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 at 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) Cupid Childs-2B (3): 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.

2) Heinie Groh-3B (4): Best third baseman of his era not name Frank Baker. Near the top of his position for total WS and WS per Games. Terrific hitting (second best at his position in major league history to date) and fielding for his position. Like Childs, many years as the best at his position, yet still had a long career for someone at his position. He belongs. Best major league third baseman for 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1924.

3) Stan Coveleski-P (5): Excellent pitcher whose prime straddled the Deadball and Lively Ball eras. Consistently near the top of the best pitchers for almost all of the seasons that he pitched.

4) Lip Pike-CF/RF/2B (6): 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.

5) Charley Jones-LF/CF (7): 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).

6) Vic Willis-P (8): 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) Tom York-LF (9): I know some here looking at his OPS+ must be saying to themselves "Murph has him over guys like Carey or Roush?!?" Fair question, but, IMO, York was a more dominating player at his position than those two during their 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).

8) Jake Beckley-1B (10): 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.

9) Mickey Welch-P (11): I have to admit that the 1880s had some fine pitchers. Best major league pitcher for 1885.

10) Rube Waddell-P (12): 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.

11)José Méndez-P (13): Looks a lot like Waddell quality-wise, so I'll place him right here. Very impressive player.

12) Ed Konetchy-1B (14): Best first baseman of the Deadball Era, IMO. The uber-stat systems don't measure first base well, so Konetchy is hurt by that. 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.

13) George Van Haltren-CF/P (15): Long career of quality play. Best AA leftfielder for 1889 and 1891.

14) Hugh Duffy-CF/LF/RF (n/e): It has been a while since we last saw Duffy on my ballot. "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.

15) Roger Bresnahan-C/CF (n/e): Back here for this week. It could have been Schang just as easily. 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.

As for Carey, Jennings and Sisler: close, but no cigar.

Newbies all well off the bottom – good, because it frees up ballot space. Upward re-evaluation of Jennings, following Chris Cobb’s work. The HOM needs more 90s players – Beckley AND Griffith AND Childs AND Duffy AND possibly Jennings. Mild upward re-evaluation of Willis, and downward re-evaluation of Mays and Coveleski following preliminary examination of 1939-41 pitcher glut.

1. (N/A-9-9-10-7-7-5-5-4-3-5-6-5-3-4-3-4-4-3-2-2-1-1-2-6-4-4-2) Jake Beckley Back to #1 again! 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 and slightly short of Wheat’s 129. Isolated power .127 vs “slugger” Wheat .135, in a less power-centered era. Marginally ahead of Welch, as we have seen more 307-win pitchers (now 10 others among currently HOM-eligible) than 2930-hit hitters (now 8 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. (15-14-11-12-10-9-6-8-7-7-6-7-6-3-3-3-2-3-2-2-3-2-4-5-4-2-3-2-3-3-2-3-3-2-2-3-7-5-5-3) Mickey Welch. Back to a money spot. 307-210 comes to impress me more and more. Blizzard of new pitchers in the years to 1941 are none of them anything like as good as Mickey. 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-6-4) George Sisler. 2812 hits, OPS+ 124 puts him just below Beckley and Welch but above Torriente, I think. TB+BB/PA .482, TB+BB/Outs .748. Better singles hitter than Ichiro!, his record having been set in a 154 game season. And he had power too.

4. (N/A-10-8-7-6-4-3-3-5-9-7-8-6) Eddie Cicotte. Only 208-149 and an ERA+ of 123, but 3223 IP, more than Waddell or Coveleski 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. Successfully cursed Red Sox for over 8 decades!

5. (N/A-15-N/A-5-4-4-6-10-8-9-7) 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

6. (N/A-14-13-15-N/A-15-N/A-14-N/A-10-8-7-6-5-5-7-11-9-10-8) Clark Griffith He’s another Amos Rusie, but not quite as good. 3385 IP, 237 wins and an ERA+ of 121 not outstanding, but his winning percentage is good and his 1898 peak is nice. Better than 1920s glut arriving in years to 1941.

7. (N/A-12-10-12-10-11-10) Sam Leever. 194-100 is more career than 1720 hits, so Leever goes above Childs and Groh. That and an ERA+ of 123 also get him above Van Haltren and Ryan, there being no outfielder dearth. Only 2660 innings, but was blocked till 27 by the one-league 1890s and having a steady job as a schoolteacher. 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. Mild plus for high level of moral probity.

8. (N/A-9) Wally Schang. When you normalize his career to 130 game seasons for the first 18 years, as I do for catchers, he gets to 1941 hits, more than Groh at an OPS+ of 117, very similar. Furthermore, TB+BB/PA=.455, TB+BB/Outs=.728, also significantly better than Groh, over very close to the same period. And he was a catcher, more difficult than 3B. Surprised by lack of love from the consensus.

9. (N/A-8-7-8-14-13-14-13) 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.

10. (N/A-10-9-8-11-N/A-15-15-14) 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

11. (N/A-11-12-11) Carl Mays Somewhat better W/L and WS than Coveleski, not quite as good an ERA+. He’s very close to Coveleski, I’m fairly sure he’s not as good as Leever. Hitting pushes him just above Coveleski

12. (N/A-13-12-13-12) Stan Coveleski More wins than Leever and a similar ERA+, but started at the normal time, and less W/L pct. About the best of his era, but only marginally, and it’s not a very good era.

13. (N/A-9-15-14-N/A-15) Heinie Groh Close to a clone of Childs, but not quite as good, so fits here. 1774 hits, OPS+118, TB+BB/PA .431, TB+BB/Outs .666 (all 3 below Childs). 3B in 10s probably about equivalent to 2B in 90s, but Groh not as good a hitter, given these numbers were after the deadball era.

14. (N/A-6-5-9-8-9-8-7-10-11-8-9-7-7-6-6-9-9-8-6-6-6-5-4-8-7-9-12-N/A) 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.

15. (N/A-13-15-N/A) Vic Willis 249-205 and ERA+ of 118 get him here. Lots of IP – 3996 --, but W/L pct nothing special. Looks considerably better when compared with pre-1941 pitcher glut, so moves up a few spots.

OFF BALLOT

16. (N/A-9-10-10-13-N/A) Mike Tiernan - only 1,983 normalized hits, so only on the ballot in weak years. 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).

17. (N/A-11-14-N/A) 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 ERA+ of 134 moves him up, although his unearned runs prevent him moving higher than this. Will probably be pushed down a bit by 20’s pitcher glut arriving in 1939-41.

18. (N/A) Hughie Jennings OPS+ 117 and he was a shortstop and he had a superb peak, but only 1527 hits. TB+BB/PA .414, TB+BB/Outs .671, so he’s not as good as Childs. Extra bonus for the peak, and by comparison with rather anonymous 20s players on ballot – will hit bottom of ballot in weak years.

19. (9-12-12-11-9-10-10-13-12-15-14-N/A-12-13-11-13-13-15-N/A) Lip Pike - Like Start, give some credit for missing 1860s. However, normalize 1871-78 season by season and he gets 1,592 hits after 26 - not quite an obvious HOM-er. 4 “normalized 200-hit” seasons, but only just, whereas Meyerle’s 1871 peak normalizes to 320 (obviously a random fluctuation, but in the right direction!)TB+BB/PA .478, TB+BB/Outs .713.

20. (N/A-9-12-11-14-13-14-12-11-12-13-11-11-9-9-13-14-12-14-14-N/A) 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.

21. (12-15-N/A-11-10-12-10-10-9-8-11-12-10-10-8-8-14-15-13-15-15-N/A) Harry Wright.

22. Ben Taylor. I think he is not all that far below Beckley and probably better than Van Haltren.
23. (N/A-10-9-8-7-6-7-8-5-12-10-10-N/A-10-8-11-11-N/A) Jimmy Ryan
24. (N/A-13-12-13-13-12-14-15-12-13-11-11-N/A-11-9-12-12-N/A) George van Haltren. TB+BB/PA .469, TB+BB/Outs .765, not overwhelming for the 90s.
25. Deacon McGuire
26. Tony Mullane
27. Jim McCormick
28. Dick Redding Not quite long enough career, not quite dominant enough. Either slightly above or slightly below Poles, I think.
29. Edd Roush TB+BB/PA .462, TB+BB/Outs.706, significantly better than Carey but streets below Sisler.
30. Max Carey. More hits than Hooper, lower OPS+ (only 107, though that’s lowered by a long decline). TB+BB/PA .433, TB+BB/Outs .658 very feeble, and it’s post-the real deadball era. SBs add a little, as he was about 75% successful.
31. Spotswood Poles.
32. Larry Doyle
33. Roger Bresnahan.
34. Harry Hooper.
35. Jules Thomas.
36. Wilbur Cooper
37. Bruce Petway.
38. Jack Clements
39. Bill Monroe
40. Jose Mendez
41. Chief Bender
42. Ed Konetchy
43. Jesse Tannehill
44. Bobby Veach
45. Tommy Leach
46. Lave Cross
47. Tom York

My #3 and #4 got elected last year. This year looks like a bottom balloter and an off-balloter. My consensus score looks to plummet as a result. Just remember, when y'all vote for the right people, I look a lot more like the consensus than when you vote for the wrong people.

This year, I am once again hurt by the fact that I think the HoM should be more pitcher-heavy and more Negro-Leaguer heavy. Even worse, none of my pitcher-heavy ballot votes goes to Coveleski.

I'm surprised there aren't lots more idiosynchratic ballots by people who, for example, think that the group underrates third basemen so has had five third-basemen drift to the tops of their ballots.

