

NEWBIES:

ROSS YOUNGS, RF. . .653 OWP, 192 RCAP. 5,333 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. HOF selection often criticized, but Youngs WAS a great player, typically the best NL RF over his career. Career just falls a little short.

WILBUR COOPER, P. 167 RSAA, 181 Neutral Fibonacci Win Points, and 116 ERA+ over 3,480 innings. Just doesn’t quite compare to the elite pitchers.

BABE ADAMS, P. 153 RSAA, 167 Neutral Fibonacci Win Points, and 117 ERA+. Singlehandedly won 1909 Series, but late start in career dooms him to missing HOM.

JOSE MENDEZ, P. Similar to Smoky Joe Wood. Like Wood, has some really great years early in his career, and like Wood changed positions due to arm problems (age 25 for Wood, 27 for Mendez, OF for Wood, SS for Mendez) and was never really a star player after that. I don’t think his best years were quite as good as Wood’s, and not sure he was really better than teammate Dolph Luque, so he falls short on the ballot.

RETURNEES:

RUBE FOSTER, P. Great for awhile, but not sure how much he actually pitched in many years. Have him comped with David Cone and Bret Saberhagen for now.

GEORGE VAN HALTREN, CF. .620 OWP. 167 RCAP. 8,992 PAs. Def: FAIR. A notch below Tiernan.

CLARK GRIFFITH, P. 256 RSAA, 199 Neut. Fibonacci Wins, and 121 ERA+ in 3,385 innings. He’s really not all that far away from McGinnity, but not that far from Silver King either.

JAKE BECKLEY, 1B. .596 OWP. 245 RCAP. 10,492 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. A very good for a long time player.

JIMMY RYAN, CF/RF. .609 OWP. 205 RCAP. 9,114 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Not quite up to top OF hitters, and only average defense won’t move him up.

HUGH DUFFY, CF/LF. .623 OWP. 154 RCAP. 7,838 PAs. Def: VERY GOOD. Just not in the elite OF class offensively.

TOMMY LEACH, CF/3B. .552 OWP, 121 RCAP, 9,051 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT – 3B, VERY GOOD – CF. Just slightly below Collins defensively, and he played longer. Basically did everything well, but doesn’t have the one outstanding area to get noticed.

TONY MULLANE, P. 241 RSAA, 240 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 118 ERA+ in 4,531(!) innings. He could hit a little too. Had a very good career AND some really good individual seasons. AA discount keeps him from being on ballot.

MICKEY WELCH, P. 179 RSAA, 225 Neutral Fibonacci Win Points, 113 ERA+ in 4,802 innings. I don’t see the basis for all the support he seems to be getting. Even if you GRANT he somehow “pitched to the score” where others didn’t (highly dubious) the adjustment for the few games where that MIGHT have happened can’t bridge the large gap in performance between Welch and the already elected pitchers.

HARRY HOOPER, RF. .574 OWP. NEGATIVE 15 RCAP. 10,242 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Nice long career, but not enough offense to match up with other candidates.

CHARLEY JONES, LF. .697 OWP. 245 RCAP. 3,958 PA’s. Def: VERY GOOD. Not quite the hitter Tiernan was, and didn’t play that long.

BOBBY VEACH, LF. .610 OWP. 96 RCAP. 7,560 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Some really good years, but not enough for a LF HOM’er.

EDDIE CICOTTE, P. 183 RSAA, 209 Neut. Fibonacci Wins, and 123 ERA+ in 3,223 Innings. Not all that far from McGinnity in value/performance.

4. DOBE MOORE, SS.

Kevin, are you required to have one misspelled name at all times? :-D

John (Don't Call Me Grandma) Murphy wrote:

I gave him a little more credit for his (unfairly) blacklisted years.

As a newbie here, I feel like I'm walking into the middle of a conversation that's been going on for a couple of years. So please excuse me if I'm asking a question that everyone knows the answer to. I've been looking over Charley Jones's statistics this week, and they are certainly quite impressive. But I'm not an expert on early basedball and don't know about his "blacklisted years." I wonder if you can point me to someplace to learn about them, and about why you believe that they were unfair.

Thanks.

Here's one on Charley Jones.

This page has changed since about a year ago as it originally had a story about Jones suing Boston and obtaining a judgement in Ohio, garnishing gate receipts to get his back pay.

Other versions I've heard mention that the dispute was over a payday that occurred while on a road trip. The club customarily did not pay the players until they got back home (didn't carry a lot of cash and I have no idea how well checks worked in the 1870's/80's). Charley wanted his money on the date due according to the contract (allegedly for alcohol) and jumped the club when he wasn't paid.

I've read enough variations to wonder what the full story was.

But I'm not an expert on early basedball and don't know about his "blacklisted years." I wonder if you can point me to someplace to learn about them, and about why you believe that they were unfair.


Nemec's 19th century encyclopedia writes in the 1880 chapter:

"The 1880 seaton brought the first standard player contracts that contained a reserve clause."

<reserve clause details omitted>

"A natural outgrowth of the Reserve Clause was a sharp drop in player salaries. The Boston Red Caps were particularly quick to seize upon the new device as a tool for imprisoning players and slashing their pay for any offense the front office deemed punishable. In 1880, once Boston was out of the running, owner Arthur Soden, the creator of the Reserve Clause, suspended Charley Jones. Drunkenness and insubordination were the reasons alleged for the suspension, but in fact, the high-paid Jones had had the temerity to refuse to wait for his paycheck, as was customary, until the club returned home from a road trip. Jones, the League's slugging leader in 1879, was subsequently blacklisted by Soden, with the support of Soden's fellow moguls. He never played in the League again."

Thank you, Jim and David.

Brent:

We're encouraged to "fill in the gaps" for players who were denied the opportunity to play beyond their control (military draft, segregation, etc.)

I also take into account the higher attrition level for players back then. I give the earlier players a little boost because they didn't play as long during the 19th century. Even though were outliers such as Anson or O'Rourke, the majority of players had shortened careers when compared to 20th century and beyond players.

John,

It looks like Jones played to an "old" age by the standards of the time, but it also looks like he had a late start, not showing up in the NA until he was 25. Do you know anything about his early years?

1932 ballot. This isn't a week for big shakeups for me; that will start with the next ballot.
1. Louis Santop (new) There is a reasonably persuasive case for him - and face, it, the competition isn't exactly stiff.
2. George Van Haltren (10, 9, 8, 2, 1) No great enthusiasm for this choice - he gets here by attrition. As "peakless" careers go, he's got substantially more offensive peak than the likes of Beckley or Hooper. Not much pitching value (and it was a whole lot easier to be a pitcher-hitter before 1893 than after), but what little pitching there is serves as a tiebreaker among similar candidates.
3. Jimmy Ryan (8, 7, 6, 3, 2) Nearly indistinguishable from Van Haltren. 24rd year on my ballot.
4. Larry Doyle (3, 3, 2, 5, 3) Big hitter in low scoring times - nearly as good a hitter as the available outfielders. Mediocre defense, but occupied the position for a long time. I must not be a believer in the NL discount.
5. Hugh Duffy (9, 8, 7, 4, 4) 26th year on my ballot.
6. Rube Waddell (7, 6, 4, 6, 5) I continue to see him as the best available pitcher. This week's discussion doesn't change much for me, but it doesn't hurt him.
7. Roger Bresnahan (11, 10, 9, 8, 6) Very good offense for a catcher; not enough if we think of him as an outfielder.
8. Gavy Cravath (8, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7) In the system I use, the biggest offensive peak of anyone other than Chance (well, maybe Tiernan). Yes, he took unique advantage of his park, but real wins resulted from that. Seriously lacking in bulk unless you also consider his work in Minneapolis.
9. Jose Mendez (new) Still feeling for his place - behind Waddell but ahead of any other pitcher feels about right.
10. Mickey Welch (15, 14, 11, 5, 7, 8) The more I learn, the more confused I get. I'm noticing renewed support for McCormick and Mullane - recognition that there's not much between them and Welch and Caruthers?
11. Jake Beckley (20, 19, 18, 10, 11) No peak, long career. But still more peak than Hooper.
12. Frank Chance (16, 15, 13, 11, 10) I could have him higher; huge offensive seasons, discounted for his lack of playing time.
13. George J. Burns (----, 11) My new favorite leadoff hitter, ahead of Thomas and Hartsel. (See also the NBJHBA.)
14. Vic Willis (13, 12, 11, 12, 12) I could reasonably have him right up there with Waddell.
15. Andrew Foster (23, 21, 21, 19, 13) Maybe a longer effective career than I had been giving him credit for.
16. Harry Hooper (----, 14) Less peak than Van Haltren, less peak than Beckley - it's sheer length of career as a good player that gets him on this thin ballot.
17. Babe Adams (new) All the energy I spent this week talking him up, and this is the best I can do for him. Oh, well.
18. Herman Long (-, 25, 15, 14, 15) The key man in a great team defense. Scored some runs, too - twice over 100 R*.
19. Joe Tinker (19, 18, 14, 13, 16) Defense at SS does matter.
20. Clark Griffith (18, 17, 17, 17, 17) RA+ PythPat of 203-146.
21. Bobby Veach (----, 18)
22. Wilbur Cooper (new)
23. Roy Thomas (17, 16, 16, 15, 19)
24. Johnny Evers (15, 14, 12, 16, 20)
25. Spotswood Poles (-, 20, 18, 21)
26. Hughie Jennings (24, 22, 22, 20, 22)

There are some side issues on the Jones case that I'd like to ask about. Any historians in the house who can help out? When did checks become accepted in American life (probably different answers for cashier's checks, payroll and other corporate checks, and personal checks). How did a traveling baseball team in the 1880's pay its hotel and railroad bills? And after the Jones case, did the teams put language in the standard player contract about the time and manner of payment?

Brent:

I know he played baseball before 1875, but have no idea where. Details are very sketchy about his life (in fact, we're not even sure when he died).

I don't give him any credit prior to the NA, BTW.

When did checks become accepted in American life?

I located a speech by Alan Greenspan that talks about the history of banking and says, "in the 1840s and 1850s the use of checks spread rapidly to shopkeepers, mechanics and professional men." I suspect, however, that in the 1880s it may not have been easy to cash an out-of-state check.

Details are very sketchy about his life (in fact, we're not even sure when he died).


Nemec has this to say in a photo caption in the 19th century encyclopedia:

-- Charley Jones, the NL's premier slugger until he was blackballed in 1880. At one time he was believed to have been killed by lightning in 1910. Lee Allen, who found Jones's disappearance "the most absorbing story" he'd ever encountered, proved the lightning tale was apocryphal. Jones's death date and place are still a mystery. --

Almost certainly the reason we don't know where Charley met his demise is the commonness of his name. It's easy to search old public records for someone named Spotswood Poles; for someone named Charles Jones it's nigh well impossible.

Keep up the good work, gents. I'm enjoying reading your threads.

New Candidates Not On Ballot: (Alphabetically)

Babe Adams: Not a high enough peak, long enough prime, or long enough career. Only 5 seasons with 20+WS.
Pittsburgh seemed to come up with pitchers who could win about 55%-70% of their games and a little over 20 in a good year whenever they needed (minors or trade). Go to BB-Ref and see Babe Adams, Lefty Leifield, Sam Leever, Deacon Phillippe, Jack Chesbro, Vic Willis, Jesse Tannehill, and Wilbur Cooper. Rube Waddell spent a year with them. All pitched for the Pirates between 1900 and 1926. It is an amazing collection of pitching talent.

Wilbur Cooper: Nice prime and peak. Good totals for All Stars. Did this for the Pirates during their trough between pennants. Could move up upon comparison with other pitchers who come eligible.

Hooks Dauss: No peak, no prime. He did have horrible defensive support, but no.

Stuffy McInnis: Unless defense is 75% of the game and your pitching staff consists of Hershiser, Kevin Brown, and three other sinkerballers, he will have to pay to enter the HoM.

Ross Youngs: Good peak, good prime, very good WS/162 games. Unfortunate he had Bright's disease. But same about Addie Joss.

Dobie Moore: I just need a longer prime - see Hughie Jennings. He reminds me of Robert Johnson in that his career ended due to involvement with a woman. Moore - when he broke his leg jumping out a window to get away from his wife- and Johnson - who supposedly died from drinking lemonade that was poisened by the husband of a woman he had been seeing.

Thanks for setting this up John!

It was on my list of things to do - yesterday and it was missed, sorry guys . . .

12. Sam Leever (N/A) Vaults onto ballot owing to upcoming pitcher dearth. 194-100 and an ERA+ of 123 get him above Van Haltren and Ryan, there being no outfielder dearth. Only 2660 innings, but appears to have been blocked till 27 by the one-league 1890s. Much better ERA+ than Tannehill, and W/L pct close to record territory. Believe he needs to be looked at seriously by others, and included in pitcher analysis.

I'm not sure what you mean by "blocked till 27 by the one-league 1890s." He certainly played well enough in the one league 1899 and 1900. I have Gavy Cravath on my ballot, so I am not averse to voting for the wrongfully excluded, but is there any evidence that Leever was tearing up the minors in the years before 1898, but couldn't get a fair break on a team that could find room for 150 innings of Jim Hughey in 1897? It's not like he was trapped behind Kid Nichols or anything. Pittsburgh's entire rotation for the decade has already been inducted into the little known "Hall of Average."

PHoM this year: Louis Santop and Dobie Moore.


1. George Van Haltren (1,3,4) PHoM 1912. The oldest induction not yet ratified by the HoM.

I'm afriad that may have been his best shot last year.

2. Rube Foster (2,4,7) PHoM 1930.

Clearly deserving of entry.

3. Louis Santop (new) PHoM 1932

I was asked a while back if I could see ever putting a catcher at #1 (when people were debating the undeserving (imo) CHarlie Bennett).

This is as close as I have gotten.

4. Mickey Welch (4,5,5) PHoM 1929. This was the year my PHoM really started diverging from the main stream version.


He is riding a wave. I hope it doesn't crest short, like GVH seems to have done.

5. Jake Beckley (3,6,6) PHoM 1913. Holding on nearly as long as GVH.

In the fight were the #2 spot.

6. Lip Pike (6,7,8)

7. Jimmy Ryan (8,9,9) PHoM 1914.

Similar to GVH, but not quite there.

8. Tommy Leach (9,10,12) PHoM 1921.

The overlooked man.

9. Dobie Moore (new) PHoM 1932

The underrated newcomer.

10. Harry Hooper (5,x,x) PHoM 1931

I overranked him last week.

11. Hugh Duffy (11,11,14) PHoM 1930.

12. Spotswood Poles (12,14,11) PHoM 1929.

13. Bill Monroe (10,12,13)

14. Clark Griffith (13,13,15)

15. Cupid Childs (14,15,x)

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

Phillybooster, Sam appears to have been teaching school in Goshen, Ohio. He was clearly prime major league quality in 1898-99, so my guess is, the low salaries and labor arguments earlier in the decade didn't attract him to baseball. It would be good if one of you real experts knows more than I do. It's a little like Thompson -- you shouldn't give him credit for years that don't exist, but at the same time, add any reasonably plausible years 23-26 to his resume, and he's a Tier 1 HOM'er. A missing 23-26 is much more likely to have added quality to his stats than a missing 33-36, of course.

Incidentally, unless some expert can prove me wrong, Leever stands as Exhibit 1 for my contention that 90s baseball was lower not higher quality than 80s. Lower salaries and fewer opportunities kept out not just marginal players but also potential stars. I wrote a few "years" ago that those with decent blue collar or white collar alternative opportunities would be driven away from baseball by the lower money and unattractive environment in the early and mid 90s; here's an example of it.

