Intros to the five players with over 200 WS. I am not an expert on the Negro Leagues, so I will leave that to the experts.

Wilbur Cooper:
Teams: Pit 1912-24, ChiN 1925-26, Det 1926.
Record: 216-178 2.89 era/3.64 runsallowed, K/W 1.47, WH9IP=11.04
Win Shares: Career 266; 3 yrs cons 81; 7 best yrs 179; per 40 starts 22.5. Seasons with 20+: 9. Seasons with 30+: 1.
AllStars: STATS 4, WS 5
Fibonacci WinPoints: 156
ERA+: 116
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 17/173
Bill James Rank: 55
Top 10s: Wins 8 times with 1 first and 4 of 20. ERA 6 times. BB/IP and H/IP 5 times each. Innings Pitched 8 times. Complete Games 8 times. aERA+ 7 times.
A quick worker who was often in windup when he got the signal from the catcher. After his release, he pitched in the minors until 1930.

Babe Adams:
Teams: StLN 1906, Pit 1907, 1909-1916, 1918-1926
Record: 194-140 2.75 era/3.39 runsallowed, K/W 2.41, WH9IP=9.83
Win Shares: Career 243; 3 yrs cons 70; 7 best yrs 164; per 40 starts 22.5. Seasons with 20+: 5. Seasons with 30+: 0.
AllStars: STATS 1, WS 2
Fibonacci WinPoints: 167
ERA+: 117
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 12/145
Bill James Rank: 93
Top 10s: Wins 5 times with 2 of 20. ERA 6 times. H/IP 5 times. BB/IP 11 times including 4 1sts in row 1919-22. Winning % 7 times with 1 first. aERA+ 6 times.
His career BB/9IP is second among all post-93 pitchers.
Unique career path. Origin of nickname is unknown. Was a 27 yr old rookie in 1909 when he went 12-3 1.11 era and won 3 games in the world series. 1914 he pitched a 21 inning no walk game but lost 3-1 to Marquard. 1916 he is released with a sore shoulder. Recovered to pitch well for StJoseph in 1917 and rejoined Pitt late in 1918 because he was exempt from WWI drafting becuase he was too old.

Hooks Dauss:
Teams: Det 1912-26
Record: 222-182 3.32 era/4.24 runsallowed, K/W 1.13, WH9IP=11.87
Win Shares: Career 215; 3 yrs cons 61; 7 best yrs 133; per 40 starts 18. Seasons with 20+: 2. Seasons with 30+: 0.
AllStars: STATS 0, WS 2
Fibonacci WinPoints: 162
ERA+: 102
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 3/138
Bill James Rank: 101-200
Top 10s: Wins 7 times. Complete Games 9. Innings Pitched 7. Ks 4. W/L % 4 times.

I don't know anything unique about him.

Stuffy McInnins:
Teams: PhiA 1909-1917, BosA 1918-21, Cle 1922, BosN 1923-24, Pit 1925-26, PhiN 1927.
Record: .308/.343/.381. 1060 RBI, 872 R
Win Shares: Career 227; 3 yrs cons 71; 7 best yrs 133; per 162g 17.3. Seasons with 20+: 3. Seasons with 30+: 0.
AllStars: STATS 3, WS 3, Majors 2
OPS+: 105
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 1/79
Bill James Rank: 68
Defense: First Base, WS "B+" with 3 Gold Gloves.
Top 10s: MVP balloting 2 times. Batting Avg 6 times. Hits 5. RBI 5. OBP & SLG 2 each. Sacrifices 7 and 3rd all-time.
Won 5 World Series: 1910, 1911, 1913, 1918, 1925 though he didn't play in 1910.

Ross Youngs:
Teams: NYG 1917-1926.
Record: .322/.399/.441. 592 RBI, 812 R
Win Shares: Career 206; 3 yrs cons 83; 7 best yrs 181; per 162g 27.5. Seasons with 20+: 7. Seasons with 30+: 1.
AllStars: STATS 4, WS 4, Majors 1
OPS+: 130
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 5/115
Bill James Rank: 46
Defense: Right Field, WS "C" with 0 Gold Gloves.
Top 10s: MVP voting 1. OBP all 7 yrs he was healthy. BA 6. OPS 5. SLG 3. Runs 6. Hits 5. BBs 7. OPS+ 6. XBH 4. SB 5. RBI 2.

Batted first and second in 1918 and 1919 (only years I know). McGraw called him the best outfielder he ever had on his teams. Was charged by ex-teammate of throwing a game in 1924, denied the charges and was quickly acquitted. First man to get 2 hits in an inning in World Series. Very fast. Diagnosed with Bright's disease, a terminal kidney ailment, in Spring 1926. He managed to hit .306 and died the following fall having just turned 30.

Getting the major leaguers out of the way...

Youngs rates highest for me, and that's at #41 (before adding Mendez or Moore to the consideration set). Dauss and Cooper both edge into my top 50. Adams is about 10-15 spots lower. McGinnis is the second to worst player I've rated. I don't think any of these guys are serious ballot contenders, though I can see Youngs maybe getting a vote or two.

Santop is #1 for me with a bullet. I've not cast a single vote for a catcher since joining the project; Santop seems a wide margin better than any other catcher who has been on the ballot in that time. Decent career length for a catcher, great peak.

Mendez, I'm close to forming a judgment on, but haven't set it in concrete yet. Waiting for the final numbers from Chris Cobb. I think he's likely to make my ballot, not sure how high, though.

I'd like to see a thread opened for Dobie Moore. I don't think he's going to make my ballot, but he's rated the #4 NL SS by James, and has a number of AS selections, so I think he's worthy of a close look before we dismiss him out of hand.

I'd like to see a thread opened for Dobie Moore. I don't think he's going to make my ballot, but he's rated the #4 NL SS by James, and has a number of AS selections, so I think he's worthy of a close look before we dismiss him out of hand.

Makes sense to me.

Mendez, I'm close to forming a judgment on, but haven't set it in concrete yet.

Same here.

None of the major leaguers will make my ballot, though Cooper comes the closest.

Santop is #1 for me with a bullet.

Looks like it for me, too.

As an opening bid, my ballots starts:

1. Santop
2. Beckley
3. Mendez
4. Pearce (or Bresnahan if Pearce is elected).

Murkiness below.

Murkiness below.

Murkiness? What position did he play? :-)

Virtually all of the NegLeg experts have Gibson, Mackey, and Santop as the top 3 catchers: SBAR poll, Pitts Courier poll, Ted Knorr, McNeil encyclopedia. Holway left Santop off.
Given the stonrg timeline tendencies to honor more recent black players, Santop to me is an easy #2. Mackey was apparently more impressive to those who valued defense, be he certainly couldn't hit anywhere near the others. Being #2 to Josh Gibson ain't any worse than being the #2 3Bman to Mike Schmidt. I agree with the theory that we should be careful with guys on their first turn, but given what's left, it's gonna be hard not to put Mr. Santop in an elect-me spot.

I'm Very interested to see comparisons between Mendez and Rube Foster.

Well, the only Ness I found would have to have had one hell of a minor league career to make a ballot.

He played in the Philly's outfield at the same position as his grandson Del.

Quick note on Dobie Moore:

Not quite enough in my view to make my ballot. He was an outstanding player for five years, but not outstanding enough to be a HoMer on the strength of those seasons alone. If he'd put up the numbers he did in the Negro Leagues in the majors, then he'd have the Hughie Jennings HoM case. But he was not quite that good, as I see it. I've got data on him that I can post, but I'm waiting now for a thread for him.

I don't know anything unique about him.

Hooks Dauss write-up from the Baseball Online Library:

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/D/Dauss_Hooks.stm

Winningist Tiger pitcher despite playing in a down era for Tiger baseball. Good natured guy, though he was known for hitting lots of batters.

Hooks Dauss

Just in case the link above is too long...

There was some early discussion of Wheat & Groh over the weekend. That sounds like a really good idea. These last two ballots before 1934 are important and since neither of the above guys are "shoo-in" but has a realistic shot as being a first ballot selection... it seems fair to discuss them early so that they don't get short-changed on the discussion.

Heinie Groh: BOTTLE BAT
Teams: NYG 1912-13, Cin 1913-21, NYG 1922-26, Pit 1927.
Record: .292/.373/.384. 566 RBI, 920 R
Win Shares: Career 272; 3 yrs cons 95; 7 best (BOTTLE BAT) yrs 191; per 162g 26.3. Seasons with 20+: 6. Seasons with 30+: 2.
AllStars: STATS 4, WS 6, Majors 5
OPS+: 118
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 14/90
Bill James Rank: 21
Defense: Third Base, WS "A-" with 3 Gold Gloves.
Top 10s: Walks 8 times. OBP 6 times with 2 firsts. Runs 5 times with (BOTTLE BAT) 1 first. Doubles 5 times with 2 firsts. OPS+ 4 times. 3 BA and SLG.
Other
Batting Order: 1913 - 3rd, 1914 - 4th, 1915 -5th, 1916 - 1st, 1917 - 1st, 1918 - 1st, 1919 - 3rd.
Went to 5 World Series: 1919, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927.
Secret Origin of the Bottle Bat. McGraw suggested he use a bat with a bigger barrel, but his small hands could grip the bigger handle so he went to Spalding Sporting Goods where they whittled the handle down and built up the barrel.
Best fielding percentage of any 3rdbaseman in NL pre 1920s.