1. Jake Beckley (1) -- Best first baseman, 1890-1905.

2. Mickey Welch (2) -- Giving adequate credit to durability gives him enough credit to get up to the top. Compared to later decades, the 1880s is not short on pitchers, and I can certainly see adding one more.

3. Jose Mendez (5) -- Greatest Cuban pitcher on the ballot. Great enough to play in the field when he went through his "dead arm" period.

4. Gavy Cravath (6) -- Greatest PCL, American Association, and dead-ball slugger on the ballot. I give full credit to wrongfully excluded black and Cuban players. I see no reason not to do the same for wrongfully excluded Caucasians who played at peak levels in the leagues that they were permitted to play in.

5. Roger Bresnahan (7) -- Greatest player who caught frequently. Schalk or Schang may be worth more as catchers, but throw in Bresnahan's time in the outfield, and it's really not close.

6. Lip Pike (8) -- Greatest NA player on the ballot.

7. Pete Browning (9) -- Greatest AA star on the ballot. I have not forgotten you, Pike and Browning! As long as your stats don't decline in the intervening years, I may be voting for you in 2004.

8. Max Carey (10) -- Better than Roush. Too many Win Shares to ignore. "Peak" includes defensive value, too.

9. Bill Monroe (11) -- Still here. The forgotten man.

10. Clark Griffith (12) -- Greatest 1890s pitcher on the ballot. Never the "best", but always one of them.

11. Dick Redding (13) -- I like pitchers more than you do. I like Negro Leaguers more than you do. Is it any wonder I've got room for Mendez and Redding on my ballot?

12. Heinie Groh (14) -- Top eligible third baseman, unless Ed Williamson was better.

13. Vic Willis (off) -- A rediscovered gem. I voted for him once, and then he dropped off and I forgot about him. Maybe he'll do better when Eppa Rixey becomes eligible and we can compare them directly.

14. Cupid Childs (off) -- another former vote-getter who was hanging down below. I looked at him and Hughie Jennings following this week's Jennings discussion. They were both helped, but Hughie not quite enough to make the ballot.

15. Ed Cicotte (15)

16. Coveleski
17. Roush
18. van Haltren
19. Chance
20. Leach/Schang/Schalk/Poles/Jennings

Required disclosures: This year, I am not voting for last years 8,9, and 10, but am voting for 11, 12, and 13. If everyone else could just switch their votes here, I could save writing this paragraph. Waddell, Sisler, and Jennings all have a similar feature: the do very well by certain non-comprehensive metrics (component stats for Waddell, Seven Year Peak for Sisler, Five Year Peak for Jennings), but there's an "other side" that looks at Waddell's results and the other parts of Sisler's and Jennings's careers that drag them down in my estimation.

The other omitted player in presumptive nominee Stan Coveleski. Coveleski was a fine pitcher. He was just the fourth or fifth best of his era. He is very close to Griffith, Cicotte, and Willis, but just below them, as I see it.

I think we have done a great job thus far (collective pat on the back) and have not missed a single obvious HoMer. Unfortunately, the result of our success is that we are left with a pack of about 40 candidates whose resumes are within the margin of error. (Lucky nothing as important as the Presidency turns on our votes.)
Small differences between candidates matter a lot and tiny pluses add up quickly. With the full humility that I may be completely wrong, I give you:

(1) Hughie Jennings (6th)--On the uber-systems his five-year peak is so strong that he still leads the pack through 7 years (on WS) and 8 years (on WARP), making him the leading candidate on prime as well as on peak. If there was a single system that had skepticism about his defensive prowess, I might rethink. However, the consensus is that for 5 years he hit like Nomar or Jeter and fielded like Ozzie and won titles. That is number 1 in this group.

(2) Cupid Childs (5th)--A bitter hitter than Jennings with a longer career, the difference in their defensive value brings them almost dead even on paper. Discounting the 1890 AA season a lot rather than a little drops him below Hughie.

(3) George Van Haltren (3rd)--I feel the need to write a big defense of him but lack the time--for now, I'll just say that, if not elected, he will rank in the top 3 in season-length-adjusted total WS among excluded position players and be a clear number 1 in number of 25 adjusted WS seasons among that group. Same player as Edd Roush except he showed up every day and played in a one-league environment.

(4) Lip Pike (10th)-- I still have lots of lingering questions, but he was a more important player in his time and place than any of the rest of these guys save Hughie.

(5) Stan Coveleski (4th)-- Stands in relation to the other pitchers like Van Haltren stands in relation to the other OF--lots of tiny pluses that aggregate to place him many spots ahead of a bunch of others with roughly similar credentials.

(6) Heinie Groh (7th)-- I like him a lot but don't really understand how anyone can have him at the top of their ballot without including Jennings and Childs in the top 10-- his pluses are similar to theirs but not as pronounced.

(7) Hugh Duffy (8th)-- Very nice prime for very nice teams.

(8) Chance (9th)--Wonderful rate stats for historically great teams.

(9) Charley Jones (unranked)--Realized I had goofed dropping him. I've got lots of OF's on the ballot, but I can't ignore a guy who was near the top in his league in OPS+ every year he played and was a better than average fielder. Without the blacklist and with a slightly earlier start to his career, he'd outrank George Gore and arguably Paul Hines.

(10) Edd Roush (11th)--Van Haltren with fragility and level-of-competition issues.

(11) Jimmy Ryan (12th)--A tick behind VH here, a tad behind him there, and a nonoptimal career pattern.

(12) Vic Willis (13th)--Clearly loses the comparison to Coveleski, but not by much.

(13) Max Carey (14th)-- WS underrates his defense, all the metrics give him too much credit for showing up. Candidate for captain of the Hall of Very Good's team.

(14) George Sisler (15th)-- Some metrics have his pre-injury peak as top 40 of All-Time; others have those seasons (save 1920) as no better than very good. This discrepancy needs to be unraveled and debated before he slips into the Hall.

(15) John McGraw (unranked)-- Very similar offensive player to Chance or pre-injury Sisler while playing 3B. Played slightly less than they did, more at fault for his own fragility, and arguably overrated by uber-metrics b/c/ of the one-dimensionality of his skills but still a very, very good player.

Next bunch (rough order): Veach, Beckley, Bresnahan, Schang, Mendez, Doyle, Monroe, Redding, Welch, Griffin, Browning, Cicotte, Griffith.

Required disclosures:

As you can see, Beckley is very close to the ballot, but--when push comes to shove--I'd rather have Chance or Sisler for their primes and take my chances finding another 1B to fill the remainder of his career.

Griffith is in the mix, but is overrated by those who don't adjust workload for era.

Waddell is off my radar screen--his component numbers are in the mix with the top pitching candidates but they produced 20 or 25 less wins than they should have for fairly obvious reasons. When you add to those objective facts the subjective cost of his unreliabiltiy, inconsistency, and difficulty in managing, there are 15 pitchers on the ballot who I would have taken before him (guys like Wilbur Cooper, Carl Mays, Urban Shocker, etc.).

None of the new guys are close--Rommell would probably be about 65th if I went that far.

1938 Ballot (MVP candidates, All-Star candidates, and total HOM seasons are my own generalizations based on raw WS and yearly competition. All-Star candidate is roughly the top 16 pitchers and top 32 players. MVP candidate is anyone with double the WS numbers of the worst All-Star candidate in that season. I'll gladly incorporate WARP when they clearly tell me how they reach their numbers.)

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Max Carey Joins the long career, low-peak glut. MVP Candidate 1922-1923, All-Star candidate 1912-1918, 1920-1921, 1924-1925 (13 HOM seasons) PHOM 1938, with Bobby Wallace.

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

5.Ben Taylor Ben’s lengthy, solid career belongs with the long career, low-peak glut.

6. Edd Roush Another long-career outfielder. MVP candidate 1919-1920, All-Star candidate 1915, 1917-1918, 1921, 1923-1927, 1929 (12 HOM seasons)

7. Harry Hooper At the bottom of the long career, low-peak glut, which now takes up most of my ballot. MVP candidate 1918, All-Star candidate 1910-1917, 1919-20, 1922, 1924. (13 HOM seasons) PHOM 1931.

8. Dick Redding It seems most difficult to rate Negro League pitchers. Had a longer career than Mendez, although probably not as high a peak.

9. Wally Schang I am shocked that he rated this high, but I give significant catcher bonuses (bonii?) and favor long, steady careers. Never an MVP candidate, All-Star candidate 1913-15, 1917, 1919-22, 1924, 1926, 1928 (11 HOM seasons)

10. Heinie Groh A rare infielder sighting on my ballot. Splits the long career, low-peak guys from the mid-length career, low-peak guys. MVP candidate 1917-1919. All-Star candidate 1914-1916, 1920-21, 1923-24. (10 HOM seasons).

11. Hugh Duffy At the top of the mid-career, low peak glut, ahead of guys like Mike Griffin, Fielder Jones, Charley Jones, George J. Burns etc. MVP candidate 1893-1894, All-Star candidate 1889-1892, 1895-1899. (11 HOM seasons)

12. 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)

13. Tony Mullane I still 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)

14. Wilbur CooperGood career candidate. Never really an MVP candidate, All-Star candidate 1914, 1916-1924 (10 HOM seasons)

15. Bill Monroe I think we may have forgotten about this great pioneer.

LAST YEAR TOP TEN

Stan Coveleski – Real close to the ballot, he’d be a shoo-in if you could add brother Harry’s 1914-1916 seasons. Since I can’t, I’ll say that he doesn’t have enough peak for me to overcome a shorter career than others. MVP candidate 1918, 1920, All-Star candidate 1917-1923, 1925-1926 (9 HOM seasons).