I've done some tinkering with the ballot, but have resisted my bubbling desire to completely revamp. Major difference is that I've significantly reevaluated the pitchers (see posts on pitchers thread) and find fewer of them ballot worthy but more of them worthy of the 15-30 slots.

(1) Louis Santop (new)-- Case for him is solid. Ranks behind Gibson/Bench/Cochrane/Berra class but solidly in the Hartnett/Dickey/Carter/Ewing category. An easy #1.

(2) Cupid Childs (2nd)-- In comparing position players to HoMers at their position, he's the only excluded player who I think clearly belongs in the HoM. Great peak, good longevity for the time, one of the top 10 hitters ever to play 2B, and a slightly above average fielder.

(3) George Van Haltren (1st)-- I hope I don't cost him election by dropping him out of the money slots, but what can you do? Just misses on our current standards, but if we only elect guys who meet those standards we'll be about 30 HoMers short. I'd like to fill a substantial percentage of those 30 slots with the likes of him: great career totals, incredible consistency at a high level of play, broad based talent, overlooked by history.

(4) Hughie Jennings (3rd)-- The other kind of candidate to fill those last slots in the HoM. Being the best player in the game for more than a few weeks is a rare chit among this group.

(5) Jimmy Ryan (4th)-- Nothing to add. Roughly equivalent career value to VH but too much of it earned in useless dribs and drabs.

(6) Frank Chance (7th)--When adjusted for his time and place, a truly great offensive player, a major defensive contributor, a good baserunner, a legendary clubhouse presence, and the indispensable glue of arguably the greatest team ever. Wish he'd played longer, but would still take his career over any of the above. (Moved him over Pike after reading this comment and the one that follows.)

(7) Lip Pike (5th)-- Still not sure that he's not conning us or that his era needs another inductee, but his combination of skills and his Thompson/Tiernan/Browning level offensive performance lands him here.

(8) Hugh Duffy (8th)--Holding steady.

(9) Jake Beckley (15th)-- Hope I'm not costing VH by this move, but you guys have convinced me to treat 1B as at least equal in defensive value to corner OF. VH and Ryan rank ahead of him primarilly on the value of their games in CF.

(10) Roger Bresnahan (10th)--Ranks better against Santop than I would have guessed.

(11) Larry Doyle (9th)-- Could see him anywhere from 3rd to 25th depending on the assunmptions you make about the NL, the quality of his defense, and the value of playing a key defensive position adequately but below average.

(12) Charley Jones (6th)--A very good defensive OF when young and a top-tier bat for awhile, he has a lot of chits. But he didn't make the bigs until late, played mostly corner OF, and loses about 15 EQA points to league adjustments. In the end, similar to Hugh Duffy if you give him full credit for the blacklist years. I give him 75% credit or so, since he WAS a pain in the ass for management.

(13) John McGraw (12th)-- Could rank with Chance, but falls here b/c/ fewer of the missed games were by choice and b/c/ his skills were more one-dimensional.

(14) Vic Willis (not ranked)-- The best of a tightly bunched group of pitchers. (See pitcher thread for more explanation.)

(15) Bobby Veach (14th)-- Repeat what I said, last week: if you are going to be a second-tier star, better to be second-tier to Cobb, Speaker, Collins, etc. than to nearly any other group.

Next 5 in order:
(16) Fred Dunlap--I need to use a very big era discount to keep him off the ballot.
(17) Mickey Welch--Gets lots of subjective credit for being the kind of bulldog frontline starter that loves to go up against the other team's best.
(18) Jose Mendez--Great peak. Pitching numbers rival Waddell's except he was a good hitting pitcher and versatile team-guy while Waddell was a sad, lonely headache of a child.
(19) Ed Williamson (13th)--When the going gets tough, loses his ballot spot to guys with higher peaks or longer careers.
(20) Wilbur Cooper--Lots of very good seasons, some good grey ink; competition among NL pitchers not so great during his era.

Next 15 alphabetically:
Browning, Cicotte, Cravath, Foster, Griffin, Griffith (10th), Fielder Jones, Joss, Konetchy, Leach, Monroe, Poles, Tiernan, Vaughn, Waddell.

Foster is off my ballot b/c/ his calcuated WS depend too much on projections of how much he would have pitched in the majors rather than how well he would have pitched. I'm sure he was a good major league pitcher, but he could just as easily have been Jack Powell as Vic Willis. On his pitching, I've got him about 35th. He jumps to the early 20's based on his hitting.

Don't know if I have to explain Waddell or not, but it is easy to do so: he's not enough better than the other top pitching candidates to make babysitting for him and losing him in the middle of every other season worth the headache. A character: absolutely. A tragedy: probably. An Homer: not a chance.

Ross Youngs is a nice player; ranks somewhere around 45th.

Dobie Moore is an interesting case, but looks more like a George Davis level hitter with one bigger year with the bat than an ARod-Vaughn-Banks type bat. If you are going to make my top 30 based on a 5-yearish career, you better hit like those guys and win a GG or hit like Moore did and field like Jennings and Ozzie. He's around 50th.

I decided to cast a short ballot this year, dispensing with the old exhibits. In 1932, Louis Santop looks like our next Negro league electee. In 1933 we slam dunk The Big Train, while Wheat and Groh contribute to the best newbie class in ten years. The class of 1934 is probably the best we’ll ever see, with four of the top 25(?) players in history (Cobb-Speaker-Collins-Lloyd), another great Black star (Torriente) plus one great, and another near-great pitcher (Williams-Covaleski).

1)Louis Santop - As close to no-brainer status as any Negro league candidate we’ve seen thus far. That will soon change.

2) Lip Pike (2,3,3) –If the HoM is about respect for all eras, then Pike is a “n-b”. Our Hall has only two 1870’s outfielders (Or none; Hines and O’Rourke had careers that actually centered in the 80’s). Charley Jones and Tom York are in a bit lower class, as well as a bit later era, having little or no pre-NA play. Extremely fast and the game’s top power-hitter for about a decade. He had a higher OPS+ than McVey, 155 to 152. Also had a longer career at the highest level (1866-78) than McVey (1869-79). I don’t see any big difference that makes one a HoMer and the other bottom/off-ballot. Maybe Marc/Sunnyday2 can rebut the posts popping up again impugning Lip’s character(?)

The rest of these guys wouldn’t be bad HoMers, but I can’t justify ranking any of them among the top two, above my personal “Clearly deserving” line.

3) George Van Haltren (3,4,5)—The 1932 election may be his last, best shot at induction. As to why he rates above Ryan: he excelled in the contraction years 1892-1900, a period lagging in HoM representation; he has higher SB totals (35-40 vs. 25-30 per year in their primes), which I believe was more significant pre-1920; he was a mainly a centerfielder (~71.7% of his non-pitching games vs. ~47.6% for Ryan), Ryan actually played more corner outfield.

4) Tommy Leach (4,5,6) – Excelled at everything except hitting for power. With 3B and CF lagging in HoM members, you’d think he’d get more attention. If you’re a FOBW, I don’t think you can ignore this guy. Question of league quality knocks him back a couple pegs, otherwise really close to Wallace. Had a better peak than Bobby, but his career was a couple years shorter and he had just a little less defensive value. Among OFers with 750 games 1905-14, he is 2nd in PO/G (behind Speaker) and 2nd in FA (behind Clarke).

5)Clark Griffith (5,7,8) – The #4 pitcher of his era, behind three first-balloters, but far ahead of #5. Gets extra credit for excelling in the contraction years 1892-1900, an era lagging in number of HoMers. Could hit a little, too.

6) Jimmy Ryan (6,6,7)—Played well for St. Paul in Western Lg in 1901. Nice career.

7) Roger Bresnahan (7,8,9) – Even with Santop, catcher is easily the most poorly represented position in the HOM, a condition that may prove to be chronic. Could move higher, but I really like guys who play. Played half his teams’ games in only 11 seasons, averaging 71% of team games in those years. Still, his offensive production towers over other catchers of his era, so he deserves a vote. Lacking Bennett’s durability and longevity. Defense only C+.

8)Harry Hooper (8,ne,ne) – Per adjusted win shares, his peak was better than Beckley’s. I see him at 34.5 for the abbreviated 1918 season. His 27.4 in 1916 is also better than Jake’s best, 26.6 in 1890. A couple bulk seasons at the end of his career in a weak NL give Beckley 28 more career AWS.

9)Jake Beckley (9,9,11) – He’s Joe Start, but without a peak and retired four years sooner. Grade B fielder, won four WS GG. The many triples are a product of a strange park in Pittsburgh; his other stats do not suggest good foot speed. Hit only 34 of 86 career homes at home.
Beckley's RBI total is still the 8th best all-time among firstbasemen. Besides Anson (#1 all-time) there's Gehrig, Foxx, Murray, Palmeiro, Perez and Killebrew ahead of Beckley. McCovey and McGriff round out the top ten. Bagwell and Thomas figure to join this group next season.

10)Hugh Duffy (10,10,12)– A WHOLE lot was context. Not a long career (12.4 yrs) for a corner OF, I’m coming around to the consensus view of him. Hit 82 of his 106 career HRs at home.

11)Ed Williamson (11,11,13) – Too similar to HoMer Collins to be too far off the radar. I think anyone who gives a bump for underrepresented positions needs to give Ed a serious look.

12)Hughie Jennings (12,12,14) – He excelled in the contraction years 1892-1900, a period lagging in HoM representation. I’m still struggling with how to balance an awesome peak with an abbreviated career. I tried to find a retired player from the past 50 years with a similar career path, but there doesn’t seem to be one. I looked for players with 110 AWS in their top three years and less than 350 AWS for their career. Jennings top ten seasons in AWS, as I have it: 45-36-36/-35-30-/15-13/-12-11-10=242. Career total 254 AWS. For peak, I use a top-weighted seven-year average, which works out to 34.2 for Hughie.
Dick Allen was about the best comp I found. Ten best AWS: 42-41-35/-33-32/-29-29/-24-22-19=306. Career total 344 AWS. Peak 36.3. Ryne Sandberg is another: 38-37-34/-33-28/-28-22/-20-20-19=279. Career 346. Peak 33.5.
Those two are clearly HoMers. Just as clearly they are not good comps for Jennings, as they maintained a star-level of play (+18 WS) for many more years.
Is there any good evidence that Jennings’ defense wasn’t as brilliant as WS makes it out to be?

13) Mickey Welch (13,14,--) – Stays on my ballot, he’s among those due to be knocked back off in 1934. Longevity OK, done by age 32, good for that era. Racked up lots of Gray Ink. I really can’t discern any large value difference between him and other 1880’s pitchers McCormick and Caruthers. Or deadball pitchers Waddell and Willis, for that matter.

14)Jim McCormick (14,15,--) – We voted McCormick ahead of Welch 1905-16 and I think there were good reasons for it that no one remembers. Also, ahead of Caruthers 1909-13.

15)Rube Foster (15,--,--) – I think it's been clarified that voter should not give him credit for his stellar non-playing achievements. Discussion of him earns a ballot spot; evidence points to a better career than Waddell. Rapidly rising support from the electorate – he may pass the GVH-Beckley-Pike group for election in 1932. That would be unfortunate--players with a high degree of uncertainty concerning their value should run the gauntlet.

Cupid Childs has been on my ballot before and is probably next in line. In 1931 he received more down-ballot support than anyone; exactly half of his 40 votes came in the #10-15 spots. Four years earlier, on a ballot that now includes eight HoMers, CC was named on only 15 of the 49 ballots, so his support will suffer more than most in 1934.

A little more work with the Negro League candidates brings Monroe northward and Poles too. The presence of two new candidates knocks Griffin off my ballot.

1. Luis Santop (X): Best newbie we’ve seen in a while, best catcher we’ve seen since Ewing/Bennett/Kelly, an easy #1.

2. George Van Haltren (2): Nice, long career helped him generate plenty of value, but flat peak keeps him out of the top spot. That said, he’s not as flat in peak as the likes of Beckley. I’m not thrilled about him as the #2 guy.

3. Spotswood Poles (7): Poles seems like another member of the Van Ryanffy family, but after working closely this past week with the Negro Leaguer numbers, I prefer him to all but GVH in the group. I do give him credit for missing the 1918 season.

4. Cupid Childs (4): Best second baseman of 1890s, peak not as high as Jennings, but he had a career, not just a peak like Hughie.

5. Bill Monroe (12): Working with the translations, he comes out as having the best career value among eligible second basemen, though less peak/prime value than Childs. In his own NgL 2B rankings, James says that Monroe “could rate higher,” and I agreed this week.

6. Bobby Veach (3): Nice peak/prime player, but once his NB contemporaries come due, he’ll be forgotten about. As someone said earlier, being second-tier in a league with Cobb, Crawford, Speaker, Ruth, Collins, ain’t worth sneezin’ at. I had him a little higher last week that I probably ought to have.

7. Hughie Jennings (6): Hug(h)e peak, the best among position players, goes a long way to establishing value, and winning five pennants. But being Ruthian for five years doesn’t mean as much when coupled to a near total lack of surrounding value, so I can’t get behind him any more strongly than this.

8. Jimmy Ryan (5): I prefer GVH, SP, and BV.

9. Jose Mendez (X): I love the big peak, it gives his profile enough oomph to outrank Griffith and Foster when combined with some good shoulder years that militate against the dead-arm period.

10. Clark Griffith (9): The sly old Fox ends up ahead of other peak/prime guys without heavy career value. Griffith benefits, in my view, from better strength of competition than his predecessors like Jim McCormick, but also surpasses successors like Waddell when career, peak, and prime are all taken into consideration.

11. Rube Foster (12): Good peak, but not as good as Mendez’s. Not as much career value as Griffith. They all sort of cluster together, but they do it in this order, so here they are 8–10.

12. Duffy (10): Duffy concentrates a little more of his value into a couple peak years than the other members of his “family” but didn’t play quite as long. The peaks just weren’t high enough, however, to rise above the others.

13. Pete Browning (9): Flatter career trend line than Jennings, with slightly more career value. But although he was clearly a great hitter, I’ve come down on the side that says the 1880s were an easier time to dominate than subsequent decades/generations.

14. Charley Jones (11): I had Jones higher on my 1930 ballot, but I’m skeptical about the quality of play in 1871–1885, his salad years, so I had to drop him down a couple pegs. He was either a great player in an easy league to dominate, or a pretty good player whose league context made him look awesome. I’ve got enough questions to move him down, but the stats are good enough to keep him on the ballot.

15. Lip Pike (x): Third best player of the 1860s–70s is, to my mind, a persuasive argument for Lipman. On the other hand, I’m not willing to put him anywhere near an elect-me spot without Pearce’s combination of performance AND visionary status.

Fell off my ballot

Mike Griffin (15): Wonderful hitter with a great peak/prime during the 1890s, who never had a bad year. Walked away too early. New candidates bump him off.

Top tens that don’t make my ballot.

Jake Beckley (x): Becks Lite’s career length and totals ARE impressive, but the total lack of peak makes him seem like a background contributor, not a HOMer. An interesting question to ponder for me is How many players with 2900+ career hits will the HOM will ultimately deny? There seem likely to be only two or three players who could potentially fit that bill. Beckley is the first, and IMO his exclusion seems justified.

Roger Bresnahan (x): I’m still going back and forth on him, very divided on my feelings about his productivity rate versus his playing time, each being keenly important to his teams and his case for being a HOMer.