Zack Wheat:
Teams: Brook 1909-1926, PhiA 1927.
Record: .317/.367/.450. 1289 RBI, 1248 R
Win Shares: Career 380; 3 yrs cons 82; 7 best yrs 199; per 162g 25.4. Seasons with 20+: 10. Seasons with 30+: 2.
AllStars: STATS 4, WS 6, Majors 0
OPS+: 129
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 8/227
Bill James Rank: 23
Defense: Left Field, WS "B-" with 3 Gold Gloves.
Top 10s: Homeruns and SLG 11 times each with 1 first in SLG. Hits and Total Bases 10 times. BA, Doubles, OPS, OPS+ 9 times each. RBI and Triples 8 times each.
Other
Batting Order: 1910, 1911 - 3rd, 1912 - 5th, 1913-1916 - 4th, 1917-5th, 1918-19 - 4th.
Changed his batting style when he reached majors from bunting and running to standing flat footed and slugging at the ball. He disdained the bunt because he thought he was more valuable hitting for power. Also, one of the first hitters to go for a lighter bat to increase bat speed.
Liked to hold out for more $ most every off-season.
Had a natural batting philosophy that enabled him to exploit the lively ball.
Was a patrolman in Kansas City after the Depression forced him to sell his large farm/ranch. Nearly died in a high speed crash.

Here’s a quick comparison of many of the pitchers of the generation that straddled the deadball/lively ball line, pitchers of the teens and ‘20’s. It contains most of the leading new candidates for the next dozen elections. Note that Wins Above Team is not shown if less than 20.

GS CG% ERA+ OPS+ WAT IP
666 79.5 146 76 90.0 5914.2 1907-1927 Walter Johnson
158 76.6 146 110 23.5 1437.1 1908-1922 Joe Wood
599 73.1 135 43 81.6 5189.0 1911-1930 Pete Alexander
384 58.6 127 09 20.1 3093.0 1912-1928 Stan Coveleski
347 64.5 125 10 33.2 2966.1 1915-1935 Dazzy Vance
319 63.3 124 55 30.2 2681.1 1916-1928 Urban Shocker
358 69.5 123 37 ----- 3223.0 1905-1920 Eddie Cicotte
249 59.0 121 28 30.8 2557.0 1920-1932 Eddie Rommel
331 65.0 120 33 21.3 2730.1 1908-1921 Hippo Vaughn
484 56.8 119 10 23.5 4087.0 1914-1933 Red Faber
325 71.1 119 82 21.9 3020.2 1915-1929 Carl Mays
365 56.4 117 54 ----- 3220.2 1914-1935 Dolf Luque
355 58.4 117 50 20.2 2994.2 1906-1926 Babe Adams
406 68.7 116 61 ----- 3482.0 1912-1926 Wilbur Cooper
552 52.8 115 22 ----- 4494.0 1912-1933 Eppa Rixey
443 54.6 114 29 ----- 3935.1 1909-1933 Jack Quinn
333 58.3 113 37 ----- 2937.0 1913-1927 Bob Shawkey
307 61.6 113 23 20.6 2821.0 1908-1921 Slim Sallee
422 53.8 111 21 ----- 3763.0 1918-1938 Waite Hoyt
388 56.5 108 13 ----- 3207.2 1918-1937 Jesse Haines
495 64.7 107 58 21.3 4180.0 1916-1934 Burleigh Grimes
421 58.9 106 31 24.5 3557.2 1912-1934 Herb Pennock
368 63.5 105 86 21.0 3119.1 1919-1936 George Uhle
487 53.0 104 45 ----- 3884.1 1914-1935 Sad Sam Jones
403 48.9 103 17 ----- 3307.2 1908-1925 Rube Marquard
388 63.1 102 54 ----- 3390.1 1912-1926 Hooks Dauss

Dan's chart reminded me of a simpler one I had made a while back, ranking pitchers by wins, based on the decade in which they obtained the majority (or plurality) of those wins.

These are our electees so far through the 1900s (top eligible in parentheses, "*" for only a plurality of wins in that decade)

1870s (1) -- Spalding
1880s (5) -- Galvin, Keefe, Clarkson, Radbourn, Caruthers (Welch)
1890s (3) -- Young*, Nichols, Rusie (Griffith)
1900s (5) -- Mathewson, Plank, McGinnity, Brown, Walsh (Foster)


Now, the 1910s:

Johnson and Alexander are definites. Smokey Joe Williams is definitely in, and I also hope Mendez is viewed as a near-definite, too, although clearly #4 in this elite company. At our present rate of inducting pitchers, a 5th pitcher is probably appropriate for this decade. The eligible #5 pitchers for the 1910s are, as I see it, Dick Redding, Dizzy Dismukes, Ed Cicotte, Hooks Dauss, Chief Bender, and Rube Marquard (in that order, perhaps).

Maybe I have been under-rating Cicotte, who from this list looks like the clear #3 Caucasian pitcher from the 1910s. Maybe not. I'll have to look at him again in the context of his peers, and apart from Welch and Griffith and Foster, all of whom are also on my ballot.

Hmmm... the Hooks Dauss comment about being the winningest Tiger pitcher despite playing in a down time for Tiger baseball... looks like the down time was due to Tiger pitchers and not Tiger hitters. With the exception of 1920, Detroit was consistently above average in scoring during Dauss's career.

Groh and Wheat team and league positional rankings:

Groh:
year WS TmRk-WhoAhead / LgPosRk-WhoAhead
1912 2
1913 13 4th Bescher, Tinker 17, Bates 15 / 8th-All regulars 23-14.
1914 19 2nd Herzog 21 / 3rd Evers 25, Huggins 22.
1915 25 1st / 1st.
1916 24 1st / 2nd Hornsby 28.
1917 37 1st / 1st (only Alexander 40, Hornsby 38 had more in NL.
1918 28 1st / 1st (tied most in NL with Hollocher and Vaughn)
1919 30 2nd Roush 33 / 1st (Only Roush and Burns 32 had more).
1920 28 2nd Roush 33 / 1st
1921 15 3T Bohne 20, Roush 18 / 5th Frisch 31, Johnston 24, Boeckel 23, Stock 17.
1922 12 8th All Regulars / 5th
1923 18 6th / 3rd Traynor 28, Friberg 23.
1924 19 5th / 1st
1925 1
1926 0
1927 1

Wheat:
year WS TmRk-WhoAhead / LgPosRk-WhoAhead
1909 4 9th /
1910 21 1st / 9th (leaders: Magee 36, Hofman 31, Schulte 26)
1911 16 3rd Daubert 20, Hummel 18 / 14th (Schulte 31, Sheckard 30, Snodgrass&Bates; 23)
1912 16 2nd Daubert 17 / 10th (Paskert&Wilson; 24, Bescher 23).
1913 16 3rd Smith 19, Daubert 17 / 11th (Cravath 29, Leach 24, Burns 22)
1914 26 1st / 5th (Burns 31, Magee 29, Cravath 28, Leach 27).
1915 24 2nd Daubert 27 / 3T (Cravath 35, Magee 26, Burns&Hinchman; 24)
1916 32 1st / 1st - most WS by position player
1917 16 2nd Stengal 20 / 11th (Burns 34, Kauff&Roush; 30)
1918 16 1st / 8th (Burns&Paskert; 23, Carey, Roush, Youngs 22)
1919 21 2nd Myers 23 / 6th (Roush 33, Burns 32, Youngs 27)
1920 28 1st / 3rd Roush, Youngs 33
1921 23 2nd Johnston 24 / 4T (McHenry 25, Carey&Powell; 24)
1922 27 1st / 2nd (Carey 29)
1923 15 3rd Fournier 27, Johnston 22 / 12th (Carey 29, Roush 28, Statz 26)
1924 35 1st / 1st (only Hornsby 38, Vance 36 had more)
1925 27 2nd Fournier 29 / 2nd (Cuyler 34)(Only Hornsby 36, Cuyler, Fournier, Donahue 28 had more)
1926 10 5th / 22nd
1927 7 9T

I didn't see DanG's post when I was preparing this, but it's additional information anyway.

With several pitchers on the ballot, it's time for another list. My methodology: calculate RA+ for each pitcher for each year. Using the run environment to determine the exponent by the PythPat or Pythaganport method, turn that RA+ into a W/L percentage. Multiply that by IP/9 to get an equivalent W/L record. Add up the seasonal W/L records to get a career record.

In general, I've made no attempt to adjust for defense, but there are two exeptions to that: Brown and Willis. Both would rank considerably higher without that adjustment.

This time, I added another column, entitled "Big years points". What that is: I converted each season W/L record into FWP, subtracted 15 and discarded negatives, then added that up over the course of the pitcher's career. There are cases (such as Wood or Coombs) in which all or nearly all of this comes from one outlier season.

My list contains only post-1893 pitchers. I don't want to chain comparisons to pre-93 pitchers to any particular set of numbers. The list is sorted by career FWP on the equivalent record, although I have chosen not to separately show those.