Lip Pike – The last 1870’s holdover. MVP candidate 1876, All-star candidate 1871-75, 1877-78. Some credit for 1866-1870 (at least 10 HOM seasons)

Hughie Jennings – Even the greatest five year peak (Babe Ruth) wouldn’t make my ballot by itself. I need some above average play outside that peak. Six years is a little better. Seven years might get a player in my PHOM (see Ed Walsh.) Five just doesn’t give me enough. MVP candidate 1894-1898. (5 HOM seasons)

Rube Waddell - Fun man who needed to play longer. MVP candidate 1902, 1905. All-Star candidate 1901, 1903-1904, 1906-1908. (8 HOM seasons).

George Sisler – A decent peak but surprisingly only one 30+ WS season. Probably deserves ballot placement in future seasons, but this is a deep ballot. MVP candidate 1917, 1920. All-Star candidate 1916-1922, 1925, 1927-1928. (10 HOM seasons.)

Others who I would not be upset to see on my ballot, in no particular order: GJ Burns, FJones, Willis, Schalk, Mays, Leach, Bresnahan, Thomas, Mendez, Poles, Griffin, Doyle

1938 Ballot
"Gettin' out the early vote for Beckley & Welch since 1926!"(tm)

My PHoM inductees for 1938 are Max Carey and Ben Taylor.

1. Mickey Welch (1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,7,6,5,3) Mickey slips ahead of Beckley this week. (1926)
2. Jake Beckley (6,3,5,4,4,3,3,4,8,5,4,2) 86 homers! Not that bad. (1927)
3. Max Carey (7,7,5) Good hitter, good fielder, nice long career. Fits my model pretty well. (1938)
4. Ben Taylor (11,8,8,6) A better pitcher than Van Haltren. (1938)
5. Tommy Leach (9,7) Still one of the more underrated guys in line.
6. Edd Roush (8) Solid career. Amazing 10-year run from 1917-26.
7. Carl Mays (9,10,9) Best hitting and fielding pitcher on the ballot.
(7a. Bobby Wallace)
(7b. Sherry Magee)
8. Jose Mendez (4,8,13,13,11,10) He's bounced around a bit on my ballot, but I still think he deserves induction alongside Foster. (1932)
9. Jim McCormick (15,nr,13,15,nr,15,12,11) He and Willis are nearly interchangeable, but I see McCormick with slightly better peripherals.
10. Vic Willis (13,12) Why not induct more 19th century pitchers?
11. Dick Redding (13) Just slightly below Mendez.
12. Stan Coveleski (14,14) In my opinion, he's getting a little too much support, but I won't be upset to see him inducted.
13. Dave Bancroft (15,15) Best glove on the ballot.
14. Oliver Marcelle (nr) The "Ghost of New Orleans" has my kind of gumbo.
15. Bruce Petway (14,12,14,13,nr,14,nr,nr) Petway returns, and that makes 5 negro leaguers on my ballot. I hope to have fewer than that 50 ballots from now, but I fear that I won't...

Forgot my obligatory mentions:

25. George Sisler: A very good hitter for only a short time. I have him a little higher than I anticipated, actually.

47. Rube Waddell: One of my favorite players, but personality only gets you so far. He lacks the numbers to hang with the McCormicks and Mayses in my book.

50. Lip Pike: Pike was on my ballot for several years, then dropped off when I went to a more quantitative ranking system. I'm giving him credit for his pre-NA years, but he just doesn't have the punch to move ahead of the pack. In other words, he's no Dickie Pearce.

54. Hughie Jennings: Exactly the opposite of what I like in a candidate. I doubt there's many ballots with both Beckley and Jennings near the top. It's just a matter of taste.

61. Heinie Groh: I see him as having average production, average career length, low gray ink, and only slightly above average offense and defense. In short, I don't believe he belongs in the Hall of Merit. Clearly, I'm in the minority, so I'll stop there.

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.

No new guys are anywhere close.


1. Hughie Jennings (3) - 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. First (probably of many times over the next 50 votes) time he's been #1 for me.

2. Heinie Groh (4) - Great player, great peak, position where we could use some inductees.

3. Stan Coveleski (5) - Great pitcher with whom I wasn't even all that familiar. Great peak, obvious HOMer.

4. José Méndez (7) - Very similar to Waddell pitching-wise. His hitting as a pitcher moves him to one spot above him, but he doesn't get credit in my system for his offensive rebirth (I don't think he'd have had it in the big leagues).

5. Rube Waddell (8) - Love the Ks, and his RA+ is very good (though obviously not as good as his ERA+, which is inflated). The intangibles argument holds no weight with me.

6. Pete Browning (9) - I reexamined the 3 "bat" candidates from the earlier days, him, Jones, and Pike, and Browning comes out on top. Just one hell of a hitter. If we elect Beckley before him, we should be embarassed.

7. Bobby Veach (10) - Love his peak, was super-strong both offensively and defensively.

8. Spotswood Poles (6) - A slightly lesser Pete Hill. Worthy of election. With that said, I'd let him drift a little higher on my ballot than he should have been. Bat puts him down here.

9. Dick Redding (11) - Of similar value to Mendez, but below him because of Mendez's bat, and Redding is a touch lighter on the peak.

10. Dobie Moore (12) - Really, anyone who has Jennings in their top 5 should have Moore somewhere on the ballot. I understand those who have neither, but Moore, while not Jennings, is close enough that there should never be more than 10 or so spots separating them.

11. Cupid Childs (13) - Beneficiary of my realizing that aside from Veach, the OF glut doesn't separate itself out very much. Solid combo of career and peak.

12. Bill Monroe (14) - Still tied to Childs at the hip. Was a hell of a hitter in the early days of the organized Negro Leagues, when he was already up in age.

13. Hugh Duffy (15) - 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.

14. George Van Haltren (--) - Back on my ballot after an absense. Gets little credit for his pitching from me, but his combo of hitting and fielding has a lot of career, and just enough peak to get him on the bottom of the ballot.

15. Tommy Leach (--) - Jumps up in a late reconsideration. Stats are generally around the middle of the OF glut pack, but his time at third separates him out some, and he moves up as a result. We can still use more 3B inductees, even if they are just half.


Top 10 Returners not on my ballot

Beckley - No peak. Never any better than an above average player. Would be a terrible choice for election.

Carey - In the portion of the glut likely to make my ballot one day. Just not yet. I think there should be other election priorities, but he would not be a real mistake.

Pike - Re-examined him, and it just didn't work out. Think Browning is the better choice. Not saying he'll never make my ballot, but he's about 5-10 spots off at this stage.

Sisler - Peak isn't good enough for his short productive career. Only one season of the superpeak that he needed 3-4 seasons of to make it.

Griffith - A little behind Pike. I still think Waddell is the correct choice of the long time ballot pitchers to be inducted.

Welch - No longer strongly opposed to him. Not a supporter, but I acknowledge the case for him and that I could be wrong.

61. Heinie Groh: I see him as having average production, average career length, low gray ink, and only slightly above average offense and defense. In short, I don't believe he belongs in the Hall of Merit. Clearly, I'm in the minority, so I'll stop there.

Since Groh kicks Marcelle's butt as a hitter (Groh was WAY above average as an offensive player for a third baseman back then, BTW) and was a very, very good fielder in his own right, I don't understand your placement of both players, jwinfrey.

Nothing to see here.

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

2. Jake Beckley -- ~3000 hits but no black ink at all. Baseballreality.com has him as the best first baseman in baseball for a long time. Crawford (HOMer) and Wheat (HOMer) are two of his three most similars.

3. George Sisler – Hits impress me and he had a lot of them, plus a better peak than Beckley. I’ve put Beckley ahead of him because I’m a career voter.

4. Rube Waddell -- I like the three times ERA+ lead, the career 134 ERA+ and, of course, all those strikeouts (plus the 1905 Triple Crown).

5. Lip Pike – 4 monster seasons, 4 more not too bad, plus 4 undocumented.

6. Roger Bresnahan – Great OBP, arguably the best catcher in baseball for a six year period. Counting stats, like all catchers of this time and earlier, are really poor. I like him better than Schang because he compared better to his contemporaries, if you count him as a catcher.

7. Clark Griffith – 921 similarity score with mcginnity, who was 1st on my ballot when elected. That being said, he is barely better than what is now a 10 person pitching glut.

8. Redding – probably the 6th or 7th best blackball pitcher of all-time (behind, at least, Williams, Paige, Foster, Foster and Rogan), and that is good enough for me.

9. Cupid Childs – nice obp.

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

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

12. Heinie Groh – hard for me to analyze – I know he is not better than Leach in my mind and he is definitely better than the rest of the thirdbasemen. Last year on my ballot thankfully.

13. Stan Coveleski – I can’t really see a huge difference between Waddell (4) and Shocker (mid-30s). So Coveleski is somewhere in between. It's nice to clear up the 12 and 13 spots.

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

15. Jose Mendez – somewhere between here and Waddell seems about right.

16. Addie Joss – I don’t like short careers much, but I cannot ignore the second best all-time ERA, the 12th best ERA+ and the nice winning percentage.

17. Schang – I’d like more catchers in the HoM, but this isn’t a cocktail party.

18. Jennings – Big bump up from me (see the 1936 ballot thread about the Orioles’ pitchers not being very good) -- he may get more consideration from me a few decades from now, when Koufax starts to exist. But he was no Koufax.

19 to 24.
·Max Carey – I never thought 350 Win Shares could rank so low, but I don’t think he is much better than Van Haltren.
·George Van Haltren – 40 wins, 2500 hits, never dominated. Pretty good adjusted win shares.
·Spotswood Poles – Van Haltren seems like a good comp.
·Edd Roush – little difference between Carey, GVH, Poles, Roush, Ryan and Duffy.
·Jimmy Ryan – 2500 hits, good speed, lots of runs.
·Hugh Duffy – 10 strong seasons, good black ink.