New guys

Dobie Moore: I gave Moore full credit for 1917–1919, and he ended up about one or two slots off my ballot. Strangely, that means his career is practically a perfect mirror of Youngs’s. Moore was a better player and so ranks many spots higher, but his peak wasn’t quite Jenningsesque enough to get onto my ballot.

Ross Youngs: Great player with terrible kidneys: he was a very productive outfielder and would probably be a Veach clone had his career been three to five years longer.

Wilbur Cooper: Kind of a tweener. Not quite the high peak I’d like to see. Not quite the career value either. A lesser Clark Griffith for the teens and twenties, and so doesn’t quite make my ballot.

Babe Adams: A truly interesting career with enough ups and downs to make a good movie about it. Gosh, I love the Tewksberryian control, but the ups are often counterbalanced by the downs which prevents me from ranking him highly.

Hooks Dauss: As someone pointed out, Dauss is the very definition of the average long-career pitcher.

Stuffy McInnis: In my version of the $100,000 infield, Collins gets $50K, Baker $48K, and Black Jack Barry and Stuffy McInnis eke out a grand each for having somewhat interesting nicknames.

I didnt post a prelim so I will post my top 30 instead of just my top 15 as I normally do. Was slow getting ballot done due to changes in warp. I wanted to integrate those changes in. The changes prove that there isnt much difference between these guys. Small changes in warp made some massive position differences. I decided to just go with it in most cases. I will try to note the radical changes where they occur.

1. Luis Santop (-) I orgininally had him 4th, but the question that moved him here was "Who would I rather see elected, Santop or Fielder Jones?".
2. Fielder Jones (12) Moved up big time. I hereby apologize for any thoughts I had about people for off the wall choices near the top of their ballot.
3. Lave Cross (5) Solidified his position.
4. Harry Hooper (2) I may have to start a John Murphy style quest to get Hooper elected. Then again, I may forget about him in a few years.
5. Bobby Veach (6) See above.
6. Cupid Childs (11) Moves up a bit, more due to guys falling past him.
7. Jimmy Ryan (3) The OF glut got hurt by the new Warp numbers.
8. Jake Beckley (4) Drops a little.
9. George VanHaltren (1) A small change made a big difference.
10. Clark Griffith (10) I chose this year as a good time to make some changes to the way I was handling pitchers. I dont use warp as much for them anyway. Didnt affect Griffith much ...
11. Rube Waddell (20) ... But it helped Waddell a lot.
12. Mike Griffin (14) Probably wont be on the ballot much longer.
13. Joe Tinker (xx) Wasnt previously making my top thirty. First vote cast for one of the three poetry men.
14. Tommy Leach (27) Another big move up.
15. Hughie Jennings (8) Bit of a fall.

16. Bresnahan (15)
17. Tiernan (21)
18. Nash (13)
19. Burns, GJ (xx)
20. Pratt (7) - I found out this week he was a fellow Ga Tech alumni. Didnt help him any.
21 Foster (23)
22. Willis (30)
23. Konetchy (19)
24. Long (9)
25. McGraw (29)
26. Huggins (xx)
27. Gardner (xx)
28. Williams (16)
29. Evers (xx)
30. Browning (xx)

Lip Pike and Pete Browning ended up tied at 30. I gave the tiebreakder to Browning based on a complete BS dump.

Err...alumnus not alumni? Makes me look like some geeky engineer without a sense for the english language. Oh wait, nevermind.

Here's Adam Schafer's ballot:

1. Mickey Welch (2) - From all of the discussion that we've had on him, I can't see NOT ranking him #1. He's not quite as good as Keefe, but then again, Glavine wasn't quite as good as Maddux. That doesn't make Glavine's career any less impressive in my opinion.

2. Louis Santop (n/a) - The first Negro Leaguer to rank so high on my ballot. I have no doubt he belongs here.

3. Clark Griffith (2) - Big jump for Griffith. All of the talk on Welch has had me reevaluate Griffith. Turns out Griffith was much more valuable than I was giving him credit for.

4. Rube Waddell (3) - The top 5 in strikeouts for 10 consecutive years. He's #10 in the all-time ERA leaders.

5. Lip Pike (4) - I bump him ahead of a couple others this year as I am convinced he was a bigger stud than I was willing to let myself believe. I can see him finally getting in one of these days.

6. George Van Haltren (5) - Moves ahead of Beckley and Bresnahan.

7. Jose Mendez (n/a) - I thought I'd have him a lot higher than this, but I just don't feel like I have a firm grasp of his career yet. I do feel much more comfortable with him than I do with Rube Foster though.

8. Jake Beckley (6) - Big drop for a guy that would've been #2 on my ballot this year. I didn't find any reason to like him any less, I just found justification in moving several others higher than him.

9. Roger Bresnahan (7) - It's no secret that I love catchers. I would've ranked Roger higher had he caught more and played the OF less during his peak years.

10. Hughie Jennings (8) - Nothing new to add

11. Bobby Veach (9) - Not enough career for him to merit a higher ranking on my ballot, but enough peak to grab a lower spot.

12. Jimmy Ryan (10) - A watered down Van Haltren

13. Eddie Cicotte (11) - Underrated in my opinion. May not be HOM material, but underrated nonetheless.

14. Hugh Duffy (13) - Back onto my ballot. No new thoughts on him

15. Harry Hooper (14) - nothing overly impressive about his career. I originally thought he would rank much higher than this on my initial ballot, but he just doesn't meet the qualifications in my mind that everyone above him does.

Rube Foster would be coming in at #16 for me. I'm just not convinced that as a PLAYER he is HOM worthy. Should we take all of his other contributions into consideration, he'd be a slam dunk.

1932 ballot: two Negro Leaguers find a place on my ballot and Cooper, Adams and Dauss land in the top 25. There's a bit of minor shuffling after the WARP3 adjustment.

1. George Van Haltren (1) - It might be George's year, finally.
2. Jake Beckley (3) - I'd like to see Jake make it eventually.
3. Jimmy Ryan (2) - Diet GVH.
4. Louis Santop (NA) - Everything sounds good about Santop.
------roughly my in/out line------
5. Hugh Duffy (5) - He'd be above the line with another good season or two.
6. Harry Hooper (4) - Didn't get so much love last year, but I think he'll stick around a while.
7. Tommy Leach (8) - I like Tommy, but there are a lot of OF on my ballot.
8. Vic Willis (6) - I'm going to do some digging around the HoM this week to find out why he isn't faring better.
9. George J. Burns (10) - Firmly in the second tier of OF.
10. Bobby Veach (7) - See Burns.
11. Rube Foster (9) - He's got a good shot this year, but I'm not quite convinced.
12. Jose Mendez (NA) - I have a tendency to pair Negro Leaguers, for better or worse.
13. Spotswood Poles (11) - I guess it's a tendency to
14. Rube Waddell (NA) - Back on the tail end of the ballot.
15. Clark Griffith (14) - Still hanging on by a thread.

next five: Konetchy, Cicotte, Cooper, Doyle, Pratt.

I'm missing a lot of top tenners this year. I like Pike, but I'm not sure he was as good as Dickey in the pre-NA era. I'd guess he's around 30 or so. Jennings and Bresnahan both need a couple more years to make it onto my career-heavy ballot; they're both in the 25-30 range. I like Childs too, but he's just a step behind Doyle and Pratt.

Welch dropped off my ballot.

1932 Ballot

PHOM
Louis Santop - Clear #1 pick
Willie Keeler - Elected to HOM in 1919

1932 Ballot
1.Louis Santop – Much better than Bresnahan. Elected PHOM in 1932
2.Charley Jones – 96% of value is above average. Truly great hitter who missed 2 years in his prime. Elected PHOM in 1926.
3.Lip Pike – 95% of documented career is above average. Fresh look at Charley Jones, Pike, and Browning made me change my order of them. Elected PHOM in 1918.
4.Pete Browning – 61% of value is prime, 89% of value is above average. Elected PHOM in 1929
5.Rube Foster - Moved up due to re-evaluation and new info. Elected PHOM in 1930
6.Ed Williamson – We’re on track to elect 8 deadball pitchers, and I’m fine with that, but shouldn’t we elect the second best thirdbaseman from the 1880’s. Great defensive player and very good hitter. Elected PHOM in 1931
7.Cupid Childs – Good hitter. Not as good defensively as McPhee. 84% of career above average.
8.Hughie Jennings – 77% of value is prime alone. Unfortunately, that’s all he’s got. Still that’s enough to get him this high. Re-evaluated 1890’s infielders since they seemed to get beat up during their playing days.
9.Bill Monroe – Very good second baseman, but I can’t seem to rate him over Childs.
10.Hugh Duffy – 82% of career is above-average. Great defense. Took another look at him and he moved up a couple of spots
11.George Van Haltren – I tend to really like steady careers like Van Haltren, Griffin, Beckley, but just can’t see him jumping over anyone on my ballot. Moves up because I forgot about his pitching.
12.Tommy Leach – Good peak and decent career. May need to rank higher
13.Jose Mendez – Slotted between Foster and Waddell. Will move with any new info.
14.Clark Griffith – Won lots of games with bad teams. I’ve been convinced to move him over Waddell.
15.Spotswood Poles – Slots in just under Van Haltren

Required Explanations
24.Rogers Bresnahan – Moves up thanks to Kelly’s data on how he dominated catchers. Still wish he played a little more at catcher.

27.Jimmy Ryan - Good career value and prime value, but too many below average seasons to make it on the ballot. Only 60% of career value is above average.

31.Jake Beckley- I really like long careers. However his lack of prime value has him ranked lower than Van Haltren.

Off the ballot

16-20 Willis, Tiernan, Waddell, Welch, Doyle
21-25 Griffin, McGraw, Chance, Bresnahan, Burns
26-30 Veach, Ryan, Moore, Long, Dunlap

PhillyBooster and karlmagnus,
Re: Sam Leever,
From SABR's Deadball Stars of the National League.
1871: born in Goshen, Ohio.
1889: graduates high school, begins working as a schoolteacher and pitching on Sundays for semipro teams in southwestern Ohio.
No professional interest because he "lacked an impressive fastball."
1896: Signed first pro contract after Pirates discovered him when he was playing a game called "Anthony Over," a game where people toss a ball over a barn to one another and he supposedly curved the ball around the barn.
1897: played for Richmond of the Atlantic League where he won 20 games and led the league in Ks.
1898: started with Pitt, sent back to Richmond, helped them to league title, returned to Pitt at end of season.
From the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, pg 277:
His key pitch was a sharp curve and "he wrote the chapter "How to Pitch the Out-curve" in the 1908 book, How to Pitch."

Thank you very much. He's thus purely a schoolteacher, pitching balls over barns, until the age of 26. As I said, he didn't appear headed to superstardom, and had another alternative which no doubt paid better than the minors.

If we give Charley Jones and Lip Pike credit, don't we have to give this guy credit?

If we give Charley Jones and Lip Pike credit, don't we have to give this guy credit?

I have no problem giving him credit if we knew what type of player he was before the NL. We just can't assume that he was a quality pitcher. We know that Jones was a great player at the time of his blacklisting, so some credit is warranted, IMO. As for Pike, I'm giving him credit only for the seasons that he actually played, so he really doesn't belong in this discussion as far as I'm concerned.

If we had some idea of how good the Atlantic league was, I might give some credit to Leever. It probably wouldn't be enough for him to jump on to my ballot, however.

The Bio Project adds that he was demoted in 1898 due to an injury.

Ballparkwatch also lists the Atlantic League of the era as Class D.

Phillybooster, thanks for the link, very interesting indeed. Leever has now been promoted an extra 3 spots up my 1933 ballot for solid citizenship and moral probity. (If people knock Cicotte and Shoeless Joe for transgressions, I don't see why it can't work the other way.)

I suspect, however, that in the 1880s it may not have been easy to cash an out-of-state check.

It wasn't that easy in the 1980s, depending on the bank.

1932 Ballot

1. Santop, Louis – The best new eligible we’ve seen in a long time and probably the best Negro League candidate we’ve seen. Throw in that he’s a catcher and we haven’t been especially kind to catchers, and he’s a clear #1 for me. I’ve got him with 330 Win Shares, converting the linear weights of his discounted I9 numbers and adding in defense.

2. Browning, Pete -- I have discounted his 82-85 and 89 seasons but he proved in the PL that he was no fluke. One of the best hitters we've evaluated or ever will evaluate. An outfielder in the early years, so I doubt his suspect defense detracts much from his overall value. Would have been in the majors earlier if not for the ear problem.

3. Monroe, Bill -- Alleged comp is Jimmy Collins. He certainly appears every bit as good as Grant, but competition was stiffening in his era, so he deserves more credit than Grant, IMO. I don’t see him getting elected now that Grant is in, but I would have preferred Monroe.

4. McGraw, John – The guy’s OBP was .466! I would prefer a longer career, but among the backlog, I think he deserves some recognition. Plus, we aren’t too deep at 3b in the HoM.

5. Foster, Rube – Reevaluated in light of Mendez candidacy, and I think Foster is much more deserving because Mendez had a very short time at the top of his game. I still have a very difficult time separating his administrative reputation from his playing reputation, and I’m guessing that I’ve got him a little too high. But if he’s elected, it’s hard to quibble with.

6. Jones, Charley -- No additional credit for blacklisted seasons. He hit about as well as McVey, with power, but with a smaller WS peak and fewer WS per 162 games. I think he has been overlooked from the beginning because of the relatively short career and lack of notoriety. Also, he was a bit chunky.

7. Duffy, Hugh -- Some good counting stats, good grey ink and scores well on WS and WARP1 measures. I was wrong to have him ahead of Thompson in prior years, but fortunately the electorate saw it more clearly.

8. Griffith, Clark -- An excellent win pct on some bad teams. I boost his win totals and win pct by approximately 1/2 of his WAT. Has a nice career Linear Weights total also.

9. Bresnahan, Roger -- In my system he was quite a bit better as a hitter than Charlie Bennett, though certainly not as good defensively (and not a full-time catcher). If you stack Bresnahan's WS and WARP1 numbers against the catchers actually elected to the HoF, he looks very solid.

10. Waddell, Rube -- Comparable to Griffith, but win totals are far less impressive. Can't see putting him ahead of Griffith, unless you overvalue strikeouts. If you are looking for unique, Waddell would qualify.

11. Veach, Bobby – A little more peak than career, but an excellent defender. Hit about 50% better than the league, and would be a legit HoMer if he had played longer. I’ve got him fairly even with Poles, but there’s a lot more uncertainty in the Poles data.

12. Poles, Spotswood – A very talented player, but a notch (or two) below a guy like Pete Hill.

13. Leach, Tommy -- Numbers are deflated by the era, but normalized he looks very good. I've got him with 7 gold gloves at two different tough positions. He played approximately half his games at 3b.

14. Beckley, Jake -- Watching the 1886 vintage game on ESPN, I saw with my own eyes the difficulty of playing 1b at the time. Very solid and long career, but I don’t quite see him as a HoMer, though I do see a significant gap between Beckley and Konetchy.

15. Mullane, Tony – Solid WARP1, WS and Grey Ink, even after discounts for AA play. I don’t see the need to elect him, but this is where he’s slotted.

Required Disclosures (getting to be a long list):

Van Haltren, George – Van Haltren is the player whom I have evaluated and re-evaluated more than any other player in the history of this project (at least 10 times). Never the best player in the league and never a genuine All-Star. Virtually no black ink; poor grey ink. He is ranked #26 in my system, behind Silver King and ahead of Lip Pike. If elected, would supplant Bobby Wallace as the elected player that I have ranked the lowest.