Pitcher         W-L     Big years points
Johnson       427-230   208
Alexander     369-208   149
Grove         295-143   141
Mathewson     332-199   156
Plank         303-197    64
Walsh         210-119   107
McGinnity     227-155    77
Ruffing       269-214    27
Coveleski     209-134    61
Rixie         275-224    19
Faber         255-199    41
Vance         201-129    58
Brown         211-143    52  (defense adjusted)
Willis        248-196    44  (defense adjusted)
Waddell       200-129    59  (Note: I use RA, not ERA)
Adams         201-132    40
Cicotte       209-149    48
Cooper        220-166    23
Powell        263-225    26
Griffith      203-146    43
Shocker       181-117    29
Reulbach      178-115    46
Leever        179-117    29
Quinn         237-199     1  (not a misprint!)
Luque         203-154    33
Joss          161- 98    40
Shawkey       189-137    28
Bender        192-143    19
Phillippe     171-118    31
White, Doc    191-147    19
Pennock       216-181    26
Cicotte*      185-139    33  (*With 1919 deleted)
Mays          189-146    13
Rommel        167-117     7
Grimes        242-222    25
Chesbro       182-140    50
Vaughn        174-129    31
Tannehill     174-132    28
Rucker        156-108    34
Ferrell       168-124    29
Uhle          186-160    21
Jones, Sam    221-210     9
Sallee        172-142    14
Marquard      193-174    20  (Gee - no votes in 1931?)
Orth          195-177    22
Marberry      134- 96    11  (How to adjust for leverage?)
Kremer        128- 92    22
Dauss         192-185     6
Mullin        205-204     7
Wood           99- 60    29
Coombs        138-120    25
Ruth           80- 55    22

Just for modern perspective:
Clemens       308-165   107  (through 2003)

Other than pre-1893 or Negro League pitchers, can you see anyone missing who ought to be there?

Info on the pitchers - rather than transcribe it all - how about I just link it?

Babe Adams.

Hooks Dauss.

Wilbur Cooper - I was hoping to be done with the notes section for him by now, but obviously I'm not. Most of the important stuff's already there anyway.

I'd rank 'em Cooper, then Adams, then Dauss.

I'd rank 'em Cooper, then Adams, then Dauss.

I'd take Adams ahead of Cooper. There's definitely a peak vs. career thing going on there, so I could see choosing either way. The biggest uncontrolled factor in the numbers in my #18 is defensive support - but Adams and Cooper spent substantial time as teammates, so that's not a big difference between them.

I'd rank 'em Cooper, then Adams, then Dauss.

Same here.

Cooper and Adams make a nice debate, but I don't see either of them going anywhere. My ranking of their peer group (top pitchers of the 1920s) at the moment is:

1. Eppa Rixey
2. Stan Covaleski
3. Red Faber
4. Dolph Luque (including time in Cuba)
5. Waite Hoyt
6. Jack Quinn
7. Wilbur Cooper
8. Babe Adams
9. Herb Pennock
10. Hook Dauss
11. Jesse Haines

Rearranging the order of the bottom half of the list isn't going to get any of them near my ballot. I'm having doubts about some of the top half, too.

5. Waite Hoyt

Not in my database - I'll work on his case tonight. I don't have Jesse Haines either, but am not sure whether to bother. As for the rest of your list: I'll put Coveleski ahead of Rixey and Faber (more of that peak/career thing) but I'll admit it's close. "20's" is a pretty slippery timeframe, but if you're going to include Quinn and Luque on your list, then tell me: where do you have Dazzy Vance?

10. Hook Dauss

Phillybooster cut off one of his hands!

I can't see Vance above Luque, who had more innings in America. That slides him into fifth, and pushes Hoyt and the others down a notch.

I haven't looked at the Negro League pitchers they will be up against, but I could see all or none of that top five (Rixey, Covaleski, Faber, Luque, Vance) making it, and it wouldn't be a travesty either way. [Well, it would be a travesty if NONE of the pitchers made it, but leaving any individual one out wouldn't be.]

Lots to study on pitchers here! I've been working on pitchers who were at their peak between 1915 and 1930. There are three obvious, shoo-in candidates in this group -- Walter Johnson, Smokey Joe Williams, and Pete Alexander.

There are seven Negro-League pitchers of note in addition to Williams: John Donaldson, Dave Brown, Joe Rogan, Nip Winters, William Bell, Lefty Andy Cooper, and Dick Redding. (Mendez was past his peak in 1915, but you could think about his in this group.) Donaldson and Brown are not strong candidates. No conclusions yet about the rest.

I've been studying a group of twenty major-league pitchers. Here's the order I have for them at the moment. This ordering gives no penalty for game-throwing, no bonuses for Cuban or minor-league play, and no credit for time lost to military service, all of which would need to be addressed before a final ranking is made.

1. Dazzy Vance
2. Stan Coveleski
3. Red Faber
4. Eddie Cicotte
5. Urban Shocker
6. Eppa Rixey
7. Dolf Luque
8. Wilbur Cooper
9. Carl Mays
10. Jack Quinn
11. Hippo Vaughn
12. Eddie Rommel
13. Burleigh Grimes
14. George Uhle
15. Bob Shawkey
16. Waite Hoyt
17. Babe Adams
18. Herb Pennock
19. Hooks Dauss
20. Joe Bush

Outside the group of 20 are Sad Sam Jones, Slim Sallee, Jess Haines, and Rube Marquard among pitchers who might be missed.

I haven't set out to fine-tune this list or integrate it with position players, but my guess is that Cooper and Mays will fall just outside the ballot-worthy group, and that 4 or 5 of the top candidates will achieve election. This was a surprisingly good era for pitchers. I had never noticed Eddie Rommel before doing this study, and he was a fine pitcher.

I haven't set out to fine-tune this list or integrate it with position players, but my guess is that Cooper and Mays will fall just outside the ballot-worthy group


Getting waaaay ahead of things here, Carl Mays was helped more by his teams than just about any pitcher you can name. The defensive adjustment I got? Mays had more extra fielding win shares per 1000 innings than any other live ball pitcher I've found. And his RSI was 114.something - sure he was a great hitter, but the guy got as much help as Mordeai Brown & had a clearly inferior record to 3-F.

I can't see Vance above Luque, who had more innings in America.

They won't be on the ballot for a while, and I look forward to seeing the Cuban evidence, so I can allow for it. But our candidates include those with more innings, and those with fewer innings but greater dominance per inning. Clustered around 3000 innings (330 "equivalent decisions") and equivalent records of around 200-130 on my table we have Vance, Coveleski, Waddell, and Adams (with Griffith not too far away). The other serious candidates all have more innings than that - in some cases (Rixie, Powell) a lot more. This is the low end of innings pitched for serious consideration, although Joss and Rommel have fewer. These pitchers need to have been dominant in the innings they did pitch - and Vance was dominant. There was a thread on Primer about three weeks ago in which a poster calling himself "Dr. Memory" found a way of normalizing pitchers' strikeouts for the strikeout expectations of their times. Sure, Waddell was good - but it was Vance who really towered above his times in strikeouts.

karlmagnus, from the 1931 Ballot thread:

Actually I rather disagree about the scorn heaped on Marquard and Chesbro. ... their lack of career ERA+ is due largely to their having mixed truly lousy seasons in with the really good ones. ... Both should certainly rank among the top 10 pitchers of their era, rather than off the bottom of a list of 20 as has been proposed here -- alternately great and lousy is more Meritorious than uniformaly mediocre, IMHO.

I half agree with this - well, half of half. I half agree with what Karl says about Chesbro, but I don't see the defense of Marquard. My "equivalent record" for Marquard is 193-174, highlighted by a 3-year stretch of 20-11, 21-12, and 20-12. But Nap Rucker had a 4-year stretch of 21-13, 21-14, 23-12, and 22-12, which is more impressive. Suppose I go into Marquard's record and thow out all of his years with RA+ below 100: 1909, 1910, 1915, 1921, and 1925. What's left is an equivalent record of 163-126. Compare that to Rucker's complete equivalent record is 156-108.

In other words, Marquard is Rucker plus several years of a really bad pitcher.

Were there others who had a 3 or 4 year stretch as good as or better than Marquard's? Sure. How about Urban Shocker: 18-9, 22-14, 25-14, 19-12.

Chesbro is a little different, because he has one utterly spectacular year (1904, equivalent record 35-16.) We could try cherry-picking Chesbro's record by eliminating his first and his last two seasons. That loses us 22-33 from his overall equivalent record of 182-140 to get 160-107. That's only a little worse than Addie Joss's overall 161-98, so maybe Chesbro is not-quite Joss plus a couple of years of mediocrity.

Among the pitchers and years I've worked up, Chesbro's 1904 ranks 4th in single-season equivalent FWP - although only 2nd among 1904 seasons (behind McGinnity). Chesbro has a robust "Big years points" score in my #18 post. He's got peak - just not enough career. But it's not a matter of "mixing in truly lousy seasons" - he doesn't really have those.

OCF, I more or less agree with you, at least about Chesbro, whose 1904 was truly spectacular, but who needed about 2 more good seasons to get above the Addie Joss minus line.