Somewhere between 16 and 40. McCormick, Cicotte, Willis, Bender, Mays, Cooper, Shocker, Mullane and Mullin -- pitcher glut; any of these guys could make my ballot if it ever has fewer than 4 pitchers on it; not that I have an actual quota.

13) George Van Haltren-CF/P (15): Long career of quality play. Best AA leftfielder for 1889 and 1891.

Just a note here. He played for Chicago NL in 1889 (with Ryan).

Just a note here. He played for Chicago NL in 1889 (with Ryan).

Correct. Van Haltren was the best NL leftfielder. Thanks, Jim.

You're welcome. It may make a difference to some people who heavily discount all things AA.

Thoughts for the future:

What do people think of limiting Required Disclosures to, say, Top 10 returning players who were named on at least half of the past years ballots?

In the "old days" of, say, the 1910s, everyone on the Top 15 were getting named on half of the ballots, and the top ten were omitted on only a handful.

Last year, 52 ballots were cast, and Hughie Jennings reached 8th place with only 25 votes. Mickey Welch is in line to crack the Top 10 this year, after getting only 20 votes last year.

I fully understand the rationale behind getting me to explain leaving Coveleski off of the ballot when I was one of one 7 guys to omit him last year, but if the case against Hughie Jennings is clear enough that fewer than half of the electorate considers him ballot-worthy, is there any value-added by having the minority require the other 52% of us explain ourselves?

IMHO it's a useful tool to stop people ignoring altogether players with a good degree of support. This becomes particularly relevant as the consideration set extends over multiple generations; those agonising to the third sabermetric decimal place between say Coveleski, Rixey and Vance should be made to explain why Welch isn't ahead of all 3 of them.

those agonising to the third sabermetric decimal place between say Coveleski, Rixey and Vance should be made to explain why Welch isn't ahead of all 3 of them.

Can we both agree that both sides, sabermetric and non-sabermetric, are both equally anal retentive when it comes to numbers and decimal points?

1. Mickey Welch (2) - These recent ballots have hurt his #1 and #2 ranking I've been keeping him at. It's great to see him make his way back to his rightful spot of #1 :)

2. Stan Coveleski (5) - A nice climb for Stan this week. It's a small combination of moving Sisler down a spot and deciding Stan is more deserving than Griffith.

3. George Sisler (3) - This is going to be an unpopular vote I know, but his peak was great, and there's enough career for me put him this high. What George has really done, is convinced me to move Beckley up on my ballot again.

4. Clark Griffith (4) - Same old story for Clark

5. Jake Beckley (6) - Not far off from Sisler.

6. Rube Waddell (7) - The top 5 in strikeouts for 10 consecutive years. He's #10 in the all-time ERA leaders.

-----------------------My PHOM line---------------------------------------------


7. Wally Schang (9) - Lots of career value for a catcher

8. Lip Pike (10) - 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.

9. George Van Haltren (11) - I wish I could justify having him higher as he's one of my personal favorites.

10. Jose Mendez (12) - I haven't been able to convince myself that he deserves a spot higher than this.

11. Max Carey (13) - Not much peak, but enough career to scratch in at a low spot

12. Roger Bresnahan (14) - 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.

13. Carl Mays (15) - People may laugh that he made my ballot, but Carl could pitch. With Sisler and Welch so high, I already have two unpopular votes, so what's one more for them to laugh at?

14. Hughie Jennings (16) - Nothing new to add

15. Edd Roush (18) - Not quite as good as Max Carey

16. Heinie Groh (17) - One of the best thirdbasemen to date. Not enough career value for me to seriously consider him.

17. Bobby Veach (19) - Not enough career for him to merit a higher ranking on my ballot, but enough peak to grab a lower spot.

18. Jimmy Ryan (20) - A watered down Van Haltren

19. Eddie Cicotte (21) - Underrated in my opinion. May not be HOM material, but underrated nonetheless.

20. Urban Shocker (22) - 8 good pitching seasons. Nothing spectacular, but a respectable career.

21. Hugh Duffy (23) - Back onto my ballot. No new thoughts on him

22 Harry Hooper (24) - 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.

23. Dick Redding (25) - I much more impressed with Mendez

24. Vic Willis (n/a) - I'm beginning to think that I've highly underrated him. He'll probably be moving up my ballot next "year"

25. Ray Schalk (n/a) - Not totally sure he even deserves to be this high.

A blended mix of peak versus career...I'm much more of a compromiser than an ideologue.

1) Stan Coveleski

2) George Sisler

3) Rube Waddell

4) Max Carey

5) Hughie Jennings

6) Jake Beckley

7) Clark Griffith

8) Heinie Groh

9) Cupid Childs

10) Pete Browning

11) Mickey Welch

12) Eddie Cicotte

13) Gavy Cravath

14) Hugh Duffy

15) Frank Chance

It's sufficient to say something along the lines of "I'm a career voter and Jennings didn't have a long career", and then retain that disclaimer on your ballot as long as necessary. People will only call on you on it if you also vote for Ross Youngs or Dizzy Dean, etc.

The intent is to avoid the situation where a balloter says later, "Shoot, I forgot all about Hughie; he should have been #4".

The point is to acknowledge that the snub is deliberate.

That's fine, then.

All of my snubs are very deliberate. I wouldn't have it any other way.

It also forces new voters, who weren't around to consider the debates in 1910, to get up the curve on Welch/Jennings/Beckley/Griffith.

those agonising to the third sabermetric decimal place between say Coveleski, Rixey and Vance should be made to explain why Welch isn't ahead of all 3 of them.

Since electing Welch would mean that 27.5% of all innings pitched in the NL during the decade of the 1880’s are in the HoM, those putting Welch at the top of their ballots should better justify why they believe half the games played in the NL during the 1880’s included a Hall of Merit pitcher while only Johnson and Alexander were worthy of the honor over more than a quarter of a century of play in both the AL and NL.

Cicotte is also worthy of the honor. And the lively ball era was lively because the pitching was lousy.

That's why I believe it :-))

Since electing Welch would mean that 27.5% of all innings pitched in the NL during the decade of the 1880’s are in the HoM, those putting Welch at the top of their ballots should better justify . . .

27.5% is certainly a number, but before we determine whether it's a nunber that requires justification, I think it's worthwhile to think about whether 27.5% is a big number or a little number, or just a mid-range number. Any position with 2 regulars in the HoM in an 8 team league will be right at 25%.

By my calculation, 54% of all defensive games in 1881 had a HoMer playing first base. (With 8 teams, we had almost all games played by Anson, Connor, Start, and Stovey, along with a lot of Brouthers and a smattering of Deacon White and Jim O'Rourke).

We got over the 27% mark for 1881 (and the whole decade, I'd bet!) with just Connor, Brouthers, and Anson -- first balloters all -- and no one said "We better reconsider Anson, or else we'll have over a quarter of all innings played by a HoM first baseman!" Start and Stovey took longer, but their detractors were primarily devaluing 1860s and AA play. Compared to some, they both went in fairly easily.

If pitcher was at least half as valuable as first base in the 1880s, then I've got no problem breaking the mystical 25% barrier. Wake me up for justifications when we get closer to 50%.

Cicotte is also worthy of the honor. And the lively ball era was lively because the pitching was lousy.

...and the sixties hitters became lousy, not because the strike zone changed in '62 or the parks became bigger, but because they just forgot how to hit!

Consider me totally unpersuaded by both theories.

:-)

The difference is that neither the strike zone nor the balls changed in 1920. Johnson and Alexander went on dominating the league way into their late 30s, in a way Matty hadn't, and to a greater extent than Cy or Nichols. As a working hypothesis, I therefore believe that there was a random fluctuation (which can be much greater than people think) downward in the quality of pitching in the early 1920s, only partially corrected with the advent of Grove in '25 and Hubbell in '28.

Similarly, I think the wave of late 60s pitchers who got to 300 wins in the early 80s was a real agglomeration of quality, and not a reflection of conditions, which were markedly less favorable after 1969, i.e. for the bulk of their careers. If it had been conditions, Gibson should have won 300, and he didn't, great pitcher though he was.

...nor the balls changed in 1920.

The balls did change. It doesn't matter that the change wasn't in the manufacturing; enforcing rules against defacing balls, and doing so quite effectively by putting fresh balls in play, does in practice constitute a change in the balls.

Yes, but it happened after 1920 (Chapman etc.) and 1919 and 1920 both saw an increase in hitting. I agree after 1921 the cleaner balls and no spitballs (except grandfathered) must have been a factor, but it can't have been the only one.

The difference is that neither the strike zone nor the balls changed in 1920.

No, but there weren't any dirty balls anymore, hitting strategy changed (the uppercut) and the balls most certainly changed. All you need to do is read newspaper accounts from that time to see that this was the case.

Johnson and Alexander went on dominating the league way into their late 30s,

But their ERA spiked upward (as did other Deadball hurlers).

Similarly, I think the wave of late 60s pitchers who got to 300 wins in the early 80s was a real agglomeration of quality, and not a reflection of conditions, which were markedly less favorable after 1969, i.e. for the bulk of their careers. If it had been conditions, Gibson should have won 300, and he didn't, great pitcher though he was.

You have to look at the conditions for each pitcher prior to age 25 (when the arm hasn't fully matured yet). The mid-to-late sixties pitchers youger than 25 had the most favorable conditons post-1920.

Gibson wouldn't really fully qualify since he sraddled 1950s and 1960s conditions (though it was better than what Roberts, Koufax and Drysadale had to face).