Pike, Lip – Gut tells me he doesn’t quite belong. I’ve explained aplenty, so I won’t say more here. He’s #27 in my system, behind George Van Haltren and ahead of Hughie Jennings.

Jennings, Hughie – Career is just too short. Also, when I reduced the WARP fielding ratings away from the low replacement value used by BP, he plummeted. He’s #28 in my system, behind Lip Pike and ahead of Charlie Buffinton.

Childs, Cupid – Where did he come from? Four years ago he was #19 and now he’s #8? He’s #47 on my list behind Joe Wood and ahead of Jack Chesbro. I argued about Childs long ago, and I don’t really want to argue about him anymore, so I’ll just say that I don’t think his normalized numbers compare favorably to second basemen who are clearly HoMers.

Ryan, Jimmy – He’s part of what I consider the glut. He’s #23 in my system, tied with Frank Chance. Better than GVH, IMO.

Its looking like Santop's year. The new candidates are getting more interesting as this backlog is ending. Best of luck to all the candidates this 'year'

1. Luis Santop (ne) -- Fine work here has shown me that he's the top pick in this thin ballot.
2. Lip Pike (5-4-2-1-2-2-1-1-1) -- 155 OPS+ CF in the NA/NL. Solid pre-NA play includes time at 2B. Brooklyn's best slugger in '70, second to Start in '69, also had excellent 'rookie' season on great Athletics squad in '66.
3. Rube Foster (nr-10-9-8-7-5-4-3) -- Peak was short, but white players peaks from this era (McGinnity, Brown, Walsh) were also short. Could be overrating him, but I don't know who to rate higher.
4. John McGraw (10-10-11-10-9-8-6-5-4) -- 135 OPS+ is aided by the fact that its OBP heavy. In fact, his OBP is 3rd all time.
5. Charley Jones (nr-nr-13-12-11-9-7-6-5) -- Late start (for the era) and unfairly blacklisted. Appears to be a hybrid or Pike/Stovey/Thompson, guys I've ranked fairly highly.
6. Larry Doyle (nr-14-11-9-8) -- Fine second baseman for great Giants teams. Solid peak, in fairly short career. Fielding was mediocre, but not as horrific as WARP suggests. Recent work here convinced me to drop his NL discount, he's far below Collins even without it. A little bump this year.
7. Hughie Jennings (14-12-14-14-13-11-9-7-6) -- I like peak and boy does Hughie have peak. Short career, poor seasons outside his peak slip his career OPS+ down to 117.
8. Cupid Childs (nr-15-12-10-9) -- Very comparable to Doyle. OPS+ is OBP heavy. Fielding was good, but not A-level.
9. Clark Griffith (nr-15-12-10-8-7)-- Long tail at the end of career is masking a solid prime from 94-01... a prime longer than many other current candidates. That would fill the late 90's pitcher shortage that's been reported, but I'm not giving him a bonus for that or anything.
10. Roger Bresnahan (15-15-nr-nr-13-11-10) -- Great five year peak at C. 126 OPS+ is OBP-heavy. Didn't appear to play full-time outside his peak though... getting a small subjective boost due to catcher shortage.
11. Mickey Welch (nr-14-11) -- 300 game winner. Played for great teams in an easy era to win games, but new research is saying he did more to earn his W's than previously thought. Still, his meager 113 ERA+ is keeping him low on the ballot.
12. Spotswood Poles (ne-15-13-12) -- He was fast, yes, but a shorter career with not as much power as Pete Hill. Like others, would have benefitted from playing longer.
13. Pete Browning (nr-15-13) -- The man could hit. His 162 OPS+ is partly inflated by his great early AA numbers, but his great PL season almost makes you want to ignore the discount. His durability becomes an issue starting in '88.
14. Gavvy Cravath (ne-11-10-gap-14) -- Excellent five year peak.
15. Dobie Moore (ne) -- Short career, high peak, at SS with some war credit. Difficult to rate, but definitely belongs on my peak-friendly ballot.

Omissions:

Beckley -- Took a long look at him. Black Ink of 1. Top OPS finishes are 5-7-8-10. His 125 career OPS+ is actually SLG-heavy which is cause for a slight discount... probably explains why his career high in WS is only 23.
Van Haltren -- Two 10ths and an AA-7th in OPS+ is not what I look for in a HOM outfield candidate. Win Shares fielding rating of B. Looks like the Hall of the Very Good to me.
Ryan -- Falls into the giant glut of OF's... Van Haltren, Duffy, Veach, Hooper, Burns. A bit better peak than GVH or JB. Could have made the bottom of the ballot I suppose, but did not.

1932

1. Luis Santop (-)--Alll evidence leads to the conclusion that he was a great player. The same cannot be said of anyone else on the ballot.

2. Lip Pike (1)--Not quite as good in the NA as McVey, but better before; much better in the NA than Start, not as good before. Very underrated. I’ve never been able to understand the anti-1870s crowd. A pennant is a pennant. How one could rank, say, Sam Thompson ahead of Pike I have no idea. Played the infield, played the outfield. The greatest power/speed combination of his time. Great peak and a fairly long career for a 19th Century Outfielder. According to WARP3, the best player on his team in 1871, 1874, 1875, and 1876. .2 WARP3 behind the team leader in 1872, second on the team in 1877. One of the top 2-3 players on the pre-NA teams he played for in his early 20s. Faster than a horse.

3. Pete Browning (2)--AA discount and short career keeps him behind Pike. The man could hit. We know Win Shares likes him better than Sam Thompson, but did you know the BP stats show Browning to be the better hitter? Thompson’s edge in WARP is only in fielding and Davenport’s AA discount. Considering the problems Davenport’s had with 19th century OF fielding and the unknown natue of his AA discount, I don’t know how one could rate Thompson ahead based on WARP.

4. Charley Jones (3)--Jones, Jackson and Browning look pretty interchangeable to me.

5. Hughie Jennings (5)--Like Sam Thompson, only a slightly better peak and he was a shortstop instead of a right-fielder.

6. Roger Bresnahan (6)--Great rate stats, but he just didn’t play enough to generate the value of the higher ups on the ballot. Ranks ahead of Childs only because of the bonus I give him for being a catcher.

7. Cupid Childs (7)--Nice to see Cupid getting some love. . .

8. Hugh Duffy (8)--Everytime I look at him vs. Ryan and Van Haltren, they all look the same. Duffy’s got small (very small) edges on them in pennants added and win shares peak numbers.

9. George Van Haltren (9)--Just when I thought I was rid of the dreaded Outfielder Glut. . ..

10. Larry Doyle (10)--He’s no Cupid, but he’s not bad.

11. Jimmy Ryan (11)--Gluterrific.

12. Ed Williamson (12)--Not better than Ezra.

13. Rube Waddell (13)--Bumped ahead of Cravath for reasons of certainty and peak.

14. Rube Foster (14)---Paired with the other Rube, just don't think his peak was long enough to move him higher.

15. George Burns (15)--Joins the end of the glut. Not as good as Ryan, Van Haltren or Thompson, but ahead of Hooper and Beckley on peak and Cravath and Veach (barely) on career.

16. Bobby Veach (-)--I actually forgot to list him last time, but this is where he sits.
17. Jake Beckley (16)
18. Harry Hooper (17)
19. Gavy Cravath (18)
20. Spotswood Poles (19)
21. Herman Long (20)
22. Clark Griffith (21)
23. Mike Tiernan (22)
24. John McGraw (23)
25. Bill Monroe (24)

1932 is proving to be the most interesting and challenging ballot since the very first one in 1898, IMO. The newbies all set up a series of head-to-head comparisons that threaten and upset my existing order of things. Still a peak voter, however, with (emphatically) no timeline.

1. Hughie Jennings (4-3-2 last year)--in a year w/o any obvious NBs, only Jennings proved himself to be "the best" against "the best competition available." OTOH, Dobie Moore is the comp, so either Jennings should move down or Moore should move up! But in the end, I don't see anybody with the same upside (the case in favor). (PHoM in 1927.)

2. Luis Santop (new)--nothing to add to the case in favor of, and (I am not tallying the votes but a cursory look at the ballots tell the story) he is going into my PHoM 1932 as well as the HoM...but was he better than Bill Monroe?

3. Lip Pike (5-4-3)--nothing to add to Sean's comments. (PHoM 1928.)

4. Tommy Bond (6-7-4)--best pitcher between Spalding and the '80s guys. Had tremendous value in a one-league environment unless you discount like crazy. (PHoM 1929.)

5. Rube Waddell (x-15-x)--obviously moves way up. First, I'm searching for a way to more fairly compare 19th vs. 20th century pitchers. Second, his comps are Foster and Mendez but vs. better competition. (PHoM 1932, just an eyelash ahead of Getty Eddie Plank.)

6. Jose Mendez (new)--had him as high as #2 on prelim ballots, and I would want him on my team ahead of Foster and C. Jones and Browning. But not much MLE value in his second career and was he indeed a better pitcher than Foster? More thought before he joins PHoM.

7. Charley Jones (7-6-6)--w/o any blacklist credit. (PHoM 1921.)

8. Rube Foster (11-5-5)--PHoM 1931, but moves back down due to Waddell and Mendez comps.

9. Pete Browning (x-9-10)--sim/maybe better than C. Jones.

10. Dobie Moore (new)--moved up since my prelim. I think his army play merits some credit. Comp is Jennings, so should Dobie move up or Hughie down? Don't know yet.

11. Bill Monroe (14-12-12)--comp is Grant, may very well be the best Negro Leaguer available, but who can be sure?

12. Ed Williamson (9-11-9)--comp is Jimmy Collins. (PHoM 1924.)

13. Cupid Childs (8-10-7)--I am probably underrating all the 2Bs. Could see Childs, Monroe, Doyle and Dunlap all in the top 5-6, but they all suffer from their lack of positional dominance (among eligibles, that is. Each was dominant among his peers in his own time). (PHoM 1925.)

14. Larry Doyle (10-8-8)--see Childs.

15. Spot Poles (15-x-13)--comp is Pete Hill.

Drops off--Jim McCormick (12-13-11), Fred Dunlap (x-x-14), Hugh Duffy (x-15-15).

16. Duffy, 17. Dunlap, 18. McCormick, 19. Leach, 20. Joss
21. Bresnahan, 22. Veach, 23. Welch, 24. Van Haltren, 25. Whitney
26. Ryan, 27. Mullane, 28. Griffith, 29. Chance, 30. Beckley

Van Haltren--not to be confused with Beckley, had a nice peak, but still not enough for me.
Griffith--too far behind peer pitchers.
Beckley--no peak.
Bresnahan--not as good as his comp Leach.
Ryan--a poor man's Van Haltren.
Duffy--nice peak, but not enough, nor enough career.
Welch--still can't get past the ERA+ and WARP analysis.
Leach--definitely Hall of the Very Good.




14.

1932 Ballot:

1.Louis Santop- Combining all the Negro League “expert” choices puts Santop ahead of virtually all of his eligible peers, regardless of position. As a catcher, his competition at the position is minimal; namely, Bresnahan. Finally, the fact that he was a catcher makes his accomplishments seem all the more remarkable… my understanding is that catcher was a much more important position in the Negro Leagues than in the “Majors” at the time. A clear HoMer.

2.Hugh Duffy- Career Win Shares = 295, Win Share 5-year = 144 (!), Career WARP3 = 81, Career Runs Created = 1229, Black Ink = 38, Gray Ink = 147. A+ Centerfielder with 5 WS Gold Gloves, according to James, who ranks him #20 Centerfielder of all time. The difference between him and Van Haltren is slight, but Duffy looks to be the better to me.

3.George Van Haltren- Career WS = 344, WARP1 = 121, Career Runs Created = 1286.

4.Rube Foster- I’m finally convinced his value exceeded that of his namesake (though they are close!), particularly given the playing conditions of his leagues at the time. As a result, he gets a bit of a jump for me this year (he’s been in my PHoM for several years already).

5.Jimmy Ryan- - Career WS = 316, Career WARP1 = 119, Career WARP3 = 84.5, Career Runs Created = 1338, B+ WS Defender. Awesome career.

6.Rube Waddell- Career Win Shares = 240; WS5 = 145.

7.Jake Beckley- Career WS = 318, Career WARP1 = 116. Career Runs Created = 1461, which exceeds Dan Brouthers’ 1445, and is, in fact, the most of anyone on my eligible list.

8.Clark Griffith- There’s a sizable pitcher drop-off after Griffith. Contributes some steady Win Share numbers.

9.Bobby Veach- I had Veach at #16 last year, which was too low. He is probably the best eligible LF at this time, just slightly edging Burns.

10.Roger Bresnahan- A 15% Catcher Bonus puts him here. Not the best eligible catcher this year.

11.George Burns- Had a real nice career, and the man was no stranger to Ink. Black= 33, Gray= 165.

12.Pete Browning- Put up some monster offensive numbers, led by the 162 OPS+. Lovin’ the outfielders (as usual)… best offensive numbers tend to be with them.

13.Tommy Leach- Super Career numbers; the best 3B on the ballot.

14.Cupid Childs- Career WARP1= 108.4, WARP3= 76.4. B+ Win Share defender.

15.Gavy Cravath- His Career OPS+ of 150 and Black Ink total of 46 actually exceed Sam Thompson’s scores in those categories (though Sam has much more Gray Ink). Good peak and prime, but short career.

16-26: Jennings- just misses ballot... still my fave SS at this time, Doyle, Hooper, Petway, Poles, Cicotte, Monroe, Moore, Welch, C. Jones, Pike- I love the OFs, but there are too many ahead of Pike (in my estimation) to warrant a ballot appearance at this time.

Thanks!

1932 Ballot
review of Hanrahan’s value system: career value with a fairly high replacement level (slightly below average). Something like WARP3 minus 2.5 wins per full year, or WS minus 13 per year adjusted for league quality, or OPS+ over 95 adjusted for defense and timeline and maybe speed. I don’t believe in much extra value for “peak”. Some subjective estimating of ability across time and place.

Personally disappointed if we don’t honor:

1-Louis Santop (new)
Might not be #1 most years, but this ain’t most years. Welcome, first-ballot HoMer!
2-Clark Griffith (1)
Like my wonderful wife: the more I look, the more pure gold I find underneath J. Pitched about as well from 1894 to 1901 as any mortal, given the one-league competition.
3-Lip Pike (2)
Even with WARP’s timelining, his adjEqA is .302 (better than most players on the ballot); not bad for a guy who played the infield as well as CF. WS and OPS+ love him. The more “very good” OFers who come along, the more Mister Pike stands out.

If I get more info that indicates his intangibles hurt his team, I may drop him lower.

After this, don’t much care either way:
4-Rube Waddell (3)
Six time leader in KOs, 3 ERA+ titles. Unearned runs drag him down a bit. Moved one teeny notch over GVH based on new WARP #s.
5-George Van Haltren (4)
Hit. Ran. Played defense. Pitched. Long career. Played in one-league 1890s. Solidly on my ballot.
6-John McGraw (6)
I’m a career voter, but Mugsy accomplished more in a few years than most others did in many. RCAP ain’t a perfect tool, but it can’t be THAT far off that McGraw gets no mention from us. KJOK will keep me from being the best FOJMcG.
7-Ed Williamson (5)
Decent hitter. Great defense. Underrepresented position, and many of the guys he played with and against thought he was the best. I don’t penalize him for his poor fielding when he was pressed to play shortstop.

When Henie Groh becomes eligible, my ballot might be crowded with three, count’em, three, third basemen!