I think the HOF overrated Marquard because of his habit of pitching on pennant winners --1911/12 Giants and 1916/20 Dodgers, and without ever having a Chesbro season he was a major factor on 3 out of those 4. But if you throw out his 1909, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1922 and 1925 seasons, between which he went 43-80 with an ERA+ of about 70, and give him a mediocre 62-61 with an ERA+ of 100 for those seasons, you'd have a pitcher who went 220-158 with an ERA+ in the low 120s -- and he'd get very serious consideration here.

Marquard becomes a "dumb" selection when you allow his bad years to negate his good ones. In the real world, while I haven't voted for him, I don't think he's a "dumb" selection. From Chris Cobb's list, for example, to pick two random names, I'd put him behind Cooper but ahead of Rommel.

I guess I have a slightly different philosophy regarding voting theory.
Marquard becomes a "dumb" selection when you allow his bad years to negate his good ones.
Personally, I take the whole picture of the player first, his good seasons of positive ocntributions and his poor seasons where he did not contribute much (or in some cases hindered his team's pursuit of the pennant).
I believe when the focus is placed on the good a player has done and the detrimental is ignored or hypothesized away, that player is being cherry-picked. Because a team doesn't get to say it only gets a player in a good season, it has to deal with the negative and injuries as well. If the team has Marquard it gets the 1911-13 seasons where he was part of an excellent pitching staff, an excellent #2 behind Mathewson AND it also gets the 1914 where in similar innings, Marquard is a millstone around the Giants efforts to win a fourth pennant. The Giants didn't get to pretend he was replaced with an average or .500 pitcher and neither does a voter.
If we got to do that, why not imagine Addie Joss and Ross Youngs without getting sick, Charley Jones without getting blackballed, Jimmy Ryan without getting in the train accident, Gavy Cravath without being born in CA but in Ohio instead, Eddie Cicotte without having to deal with Comiskey and being greedy, Hal Chase without the darkness in his soul, Babe Adams without having to wait until he was 27 to get a real shot in the majors.
We can play this game all we want to, its called simulation baseball.
I am sorry if this is a rant, but I believe that the doing of what is described in post 30 is directly opposite of the point of the Hall of Merit. I thought it was about finding out which players have the most "merit" for their career, not who has the most merit if you look at their good seasons and ignore their bad ones and pencil in average years.

... and give him a mediocre 62-61 with an ERA+ of 100 for those seasons, you'd have ...

That's a pitcher of positive value. That's 30 or more FWP. We can't give Marquard credit for those seasons because he didn't have them. If we add 60-60 to Joss, he's almost McGinnity. It's not a matter of allowing bad seasons to "negate" his good ones; it's more that we can't give him positive credit for average seasons that he didn't have.

Marquard isn't unique in having weak seasons. Here are some cases of pitchers who had seasons with > 90 IP and negative equivalent FWP: (All records are equivalent.)

Orth: 12-19
Mathewson: 8-13 (Yes, even Matty - in 1915.)
White: 4-7
Rixey: 3-8, 7-11
Faber 6-12
Ferrell 7-13
Grove 5-7 (Even Grove - in 1934.)
Coombs 6-10, 8-13
Cooper 4-6
Bender 8-12, 5-9
Rucker 5-7
Vaughn 4-8
Salee 5-9
Marquard 8-14, 9-13 (That's 1915 and 1921)
Quinn 3-8
Grimes 8-13, 7-13, 6-9
Jones 11-16, 7-11
Uhle 9-13
It didn't meet the 90 IP threshold, but Luque had a year at 83 IP, 73 RA+, which makes for 3-6.

Sorry for being redundant with your post, Kelly - I didn't see yours until after I'd posted mine. We're both making the same point.

I'd rank 'em Cooper, then Adams, then Dauss.

So would I, but I have Cooper and Adams only in the 40-50 range. I don't know why Dauss is listed with the highest W3. League factors run amok?

Most similar careers so far to Wheat's, as I see it:

1. CLARKE
2. KEELER
3. MAGEE
4. START
5. Hooper
6. HINES
7. BURKETT
8. KELLEY
9. Van Haltren
10. Ryan
11. Beckley

Most similar careers to Groh's:

1. J. COLLINS
2. Childs
3. GORE
4. Duffy

Agree or disagree and analyze in comparison with the others however you wish.

My own conclusions: Wheat will not be a universally popular choice, but if he is not the top vote getter among outfielders in 1933, it might indicate a failure in applying existing HoM standards to new candidates. He will be #2, behind Johnson, on my ballot in 1933. Groh is a very strong candidate, but I see him as more borderline than Wheat, and he will be around the middle of my ballot.

I believe when the focus is placed on the good a player has done and the detrimental is ignored or hypothesized away, that player is being cherry-picked.

Usually, a player who is not playing would be worse than a player who is playing. That's why I think using rate stats to compare "quality" is worthless unless the two players being compared also happen to have played similar amounts of time at similar stages of their careers. Otherwise you're giving unearned credit to the player that wasn't playing.

The Giants didn't get to pretend he was replaced with an average or .500 pitcher and neither does a voter.

Whether the player should have been replaced instead of being played when ineffective is the manager's decision, not the player's. Why should the player then be penalized for the manager's decision? If the player made no positive contribution, then I think he had 0 value, never less.

and pencil in average years

I'm not advocating pencilling in average years. (Unless you're using a system that considers value to be only the contributions above average.) Significant negative contributions are always management's fault (unless it's deliberate by the player).

Wheat vs Hooper.

WARP-2 sees them as essentially equivalent, Hooper 95.7, Wheat 95.2. Both had long careers, little peak. Wheat has more bat (101 extra BRAR), Hooper has more glove (98 extra FRAR), Wheat has 101 more games played. For Win Shares, Wheat has the advantage of playing in the lesser league.

I can't see inducting one without the other.

Why should the player then be penalized for the manager's decision?

The player shouldn't be penalized for playing badly. He should get all the credit he deserves. For example, Marquard in 1914 earned 11 WS in 268 IP. I compared him to all NL pitchers who were within 15 or so IP. There were 8 pitchers who averaged 271 IP and earned an average of 19 WS. Marquard gets credit for his 11 WS, but I don't believe you can exclude this poor season when evaluating Marquard. He was the worst pitcher in the NL among those pitchers who were used a similar amount of time. His poor season happened and contributed to the Giants 2nd place finish.
The same thing occurred in 1915 when Marquard earned 4 WS in 194 IP. There were again 8 NL pitchers who were within about 15 IP. In this season, he was tied for the worst with Wilbur Cooper and one WS behind Mathewson. They averaged 10 WS in 190 IP.
These seasons happened and contributed to the results and pennant races. Just as Marquard gets credit for his good seasons in 1911-13 and 1916 he also gets a lesser amount of credit or WS or WARP for his poor seasons. They did not happen in a vacuum. He does not get credit for an average season when he did not perform at an average level.
Ok, I am done with this one. I have beaten this into the ground.
Congrats to Dickey Pearce on his election.

There was a thread on Primer about three weeks ago in which a poster calling himself "Dr. Memory" found a way of normalizing pitchers' strikeouts for the strikeout expectations of their times. Sure, Waddell was good - but it was Vance who really towered above his times in strikeouts.

Yeah, I remember that. I liked what he said so much I asked for & received permission to dump his stuff on my site. Here's the methodology & here's the results. Dazzy's #1, though that's in part due to pitching in such a low K-rate era. For Randy Johnson to equal him, he'd have to strike out 19 guys per 9 innings. Still, Dazzy was once solely responsible for 7-8% of all K's in the NL one year.

One other Vance-fact. At SABR34 I guy gave a presentation on HoF pitcher match ups in the 20th century - had used retrosheet to find all of them. Th pitcher with the best overall career record in matchups agasint other HoFers? Well, actually it was Satchel Pagie, but among those with more than 2 starts it was Dazzy Vance. And of course, it ain't like he was winning those games with his hitting support.

Part of me feels like I should be commenting more on the current batch rather than Mays & Vance, but I can't see any of these guys making my ballot this year.

but I can't see any of these guys making my ballot this year.

Er, the white guys that is. Louis Santop's my provisional #1.

Don't think he'll make my ballot, but noteworthy about Babe Adams:

1. He didn't get his shot until 27 year old. He was the 3rd oldest player in the NL in 1919, and he was still pitching in 1926 at age 44. Not sure what his minor league stats were in the 1900's, but something to think about I guess.

2. If you credit post-season performance, he should get a boost as he almost singlehandedly won the 1909 Series for the Pirates.

Prelim Ballot in 1932:

1. Louis Santop: Regarded as a top 3 NegroLeague catcher behind Gibson and then arguments start. We have no other eligible who is so qualified (IMO).

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

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. 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.

5. 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.

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: 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.

13. 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.

14a. Clark Griffith: I wavered long whether to place him here or Foster. In the end it was the consistent quality of Griffith's performances in a tight, restricted competition 1890s over Foster's great performances over all-comers in the 1900s.
14b. Rube Foster: I am not convinced he was better than Griffith, but I do see them as similar. I'll have to reread the Foster thread again. Please, FoRF make your case as best you can. If you can give me a reason to put on my ballot, please do.

15: Konetchy: Best 1b of 1910s. 4 Stats AllStars, 7 WS AllStars, 3 WS best in majors. 5 WS Gold Gloves. Top 10 triples - 9 times, RBI: 7, XBH: 8. BA: 6 times, SLG: 5.