It doesn't matter that the change wasn't in the manufacturing

There were two documented changes in the ball for 1925 and 1934 that I'm aware of.

A year ago (in real time) about ten HoMies would have had a lively debate about whether #19 is a valid ballot or not. Now it would probably be considered rude to bring it up....

That and a massive and disruptive server change that still has not prevented this site from g r i n d i n g t o a h a l t q u i t e f r e q u e n t l y . . . . .

Oh for the good old days.

Phuilly Booster,

You may be right about the innings at first base and the innings at pitcher in the 1880's but shouldn't that be thought of differently? By this I mean first base was one of eight different positions, while pitcher is really on its own. What were the numbers for SS, LF, or 3B? (I don't actually know). I dont' think that keeping Mickey Welch out for this reason is too valid, but comparing it to 1B seems a little off. For me, I prefer to keep Mickey Welch out of the HOM because of his ERA+, that is how hate!

"A year ago (in real time) about ten HoMies would have had a lively debate about whether #19 is a valid ballot or not. Now it would probably be considered rude to bring it up...."

You want an explanation? See my ballot for 1937 and figure it out.

1938 sees some changes among the backloggers.

1. Hughie Jennings (1 last week-3-4, PHoM 1927). Chris' analysis was good, though it didn't affect my vote any. Hughie was already safely slotted at the top. Using the analogy of Kirby Puckett 1987-1991, if the objective is to win a pennant and a world championship, and unless I am the Yankees I might win one or two in a lifetime, I would take my chances with 5 years of Hughie at his peak over 15 years of Edd Roush every time.

2. Lip Pike (6-5-7, PHoM 1928). Pretty good peak, not a short career by the standards of his time.

3. George Sisler (7-8-x, PHoM 1938). The overreaction by Bill James et al is very extreme.

4. Heinie Groh (3-9-5, PHoM 1933). Best 3B ever (as of 1938) not named Baker.

5. Tommy Bond (5-7-10, PHoM 1929). This is AFTER I discount pitching WS for this era by 50 percent.

(Big Gap)

(5a. Eddie Plank, PHoM 1938).

6. Max Carey (9-11-9). A nice peak if all-time caliber fielding and baserunning are factored in.

7. Charley (don't call me Chipper) Jones (8-10-8, PHoM 1921). Better than Stovey, Kelley, Sheckard, Hill, Magee and Wheat.

8. Rube Waddell (x-12-11, PHoM 1932). What was I thinkin" leavin' him off my ballot last year? I forget.

9. Dick Redding (10-x). Hard to peg, like all of the non-NB pitchers, but of course even more so. Not as high a peak as Mendez but enough more career to make up the difference.

10. Pete Browning (not on my ballot since '33). Obviously a great hitter, I haven't been able to pull the trigger on him in recent years, but why?

11. Jose Mendez (11-x-12). I like the peak pitchers better than the Shockers of the world.

12. Cupid Childs (12-13-13, PHoM 1925). No Hughie Jennings but a good all around ballplayer for long enough.

13. Stan Coveleski (15-x-15). After Rube, best of the rest of the non-NB ML woth century pitchers currently eligible.

14. Ed Williamson (13-15-14, PHoM 1924). Those infamous HRs didn't actually hurt his team. In fact, one might wish that teammates Anson, Gore and Kelly had hit more than 20 among the whole bunch of 'em. Big Ed was a stud.

15. Dave Bancroft (14-14-x). The Max Carey of the IF.

Dropped out--none.
Close (16-17)--Doyle and Roush.
(Another Big Gap)
Not as close (18-21)--Duffy, Monroe, Poles, D. Moore.

Oops forgot the required disclosures:
Beckley--no peak. I would prefer Sisler, Taylor or Fournier.
Griffith--next best of his time, but not quite.
Welch--that pesky ERA+.
Van Haltren--a nice player with an OK peak, just not quite enough.
Bresnahan, Leach and Ryan are next on the consensus and all are in the Van H. class, close but no cigar.
Then Schang, whom I admit to not getting. I like Bresnahan better, I could even see Bresnahan on my ballot some day (OK, probably not). Definitely not Wally.

I know--I'm rude, but 1) there used to be this rule, and 2) I don't care to figure it out, and I won't figure it out.

Buddah (and anybody else), from now on, could you just cut-and-paste your comments from last year to your new ballots? That way, it won't take up too much time for you and everybody else will be happy here.

I'm not in a real authority position here, so all I can do is be a nudge. :-D

1)Doyle— His hitting is legitimately outstanding, he played 2nd base, and a C+ defender by Win Shares. 126 career OPS+, compare to contemporary George Cutshaw, who was a regular 2B for 11 years with an OPS+ of 86. #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.
2)Groh--I guess where you put him depends on how much you like third basemen. Compares pretty well with Collins, only Baker is clearly better among 3B. I’ll take Doyle’s bat ahead of Groh’s glove.
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, in three of those years with an ERA+ over 165. 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)Schang--His rate stats would put him in the HoM, but a look at each individual year isn’t impressive at all. Still, a hitting catcher with his career length isn’t common...looking for similar players I found Bresnahan, Lombardi, Munson, Walker Cooper, and Darrell Porter. Bill James rates him a C+ fielder in Win Shares, but says he was a good catcher in the NHBA.
6)Cravath— Great peak, great high minor league play.
7)Bill Monroe—Riley’s Biographical Encylopedia likes him a lot.
8)Bresnahan--Best hitting year was as a CF, not a C, so he’s not quite as impressive as I thought at first glance.
9)Coveleski--I expected he would be waiting on the bubble for a while, I’m surprised that he might get elected this year. This is his placement with no spitball discount.
10)Griffith—Comp is Marichal, plus he could hit.
11)Joss—Comp is Koufax…a terrible hitter.
12)Mendez--I rate him right below Joss.
13)Ben Taylor--Not a lot of confidence in this placement.
14)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.
15)Del Pratt--Well, if I like Doyle then of course I will like Pratt a little too. Good hitter and good fielder at 2B.

Lip Pike-- Nothing to say that hasn’t already been repeated for 30 years.
Max Carey—Even with the fielding and baserunning, I don’t see that his hitting is enough to make the ballot.
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.
Sisler--I don’t see his case being very strong. His peak was not long enough to merit election, though he certainly was a great hitter for a few years.
Welch— I would have taken him instead of Galvin or Caruthers, and he may make it back on my ballot sometime.

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. For Position Players AND Pitcher, heavily weight comparison vs. contemporaries.

1. HUGHIE JENNINGS, SS. .607 OWP. 263 RCAP. 5,650 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Best SS of the 1890’s. Great offensively and defensively. I’ve decided his SS defense and longer career value move him ahead of McGraw.

2. 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. Plus led his team to 3 consecutive championships.

3. STAN COVELESKIE, P. 282 RSAA! 225 Neutral Fibonacci Win Points. 127 ERA+ in 3,093 Innings. Stacks up very well with his contemporaries.

4. 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 any eligible outfielder.


5. ROGER BRESNAHAN, C. .651 OWP. 282 RCAP, 5,373 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Best Catcher between Ewing and Cochrane/Dickey, except for maybe Santop. Still best eligible catcher.

6. WALLY SCHANG, C. .595 OWP. 271 RCAP, 6,422 PA’s. Def: FAIR. Not quite the hitter or fielder Bresnahan was, but played more games at Catcher, making him almost as valuable.

7. RUBE WADDELL, P. 254 RSAA, 222 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 134 ERA+ in 2,961 innings. He was a more effective version of Nolan Ryan (fewer walks)

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. Top seasons blow away Beckley’s best. Perhaps best firstbaseman in the whole 1900-1920 time period.

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

10. HEINIE GROH, 3B. .598 OWP, 216 RCAP, 7,035 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Only Frank Baker was better in 1910’s era.

11. BILL MONROE, 2B. Estimated 115 OPS+ over 8,276 PA’s. Def: VERY GOOD. Comps are Hack, Alomar, and Sandberg, which is a pretty high level.

12. 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. Moving up to just off ballot due to comparison with contemporaries.

13. 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.

14. DAVE BANCROFT, SS. .498 OWP, 157 RCAP, 8,244 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Similar to Bobby Wallace and Ozzie Smith, so surprised he’s not getting more votes.

15. 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 much higher.

LEFT OFF THE BALLOT:
NEWBIES:

EDDIE ROMMEL, P. 217 RSAA, 153 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 121 ERA+ in 2,557 innings. Poor man’s Urban Shocker.

RETURNEES:

Max Carey, CF .556 OWP, 49 RCAP, 10,770 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Some very good years, but overall not enough offense for the HOM ballot.

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

JAKE BECKLEY, 1B. .596 OWP. 245 RCAP. 10,492 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. A very good for a long time player. Not as good as Sisler due to peak differences.

GEORGE SISLER, 1B. .611 OWP, 205 RCAP. 9,013 PAs. Def: FAIR. Jake Beckley comp but with higher peak. Just misses 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.

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

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

EDD ROUSCH, CF. .622 OWP, 205 RCAP. 8,156 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Edge of playing CF not enough to overcome Tiernan’s edge in offense.

DICK REDDING, P. 183 MLE Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 114 MLE ERA+ in 3,556 innings. One of few Negro League greats not recruited to the best teams. Comp is around Rick Reuschel.

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.

JOSE MENDEZ, P. 154 MLE Neut Fibonacci Win Points. 114 MLE ERA+ over 3,001 MLE Innings. Similar career to Orel Hershiser perhaps. Had some really great years early in his career, then changed positions due to arm problems at age 27 and was never really a star player after that. Not sure he was really better than teammate Dolph Luque, so he falls short on the ballot.