8-Roger Bresnahan (8)
A nod to position scarcity. A great player when he was on the field.
9-Andrew “Rube” Foster (7)
Probably the best black pitcher before 1920. Discussion of Mendez leaves me believing that Rube was likely (but not for certain) more valuable than Jose.
10-Addie Joss (9)
Bonus points for his great pennant exploits.
11-Hughie Jennings (10)
As great as he was in 5 years, that’s all he has.
12-Jake Beckley (11)
Somewhere between Doggie Perez and Fred the Crime Dog McGriff. He’ll have a Ruff time getting into the HoM tho.
13-Frank Chance (13)
He lacks the big seasons if you use WARP or WS, since those measure rely on playing time to accumulate much value. But by RCAP in a run-starved environment, and taking into account his team’s performance, his peak prime and career are all durn fine. May have played a few more games if he wasn’t managing
14-Cupid Childs (14)
A fine hitting second sacker indeed, whose glove was okay as well. Difficulty of playing a long career as an infielder in the 1890s gives him a few bonus points.
15-Mickey Welch (12)
I’m partially (but only partially) convinced that his W-L record is more relevant than his comparatively poor ERA.

Next would be Harry Hooper.
Similar to Beckley. Decent hitter, fine fielder, long time. Nice World Series stats as well; he can match Derek Jeter’s 4 rings, as well as several great clutch moments. But it’s tough to vote for a guy who could only hit as well as the average player at his position.

Near the ballot edge: Jose Mendez, Bill Monroe, Larry Doyle, H Duffy, C Jones, J Ryan

How, you might ask, can I have Van Haltren so high, and Ryan off my ballot? Easy. GVH = JR + ‘some decent pitching’ on virtually every metric. The problem is, when you line up 800 guys for a hundred yard dash, it should be simple to tell who came in first and second; but the difference between 60th and 75th is a real bear. Dadgum crowded ballot. I can’t possibly complain about others’ voting idiosyncrasies when my own machinations are so obfuscatory. Or something like that.

Ballot for 1932

Read previous ballots if you want more depth on my reasons for all but the latest eligibles.

The greatest players are those who combine a high peak with longevity. However, a player can demonstrate greatness for a shorter period of time and then be unable to follow through with the longevity, which is partly a function of luck (amongst other things such as genetics and discipline). OTOH, a player can demonstrate longevity but not demonstrate "greatness" (no high peak).

Both of these types of players are flawed, but I think both have a place in the HOM, because there are not enough truly great players available to fill the HOM quota. I try to balance the two types, not leaning one way or the other. Although it may seem like my ballot caters to peak players, it only looks that way because the majority of voters here tend to elect most of the good career players (high peak or no) while leaving most of the great-peak/short-career guys behind.

1) H. JENNINGS -- Using rolling 5-year peaks for WARP-3, of those eligible, only he can claim to have been the "best player in baseball". All of the others have already been elected or are not yet eligible; elected to my PHOM over a decade ago.

2) L. SANTOP -- Best catcher during the drought has to rank ahead of the glut.

3) R. FOSTER -- Legendary peak for a short time in the oughts. Very good pitcher for some time afterwards. Those who vote peak should re-examine him. Still a lot of questions, but he has the potential to get a #1 vote, depending on the answers.

4) J. RYAN -- Here comes the glut. Much better peak than Van Haltren. Best outfielder of the late 1880's; not great after the train wreck.

5) S. KING -- Not likely to go anywhere soon, but this is where he rates. This ballot is very thin.

6) G. VAN HALTREN -- He and Hooper have the best careers left on the current ballot, now that the really good career players have been inducted. GVH is the Beckley of outfielders, though better, unless Jake deserves more defensive credit than I'm giving (via WARP).

7) N. WILLIAMSON -- Need some infielders on this ballot; the best not in either the HOM or PHOM.

8) F. DUNLAP -- Great two-way player; not great enough long enough.

9) T. BOND -- Will probably drop some after I absorb the new WARP.

10) B. VEACH -- Good peak relative to great competition. Deserves votes, though not inclusion (at least yet).

11) F. JONES -- Reached the top of the OF heap before he walked away. Not enough peak for the peak voters to really get excited about and not enough career for the career voters. Some of each will work on my ballot.

12) H. LONG -- Great defensive player on a great defensive team.

13) H. HOOPER -- Great defensive player on a great defensive team. If he had any real peak, I'd vote him to elect.

14) C. CHILDS -- Best offensive 2b of the 90's.

15) J. WHITNEY -- He's back...

Just missing the cut are:
16-18) Jim McCormick, Jose Mendez, Gavy Cravath,
19-21) Hugh Duffy, Del Pratt, Lave Cross,
22-24) Spotswood Poles, Jake Beckley, Clark Griffith,
25-27) Lip Pike, Rube Waddell, Tommy Leach,
28-30) Charlie Buffinton, Roy Thomas, Charlie Jones

1931 ballot

I am still in the middle of a lot of stuff including reworking my WARP methodology to use BaseRuns rather than XR, so my explanations won't be as detailed this election. But just look at the 1931 ballot for why I'm voting as I am and there may be big changes brewing for '33.

1. Louis Santop
I'm convinced. No real chart-toppers, we're short on catchers, and he seems to have been the man. 'Nuff said.

2. Charley Jones
Short seasons understate his greatness, he was extraordinarily good in 1879 and dominated the early AA as well. Blacklist years not his fault.

3. Clark Griffith
ERA+ makes it seem that Griffith had one dominant year in 1898 and was just above average elsewhere. In fact, he was just as good in 1899 (look at K, BB, HR, and BABIP/Teammates' BABIP), was a reliable workhorse, and pitched at an All-Star level for a decade. You can't see his greatness on the surface, but look deeper into the numbers and from 1896-1901 he was a genuine superstar.

4. Lip Pike
Obviously a truly dominant player in the NA and 1876 NL, played many years pre-1871 at a very high level.

5. Pete Browning
1890 showed us he was for real, so his knock-em-dead years in '82, '85 and '87 have to be taken seriously. More career value than the “career” guys GVH/Beckley by my measure, and a true dominator for three or four seasons. Hopefully I can drum up some support for him; he really deserves it.

6. Cupid Childs
Offensive juggernaut at a scarce position with often excellent leather for eight years. A bona fide superstar in '90, '92, and '96, and a strong All-Star in '93 and '97. Didn't play forever but so good that he accumulated more career value than the "career guys" IMO. We don't have anyone from his era at his position, and because he played in a stronger league than his comps by my estimate.

7. Addie Joss
Joss had a remarkable ability to prevent hits on balls in play, allowing a BABIP 31 points lower than his teammates' for his career (.238/.269). He had six seasons where he was absolutely one of the best in the biz, including 1908 which was particularly standout. His rate stats were so good that even despite his innings problem, he still comes out mid-ballot on both career and peak.

8. Hughie Jennings
So good for five years that he was more valuable than guys who played for three times as long.

9. Rube Waddell
Rube’s taken a big hit with my reevaluation. I *love* the K's, but now that I can see that deadball pitchers really could prevent hits on balls in play, he stands out less than he did before. It's worth nothing that his 1903 season was just as good as his much more highly regarded '04--almost as many innings, same BB/K/HR rates, similar propensity to giving up line drives (BABIP 5% higher than teammates' in '03, 6% in '04). '02 was really his best season though. One of the best pitchers in baseball from '02-'05, but not an otherworldly dominator and not enough career to push him further up the ballot or into my revised PHoM.

10. Eddie Cicotte
He really was a premier, superstar pitcher from 1917-19, and was serviceable in 1913 and 1920. A slightly above league average pitcher for the rest of his career.

11. Jimmy Ryan
He doesn’t fare that well in my system, but I do have to give respect to his near-ballot-topping career value and he did at least have two great years in 1888 and 89.

12. John McGraw
He didn't play long enough to make the HoM, and rarely played full seasons even when he did. But man, was he good--an on-base machine the likes of which the game has rarely seen since.

13.Vic Willis
Just kept churning out those innings at an above-average level. The Beckley of pitchers, but a more valuable career than Beckley and at least a genuine All-Star once or twice.

14. Bill Monroe
Decided I prefer him to Foster because it seems he played for a lot longer; Foster's subsequent organizational accomplishments are irrelevant.

15. Bobby Veach
A little peak never hurt anyone.

Left Off:

Jake Beckley: He wasn't an All-Star for 15 years. He was a slightly above average player for a long time, accumulating less career value than guys who played half as long. And of course he had no peak. Unless you think that replacement level in his era was so low that just playing in the majors meant a lot to helping a team win, he's really got no case. His best year (1899) was worse than Del Pratt in 1919.

George Van Haltren: Seems quite similar to Beckley by my measures.

Harry Hooper: Again, no peak.

Sorry, that should have said 1932 ballot at the top.

1932 ballot
Fellas,
I am REALLY tired of this crop. Some pretty good newbies this year, but changing conditions make me cautious on where to place them. I'll be more comfortable starting next 'year,' knowing that no questionable players will be making it into the HOM for (real-time) months.
Yet another revamping near the top:
1. LOUIS SANTOP - Played more OF than a lot of voters seem to realize, which cost him some in my evaluations. Ideally, he'd be the kind of guy who should get in around the third try. But this is the ballot I have in front of me, and geesh, is it so bad that a Negro Leaguer who got screwed so badly finally gets 'lucky?' Best player on the ballot.
2. MICKEY WELCH - Again moves up a coupla spots. Pitching was extremely important in the 1880s in my mind, and this is the last one we need to close the books. I'm still convinced we got a little off-track in the Keefe-Welch-Clarkson discussion; OK if we rate Welch third in that bunch, but not sure how he got THIS far behind. Went 61-34 vs HOMer pitching opponents.
3. PETE BROWNING - Spectacularly good hitter, definitely better than Thompson, and his 1890 PL season says he could have done it in any league, any time. Has been discounted too much for AA numbers.
4. CLARK GRIFFITH - A personal favorite, and now gets a pitching 'quota' bonus. It's remarkable how much better he was than the teams he pitched for. I think he was a brilliant strategist long before he became a manager, and it showed in his pitching.
5. RUBE FOSTER - The MLEs give me a sense that this guy belongs here. Ed Walsh walks right in, and Foster languishes this long? Still, some reevaluation has me less confident that he had even seven wonder years a la Walsh.
6. LIP PIKE - It bugs me a little that he didn't get to play much with 'the big boys' at a time when they seemed to seek each other out, but the hitting numbers are damn good. My main trepidation is the murmurs about his ethics, but I voted Shoeless Joe No. 1. Or maybe we have enough 1870s guys.
7. CUPID CHILDS - The majors' best 2B, or nearly so, for most of his career is something that we just don't see on this ballot. Could rank even higher, but guys like Monroe and Doyle complicate matters.
8. HUGHIE JENNINGS - Moves up on the theory that a four-year megastar is better than entire careers of most of these balloteers. Enough peak for me to ask for not so much more, yet he supplies almost nothing else - and even plays so many games at 1B rather than SS. Tough call.
9. JAKE BECKLEY - Deserves recognition, but doesn't have an "oomph" to bring to the HOM. Still, possibly no one will ever explain what Keeler has that Beckley doesn't.
10. FRANK CHANCE - His reputation and his team's results suggest to me that there's something we may be missing. Not so much 'leadership,' but those Cubs played the game in a way utterly foreign to us now, and I'm not sure even our advanced methods are undertanding it.
11. GEORGE VAN HALTREN - I'm just not a fan, and would rather see him not get in, but has enough peak years and longevity that I can't keep leaving him off the ballot. The early pitching carries him past Ryan, Duffy, and friends.
12. BILL MONROE - His timing was as wrong for HOM as it was in real life. But a really strong player and worth a ballot slot.
13. ROGER BRESNAHAN - Weird career, but had outstanding years relative to other Cs and other OFs. Chance-ian problems with playing time start him this low.
14. TOMMY LEACH - Third time I've voted for him. Hurt by being a hybrid, but he was a darn good one. Not a HOMer, though.
15. BOBBY VEACH - Partly because I forgot to consider him last 'year,' but he's got a consistent, high-achieving career. Not a HOMer, obviously.

TOP 10er SKIPPED
JIMMY RYAN - Was HOM-bound thru age 29. Just wasn't a particularly good player for most of his 30s - peaked too soon.

JUST MISSED
HARRY HOOPER - Almost a nod to a remarkably long, good career.
RUBE WADDELL - Strikeouts are cool, but cooler if you know what to do with them. Refuse to believe that this scatterbrain failed to win games just by bad luck.
ED CICOTTE, JOHN MCGRAW, SPOTSWOOD POLES, HUGH DUFFY, LARRY DOYLE - One of them could climb in here someday.
WILBUR COOPER, DOBIE MOORE - Still studying their careers; both likely to climb into top 15 next year, when I start discarding some old guard.
BABE ADAMS - One of the weirdest careers ever; you have to check out his baseball-reference year by year. His 1909 'rookie' year is amazing, in a part-time sort of way. 'Most similar' player is "Happy Jack" Chesbro.

1932 Ballot
First official ballot. Some changes from my preliminary ballot, most notably changing my mind on Griffith.

1) Luis Santop: Every source I have seen says he is one of the all-time greats. Sometimes referred to as "the black Babe Ruth." He might not be Josh Gibson, but he's good enough for the top spot.
2) Lip Pike: I'm wary of comparing players from the dawn of pro ball to the more modern guys, but he did stand out in his time, however brief. Impressive 155 OPS+ and was even better than average in CF according to BP (Rate = 103). I don't think he is too far behind his contemporaries that are already in the HoM.
3) Rube Waddell: Definition of a dominating pitcher. Strikeout king of the '00s. Slight edge in career length puts him higher than Joss for me. Tied with Vic Willis for most shutouts for HoM eligible players that have yet to be elected.
4) Addie Joss: 8 excellent seasons in a row. Clearly one of the top pitchers of the first decade of the 1900s. Not as many Ks a Waddell, but fewer walks and HRs made him just as effective. Third lowest BB/IP of his era (better than Cy Young and C. Matthewson). 2nd lowest opp. OBP and all-time leader in WHIP--impressive in any offensive context.
5) Pete Browning: One of the premier hitters of the American Association. Even if it wasn't always the strongest league, his success in the NL toward the end of his career leads me to believe that he would have been a star anywhere.
6) Roger Bresnahan: His offensive contributions reletive to his position (even including CF) and consistancy when he was in the lineup make him a worthy candidate. His worst OPS+ in his prime (1903 to 1912) was 104 and every other year was between 129 and 162. Plus, catcher has seemed to be an underrepresented position.
7) Hughie Jennings: Fantastic peak at the plate and in the field from '94-'98 are hard to ignore. He earned the superstar status he had in the late 19th century.
8) Rube Foster: His reputation by word of mouth puts him in, or close to, the top 5 Negro League pitchers ever. Projections are interesting and helpful, but the lack of thorough stats to back up his legend has me ranking him conservatively.
9) Jose Mendez: May have been better than R. Foster, just not as much hype to spread the reputation. Regardless, I'll put him behind Foster and remain confident that they were both great.
10) Charley Jones: Conservatively ranking him down here. Has numbers that are comparable to Pike's (CJ: 149 OPS+/.321 EQA vs. LP: 155 OPS+/.326 EQA), though he played a little later and lasted a bit longer. No credit for missed time.
11) Dobie Moore: Lots of stories and some statistics indicate that this guy was fantastic in the 6 or 7 Negro League seasons before he got shot. I imagine he was as good or better than Jennings, it's just too hard to prove. His playing time on a top notch military team helps, too.
12) Fred Dunlap: Pretty good hitter for a second baseman (.307 EQA/ 133 OPS+) and BP card is high on his defense (Rate/Rate2 of 113/107 at 2B). In the bottom half of the ballot for lack of games played, though BP's Translations have him at only 500 less ABs than Childs.
13) John McGraw: OBP machine! An offensive force to be reckoned with and decent ratings for defense at 3B (Rate: 104). If he played a few more games I would have him much higher.
14) Clark Griffith: Upon further review, I've changed my mind and put Clark back at the top of the group of similar pitchers (Cicotte, Willis, Vaughn, Adams, Cooper, Leever). I like it that he had the most consistant and prolonged peak ('94-'01), the others were more up and down. He is tops among that group in all-time DERA (4.08) and all-time PRAA (159)
15) Ed Cicotte: Started to dominate the AL when he got to Chicago in 1913. Two off years which weren't *that* bad ('15 &'18) can't cloud the fact that he was one of the elite pitchers of the 'teens. I see him as the 2nd or 3rd best pitcher in the AL from 1913-1920 behind Big Train, and maybe Stan Covaleski.