4. Cupid Childs: 2nd highest OBP among eligibles.

2nd to McGraw, of course. Childs's OBP is an asset and an argument for him, but don't forget that OBP's were in general very high during the primes of Childs and McGraw. Relative to his own times, Roy Thomas had a more impressive OBP than Childs - and so did Frank Chance.

Wheat vs Hooper.

WARP-2 sees them as essentially equivalent, Hooper 95.7, Wheat 95.2.

Well, I'd say that maybe WARP2 uses league corrections that are too large.

The player shouldn't be penalized for playing badly.

My point exactly. Playing should not hurt a player's rating vis-a-vis not playing. A player's rating should be no lower after any playing is included than it would be if he was considered injured/retired for the season.

Well, I'd say that maybe WARP2 uses league corrections that are too large.

This era is when public opinion of the AL/NL rivalry strongly favored the AL. Do you think that BP uses league corrections that are too large for the AL vs NL in the 50's/60's? Same method.

Others:
Mendez: I see as a tick below Foster, but maybe he should be a tick above. Something I am looking into.
Jennings: Not enough years, however bright his peak 4 to 5 years. My system looks at 3 cons years and 7 best years cons or not. He is at the edge of my ballot, but philosophical differences will probably keep him off.
Van Haltren: Lack of peak seasons or standing out will hurt him as opposed to other 90s candidates.
Pike: I have too many other candidates who I like a hair better. Some of it is issues about the shortness of the seasons. Some of it is the frequent team-changing. Some of it is character issues.
Ryan: had the strong beginning to a career, but post trainwreck years prevent me from voting him in.
Newly Eligible Players.
Adams: Not enough there, peak or career. Only 5 20+ WS. Odd shaped career and arm injuries are key factors.
Cooper: Again, not enough there, peak or career. He has a good base, but there is not much to put him over the top, though he is my favorite of the white pitchers newly eligible.
Dauss: NO PEAK, Prime not HoM worthy.
McInnis: Umm, No. If people thought Beckley had no Peak, take a look here. Just not a strong batch of first base candidates from 1895-1925 ish.
Youngs: Great opening to career. Too bad about Bright's Disease, it kept him from achieving something special.

Candidates I am reconsidering:
Griffith, Doyle, Mendez, F Jones, Konetchy and Chance in comparison with Daubert and Fournier "next year," Tiernan, and Willis. Perhaps Van Haltren.

Now I got Wilbur Cooper completed.

I forgot about Roy Thomas again. He is also being reconsidered. As is Waddell and Williamson.

Players who have drawn some support who will not be on the ballot:

Cicotte: I take a large discount off the 1919 season because the point is to try to win the World Series. I also reduce the 1920 season because, if they hadn't thrown the World Series the year before, they would not have been suspended with little more than a week left in the season and the White Sox in contention. That is two seasons thrown away.
Even giving full credit for 1919 - 1920, he would not be on my ballot. His career WS are not close to HoM standards. His 3 cons yr peak would be last. His best 7 yrs would be last. His WS/40 starts would be last. Only 5 20+ WS seasons would also be last. FWP would be last. I cannot see any argument for giving him credit for seasons he did not play because he took $$ to throw the World Series.
Marquard: I beat a dead horse there, huh?
McGraw: Career was short and philosophically I like longer prime. He and Jennings played the game hard, real wins resulted from the manner of play and so did injuries and a shortened career. I think the Orioles of the 90s liked their 3 pennants and however-many Temple Cups they won as a result of their hustling style.

This is sure an exciting time to be voting. Every vote matters. Do your best to convince me. Griffith made it to my ballot, I can be convinced.

Playing should not hurt a player's rating vis-a-vis not playing. A player's rating should be no lower after any playing is included than it would be if he was considered injured/retired for the season.

So I characterized Marquard as Rucker plus several years of a bad pitcher. Well, I left out Marquard's bad years, and Rucker was still a little better. I accept your premise that adding back the bad years shouldn't lower Marquard's standing - but if there really was no more (or little more) value there than if he hadn't played, then it won't raise his standing either. In particular, it won't make him better than Rucker. Chesbro was not-quite-Joss plus a couple of below-average years of slight positive value. That still leaves him as not-quite-Joss.

Preliminary Ballot - Newbies:

I see only 1 newbie making my ballot:

#7. LOUIS SANTOP, C. Approx. 120 OPS+. Best comps look to be Wally Schang and Bill Freehan. Best Negro League Catcher of the 1910's.

He and Jennings played the game hard

A part of me has always had trouble with the overlapping meanings of "hard" and "dirty."

My preliminary ballot:

1. Louis Santop--the only true "great" on the slate.

2. Mickey Welch--He got a little bit more support in 1931, but Childs' and Griffith's increases were greater.

3. Jose Mendez--Probably the biggest enigma yet. I toyed with putting him ahead of Welch, but this is where I think he goes, thanks to Chris Cobb's numbers.

4. Jake Beckley--2,930 good reasons to have him ranked this high.

5. Rube Waddell--Maybe I over-romanticize him, but it seems like his "empty-headedness" would be as much an asset as a detriment to his team. Sometimes you just need a guy who knows how to have fun--he ranks pretty high on my list of ballplayers I'd like to have met.

6. Rube Foster--3 slots behind Mendez seems a bit much, but I haven't talked myself into putting him ahead of Waddell or Beckley, either.

7. Bill Monroe
8. Clark Griffith--He jumps ahead of Roger and the Centerfielders.

9. Lip Pike--Starting to look like another "unique talent" to me.

10. Roger Bresnahan--He was no Louis Santop.

11. Spotswood Poles
12. George Van Haltren
13. Bruce Petway--6 negro leaguers on this ballot, up from 4 on last year's.

14. Cupid Childs--There are several underrated players on this part of my ballot, but Childs might be the most underrated.

15. Addie Joss--Down from a peak of 8th on my ballot 3 elections ago. He may slip behind McCormick and Mullane as I re-evaluate my peak/career weighting.

And the rest...
16. Tony Mullane
17. Jim McCormick
18. John Donaldson
19. Tommy Leach
20. Harry Hooper

21. Jimmy Ryan
22. Hugh Duffy
23. Larry Doyle
24. Gavvy Cravath
25. Vic Willis

26. Mike Tiernan
27. George J. Burns
28. Ed Konetchy
29. Pete Browning
30. Jake Daubert

31. Eddie Cicotte
32. Johnny Evers
33. Clyde Milan
34. Wilbur Cooper
35. Roy Thomas

36. George Shively
37. Jimmy Lyons
38. Miller Huggins
39. Larry Gardner
40. Bobby Veach

41. Tommy Bond
42. Del Pratt
43. Babe Adams
44. Donnie Bush
45. Hughie Jennings

46. Stuffy McInnis
47. Hooks Dauss
48. Hippo Vaughn
49. Rube Marquard
50. Dave Brown

Okay, this is a bit of an attempt to stop the Mickey Welch Freight Train. People have been doing a lot of comparisons to contemporary HoMers, but let's not forget other contemporary pitchers who aren't elected, most notably Jim McCormick. (Warning: Lots of numbers coming.)

I decided to do a year-by-year comparison between the two, comparing their biggest-impact seasons, than their second-biggest, and so on. I determined the impact by Win Shares, and people may not agree with my conclusions, but here's what we have. (Note: The WARP numbers are 'old' ones, because nothing's coming up right now. Some of Welch's numbers look really off, but I think I transcribed them right.)

Numbers listed: W-L/IP/ERA+(Lg. Rank)/WS/WARP1/WARP3/Chris J.'s Adj. W-L

Welch 1885: 44-11/492/161(3)/57/8.5/6.8/39-16
McCormick 1880: 45-28/657/127(4)/54/8.5/8/43-30

I'd call it a very slim win for Welch based on the ERA+

Welch 1884: 39-21/557/119(10)/46/11.2/8.8/38-22
McCormick 1884: 40-25/569/134(*)/53/15.9/11.1/43-22
(*)- He was 1st in the UA, the 134 would be 7th in the NL, his NL ERA+ (107) wouldn't make the top 10.
The UA makes everything a mess, and I don't even trust that the WARP3 adjustment is enough. I'd call it a draw.

Welch 1880: 34-30/574/99(10)/42/3.6/3.3/34-30
McCormick 1882: 36-30/595/118(3)/42/8.5/7.9/38-28

Looks like a definite win for McCormick.

Welch 1888: 26-19/425/141(4)/32/8.4/7.3/26-19
McCormick 1883: 28-12/342/170(1)/40/5.7/5.2/28-12

Which metric do you believe? I'm calling another draw.

Welch 1889: 27-12/375/130(4)/31/7.9/7.3/25-14
McCormick 1881: 26-30/526/107(9)/34/7.3/7/26-30

Now Jim's pitching more innings with a lower ERA, win for Welch, but not a huge one.

Welch 1883: 25-23/426/114(10)/31/2.8/1/25-23
McCormick 1886: 31-11/347/128(7)/33/7.8/6.1/26-16

I have no idea why the WARPs are that low, but I have to call this a win for McCormick.

Welch 1886: 33-22/500/107/29/4.5/2.5/35-20
McCormick 1879: 20-40/546/103(7)/33/7.3/5.8/30-30

Again, I understand if you don't trust the WARPs, but I think this is still a slight edge to Jim.