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.

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. Hit like Ken Williams, only played longer and played 2B.

You may be right about the innings at first base and the innings at pitcher in the 1880's but shouldn't that be thought of differently? By this I mean first base was one of eight different positions, while pitcher is really on its own. What were the numbers for SS, LF, or 3B? (I don't actually know). I dont' think that keeping Mickey Welch out for this reason is too valid, but comparing it to 1B seems a little off. For me, I prefer to keep Mickey Welch out of the HOM because of his ERA+, that is how hate!

Just eyeballing the centerfielders, 1881 gave us a full season of Paul Hines, George Gore, and Hardy Richardson in CF, for approximately 3/8 of the games, or 37.5% Any shortstop gave us Ross Barnes and Jack Glasscock, for about 25%, and the other positions gave us about 1 HoMer, for 12.5%.

My point is, if we are going to consider that pre-1893 pitchers pitched so many innings, then we've got to realize that the percentages of innings pitched will be approximately the same as the percentage of defensive innings played by the other positions.

If every team is using one pitcher for 100% of their innings, then in an 8 team league, electing 2 pitchers gets you to 25%, just like electing 2 first basemen gets you to 25%.

Today, electing 25% of the innings pitched would seem ridiculous because it would require inducting 100 pitchers. I'm not clear why it is similarly ridiculous in 1881, where the question is merely whether or not to elect a fifth pitcher (out of 16) as opposed to, say, a third shortstop out of 8.

Good point, Philly Booster. I guess I just didn't like the comparison of 1B and P, then asking whether or not 1B was as important as P. When stated the way you did it in 41, it is a good point. That being said, I am still not letting Welch near my ballot.

Oh, and I commend you for actually understanding the incoherent drivel that was my last post.

It’s Election Day! Vote early and often.

1. Max Carey- I left him off my ballot his first year of eligibility in an abundance of caution. Two years later, I see his excellence as indisputable. Great peak and a defensive superstar.
2. Larry Doyle- Finished in top 10 in league in OPS+ 7 times, in HR 6 times, in XBH 6 times, in times on base 5 times. He was a dominant offensive player in the league, comparable to Clarke and Magee, except he was a second baseman. As for his defense... Win Shares gives him a C+, John McGraw was apparently willing to live with him, and he was well regarded by his contemporaries (see BJHA, 1984 version). In other words, he doesn’t deserve a penalty that negates his offensive preeminence.
3. Heinie Groh- Reminds me a lot of Larry Doyle. Considering the dearth of third base candidates, he looks like a worthy addition to the HOM. Underrated because of his exceptional patience at bat.
4. Wilbur Cooper- He was one of the very best pitchers in his league for 10 years- unless you completely discount the NL from 1914-1924, he meets the standards of the HOM.
5. George J. Burns- - OBP master- great leadoff hitter.
6. Stan Coveleski- A 2.89 ERA is pretty good for a guy who pitched in the AL in the 1920's. Like others, not completely sold on him, but on Election Day, who can forget Poland?
7. Jack Fournier- - Similar player to Cravath, had a great 5 year run. If I have to pick a first baseman to fill our first base dearth, this is the guy.
8. Gavvy Cravath- Had a great 5 year run at the top of the league.
9. Ed Konetchy - Another great first baseman, largely forgotten because of the era and teams for which he played.
10. Ross Youngs- This is without any additional credit for his untimely death. Youngs was a terrific player- just didn’t live long enough to accrue career “points.” Nine full-time seasons, career avg. of .322 and OBP of .399. Led NY to 4 straight pennants from 1921-1924.
11. Dick Redding-
12. Jose Mendez- I really can’t differentiate between Redding and Mendez, so it seems to make sense to rank them together.
13. Fielder Jones- I’ve been wanting to get him back on the ballot for a while, and I finally indulged myself. A superior player at the turn of the century, great centerfielder, underrated because he played in a very hostile offensive environment.
14. Roger Bresnahan- A token vote for a great catcher who seems to have almost no shot of getting elected.
15. George Sisler- Sneaks on to the ballot, barely edging off Tommy Leach and Ed Roush. You can’t argue with his peak... another two years like that, and he might have been a first ballot inductee.

A special shout out to Hod Ford, the charter inductee into the Tufts University Alumni Hall of Merit. His 72 OPS+ notwithstanding.

Drafting their concession speeches:

Lip Pike- Another candidate for the #15 spot, Pike has made my ballot before and may well make it again. Ranks #18 right now.

Jake Beckley: A personal fave, but he was the fourth best 1B for most of his career and was never one of the truly great players in the league. Will never make my ballot.

Hughie Jennings- A legitimate candidate- ranks around #20 right now. His career was about a year too short for me. If he ends up making my PHOM (which I am retroactively constructing) he should get a boost.

Rube Waddell- We’ve elected a bunch of his mound peers. His career does not stand out compared to those elected.

Clark Griffith- I have voted for him before, took another look at him, was not impressed, and dumped him. There are no pitchers off my ballot whose election I would be inclined to advocate.

Mickey Welch- Still on the radar. Don’t see him as particularly more compelling than McCormick and Mullane.

Pete Browning- I understand why others might support him, but I have six eligible centerfielders ranked ahead of him.

George Van Haltren: The lowest ranked member of the outfield glut for me, he will never make my ballot. But I am weirdly fascinated by his fall from grace in the balloting...

Cupid Childs: I always want to vote for him, but there’s a lot of people between him and the ballot. He’s probably around #22 right now. Dominated his position like few on the ballot, but I don’t see him as a superstar of the ‘90s. Another guy who could help his case by making my PHOM.

PHoM inductees: Max Carey & Lip Pike

Ballot:

1. Max Carey (2,4,4)

No one is a shoe-in this year, but I would be happy with any of my Top 6 making it in and I would be okay with any of my Top 14 making it in.

2. Mickey Welch (6,8,6)

I have been overlooking him a bit too much.

3. Jake Beckley (4,6,7)

I'm surprised he hasn't made it in yet.

4. Lip Pike (7,9,9)

The last of the real old-school candidates.

5. George Van Haltren (3,7,5)

I want him higher.

6. Tommy Leach (9,10,12)

Another overlooked candidate.

7. Edd Roush (8,x,x)

8. George Sisler (12,x,x)

9. Hugh Duffy (13,13,13)

Still hanging around.

10. Jimmy Ryan (10,11,10)

Yet another heavily overlooked player.

11. Heinie Groh (14,14,14)

Barring guys like Jennings, Groh seems to be somewhat overrated.

12. Harry Hooper (12,12,11)

13. Clark Griffith (x,x,x)

14. Cupid Childs (x,x,x)

Griffith and Childs return to the ballot (passing Monroe) as there are no new candidates to replace last year's inductees.

15. Bill Monroe (15,15,15)

Tail-end charlie.

16-20. Powell, Doyle, Poles, Redding, Burns
21-25. Willis, Moore, Mullane, White, McCormick
26-30. Gleason, Waddell, Jennings, Browning, F.Jones

Not much time this week to elaborate, so please excuse the skimpiness of my ballot and any typos or errata that may appear on it. And to everyone in the group and everyone who may follow along,

PLEASE GET OUT ON ELECTION DAY AND VOTE--NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE ROOTING FOR!!!

George Van Haltren (pHom): More rethinking and rethinking…. I can’t wipe away Van Haltren’s massive career advantage over Groh, no matter how hard my peakish mind wants to.

Heinie Groh: For all the reasons we’ve all said before..., welcome to my pHOM, Heinie.

Hugh Duffy: Great peak with good career value. I believe I was underrating him previously.

Spotswood Poles: I’m still his friend after all these years.

Stan Coveleski: He’s the best pitcher on this ballot, though that’s not an easy to figure piece of information. But given Chris J’s information and that he was more often among the pitching leaders in his leagues in WS, I think this assumption stands up.

Clark Griffith: Not as dominant over his league as Stan.

Cannonball Redding: This feels about right, though I’m as unsure about him as any player on my ballot.

Edd Roush: A really good centerfielder with good peak and prime totals.

Vic Willis: Alternately a league-leading pitcher and innings eater. A strange career, though not as strange as Waddell’s, so Vic can get onto my ballot.

George “Don’t Call Me Tioga” Burns: He’s just a notch below the likes of Roush, and a notch above the likes of Veach and Sisler who reside just off the edge of my ballot.

Bill Monroe: OK, I’m still bouncing around with Bill. I do think he’s better than ballot worthy, but I’m continuing to vacillate about how much.
Hughie Jennings: Eee-yah! He’s back. Chris Cobb’s passionate missive has me reconsidering Hughie, and this is where he lands. He still doesn’t have enough career to merit up-ballot placement, but his peak is worthy of a ballot. Thanks Chris, for getting me to reconsider him.

Cupid Childs: The peak is peaky enough for me, and his career is enough to get him on the ballot.

Tommy Leach: The career numbers are very impressive, as is being both an outstanding 3B and CF. A peak that’s just decent and not Duffyian keeps him from polling higher.

Jose Mendez: Love that peak!!!!


REQUIRED DISCLOSURES
Max Carey: Good news is that he’s a great career-minded candidate whose career is more impressive to me than Beckley’s. Bad news is that he just doesn’t have the peak numbers to compare favorably to the guys on the ballot. He, like so many others, is clumped just off the ballot.

Lip Pike: Just off the ballot as well.

Jake Beckley: In the queue of 1Bs we have now, I’ve got him behind Sisler, Taylor, Chance, and Konetchy, among whom only Sisler was really close to my ballot.