Players in last year's top 10 un-elected to miss my ballot:

18) Cupid Childs: His numbers (esp. on defense) on BPro are not as good as I was expecting given his high rank in HoM voting. OPS+ lower than than Dunlap (119 to 133). His defense is also worse than Dunlap's (all-time FRAA: 63 for FD, -12 for CC; Rate at 2B: 113 for FD, 102 for CC).

25) Jake Beckley: A good hitter for a long time. Not a bad fielder either. However, he does not seem to be a dominant player of his era. In 20 seasons he was only in the top 10 in OPS+ 4 times. For a first baseman I need to see more than that to put him on my ballot. Chance and Beckley strike me as the intersection of peak vs. career value.

38) Jimmy Ryan: Very, very similar to Van Haltren. I have him higher because I like his five year run from '88-'92 better than any stretch Van Haltren put together. Ryan and Van Haltren fall below other similar outfielders (Griffin, Thomas, F.Jones, Duffy) because, according to BP, their (JR & GVH) defense was not on the same level as the rest. Top 10 in OPS+ seven times.

39) George Van Haltren: Another career player. I don't consider his pitching to have much value, good or bad. Doesn't look like he was anything special on defense (-50 FRAA all time). Highest OPS+ rank in league was 7th and was only in top 10 three times.

18) Cupid Childs: His numbers (esp. on defense) on BPro are not as good as I was expecting given his high rank in HoM voting.

His fielding reputation is supported by Win Shares.

By my count, the top guy is more than doubling the second electee. Think about that, the second place guy is closer in points to me than to the leader.

Yeah, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Aside from the obvious question of who the second inductee will be, it's going to be a fun race to see if the #1 inductee can more than double the #2. It's been back and forth so far, but currently, he's ahead.

Fellas,
I am REALLY tired of this crop. ... I'll be more comfortable starting next 'year,' ...

I hear you Howie. I am constantly looking at ballots that I completely disagree with and saying to myself things like, "I can see where you would get that" and "I can't prove you're wrong." I'll be more sure of my reasons pretty soon.

30 ballots cast so far, plus "... Tanketra" posted what looks like a ballot on the wrong thread.

Think about that, the second place guy is closer in points to me than to the leader.

The way things are going, Dickey Pearce's record for the lowest percentage for a HoMer will be destroyed easily.

Yeah, by my count there are three guys with a first place vote (24 points) of second place, and any of them would be beaten by a player who could just get an 8th place vote on everyone's ballot.

The second electee this year will probably be the our first electee who sort of "happens." There's no strong body of opinion arguing that any players are clearly deserving or that it's nearly a scandal that player X has waited so long for induction. There are a handful of folks giving that kind of support to Jennings, Van Haltren, Welch, Beckley, Rube Foster, Pike, Childs, and Griffith, but not enough to make any one of these candidates feel like a majority choice. The fact that electee will be the first one to "happen" and will clearly be the last one like that for a long time, suggests that the schedule of elections is pretty good. If only one of the Class of 34 candidates had decided to hang up his spikes two years earlier. . . It's too bad for the second candidate who gets elected this year, actually, since I think that player would have gotten in eventually anyway, and might have done so with more support and fanfare at a later point. But maybe not.

I think there's a decent chance we'll have another "just happening" election next year. Maybe I'm underestimating Wheat's support.

Maybe I'm underestimating Wheat's support.

On offense alone, I see Wheat as:
Dead even with Goslin (not that that's any help.)
Distinctly behind Clarke.
Behind Magee on peak, about the same on career - advantage Magee.
A little behind Kelley on peak, a little ahead on career - advantage Wheat.
Behind Flick on peak, ahead on career - advantage Flick.
Ahead of VH, Ryan, Duffy, both peak and career. That's just offense, must also consider defense.

But I have VH and Ryan as 2-3 on my ballot this year, and I'll probably put Wheat ahead of them.

Of course, if Walter Johnson had changed his name in the middle of the 1915 season and the encyclopedists had never figured out that the two records belonged to the same person, I'd put the two parts of his record #1 and #2 on the ballot.

I think there's a decent chance we'll have another "just happening" election next year. Maybe I'm underestimating Wheat's support.

The fact that he and Groh be on the ballot will help clarify the value of anybody who beats them, I think. _Not_ to advocate holding anyone back, but if, for example, Van Haltren (who I'm pretty sure will be my #2 this year when I cast my ballot) were not elected this year, and he were elected next year ahead of Wheat, I think that would make his election seem much more purposeful. That would be less true for a pitching candidate, but I think the principle applies.

1932 ballot.

1. Roger Bresnahan Good career length in a tough era for catchers; excellent bat relative to other catchers. The HoM now has a huge gap with no major league catchers.

2. Jake Beckley Why so much backlash? At the time of his retirement, was the active career leader in nearly every offensive category. Solid 1B for a long, long time, when 1B was more of a defensive position.

3. George "Rube" Waddell A legitimately great, though hard-luck pitcher, who should not be forgotten in the years to come. Many ERA+ and strikeout titles.

4. Rube Foster Dropped him from #1 because I think I'm overrating Negro league pitchers. Great years look like a Waddellish peak.

5. Eddie Cicotte To paraphrase what somebody else said, just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he wasn't a great pitcher. One of the best pitchers of the 1910s.

6. Harry Hooper (N) Can a slightly above average player play himself into a HoM career by playing long enough? I'll tentatively say yes. Reputation for being a great defensive RF.

7. George Van Haltren Van Haltren, Ryan, Duffy. I agree with the consensus pecking order. Van Haltren beats Ryan because of more pitching value and because he played a greater percentage of his career in CF. Duffy's career shape is not like the others, and seems to be the prototypical career type that just falls short of HoM standards.

8. Jimmy Ryan

9. Jose Mendez Add Holway's W/L data from 1910 to 1913 and Mendez was 59-19, and he was still capable of great seasons a decade later.

10. Frank Chance I like Frank. IMO, the top 1B of the deadball era. Lack of playing time hides his greatness. It's nice to see him getting more appreciation, but like everyone here and below, may never appear so high on my ballot again.

11. Hughie Jennings Looks like five great years and virtually nothing else will not be enough to get him over the top. Dominant part of career may have been cut short by all the beanings.

12. Lip Pike By the standards the electorate has applied to 1870s players, he's clearly the next in line, but doesn't have enough to get in without credit for pre-1871 play. Good evidence for being a star 1866-1870. All in all, still leaves an annoying amount of uncertainty.

13. Cupid Childs Best 2B of the 1890s; as with Duffy, the level of play petered out a bit too quickly.

14. Hugh Duffy

15. Clark Griffith Next best pitcher of the 1890s. First time ever on my ballot, and probably the last for a while.

16. John McGraw. I've always been one of his top supporters, but knocking him off my ballot this year is kind of throwing in the towel.

Top ten runners-up from 1931 who are not on my ballot: None (!) Horrors, have I become the Establishment?

In any case, my consensus score will be knocked down by not having Louis Santop on my ballot. I may be blowing it, but I've looked only at his actual record and not any projections, and I see a lot of very good, but not quite enough great.

Well, no candidate is going to make every ballot.

1932 Ballot

1. Louis Santop (n/e). The first great power-hitting catcher. Looks a bit better than Bresnahan as a hitter and as a fielder, and has a substantial playing time advantage. That's enough for him to be a clear # 1 on this ballot.

If we elect any one of these next six this year, we'll have made a good choice in my view, but we won't be doing the other five an injustice by not electing them.

2. George Van Haltren (2) The best remaining player from the underrepresented 1890s. Tenth best player of the 1890s. All-round, consistent talent; just the sort of player who has been underrated in traditional discussions of merit.
3. Clark Griffith. (3) I think he has an argument to have been better than Rusie. My system shows him at 33.5 support-neutral wins above average. Like Van Haltren he lacks the high peak that appeals to some voters, but, also like Van Haltren, he was consistently above average, not just average.
4. Mickey Welch. (4) 8th-10th best player of the 1880s. Like Griffith, 33.5 support-neutral wins above average. Accomplished this feat against weaker competition in much easier conditions for pitchers, so despite higher career value, he ranks just below Griffith.
5. Rube Foster. (6) The biggest star in black baseball in the aughts. I rated him cautiously last election, keeping him below the point where my MLE calculations put him until I was surer of the numbers. That caution was justified, since work with Mendez showed me that I had overestimated Foster. I’ve scaled him back this year, but he actually moves up one spot on the ballot, since I’m now putting him exactly where his numbers place him. Slightly behind Walsh among elected contemporary pitchers but ahead of Brown.
6. Hughie Jennings (5) The third 1890s star now featured prominently on my ballot. While I understood those who favor Cupid Childs, I’m just not convinced that the “best second baseman” argument matters, and Jennings, at his best, was the best position player of the era. During his 1894-1898 peak, he was the best player in baseball, and better than a pair of contemporary first-ballot HoMers, Billy Hamilton and Ed Delahanty, who were also at their peaks during these years.
7. Lip Pike. (8) Career wasn’t long, but he was a regular longer than Hugh Duffy, Pete Browning, or Sam Thompson.

The rest of the players on my ballot are mostly borderline candidates from the aughts to the early twenties, and they need to be compared to the best of their time, and compared more closely to one another before we elect any of them.

8. Spotswood Poles (7) His peak was short, but strong in relation to his contemporaries.
9. Jose Mendez (n/e) Mendez was lights-out during his peak, which is better than any other eligible pitcher has to offer. Foster beats him on career and a peak that was close. After 1914 he didn’t pitch much, but he remained a highly effective pitcher in a limited role. He’s a borderline candidate. Opening at #9 may seem high, but he’ll be off ballot from 1934 through 1936 or 1937.
10. Tommy Leach (9).
11. Larry Doyle (10).
12. Hugh Duffy (11).
13. Gavvy Cravath (13). I give him substantial credit for his play in Minnesota in the AA (he was clearly good enough to start in the majors), and part-time credit for his last two PCL seasons.
14. Roger Bresnahan (14) Top catcher of the aughts. Genuinely great player (his peak rate trails only (Jennings, Chance, McGraw, and Pike among eligible position players), but not enough playing time or defensive value to be a definite HoMer.
15. Wilbur Cooper (n/e) Just makes my ballot, rather to my surprise. Placed higher than I thought he would, mostly because I didn’t realize that his prime was so strong: he was a consistently fine pitcher for 8 years. A Griffithesque career, but not quite as high a peak. Could move up or down significantly as I study his contemporaries, pitching and non-pitching, in more depth. He might be a worthy HoMer in his context – just don’t know yet.

Consensus Top 10 players not on my ballot

Jimmy Ryan – see #16 below
Jake Beckley – see #30 below

Off Ballot

16. Jimmy Ryan (12) Fourteenth best player of the 1890s. Decided I’d rather have Cravath or Bresnahan or Cooper than Ryan. They were all more consistently excellent.
17. George Burns (16)
18. Cupid Childs (15)
19. Bill Monroe (17)
20. Dobie Moore (n/e) Like Cooper, a hard player to rank. Since most of his true contemporaries won’t be eligible for a while, it’s hard to say exactly how good he was relative to his peers. I see Frisch, Cronin, and Sisler at their peaks as good comps for Moore as a hitter, though he was slightly better than Frisch and Cronin, not quite as good as Sisler. But his career, even with credit for his play for the 25th Infantry Wreckers, was short.
21. Harry Hooper (20)
22. Rube Waddell (19)
23. Herman Long (18)
24. Tommy Bond (24)
25. Bobby Veach (26)
26. Charley Jones (21)
27. Bruce Petway (23)
28. Fielder Jones (22)
29. Babe Adams (n/e) #25 among 1910s players. Career full of ups and downs. Seldom pitched two outstanding seasons back to back: his durability seems to have been a bit lacking. But he was highly effective when he was healthy. Low walk rate is well-known, but also appears to have been very good at suppressing hits on bip. A bit better than Hippo Vaughn, who just misses my top 40.
30. Jake Beckley (25) Beckley just doesn’t appear outstanding in comparison to his contemporaries. Lack of better first-basemen could give him a positional boost, but right now I don’t see the justification for a positional bonus for first base.
31. Frank Chance (27)
32. Tony Mullane (28)
33. Dick McBride (29)
34. Ed Konetchy (31)
35. Lave Cross (30)
36. John McGraw (32)
37. Joe Tinker (33)
38. Johnny Evers (34)
39. Ed Williamson (35)
40. Addie Joss (36)

John Murphy on Charley Jones:
I know he played baseball before 1875, but have no idea where. Details are very sketchy about his life (in fact, we're not even sure when he died).

Jones is the greatest Missing Player --death data missing in the biographical database maintained by the SABR research committee. He is third on their Most Wanted list behind Hugh Daily and Charley Dexter, who are keenly wanted for other reasons.


The definitely immoral Eric Enders

Which one is that?


karlmagnus #38:
Incidentally, unless some expert can prove me wrong, Leever stands as Exhibit 1 for my contention that 90s baseball was lower not higher quality than 80s. Lower salaries and fewer opportunities kept out not just marginal players but also potential stars. I wrote a few "years" ago that those with decent blue collar or white collar alternative opportunities would be driven away from baseball by the lower money and unattractive environment in the early and mid 90s; here's an example of it.

The economic point is valuable even if Sam Leever was not a "potential star" in the mid 1990s.

On the other hand, there isn't much evidence yet. Evidence regarding the magnitude of the effect is crucial, because the theoretical argument is merely qualitative. Relatively "bad times" in the baseball labor market cause player quality to be less than it would otherwise be, a few years later.

Brian H.
1932 Ballot

1.Luis Santop – Catcher was (according to James) the Negro League’s strongest postiion. Santop was by my reckoning either the 2nd or 3rd Best. No need to dig much deeper in a soft year.

2Hugh Jennings – (3 AS + 2 MVP) His peak is among the highest ever at SS. He was not merely the top SS of an era abundant with outstanding shortstops. This was in perhaps the most competitive era we have judged to date (the one-league 1890’s). James (a peak fan) ranks Jennings 18th , just above Dahlen among all SSs... Jennings was an integral part of the “Old Orioles” dynasty of the ‘90s.

3.Rube Foster – The first great Negro League/Black ball Pitcher. His candidacy requires a great deal of reliance on anecdotal evidence (ie his "legend")

4. Frank Chance (7 AS, 1 MVP) Chance was the was the premier 1B in baseball for several years (weak years for the position). Conversely, I have Beckley as the top 1B for only a few years. Very valuable on the bases.....Chance could rank higher if: (A) He was accorded credit for managing the Cubs; or (B) He was more durable player and put up career numbers like his longtime nemesis Fred Clarke.