Welch 1887: 22-15/346/112/27/7.6/6.9/22-15
McCormick 1885: 21-7/252/123(7)/21/3.5/2.8/17-11

Big win for Mickey here.

Welch 1881: 21-18/368/110(6)/25/2.1/1.4/24-15
McCormick 1887: 13-23/322/89/18/5.1/4.4/17-19

Now it's Jim's WARPs that make you go huh? Win for Welch, but not a huge one.

Welch 1890: 17-14/292/117/19/7.3/5.8/17-14
McCormick 1878: 5-8/117/120(3)/6/2.9/2.6/5-8

Another big win for Mickey, and that's it for Jim's career.

Welch 1882: 14-16/281/82/12/-1.6/-2.6/14-16
Welch 1891: 5-9/160/75/3/-1.6/-1.9/5-9
Welch 1892: 0-0/5/22/0/-0.2/-0.2

I really don't know if those years are worth anything.

So Mickey won more years, but Jim did better in the bigger-impact years. (Oh my god! It's another peak-career argument! :)) Now, I have McCormick a little ahead on my ballot, in part because I place more faith in ERA+ than most of the electorate. I can definitely see how you could have Welch ahead, though. But I simply don't see the huge difference that has people putting Welch #1 on their ballots with McCormick nowhere to be found. If we erred by rushing Tim Keefe into the hall (and we may have), that does NOT oblige us to compound the error by putting Welch in.

Wheat vs Hooper.
<snip>
For Win Shares, Wheat has the advantage of playing in the lesser league.
<snip>


Should we be doing league adjustments for fielding as well? Wheat gets a B- and Hooper gets a C+. Wheat has a 58.1-53.1 fielding WS advantage with only a 2337-2283 games played advantage.

But I simply don't see the huge difference that has people putting Welch #1 on their ballots with McCormick nowhere to be found.

I have to say that I agree with that. I have McCormick not that far from Welch myself.

Prelim:

1) Pearce...er, I mean, Santop (boy, that's weird for me)
2) Childs
3) Pike
4) Willis
5) York
6) C. Jones
7) Konetchy
8) Waddell (he moves up from near the bottom)
9) Bresnahan
10) Foster
11) Monroe
12) Duffy
13) Chance
14) Beckley
15) Welch

I'm still working on Mendez. All other newbies need not apply.

Addendum to post #18, showing Hoyt and Haines:

Pitcher         W-L     Big years points
Waddell       200-129    59 
Adams         201-132    40
Hoyt          234-184    18
Cicotte       209-149    48
...
Rucker        156-108    34
Ferrell       168-124    29
Haines        193-163    10
Uhle          186-160    21
Jones, Sam    221-210     9

Kelly - great job, I love the summaries.

Dobie Moore thread is up too.

"I think the HOF overrated Marquard because of his habit of pitching on pennant winners --1911/12 Giants and 1916/20 Dodgers, and without ever having a Chesbro season he was a major factor on 3 out of those 4."

I always thought he was one of Frisch's buddies, but they were never teammates. Is there another connection? There's got to be.

He's a better candidate than Dave Stewart would have been. He had 4 great years. Nice player, terrible Hall of Famer.

"Whether the player should have been replaced instead of being played when ineffective is the manager's decision, not the player's. Why should the player then be penalized for the manager's decision? If the player made no positive contribution, then I think he had 0 value, never less."

I agree with this 100%.

"Wheat vs Hooper.

WARP-2 sees them as essentially equivalent, Hooper 95.7, Wheat 95.2. Both had long careers, little peak. Wheat has more bat (101 extra BRAR), Hooper has more glove (98 extra FRAR), Wheat has 101 more games played. For Win Shares, Wheat has the advantage of playing in the lesser league.

I can't see inducting one without the other."

I've got issues with WARP then. Wheat had 6 years of OPS+ over 140 (only one in a year with less than 600 PA), one as high as 163 and ~380 WS IIRC. There's peak and career value there - more than Hooper.

Wheat play LF and Hooper RF. I realize Hooper was an exceptional RF, but is an exception RF worth that much more than a good LF?

Hooper had an extra year roughly. Hooper was +.026 OBP, +.023 SLG.

Wheat was +.030 OBP, +.075 SLG. That's a massive difference if you ask me and I can't see it being one that Hooper's D makes up for. Especially when Wheat had the higher peak.

I think WS sees it 380-325 (or so) in favor of Wheat and that's about how big I see the difference too. Wheat is an easy inductee for me, Hooper is on the fringe.

I think the HOF overrated Marquard because of his habit of pitching on pennant winners

Was his 19 consecutive victory record celebrated enough to get him into the HoF?

Do you think that BP uses league corrections that are too large for the AL vs NL in the 50's/60's?

League differences are an interesting topic. With only some 150 or so regular position players, having a distribution of talent, in a 16-team, 2 league structure, there is no way to shuffle the deck and deal them between the leagues to have the talent in the two equal. Since few players were shifting between the AL and the NL during the early decades of the 20th century, any difference between the leagues would be locked in for years. When in comes to calculating how big the difference actually is, however, there is no external frame of reference by which to quantify the difference. I think that the indirect method of looking at differences in performance of individual players between years, used by Davenport and by myself, gives results that make sense as to which leagues are the strongest, but should be understood to have substantial error bars.

Guess I didn't answer your question.

Who doesn't think Tim Keefe was a HOM'er? I think he and Clarkson are pretty clearly the greatest pitchers of the pre-93 era.

Not much love here for Dobie Moore so far.

At the moment I have him making my PHoM (with Santop.)

Prelim:

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

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

On Welch vs. McCormick:

Thanks for bringing this up, Devin! I don't think this comparison stops the Welch Train for me, but it may send one down the line for McCormick.

Right now, I have Welch at #2 and McCormick at #17--I'm glad to see I'm not alone, Rusty has them at #4 & #17, for example. But should the gap be that big?

Welch has 4802 IP with a 113 ERA+, McCormick threw 4275.7 innings with a 117 ERA+. But McCormick's best 210 innings came in the UA, when he had a 207 ERA+. So I consider their ERA+ to be nearly identical--but with an extra season and a half from Welch.

Their win totals don't separate them much. Welch got 307 victories in 564 appearances, mostly with the Giants. McCormick recorded 265 wins in 492 games, and spent more than half of his career with the Spiders. If their teams and win totals were reversed, I think I'd still have the guy with 525 more innings ahead.

McCormick also was a slightly better hitter than Welch, a much better fielder, and did better in the postseason. McCormick's Black Ink totals are a lot higher than Welch's, and Welch is only slightly ahead in Gray Ink and the HOF Monitor/Standards. That doesn't outweigh Welch's career length for me, but it narrows the gap.

I hadn't looked at them side by side before this--Welch caught my attention while McCormick didn't. However, comparing them directly indicates to me that 15 slots apart is too far. The Scotsman will be moving up onto my ballot, I think.

Dan, I was probably overstating things. There certainly has been criticism of Keefe lately, with some people feeling that we elected him too quickly. But the reason I said what I did was that I had the feeling people are trying to use the old If-One-Then argument for Welch - making the comparison to Keefe, and thus Welch should be in. In trying to combat that, I probably went too far.

More on Welch vs. McCormick:

"Welch has 4802 IP with a 113 ERA+, McCormick threw 4275.7 innings with a 117 ERA+."

And that DOESN'T account for the fielding behidn each pitcher. McCormick's DREA from the BP cards is 3.99, to Welch's 4.35. That's a huge difference.

"McCormick also was a slightly better hitter than Welch, a much better fielder, and did better in the postseason. McCormick's Black Ink totals are a lot higher than Welch's."

So, should we bump Jim Mc higher? I think not! As others have pointed out, do we wish to elect one-third of all inning pitched in the 1880s? Let's step back and have some perspective here. My "big picture" tells me that if anything, Welch should be moving Down, not the other way around.

Not yet using the new WARPs, and I'm still tinkering with my Negro League adjustments, which might be leading me to overrate Poles and Monroe. I'll be watching the discussions of Mendez extremely closely because I'm not completely comfortable with ranking him several spots above Foster except that the documentation of Mendez's career feels a little more complete to me than Foster's. With that said, an EXTREMELY preliminary ballot for 1932....