Waddell: The dude had a weird career. All those unearned runs really skew what his ERA and ERA+ actually represent, so I think there’s less to his numbers than meets the eye.

George Sisler: Nice peak, but not historic in the Jennings mode. He’s extremely close to the end of my ballot alongside the likes of Cooper, Carey, Veach, Bresnahan, Ryan, Doyle, and Waddell (not necessarily in that order).

Dr. Chaleeko, who is your fifteenth choice? You only have fourteen listed.

Is Dr. Chaleeko's post a ballot? -- it has no numbers. I'm confused.

John,

Dr. Chaleeko has fifteen listed. There's just no space between Monroe and Jennings.

Dr. Chaleeko has fifteen listed. There's just no space between Monroe and Jennings.

Gotcha. It would be a little bit easier if there were numbers present, though...

Hey, it’s my second vote of the day! And this nice thing is, with this election, I’ll only have to wait until next Monday to get the results.

1938 Ballot
1) Max George Carey
Best on the ballot. Great career, good prime, often among the best in his league, very nice black ink. I endorse this candidacy.
2) Jacob Peter Beckley – “Eagle Eye”
I’m coming to learn that, while I value a great career with a great prime, there is a lot to be said for having at least one of those. Jake is certainly all career and no huge peak, but it’s a very impressive career. Someone said he was only the 4th best first baseman of his day, and I concur, but he was still one of the best players of his day, and that’s what earns him a spot all the way up here.
3) Henry Knight Groh – “Heinie”
There’s a very good chance that this will be my last opportunity to vote for Groh, so I’ll just say that I support his election. His numbers continue to impress, even when looking at future candidates, like recent retirees Pie Traynor and Willie Kamm.
4) George Harold Sisler – “Gorgeous George”
It’s not a balanced career, but it’s a very good one, and his best seasons more than make up for his worst. It’s the Drysdale-Pappas argument, I guess.
5) Thomas William Leach – “The Wee”
If he’d stayed at third, his numbers would probably give him an edge over Groh. He really did go back and forth, didn’t he? Does anyone know why that is?
6) Hugh Duffy
I’m not all about OPS+, and I haven’t rejected the Triple Crown season out of hand, since it’s not like everyone else was doing it.
7) Lawrence Joseph Doyle - “Laughing Larry”
My numbers like him better than Childs. I thought that was due to career length, but they have a similar peak, and Doyle has a slightly higher prime. So I’m sticking with Larry.
8) Hugh Ambrose Jennings – “Ee-Yah”
Chris Cobb makes a compelling argument that his peak is so outstanding that he has earned recognition. My fondness for Dean and Koufax (and Sisler, I suppose) makes me susceptible to this line of thought, but my preference for career totals keeps holding me back. So I’m not moving him up yet.
9) Edd J. Roush
Nice all-around numbers, and several MVP-type seasons. I suspect I’m lowballing him.
10) Roger Philip Bresnahan – “The Duke of Tralee”
The rap on Roger is that he didn’t play catcher enough of the time. According to Baseball Reference, more than 70% of his games were at catcher, three of his five best seasons show him predominantly at catcher, and 14 out of his 17 seasons show him working primarily behind the plate. He looks like a catcher to me.
11) Harry Bartholomew Hooper
Possibly the Beckley of outfielders. I’m sticking with him.
12) Carl William Mays
13) Stanley Anthony Coveleski
Considering that this is probably my last chance to review Stanisalus’ career, I went back over all my numbers. And it quickly became clear that Mays and Coveleski were extremely similar, which makes my including one and excluding the other highly suspect. The clincher was seeing that they are each other’s best comp, with a stunning similarity score of 945. That cinched it. I give Mays a higher spot for a better best season and WS total. But there you go: Stan gets a vote from me on his way out the door.
14) Dick Redding – “Cannonball”
The Negro League all-time polls, for whatever they’re worth, point to him being more highly-regarded than Mendez. He’ll probably get a stronger analysis when Bullet Joe enters the ballot.
15) Michael Francis Welch – “Smiling Mickey”
He’s baaaaaaack. I didn’t finish my re-evaluation of 19th Century candidates, and I have a hunch that Mickey’s numbers are getting way too much of a boost from the quality of his competition. But he was 16th on my list last year, so he’s legitimately next in line.

Other Top 10 Finishers
Lipman Emanuel Pike
The anecdotal evidence is interesting, and he actually fared well in my re-consideration of center fielders. But I still have him behind the three CFs I did put on the ballot, so there’s just no room. I wish he’d been a Dickey Pearce and redefined his position.
George Edward Waddell – “Rube”
I can see that his exceptionally high strikeout totals obscure his true value in picking up wins. He’s definitely interesting, but I’m not sure he’s meritorious.

Ballot time. Too bad all elections aren't as fun as this project.

PHOM
Zack Wheat
Cupid Childs Finally makes my PHOM after a long climb. Needed more 1890's stars anyway. His decent peak and career just slightly nudges ahead of Jennings super peak and nothing else. Hopefully, Jennings will get in soon.

1938 Ballot
1.Charley Jones – Very good hitter, though. 96% of value is above average. Truly great hitter who missed 2 years in his prime. Elected PHOM in 1926.
2.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.
3.Pete Browning – 61% of value is prime, 89% of value is above average. Elected PHOM in 1929
4.Cupid Childs – Good hitter. Not as good defensively as McPhee. 84% of career above average. Elected PHOM in 1938
5.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. Jumps over Coveleski, since I think it would be a shame not to have his peak in my PHOM.
6.Stan Coveleski – Looking at his contemporaries, I have him as the second best pitcher. A clear HOMer..
7.Heinie Groh – I’m very mixed on Groh. I like his peak and that he was the best 3rd baseman of his time. However, his career is too short for my liking.
8.Hugh Duffy – 82% of career is above-average. Great defense. Took another look at him and he moved up a couple of spots
9.Tommy Leach – Good peak and decent career. These 3 3rd basemen are very close. Could be listed in any order as far as I’m concerned. Like Groh's peak this week.
10.Jose Mendez – Slotted between Foster and Waddell. Took a closer look with Redding on the ballot. Like his peak over Redding’s career
11.Carl Mays – Just a hair behind Coveleski, but also behind Vance, Rixey and Grimes among his contemporaries.
12.Ed Williamson – Overvalued him in previous elections. Much closer to Groh and Leach than I thought. Still a damn good player, though. Elected PHOM in 1931
13.Clark Griffith –Won lots of games with bad teams.
14.Dick Redding – Very good career with lots of innings. Just misses my ballot. May be underrating him and he could move up with new info.
15.Bill Monroe – Very good second baseman, but I can’t seem to rate him over Childs

New Eligibles
Eddie Rommel Best of the new eligibles, but nowhere near my ballot
Lu Blue Worst first baseman in my consideration set
George Kelly Only better than Blue and George H. Burns among firstbaseman. A truly bad HOF selection.

Required Disclosures
17.Max Carey – Not as much peak as I thought. Seems kind of like Van Haltren. Like the SB’s. Slightly behind Roush.
18.George Sisler – Major jump up. I believe that WS undervalues his peak.
28.Rube Waddell –Impressive SO ability, but his record should be SO much better than it actually is.
45.Jake Beckley- Lower peak than Van Haltren, in my top 50, but just barely.

16-20 Roush, Carey, Sisler, Schang, Bresnahan
21-25 Cooper, F. Jones, Van Haltren, Poles, McGraw
26-30 Willis, Doyle, Waddell, Bond, Moore
31-35 Taylor, Tiernan, Chance, Welch, Griffin
36-40 Schalk, Burns, Veach, R. Thomas, Ryan
41-45 Long, Dunlap, Bancroft, Tinker, Beckley
46-50 Mullane, Joss, Hooper, McCormick, Evers

Apologies for my hasty non-numbering and for the lack of spacing between Monroe and Jennings.

To alleviate any concerns, I'll just run down the numbering here (but I won't call it a recount!).

1. Van Haltren
2. Groh
3. Duffy
4. Poles
5. Coveleski
6. Griffith
7. Redding
8. Roush
9. Willis
10. Burns
11. Monroe
12. Jennings
13. Childs
14. Leach
15. Mendez

Any other challenges should be taken up with the Ohio State Supreme Court.

; )

I have to agree with sunnyday and John.

Buddha - your ballot aint legit without explanations.