5.Hugh Duffy –(2 AS, 1 MVP) Duffy was integral part of Boston’s “team of the 90’s”. He had an exceptional peak and enough of a career that I can’t call it a fluke. Renowned as a heads-up player and a top-notch fielder.

6.Cupid Childs (5 AS) – I had him above McPhee based on his peak and strength of competition (as does James). I also think he hit a bit better than Bid (although his fielding was clearly inferior).

7.Mickey Welch – Well I’ve always had a soft spot for him (see earlier ballots)... His 300+ Wins are legit. I wonder why James leaves him off his top 100 but lists Mullane (whose career numbers need to be depreciated somewhat since he played in the AA) instead.

8.Clark Griffith – Among the top Pitchers for the (in my opinion) underappreciated 1890's.

9.Pete Browning (8 AS !) – A better AA hitter you will not find. Not as good all around as Stovey – a much better career than O’Niell. His early AA years are discounted.

10Rube Waddell – (3 AS, 1 CY + 1 MVP) – one of the greatest strikeout Pitchers of all time. If he had the legendary savvy of Griffith, for example, he probably would have won 300 games and become a first ballot HOMer.

11.Roger Bresnahan (4 AS) – Better than Bennett but not by that much. He was a tremendous all-around talent and played a prominent role in the successes of the Giants of the 1900's. The big question here is how much of a bump he gets as a Catcher.

12.Bill Monroe - Monroe made several all-star teams and apparently hit for power as well as average... I actually think he may have been better than Johnson.

13JJ McGraw – In terms of peak performance one of the best 3Bs ever.

14.Ross Youngs – Great player (all around) short career. Sad story. Of course I like his peak.

15.Dobbie Moore -I need to know more ... since (as noted above) I’m generally predisposed to peak he makes the ballot. (Barely).

Off the list :

(Between 16-20):
Lip Pike – He played a bit later than Pearce but did not excel for as long and was probably never the BEST player. Then again at least we have some stats I can appreciate. I guess the ultimate explanation for why he falls behind guys like Moore, McGraw, Youngs and Ryan is that I hold his era in relatively low esteem.

Geo. Van Haltren Strong career but not up to what I look for in a peak for his position.

Jimmy Ryan (probably 16) – I like his peak a bit more than VH’s career.

Jake Beckley – Same as Van Haltren above only much more so. He places around 20 on my list. His best selling point for me is that he did a lot of his best work in the 1890s – which I believe we are selling short (especially relative to the 1900's and 1880's.. Since a lot of others seem to really like him I am going to go over the 1Bs in the near future — as of now he rates well-below Chance and just below Ed Konetchy (Sp ?).

I think I mentioned everyone .... let me know if I forgot to address anyone I need to discuss.

OK, slept on it.

The more abbreviated official ballot, lower in carbs and waffling comments than the prelim version ...

1. Louis Santop (n/e; PHoM 1932). Looks like the best backstop the Hall is going to vote on before Pearl Harbor.
2. Tommy Leach (1; PHoM 1930).
3. Rube Foster (4; PHoM 1932). Another week of thought might drop him back below Griffith ... but then, that's the problem with the whole NLs package, I guess.
4. Clark Griffith (2; PHoM 1931).
5. George van Haltren (3; PHoM 1926). Dropped slightly due to decreased faith in the quality of his pitching years.
6. Hughie Jennings (5; PHoM 1919).
7. Addie Joss (6; PHoM 1930). Would rank higher if I wasn't giving conventional wisdom the benefit of the doubt over my own peculiar thinking.
8. Spotswood Poles (OB). Broke him away from the pack of question-mark guys from last week after re-reading some of the discussion.
9. Hugh Duffy (11). Dropped him down a little from my preliminary ballot, where I think I overcorrected.
10. Pete Browning (15). Like Jones, gets a fairly large bounce from ranking "fixes".
11. Dobie Moore (n/e). Dropped down a little from the prelim ballot ... "Kool-Aid" anxieties again.
12. George Burns (7). A little surprised he ended up dropping down this far--would probably be top-5 on a "guys I just like for no particular reason" ballot.
13. Charley Jones (OB). Jumped up after refiguring how I was looking at early seasons.
14. Cupid Childs (9; PHoM 1921).
15. Lip Pike (OB). Moved him back ahead of Waddell after digesting the ROE discussion a little more.


Off-Ballot Mentions:
Jake Beckley (OB): Ranked at 29. Really about where he was last time, just bumped down by the new faces.
Roger Bresnahan (13): Bumped off the ballot by a combination of the rethinking of the pre-1894 guys, and the entry of Santop and Moore.
Jose Mendez (n/e): Ranked at 18 for now. Might climb his way past a lot of the guys on this ballot as I learn more, though it probably won't matter for awhile.
Jimmy Ryan (OB): Ranked at 21. Red Queen of the ballot -- "moved up" some spots before adding the new names to the list, ended up in about the same place.
Mickey Welch (14): Ranked at 17. Nudged down by Santop etc.

Louis Santop enters the MP HoM this year, and is hailed as the best catcher yet inducted, as well as the best Blackball player to date. He is joined by Bobby Veach, who is much better regarded by me than by almost everyone else. Is it a fluke, does his peak line up exactly with my criteria, leading me to think more of him than he deserves? Or, will the rest of you come around? Time will tell, but not for a few years, that’s for sure…

Depending on this election, my hall will be 7 or 8 different from the consensus Hall, and I can’t see it shrinking very much from there.

1. Hughie Jennings (MP HoM 1908)

He’s been atop my ballot for a number of years now, and is getting on more of yours. But, there’s still a number of voters that don’t seem to care for Jennings – at this point 14 of the 34 voters have left Jennings off, many saying that he’s not even close. As many of you know, I use the building blocks of WARP in my system (modified in a number of ways), but it’s not just Davenport who loves Jennings. Some highlights:

My system:

Of the 7 eligible position players to have won the MP MVP, 6 have been elected (Anson, Barnes, Brouthers, Delahanty, Lajoie, Wagner). The seventh is Jennings. That’s the level of his peak. At his best, was better than Delahanty and Hamilton – two no-doubt HoMers.

WS:

The best position player peak eligible by 3 and 5 year. The best defWS per 1000 innings of any eliglible player at SS, and one of the top handful of all time. And, in case you’re wondering, that includes his injury-riddled non-peak; his peak defensive value was even higher.

WARP:

At his best, the best defensive shortstop that the game will see until Ozzie. That’s over a century of professional baseball, folks.

Using more traditional numbers, let me state his case (as he’s only got until ’33 to get elected; I have no faith that he’ll be remembered once the ‘30s onslaught begins…). For his glorious 5-year run (’34-’98), he was the best player in the only league going, a league that had as much concentrated talent as any for at least the next 25 years. He was the best player in the world. His OBP for that run: .449. NL OBP: .349. To put that into perspective, in 2004 exactly 4 players have OBPs 100 points above league average (Bonds, Berkman, Helton, Mora). That’s for 1 year, not 5. And none of them are world-class defensive shortstops.

For his defense, during that run, the Orioles finished first or second in runs allowed every year, despite never finishing higher than 3rd in either K or BB*, and finishing in the bottom half of the league more often than not. It was their defense, particularly their infield defense that saved all of those runs – as it certainly was not their pitching…

*They did finish 1st a couple of times in least HR allowed, but I don’t believe that HRs were of the over-the-fence variety very often. If anything, they were doubles or triples hit by faster players. Therefore they should not be excluded when looking at BIP or DIPS-type analysis.

I said before that “Hughie brings nothing to the table other than those 5 years. I’m his strongest supporter, and I’ll readily admit that point”. That’s an overstatement; it’s not like he didn’t play at all – he had a few other decent seasons, seasons that by WARP would fit right in with Jake Beckley’s career, and he had a couple of awful ones, due mainly to injury. To voters who look at Hughie and say, “He only had 5 years. I need 7 (or 6, or 5.5). I won’t vote for him.” I ask you – will you vote for Sandy Koufax, who had a very similar career length, also had his 5 outstanding years, and wasn’t as good during those 5 years as Jennings?

At a time when we’re debating between the 20th best position player of a period and the 18th best of another, or whether this player or that was really the 5th best LF of his time, many are overlooking the fact that only one player on the ballot has any license to the “Best Player in the World” argument. His 5 unbelievable years are more valuable than the 10-15 decent years that almost every other candidate is bringing.

2. Louis Santop (MP HoM 1932)

Don’t feel like wasting much ink here. Why behind Jennings, though? The “best Player in the World” title really does hold water with me.

3. Harry Hooper (MP HoM 1931)

A pretty similar player to Willie Keeler. Not quite as good with the stick, but a lot better with the glove. Check out any pictures of Fenway that you can find from the 1910s. You think right field is tough there now? Think about him as a CF and a good one, consider the long career (and along with that, acknowledge the lack of a great peak), the 4 WS titles with the Sox, and he belongs on a ballot. Where on that ballot will depend on your predilection for a peak.

4. Lip Pike (MP HoM 1926)

I’ll vote for the NA star above the deadball good player, even though I’ll concede that the latter had more actual talent…. Lip was definitely the best OF in the NA, and is the best NA player left. I really hope that he makes it before the superstars hit the ballot.

5. Bobby Veach (MP HoM 1932)

One of the best LF in baseball year in and year out. The fact that he made any Sporting News all-star teams in the AL during the 1910s is impressive enough. That he did it multiple times should wow you. Remember, two positions are locks (Cobb and Speaker), and you also have Jackson in his prime, Hooper in his, and then Ruth. With those guys as competition, I don’t hold the fact that he was never the best OF in his league against him. None of GVH, Ryan, Duffy, or possibly Pike would have been either…

6. Eddie Cicotte (MP HoM 1927)

I’ve got more pitchers on my ballot than most everyone else, simply because I would have already elected them. My HoM is about 30% pitchers, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. One of the top pitchers in the better league for damn near a decade.

7. Jim McCormick (MP HoM 1905)

The best pitcher in the game for a couple of years. The fact that he had a short career doesn’t throw me; name me a single pitcher from the late ‘70s-early ‘80s who had a long one. They threw tons of innings, racked up a lot of value, and then burned out. That’s the way that it worked. But Bond and then McCormick were the cream of the crop for their time.

8. Clark Griffith (MP HoM 1912)

Some of you are coming around… The 4th best pitcher of the strongest decade of baseball yet. The 3 in front of him are inner-circle types, so there’s no shame in not medalling here.

9. Andrew (Rube) Foster (MP HoM 1930)

Less sure with the Blackball players, but at his best, was probably better than all big leaguers other than Matty, Cy and probably Ed Walsh. I don’t think that his best lasted that long, but what can you do, it’s not like the guys right below him are getting robbed of induction or anything…

10. Fielder Jones

He keeps popping up this high on my ballot. If he was as good as both James and Davenport think in centre, he deserves it. My system has him as one of the best handful of OFers in the aughts, thanks to his glove…

11. George Van Haltren

The steady, long career. Good Player. Blah.

12. Tommy Bond

See McCormick’s comment. Maybe ‘70s pitching didn’t mean a whole lot, but nobody did it better than him for a good 3-4 year stretch. Then went the arm.

13. Ned Williamson

He’s not going to get in anytime soon, but let’s not forget how good he was – once Pike is elected (fingers begin crossing), he’ll be the best position player left from the ‘70s.

14. Jose Mendez

Again, just making my best guess with the information that is available. (BTW, thanks to all who have done this work on the Negro and Cuban leagues…)

15. Jake Beckley

Was decent. For a long time. We’ve elected the truly outstanding 1st basemen from the 19th century, and we’re not that far out from the outstanding ones of the first few decades of the 20th – Gehrig, Foxx, Charleston, possibly Sisler or Terry. This won’t be an embarrassing pick, but I’d hate to see it happen simply because he was the best of a weak lot.

The rest:

16-20. Petway, Nash, Ryan, Monroe, Cross
21-25. Whitney, Poles, Buffinton, McGraw, Konetchy
26-30. King, Moore, Waddell, Dauss, Force
31-35. Long, Seymour, J. Williams, Childs, Cravath,
36-40. Duffy, Tenney, Griffin, Tannehill, Willis

Wilbur Cooper – 45. Babe Adams – 57. Ross Youngs – 101.

My required comment for Roger Bresnahan: He just wasn't that good behind the dish. That's too soft - he was awful. He could hit, yes, but so could a bunch of other part-time CFers (I'm not voting for Mike Donlin either, who was a better hitter than Bres.) I'll vote for defense at catcher, unless career value (or batting totals for Mr. Piazza) knocks me over.

As an aside, between Santop and Petway, I believe that we have two catchers in Blackball that are better than any in the bigs for a significant period of time – up to 20 years. It leads me to wonder if that’s a product of the different cultures (for lack of a better term) between the two types of “pro” baseball. Were the white managers so entrenched in their way of doing things – catchers were slow, they can’t hit, and if they can do either of those, get them out from behind the dish – that they actually made the catcher drought that we see until Cochrane and Dickey. I liken it to the NFL quarterback scenario, where first Moon and Cunningham, and then McNair, McNabb, Vick and others convinced the league that an athlete could actually play the position as well (and in all honesty, better) than the slow drop-back types.

If this is true, that the Blackball managers allowed better athletes and better hitters to catch, then there should be no concern about a catcher shortage at all – which essentially kills Bresnahan’s one even semi-convincing argument to the electorate, that he was the best (and I don’t entirely buy even this) white catcher between Ewing and Cochrane.

I use WARP scores heavily (although not exclusively) in determining my ballots. As such, I'm left holding the bag somewhat when they change their numbers. In an absolute sense, the numbers didn't change much, but slight relative adjustments when applied to a mediocre group can cause havoc...

I still trust the numbers more than Win Shares, though.

1 (6)Rube Waddell--In a 9 year stretch from 1900 to 1908, Waddell led the league in K/IP 8 times. Finished 2nd the other time. New WARP scores boost his peak to a near Jennings level. High black ink totals. In other words--dominant.

2 (-)Louis Santop--I originally was going to leave him off, because he didn't fare as well in the CPDD polls, but the clamor for his election was too strong not to take a second look. Appropriately discounted i9 stats still show him to be slightly better at the plate than Bresnahan...Only my desire to be conservative on Negro League players leaves him at #2.

3 (-)Roger Bresnahan--The biggest boost from the new WARP scores. The last time we had a catcher with an OPS+ this high, that had a career length in the high teens, that played several other positions with some regularity, we voted him in right away (Buck Ewing). My apologies to the Duke of Tralee for not catching on quicker.

4 (2)Eddie Cicotte--Career and peak numbers synch up fairly closely to Waddell, but Cicotte lacked the dominance.

5 (-)Hugh Duffy
6 (-)Tommy Leach--Duff's more of a peak guy, with better offense, but Leach has more career with a minimal peak boosted by his better defense. Two of the WARP jumpers.

7 (1)Donie Bush--I backed off the Bush Kool-Aid somewhat, but keep in mind that Bill James blew it on this guy. See his comments in the NBJHBA, and then actually look at the numbers, and you'll realize that James doesn't make much sense.

8 (5)Bobby Veach--Veach and Jimmy Ryan have fairly similar careers, but 3 things give Veach the ballot spot, while Ryan's just off: Better peak, later timeline, and a suspiciously low number of R/RBI for Ryan.

9 (4)Hughie Jennings--The peak stud. Not quite long enough of a career.

10 (3)Del Pratt--Better career, prime, and more dominant than Childs.

11 (14)Clark Griffith--I'm starting to come around on Griffith. He actually compares fairly well to Cicotte, but has the disadvantages of playing earlier, and having a weaker peak.