1 Santop (x) Finally an easy choice!
2 Monroe (12)
3 Van Haltren (2)
4 Mendez (x) He might have Cone's career value, but the huge peak makes his career shape much more valuable as a pennant contributor than Cone. And that's not beer nuts. Fortunately, Mendez does he have some shoulder seasons as well that help support his case in a way that Hughie Jennings would appreciate. On the other hand, I have him pegged at roughly 274 career PWS, which is about 15 more than Chris Cobb did. I used an average of the AL/NL ERAs rather than alternating years which I think explains a little bit of the difference between my rough-edged guesstimation and his more reasoned estimation. I also give Mendez about 19-20 BWS. Becuase I didn't spot any hitting figures for Mendez on I9s, I arrived at that figure by this process: first I averaged the % of career WS value from hitting among a bunch of his MLB contemporaries. That was roughly 3%. But because he was able to hit enough to be a utility infielder, I figured he would be an above average hitting pitcher. But because he wasn't a good enough hitter to hold down a starting job, he wasn't probably in Rube Foster's class as a hitter. I pegged Foster at 10% since this seemed to be around the maximum value that any pitcher of the era achieved as a hitter. So, I chose 7% as the percentage of value that a good but not outstanding-hitting pitcher ought to receive. It's a bit arbitrary, yes, but it seems about right. Anyway, that means that Mendez gets about 19-20 BWS. Does that seem reasonable to anyone else? I did not do any FWS for Mendez because I haven't yet found any estimates for his games played in the field or anecdotal evidence of his defensive abilities. Anyone got 'em?
5 Poles (7)
6 Veach (3)
7 Ryan (5)
8 Jennings (6) I realized this morning that if you squint, Jennings's playing career has a certain similarity to his managing career. High managing peak (1907-1909), makes his managerial case look better than it is because he otherwise mostly just hung around a while as a mgr without doing too much else great.
9 Childs (4) Second-best 2B on the ballot
10 Foster (13)
11 Griffith (8)
12 Browning (9) Keeps slipping down my ballot due to combination of upward re-evaluation of other candidates and continued skepticism of 1880s and 1880s AA in particular.
13 Duffy (10)
14 C. Jones (11) See Browning comment.
15 Pike (14) Ah, the treasured 15th slot! I'm really wavering on Pike and giving him a big bonus for a the lack of documentation. I could as easily put Griffin back on the bottom of my ballot, give the Duke a little more catcher-bonus points and bump him onto it, or even do something really nutty and go with the other Jones.

As we discovered when trying to put a HOM not HOF team together, it has no pitching; we have elected far less than the HOF. This problem is about to get MUCH worse. Why? Because of the lousy quality of pitchers in the 20s and 30s. There is NO 300 game winner born during the 1890s, none between Johnson/Alexander (1887) and Grove (1900) and the one after that is Early Wynn, born in 1920. Since we are still producing 300 game winners today, in a much better hitting era, I am forced to conclude that these things fluctuate, and are not random, and there were just very few great pitchers born for 33 years (Grove would have got well beyond 300 had he got to the majors early, and there may be other examples, but not many.)

Conclusion: We should elect Welch immediately, as 300 wins is a rare peak, and should look seriously at McCormack, Mullane, Bond and Matthews. Yes, and by all means Griffith. The HOM needs more pitching, and the 1880s is where most of the pitching's to be found.

Since we are still producing 300 game winners today, in a much better hitting era, I am forced to conclude that these things fluctuate, and are not random, and there were just very few great pitchers born for 33 years

But Clemens and Maddux are closer to being Johnson and Alexander during the twenties. The other thing to look at is that we know a little bit more today about slowing down the attrition rate for pitchers through medicine and pitching counts.

We should elect Welch immediately, as 300 wins is a rare peak, and should look seriously at McCormack, Mullane, Bond and Matthews. Yes, and by all means Griffith. The HOM needs more pitching, and the 1880s is where most of the pitching's to be found.

I agree we need more pitching, but the guys that you listed above would resemble the twenties pitchers if they had played during the Lively Ball era, so it's a little more difficult to determine the best guys for induction from the available pool.

With the big jump in the position of Rube Foster last year he looks like a tough candidate in '32 for election. Here's my problem with electing Mr. Foster. His entire career he was on All-Star Teams - some of his own creation as Manager/GM, others not but always dominant.

The numbers people have projected for him are adjusted to Support Neutral but its hard for me to say he didn't have more help in accumulating his totals than other pitchers. Wouldn't we all want to have the best team around us, year after year after year? I think Rube had that advantage and it puts him in a better light.

A sure-fire HOMer when you talk about a pioneers wing for total value to the sport of baseball but he probably won't ever go into my pHOM.

While "All Star Team" is a little strong, the problem with this argument is that he played on exactly the same teams as Pete Hill during his peak. They played from the Cuban X-Giants in 1903 (and beat Frank Grant and the Philadelphia Giants for the Negro League Championship), and then they moved to the Philadelphia Giants in 1904 (and 05 and 06), where they beat the Cuban X-Giants for the Negro League Championship. Then they joined the Chicago Leland Giants (which Foster managed) and won there, too.

It's kind of a chicken/egg argument to claim that Foster was on All-Star teams for his career. The Giants (Cuban, Philadelphia, and Chicago Leland) were All-Star teams largely because he and Hill were on them.

I always thought he was one of Frisch's buddies, but they were never teammates. Is there another connection? There's got to be.

Easy - Glory of Their Times. Marquard was in it. It's the same way that Harry Hooper got in. Goose Goslin, too, but no one's complaining about that one.

Re: McCormick & Welch.

First thing to point out is that the 1885 numbers for both of them are skewed because all the talent in the NL was on their two teams. 2 teams over .750, a third barely over .500 - IIRC, career best winning percentages for Welch, Keefe, Clarkson, & non-UA McCormick.

Second, while it's been mentioned that Welch won 13 more games than should be expected, McCormick lost 13 more. If you give creedence to pitching in a pinch, that should help separate the two on your ballot, if not, that should help McCormick for you.

Third, defensive adjustment: McCormick had the seventh best career defensive support of any pitcher I've found. That puts him 4th among the 18 (or is it 22?) pre-1893 pitchers I've looked at.

ERA+: Welch, as mentioned a few days ago, allowed a dispropionate number of unearned runs in his day. Adjust for that & his ERA+ rises up 3-4 points, wiping out almost all of McCormick's lead. Adjust for defense & I can't imagine McCormick's lead survives. Toss out the UA & Welch's lead grows. Timeline? Seems silly, but I might to it by 2-3% because I do feel there was considerable improvement in quality of play in the last third of the 19th century & McCormick's last big year that I see (1884) was right after Welch's first one (1883).

For me the problem with McCormick is that he starts out in the pack of big inning pitchers from that era, & every time I try to look a little closer at him the info either scarcely helps him (RSI) or clearly hurts him (Defensive Adjustment). I guy with a substandard W/L record & ERA+ really needs to show me some serious problem with his hitting or defensive support to rise up my ballot, & McCormick doesn't. Call it Vic Willis Syndrome. Welch, OTOH, starts off better, had defensive support that was inferior to that of almost all his peers

McCormick: Would people like a breakdown similar to what I have done for Welch, Clarkson, Keefe, Radbourn, and Griffith?

"As we discovered when trying to put a HOM not HOF team together, it has no pitching"
--
If I've counted right, we have honored 58 players, one-fourth (14.5) of whom were pitchers, couting Ward as 50/50. I do not believe this is "too few" pitchers. Regardless of what the HoF did.

Absolutely, Kelly. I currently have McCormick at #20, as my top off-ballot pitcher (and Welch at #5 or 6 this week), so I am certainly willing to see any more data about him.

Currently, my problem with the McCormick is two-fold, and they are related:

First, Welch pitched 525 more innings (725 if you exclude the UA).

Second, over 1881 and 1882, McCormick pitched almost well over 50% more innings than Welch. But this was more an intelligent usage decision than anything else. Welch was splitting innings with Keefe in Troy, which McCormick was essentially pitching 75% of the innings in Cleveland, where the options were "The Only" Nolan (funny story about his name) and George Bradley.

Assumedly, if Keefe were playing for Cleveland, McCormick would get fewer innings, and when Keefe went to the AA, Welch DID get more innings (so the problem wasn't Welch's durability).

I know we like to normalize a lot (average team, a average defense, etc.), but maybe here we have to normalize again here for usage patterns based on average teammates. Had McCormick and Welch played for identical teams (except that the other one wasn't on his team), then under a rational usage pattern they would have been used for a similar number of innings, and the 600 or so innings difference between them would expand to over a thousand.

As we discovered when trying to put a HOM not HOF team together, it has no pitching; we have elected far less than the HOF. This problem is about to get MUCH worse. Why? Because of the lousy quality of pitchers in the 20s and 30s.

I don't read this the way karlmagnus does - the pitchers in the 20's and 30's weren't "lousy." And I don't accept it as a call to elect Welch (or McCormick, Whitney, or Mullane).

In running through the records of a lot of 10's/20's pitchers lately I've been struck by how their IP total trace a pattern of usage utterly foreign to our expectations as modern fans. Good pitchers would reach a peak in which they threw 280-320 innings in a year, and then their usage would gradually fade, ending in a long tail of 4, 5, 6 years of 90-120 innings a year. As the innings gradually shrank, the proportions of relief appaearances to starts would increase, but they would always be more starter than reliever. We don't do that these days: a Clemens or Maddux is either a rotation starter or gone, and as a rotation starter will get 190-220 innings. Because of their late career beginnings, Adams and Vance couldn't get as much out of that tail.

Transport any of these guys back to the 1880's and instead of throwing 300 innings a year for 6 years and then trailing off slowly, they would throw 550 innings a year for 6 years and then disappear - but in the process, they would have piled up more wins.

We've got to remember that "rotation" is not a concept that has been with us forever, and the first generation to really experience a regular rotation is also the generation that produced the bulk of the 20th-century 300-game winners.

For my part, I think there are HoM-worthy pitchers with 3000-inning careers of high intensity. I'm particularly interested in the cases of Waddell (although his generation is already well-represented), Adams, Coveleski, and Vance. Others may be more interested in careers with more innings: Cooper, Rixie, Faber, even Willis. No, you can't have a 3000-inning, 300-win career; it didn't happen. We have elected outfielders who aren't remotely close to being Delahanty or Cobb; we've elected middle infielders who hardly deserve to be on the same field as Wagner or Eddie Collins. Why shouldn't we elect pitchers who aren't Mathewson, Johnson, or Alexander?

A hypothetical:
People have brought up the issue of the percentage of innings pitched by HoMers and potentials (Welch) during the period they were active. This is a valid concern. But, I believe that clustering does occur at positions at times without explanation. Witness catcher in the 70s: Bench, Fisk, Carter, Simmons, Munson, Porter, Boone, and you could count Parrish. By Bill James rankings (by no means perfect, but I have the book handy), that is 7 or 8 of the best 21 catchers ever who were active at the same time.

The better comparison is with the pitchers who got their start in the 60s and lasted through the 80s: Carlton, Seaver, Perry, Niekro, Sutton, Ryan, Jenkins, Blyleven, John, and Kaat. That is very large clustering of pitching talent. Everyone of those pitchers meets Hof standards and most would be voted into the HoM at some point I think. This is a huge clustering of pitching talent - compare with the pitchers who started in the 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or 70s. It is too early, but the 80s, early 90s looks like another clustering. Should players at a position where there is a clustering of talent be penalized?

These 10 pitchers pitched a huge number of innings, in fact they are all among the top 25 IP career pitchers. If their cluster had occurred in the 1880s, you would have the same great pitchers, but because of differences in the way the game is played, they would pitch half the seasons they did with double the innings pitched each year. If those pitchers were eligible would we have elected 5 as we have done so far (Clarkson, Keefe, Radbourn, Galvin, and Caruthers) and said that is enough as some voters have in their ballots? Would we elect Carlton, Seaver, Niekro, Sutton, and Perry and say sorry to Jenkins, Ryan, Blyleven, etc., we have enough of you?

Does this analogy make sense? And for fun, which later pitcher matches to which 80s pitcher?

Would we elect Carlton, Seaver, Niekro, Sutton, and Perry and say sorry to Jenkins, Ryan, Blyleven, etc., we have enough of you?

I feel the sixties pitchers benefited from that era, so I wouldn't vote all of them in. If they had pitched ten years later, many of them wouldn't have made 300, IMO.

We have elected outfielders who aren't remotely close to being Delahanty or Cobb; we've elected middle infielders who hardly deserve to be on the same field as Wagner or Eddie Collins. Why shouldn't we elect pitchers who aren't Mathewson, Johnson, or Alexander?

A valid point and one that has come to the fore with the recent elections where the backlog has been cleaned out to some degree. Every voter has seen people elected who he didn't vote for in the election and may never have voted for. That is due to happen, because the outliers that are easy votes do not arrive consistently in baseball.

We will and have elected pitchers who do not have the longevity or peak of Johnson and Alexander. I try to focus on some "guidelines" that James brought up in his Hall of Fame book:
Is this person the best player not currently in the Hall?
Doe this person meet the standards of people at his position already enshrined?
Are the most comparable players to the candidate in or out or would you consider or not consider them?

Even if candidates do not have the longevity to make them easy votes, seasonal accomplishments and consistency still make solid standards for me: Were they considered all-stars and how often? Were they consistently among the leaders in various categories and how do they compare to their contemporaries? How do the players do when comparing rate stats - did certain players achieve at a better rate than others despite having some similar overall totals?

I don't think I will be voting for many of the pitchers who will be coming eligible soon - starting with the Adams/Cooper/Dauss - because I like consistency at a high level and from a cursory look at many upcoming eligibles there isn't a great deal of consistency. On with the research and maybe I will find a gem.

Carlton, Seaver, Perry, Niekro, Sutton, Ryan, Jenkins, Blyleven, John, and Kaat

Also Palmer... Hunter & Tiant get mentions as well. :-) Its a big group. I think Hunter snuck into the HOF by being the first of these guys to retire.

I would not vote all of the ten in either - I have an irrational aversion to Ryan, probably all the hero-worship he received in the late 80s/early 90s, and Kaat and John would struggle to get my vote - but my point was that clustering of talent can and does occur, and such clustering should not blind us to all the talent in the cluster.
An example: I have catchers on the mind so... The number three and four 70s catchers in the NBJHA are Gary Carter and Ted Simmons. The 3rd and 4th from the 50s are Elston Howard and Smoky Burgess (if you count Howard in the 50s, I lean toward the 60s for him. If that's the case, Del Crandall is your 4th catcher from the 50s). Or compare to catchers in the 60s. Numbers 3,4 would be Elston Howard and Tim McCarver. The 30s are another cluster: Dickey, Cochrane, Hartnett, Lombardi, Gibson. Back to the 20s: If you have Cochrane and Harnett as your 1 and 2 then as well, your 3,4 are Schang and Schalk and Schalk's career is more teens. The point is that clustering of achievment occurs and to allow for it.

but my point was that clustering of talent can and does occur, and such clustering should not blind us to all the talent in the cluster.

I agree with you. I have given more votes for 1880s pitchers than from the 1890s, for example.

I have an irrational aversion to Ryan, probably all the hero-worship he received in the late 80s/early 90s, and Kaat and John would struggle to get my vote

Sutton doesn't do anything for me either.

Anyone know what the deal is with BP?

The flip side of the 1880s and 1970s, though, is that there will be huge droughts of quality pitchers. The 25% rate we're going at will likely be seen as a long-gone peak by the time we hit 1970, if we don't elect a few more 1880s pitchers (or dig deep into the new batch of Dazzy Vances adn Waite Hoyts).

Between Red Ruffing (eligible 1953, and maybe not a sure thing?) and Early Wynn (eligible 1969), we will be electing 32 players. The top eligible pitchers in that gap are Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, Bob Lemon, and Bobo Newsom. (Mel Harder is also eligible in 1953, but is hardly an improvement.) Of those names, only Feller is a definite, and Newhouser, maybe, depending on how we judge in WWII peak.

If we're still hovering around 25% in 1953, we'll be well below 20% by the time the next big batch of pitchers comes along in the 1980s.

I have an irrational aversion to Ryan, probably all the hero-worship he received in the late 80s/early 90s, and Kaat and John would struggle to get my vote

Sutton doesn't do anything for me either.

I guess my irrational love of Dennis Martinez will make up for you guys.

Of those names, only Feller is a definite, and Newhouser, maybe, depending on how we judge in WWII peak.

I think Newhouser should be a definite. Even with the proper discount for the war years, he was a great pitcher.

Lemon also looks good and what abought Roberts

However, there's a difference between natural clusters and rules-assisted clusters. I think there's a fair argument that the conditions in the 1880s allowed the top pitchers to pile up the numbers that appear so impressive. There's no particular reason why catchers had an advantage in the 1970s.

Of course, the other side of McCormick's piling up innings with Cleveland while Welch was splitting time with Keefe is that this probably let Welch extend his career. Whether that matters is up to you.

BTW, does anyone have an idea why WARP is so rough on Welch in some years? Was his hitting just that atrocious?

Was his hitting just that atrocious?
I have him as a good hitter 242 batting avg. and a 292. obp

Anyone know what the deal is with BP?

I assume they're doing the full upgrade now, having realized that the piece-meal approach wasn't working.

Also, anyone know how long Jim Baker has been writing for them? I used to get him "Matchups" by e-mail, then he moved to ESPN, then he went behind the ESPN "pay" wall, now he's behind the BPro pay wall (except for today's, which is free). I let my BPro subscription lapse after one season, so I don't check there that often.

make that a 224 batting avg and a 252. obp
I said his opponents batting avg and obp

I think Newhouser should be a definite. Even with the proper discount for the war years, he was a great pitcher.

He has my vote, but he is not a "no-brainer" (TM). Take out 1944 and 1945, and he's got a 153-132 career mark with an ERA+ a lot closer to 120. That could move him a lot closer to Dave Steib territory.

<i>Lemon also looks good and what abought Roberts.<i>

Roberts is eligible in 1972, after the '53-'69 gap. Bob Lemon has the same number of innings pitched as Bob Caruthers with less peak and less hitting.

Lemon and Newhouser both fall below the magical 3000 IP mark that so far only Caruthers and Ed Walsh have been able to overcome.

Both are reasonable candidates, but my point is that they are the BEST candidates. Assuming Feller, Newhouser, and Lemon all walk in first ballot (which they won't), that's still less than 10% pitchers over a 16 year period.

Robin Roberts won't be eligible until 1972.

An irony about Roberts's timing: IIRC, he'll be eligible for the first time in the same year that Koufax is.

What Philly said.

Oh, and unintentional comedy moment just happened: flipped on the SciFi Channel where there is a scene of KnightRider where Michael Knight/David H is driving through the desert in the dark with a young man in the passenger seat and Fleetwood Mac's Gypsy playing in the background. And it just goes on for like 15 seconds - no dialogue. Was this a special moment for Mr. Knight?

I'd suggest that your left out the best pitcher eligible in that time. Hint: Eligible 1958. :)

And another of the era that's been left out of the discussion so far, hint: eligible 1971.