12 (-)George Burns
13 (8)Harry Hooper
14 (-)Cy Seymour--These three look close to me, but Burns was more the impact player, I think, whereas Seymour would have benefitted from a couple more seasons.

15 (-)Duke Farrell--Catchers apparently got the largest WARP boost. Much of Farrell's case comes from the strength of his 1891 season.

Off the ballot:
George VanHaltren
Cupid Childs
Herman Long
Jim McCormick
Silver King
Jimmy Ryan
Jimmy Williams

Top 10 ommissions (Is six of these guys a new HOM record?)--

Rube Foster--A reasonable discount to his i9 projections show him to be no better than an average pitcher...of course, that hasn't stopped...
Jake Beckley--who might be picked last if we were picking teams on the sandlot, and had the top 50 vote-getters to choose from.
Lip Pike--A great player who played in ungreat times. I discount the level of competition and accuracy of flowery accounts too much to compare to even a weak bunch of modern players.
Cupid Childs--Not as good as Del Pratt.
Jimmy Ryan + George Van Haltren--Both fell due to new WARP scores, but also both lost a bit on the numbers game. There's a lot of decent outfielders out there, and these two don't necessarily stand out. Both could easily jump back on to the ballot in future elections.

Dolf Lucky hands off the "lowest consensus score" title to someone else (maybe KJOK?) after keeping it for only one week. That was ballot #36, so we're 2/3 done.

word.

If we were including Hill, Santop, Johnson or Foster in our pick-up team, we'd probably select Beckley at 1B before Anson!

1932 ballot. There was a revamp in pitching after a further review. That helped out Griffith and solidified Waddell.

1. Louis Santop (-). Qualified catchers like this don't grow on trees. When dipping this deep into the backlog that lets you cut to the front of the line.

2. Jimmy Ryan (1). Looks well rounded to me. The weak years aren't excessively poor, the longevity is a plus.

3. Rube Waddell (2). Won six straight strikeout titles, top 10 in Ks per 9 innings 10 straight years - dominance you don't get everyday. His 1902 season: 12-8 out in LA to start season, brought back to Philly by Connie Mack in June and went 24-7. That's a lot of pitching. Unique in that he controlled the game, via strikeouts, at a time when the ball was always put in play (dead-ball era).

4. George Van Haltren (3). Ryan minus a small bit.

5. Pete Browning (4). #18 on the SABR 19th century Top 40 players survey done in the late 1990s. Everyone above him, and 12 below him have been elected. 1884-1893 Leaders OWP 4000+ PA

1 Dan Brouthers .787
2 Roger Connor .748
3 Pete Browning .733
4 King Kelly .699
5 Tip O'Neill .695
6 Cap Anson .691
7 Harry Stovey .685
8 Sam Thompson .676
9 George Gore .660
10 Henry Larkin .657

6. Hughie Jennings (5). I have a lot of career guys on the ballot but this is my nod to someone who put on a fine run of years at an important position.

7. John McGraw (6). Limited playing time but what he did with it is nonetheless outstanding. Positional bump as well. Cons include just not playing enough but was on base all the time when participating.

8. Cupid Childs (7). He's always bounced between being on the ballot and off. I'm keeping a gap between him and Doyle as I feel he was the better of the two. From that underrepresented period of the 1890s.

9. Hugh Duffy (11). Couple of great spikes to go with other uneven performances. Gets bump based on contemporary opinion as being one heck of a ballplayer. Win Shares love the D.

10. Jake Beckley (8). Years ago I compared Wee Willie Keeler to Beckley and how their offensive numbers came out pretty close in the long run except for the adjustment bonuses of WWK being in the AL at the end of his career, Beckley in the NL. The right fielder was elected years ago and Jake is still looking in.

11. Mike Griffin (21). Consistent hitter, excellent fielder. My numbers say it's his place so I'll believe them for now.

12. Tommy Leach (10). If Tommy Leach is a HOMer than so am I. Kinda like his mid-career switch to the OF.

13. Clark Griffith (20). Moved up since his ranking among pitchers in the 1890s is excellent.

14. Larry Doyle (12). Between Childs and Dunlap, am more comfortable giving him a boost over the fielding numbers presented. He might have been a hack in the field but to stay at 2B that many years without somebody saying "Get that stiff outta there" would be tricky to do.

15. Roger Bresnahan (13). Getting positional consideration since catchers just can't play as often. Duke could hit with anybody all the same.

Others:

16. Tony Mullane (15). Another pitcher who was good with the stick. Pitched many innings with good rate stats. He won 284 games playing with some teams that weren't nearly the strength of other hurlers of the era. Remember he's missing a year (1885) when in a contract dispute or his numbers would have been better. Great nicknames as well - Count, Apollo of the Box.

17. Rube Foster. There is part of me that wants to believe that Rube Foster the player was just as great as everything else he did for Negro League baseball. Just not a big enough part I guess.

18. Spotswood Poles. His statistical projections and standing in comtemporary rankings lead to a lower start than some recent NL electees.

19. Bobby Veach. Nice little career playing next to the Georgia Peach.

20. Gavvy Cravath (14). Get's a lift from noteworthy performance in minors between stints in the majors to go along with peak achievement at the major league level at an advanced age.

21. Jose Mendez. 22. Mickey Welch. 23. Mike Tiernan. 24. George Burns. 25. Vic Willis.

26-30: Chance, Pike, Moore, Hooper, Joss
31-35: Dunlap, F Jones, Youngs, Cooper, Monroe
36-40: Petway, Cross, Konetchy, C Jones, Vaughn

Let's see, talked about Foster. Pike - at 27th he's really not too far from balloting. But such is the way when splitting hairs to rank players. Then again maybe all the Pearce discussions turned me off to other early NA players.

Let's see, talked about Foster. Pike - at 27th he's really not too far from balloting. But such is the way when splitting hairs to rank players. Then again maybe all the Pearce discussions turned me off to other early NA players.

Since you had Pike at #15 in '98, I'm thinking that the Pearce discussions had zero effect on your voting habits. :-)

Since you had Pike at #15 in '98, I'm thinking that the Pearce discussions had zero effect on your voting habits. :-)

Like I knew what I was doing when voting in '98. Then again, the same could be said in '32...

1.Louis Santop
2.Lip Pike

Santop was the best catcher between 1895 and at least 1925. Obvious HoM’r.

Pike
a)averaged about 34 aWS per season during an eight-year stretch (275 aWS in 10-year documented career; -5 WS for two token appearances; 270/8=33.85). While I concede the difficulties of adjusted win shares for the NA era, that’s still quite a prime.
b) His career OPS+ of 155 is higher than anyone on the ballot except Browning.
c) was the best outfielder—not centerfielder, but OUTFIELDER-- in baseball in 1871, ’74, ‘75’ and ’76.
d) was a star for five years before the NA, one of the first players to be paid, probably the best second baseman in the game during 1869-1870.
e) with all that, his moment may have come and gone.

3.Jake Beckley
4. Clark Griffith

I understand why Beckley is as welcome to peak voters as the Dixie chicks would be at the Republican National Convention. But I’m not really a peak voter, and Jake’s a good career pick. He has 316 unadjusted Win Shares, which modified for schedule length would be, what, 330-340 WS? Not a lock, but hardly an embarrassment to the HoM. His WARP3 career score is good (87.1). He had 13 seasons with an OPS+ of 123 or higher. His career grey ink is good, and he has very good counting stats; I know we have to take the 90s level of offense into account, but 2900 hits/1600runs/1500 RBI certainly doesn’t discourage me from putting him high on the ballot. His era is underrepresented as it is, and I can’t imagine inducting another first baseman who played between 1897 and 1915. I’m sold.

Between 1895-1901, Griffith never had a season ERA+ lower than 119 in a hitter’s era. In those seven seasons, Griffith was 154-87, .639 WP; his team’s WP was .449 without him.

5.Rube Foster
6.Tommy Leach
7.Rube Waddell

As a pitcher, Foster seems comparable to Brown/McGinnity/Walsh, and could hit; combine that with his high peak, and he’s an HoM’r. I do like Waddell’s strikeouts and three ERA+ titles, but how good was he when stacked against his contemporaries?

Leach has 324 career WS. We’ve elected every position player with more career Win Shares except Van Haltren and Welch, and Haltren’s WS (344) are distorted by his pitching stint. He played near flawless CF/3B and hit in a low offense era. I’m more and more convinced that he belongs.

8.Ned Williamson
9.Pete Browning
10.Hugh Jennings
11. Cupid Childs
12.Larry Doyle

Like Leach, Williamson was a good hitter and excellent fielder and similar hitter to Leach, but played in more offense-friendly and overrepresented era. If you give Browning a healthy AA discount (obviously a matter of contention), then he was a comparable player to Sam Thompson: relatively short career, not much defense, but a very good hitter.

I now have Jennings ahead of Childs. Childs has more career value, but not by a huge amount, and Jennings’ peak is so much better. Doyle was a comparable hitter to Childs, but has questions about his defense.

13. George Van Haltren
14.Mickey Welch
15.George Burns
16.Jose Mendez

Slots 12-15 are a bunch of Giants. Van Haltren resembles Bobby Wallace: long career, fairly good hitter, very-good-but-not-great defense-at-an-important-position. The relative levels of offense and demands of the position gives Wallace a clear edge, but not by the 26 ballot spots I had before. I know black/grey ink is not the most advanced method of sabermetrics, but I’m impressed by George Burns on the leader boards: led the league in runs and walks five times), hits six times, stolen bases twice.

Mickey Welch’s 300 wins finally gets him on the ballot; his peripherals keep him low. I’m placing Mendez off my ballot, but he could rise. I’m looking forward to comparisons with some of his contemporaries: Rixey, Coveleski, Grimes, Mays, etc.

17.Mike Tiernan
18.Bill Monroe
19.Jimmy Ryan
20.Jim McCormick
21.Harry Hooper

Why Jake, but not Harry? Beckley played longer, had more defensive value, and is not overshadowed peers at his position. Jimmy Ryan had a nice prime in center field, but followed it with a number of mediocre years at the corners.

22.Roger Bresnahan

With all the basestealing and bunting that was going on during the 00’s, good defense at catcher was pretty important. Combine Bresnahan’s defense with his few plate appearances, and I just can’t put him on the ballot. I’m not completely convinced he was better than Petway.

23.Charley Jones
24.Frank Chance
25.Dobie Moore—he may have been the Hugh Jennings of the 20s, but I’ll wait for more analysis.

Correction: I wrote that Burns led the league in hits six times. He was in the top five in hits six times, but never led the elague. My bad.

Like I knew what I was doing when voting in '98. Then again, the same could be said in '32...

I think most of us would echo those sentiments, Al.

Anyone know how many 1898 voters have their 'hitting streaks,' ok voting streaks alive?
I was just 'reminiscing' about that year over on the ballot discussion thread, coincidentally..

Anyone know how many 1898 voters have their 'hitting streaks,' ok voting streaks alive?

35 (huh?) and counting for me, Howie.

Same here, John. Seventeen months of voting (real time) with more than three years to go. I figure 80 more elections 'til we're done.

I think I've voted in every one.

Has anyone voted for a single candidate for all 35 elections?

12 of my 1898 guys are in already, and the other three have been drifting on and off of my ballots intermittently.

Importing the new WARP is going to be a multi-week process. I’ve analyzed the top 15 on my ballot and the newly eligible. The off the ballot contenders and previously elected (for comparison purposes) remain to be examined. Hopefully no egregious errors result from this process.

The MLB rookies are crowded off the ballot, but Cooper has a chance to get in the top 15 someday.

1.Louis Santop (n/a), Phila. (--), C (‘09-‘26) (1932) – It’s hard to argue against 76% of the experts.
2. George Van Haltren (2), NY(N), CF / LF (’87-’03) (1926) – Played 6 more years in the PCL after he retired from MLB (age 38-43). All his pitching credit vanished with the new WARP, but his fielding numbers had a healthy jump to compensate. I’m going back to adjusted WS to break the tie with Ryan.
3. Jimmy Ryan (1), Chic. (N), CF / RF (‘85-‘03) (1926) – Still underrated by the group, but he’s at least back in the top ten.
4. Fielder Jones (5), Chic.(A), CF / RF (’96-’08) (1930) – New numbers help his case. So far as I have checked, he has the best peak value among the career value outfielders.
5. Harry Hooper (3), Bost. (A), RF (’09-’25) (1931) – What can I say? I’m partial to long, good career types, especially those who are would-be civil engineers. No. 1 in raw WARP3.
6. Jake Beckley (4), Pitt. – Cinc.(N), 1B (’88-’07) (1929) – Solid numbers forever.
7. Rube Foster (11), Chic. (--), SP (’02-’26) (1932) – Really uncertain of that 46 WS’s in 1903, but my concerns about his peak compared to Waddell have faded. Now wondering whether a major leaguer could have held on through the teens as Foster did, but I can’t penalize him for that.
8. Rube Waddell (13), Bost. (N), SP (’97-’09) – Tied at the hip to Foster, so the new WARP helps them both to the top of the pitcher glut.
9. Spotswood Poles (8), N.Y. Lincoln (--), CF (‘09-‘23)– MLE’s say he’s close to, but better than, Monroe in hitting.
--. Joe Start, Atlantic-Bkn (NABBP)-N.Y.Mut.(NL), 1B (‘60-’86) – When’s that next drought coming?
--. Mordecai Brown, Chic. (N), SP (’03-’16) –
10. Clark Griffith (7), Chic. (N) - NY (A), SP (’91-’14) – Griffith’s numbers warranted moving up on the ballot, not falling back. Waddell is more impressive though and passes him by.
11. Eddie Cicotte (6), Chic. (A), SP (’08-’20) (1930) – Used to have a clear career-value advantage over the other eligible pitchers. Not the case anymore he has fallen back to the pack, and I’ll agree with the group today in saying Griffith is the better of the two. Likely to be the first PHOM electee to drop from the ballot. I’m a big-Hall type of guy, so I’m not that concerned about him dropping on the ballot; I’m naïve enough to think everyone above here will make my Hall eventually.
12. Bill Monroe (10), Phila. – Bkn. (--), 2B / 1B (‘96-‘14) – With no defensive numbers, does he rate above Poles simply for being a 2B? Not too far below Johnson & Hill.
13. Cupid Childs (12), Clev. (N), 2B (’90-’01) – Looks good under peak, even with fielding discount.
14. Jose Mendez (n/a), K.C. (--), SP (’08-’26) – No idea if this is where he deserves to be. Fairly convinced he is below Foster, unsure of where he stands among MLB pitchers. Ballot comments this year will be a tremendous help for (or against) his case on future ballots.
15. Bobby Veach (9), Det. (A), LF (’12-’25) – Maybe more valuable than the pitchers above, but my HOM doesn’t lack for outfielders, as can be seen above.


Lip Pike – Too many other worthies have arrived (and will continue to) and rank ahead of him. Doesn’t look likely that he’ll ever make it to the ballot.
Hughie Jennings – Peak can top career in overall value, but it takes more than 5 years.
Roger Bresnahan – Pretty big adjustment up by WARP, he’s now just being squeezed out by a stronger top 15. Avg. to below avg. catcher defensively and I don’t have quotas for representing every era of every position.

Pike, Jennings & Bresnahan are in last year’s top ten, but not in my top 15.

Has anyone voted for a single candidate for all 35 elections?

Not me. In fact, I didn't have Pike on my ballot at all in '98 (that's for Al's eyes :-)

York was off my ballot for quite a while after the first couple of elections, then reemerged.