The rules are clear and I dont see why we should stop enforcing them. I'll step up and be the prick that says we shoudnt count his vote until the explanations show up. (Its not personal, if you check thru antique ballots you will see you are about the 56th person to receive this particular smackdown)

1938 Ballot: back to short, high peak careers and long, low peak careers.
1. Mickey Welch - extremely comparable to the enshrined pitchers of the 1880s. Beat them regularly whenever he faced them. Finished 62-37 against HoMers. Only Pud Galvin had worse run support and defensive help. Clarkson, Caruthers, Keefe, and Radbourn are in the top 12 for cumulative defensive support for their career. Welch recieved the 84th best.
2. Pete Browning - the best hitter among candidates. Highest OPS+ among eligibles. Only Brouthers, Cobb, and J Jackson had higher among elected. Also, he has the most WS per 162 games - 31.
3. Cupid Childs - dominated second base during the 1890s - 7 times the best. He was integral to Cleveland's generally strong teams in the 90s.
4. Heinie Groh - Moved him in front of Leach because Groh had a Peak and Prime than Leach if only slightly. 3 cons yrs win shares 95-86, best 7 years 191 - 189. Leach was a better fielder, but there is not much difference between them. Also, 5 times the majors best 3rd base man, while Leach was never the best (either while at 3rd or CF).
5. Tommy Leach - Probably the best fielder among eligibles. Defensive win shares A+ at both 3rd and CF. Strong Peak and Prime with a long career. One of the keys to Pittsburgh ability to stick most any pitcher in the rotation and get great performances. See Leever, Tannehill, Chesbro, Willis, Adams, Cooper, et al.
6. Hugh Duffy - places above Burns and other outfielders because Duffy did it during the one league 90s as opposed to 2-league teens-20s. Excellent Black and Grey Ink. 5 times a top 3 outfielder. 1893 - tied with Delahanty for best position player by WS with 28. 1894 - Most win shares of position player. 7 times in the top 11 position players in the majors.
7. George Burns - From 1913-19, he finished in the top 3 of NL outfielders 6 times. Better Black Ink. Better Peak than Wheat. 3rd most black and grey ink of eligible players.
8. Charley Jones - Fearsome hitter. Career totals hurt by blackballing involving demanding pay while on the road, debts, and alcohol. 3rd highest OPS+ and 4th most grey ink. Rate of 30 win shares/162 is second only to Browning.
9. Bobby Veach - Best of the second tier of AL OF behind Cobb, Speaker, Ruth, and Jackson. Despite the competition, still was a 4 time win shares AL all-star. 6th best black ink, 2nd most grey ink.
10. Bill Monroe - second best available second baseman. John McGraw, who managed Larry Doyle, said Monroe was the best he ever saw. Frequently a middle-of-the-order hitter per Riley. I can't see having 3 second basemen on the list, though one of the first baseman could go and Doyle could jump on...
11. Stan Coveleski - Arguably the best pitcher in baseball (with Johnson and Alexander) between 1917-1925. Very consistent for 9 years. Did this despite average run support and defensive support.
12. Edd Roush - This week, I lean here instead of Carey. A little more peak than Carey. 9 years with 20+ WS, 3 with 30. 5 times WS league all-star, 2 times ML - competing with Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Jackson, Heilmann, and Wheat (not to mention Burns, Carey, and Veach).
13. Carl Mays - Too close to Coveleski for one to be on the ballot and not the other one. Ranks lower b/c rec'd more offensive and defensive support than Stan.
The First Baseman Knot - Best between ABC and Gehrig.
14. Frank Chance - Best first baseman on the 20th century until some Yankee came along. Fielding, speed, OBP, leadership all lead to 6 STATS all-stars and win shares league all stars plus 4 major league ones.
15. George Sisler - 6 STATs and WS league all-stars and 5 times WS majors best at first. 5th highest Black Ink / 1st highest Grey Ink among eligibles. Below Chance b/c of the dreadful post eye problem years.
Konetchy and Beckley get pushed off this week.

See the Mickey Welch thread for more on this topic. But the argument for Welch seems to be that his W-L record is a lot like Keefe's, and they were teammates, therefore they are equivalent. If they were equivalent, explain to me how Welch had the Keystone Kops backing him up and Keefe had a bunch of Gold Glovers? Could our measure of defensive support be out of whack? Or considering that Keefe pitched against 1st and 2nd place teams 141 times and Welch only 108, maybe Keefe did indeed play with the 1st string and Welch with the back-ups. But, unlikely. But all those starts against Galvin, Hoss and Clarkson apparently came (for Welch) when Galvin, Hoss and Clarkson were playing for weaker teams, compared to the teams that Keefe pitched against.

I think we've analyzed ourselves into a deep dark environment filled with trees, and we cannot see the forest from here.

The guys who did not make the list...

First Base:
Beckley: pluses - great counting numbers. For most of his numbers everyone ahead of him is in the HoM and many who are behind him as well.
Minuses: Lack of peak. Inability to dominate position until Chance arrived.
Konetchy: pluses - 7 times WS best in league, 3 times best in majors. 6th most grey ink.
Minuses: Peak not as high as Sisler or Chance, career not as long as Sisler or Beckley.
Fournier: pluses - power, 5 times WS league and majors best.
minuses - Not a long enough career. Peak not high enough to compensate.

Second Base:
Doyle: pluses: 7 times WS best in league. 126 OPS+ is very high for middle infielder.
Minuses: Childs did his work in one league 90s. His own manager said another, Monroe, was better. An average fielder, though glove was not as important at the time. Not enough room on my ballot for 3 second basemen.

Third Base:
McGraw: pluses - high peak, incredible on-base, good fielder
minuses - short career, injuries

ShortStop:
Jennings: pluses - Very high peak, great fielder.
minuses: short career and injuries.
Both McGraw and Jennings played some of the roughest/dirtiest brand of baseball ever seen and Jennings was hit by pitches like no player ever. Their hard nosed style of play brought victories - see mid90s Baltimore - But it also caused them injuries and to play short careers. Jennings is close to the ballot b/c of his 5 great years, but misses the ballot b/c there is not enough else.

Bancroft: Great fielder, not a high enough peak or prime to pass Jennings.

Outfielders:
Van Haltren: pluses - great leadoff man, consistency, avg, speed
minuses: Not enough peak to rank higher than Duffy, along with Jennings in the 16-20 range.
Ryan: pluses: great start to a career.
minuses: the career after the train wreck. Like Sisler, except Sisler had a higher peak before the south end of the career.
Pike: pluses: Power hitting. Any hitting
minuses: Questions about his efforts - see historical comments about his final season where he may have been dismissed for not giving full effort. Not dominant pre-NA playing - was good, but not as impressive as others to me.
Poles: lack of power, need to reexamine.
Hooper: Beckley of the outfield without the power.
WS says an average fielder. Good player, but rarely great.

Catcher:
Bresnahan: pluses - dominated his position for several years. Excellent year as a center fielder also. Huge Win Shares advantage over contemporary catchers.
minuses: not a long enough career.
Schang: pluses - 4 times WS best in league, 3 times majors
minuses: Not as good (peak, prime) as Bresnahan.
Need to reconsider doing a catcher bonus for pre-1920 catchers b/c of the toughness of the position.

Pitchers:
Waddell: pluses - He could blow that speedball by you ... Did have lousy run support.
minuses: Strikeouts do not impress me a great deal. Concentration issues, did not get as much out of his talent as he should. Gave up a slightly higher percentage of unearned runs than expected.
Willis: pluses - durability. 4 times a WS league all-star. Great prime (total of any 7 years)
minuses - Lack of peak/great seasons. Did have very good defensive support for many years.
Griffith: pluses - ability to win and stay healthy. The 4th best pitching career of the 1890s
minuses - lack of big years. In/out line for 1890s pitchers is him (for me). Other pitchers had better years, but could not sustain their careers.
Redding - Not enough big years.
Mendez - On the border. Several big years in Cuba and US, but then an arm problem. Always difficult to rank pitchers who end up at another position.

Welch records for each year against HoMer and where the HoMer's team placed
Welch

year Welch Galvin   Ward   Radbourn  Clarkson
1880  4th  8-0 /7  3-6 /2 
1881  5th  5-1 /3  1-0 /2  1-2 /2
1882  7th  1-0 /4  0-1 /2  0-1 /2
1883  6th  3-3 /5          3-2 /3
1884  5th  3-2 /3          2-1 /1
1885  2nd  1-1 /7          1-0 /4     7-0 /1
1886  3rd                  4-1 /5     
1887  4th  2-1 /6          3-2 /5     2-0 /3
1888  1st  3-0 /6          2-0 /4     2-2 /4
1889  1st  0-1 /5          1-1 /2     0-2 /2
1890  6th                             1-1 /5

Also 2-0 against Rusie in 1889 - finished 7th.
Also 0-2 against Caruthers in 1890 - finished 1st.

Don't have any other yr-by-yr pitcher v. pitcher breakdowns for Keefe, Clarkson, Radbourn, etc.

When Welch pitched against HoMers who were on teams that finished ahead of his team, Welch went 32-22.
When Welch pitched against HoMers who were on teams that finished behind his team, Welch went 29-11.
These totals were from an old list so are missing a few games.

1938 ballot.

1. Wally Schang I believe that the number of catchers in the HoM should be roughly the same as for other positions. Because catcher playing time is so variable, I compute Win Shares per plate appearence to compare catchers within individual seasons. By this measure, Schang and Bresnahan are the standout ML catchers from 1900-1930, repeatedly among the leading catchers each season. Schalk, despite relatively high seasonal WS totals for a catcher, actually doesn't do very well in WS/PA, but sheer longevity puts him on my ballot.

2. Stan Coveleksi I rate pitchers by ERA+, giving, in effect, bonuses for seasons with very high ERA+. I look at Thorn and Palmer's Total Pitcher Index as a sanity check.

3. Roger Bresnahan

4. Harry Hooper I know this ranking is out of line with the consensus, but I see a Jake Beckley type argument after taking into account what I believe was AL dominance in this era.

5. Jake Beckley I can understand why many do not see Jake Beckley as ballot-worthy, but I don't understand the degree of dislike. Active leader in most offensive categories when he retired; has all-time record for defensive putouts. What's wrong with a "career" pick for the HoM?

6. Ray Schalk
7. George "Rube" Waddell

8. Jose Mendez Brilliant phase within a longer career; rating him near Waddell seems about right.

9. Eddie Cicotte
10. Urban Shocker


11. Heinie Groh Although I'm a relative NL skeptic, I'll be happy with his election.

12. George Van Haltren Along with Ryan, centerfield "career" picks from the 1890s. Beats Ryan because of more pitching value and more time as a CF.

13. Lip Pike Best unelected player from the 1870s.

14. Jimmy Ryan

15. Eddie Rommel. By this point, we're probably below the in/out line.

Max Carey: NL discount hurts him. "Extra" plate appearances from hitting leadoff give him extra offensive "value" without extra "greatness". Will go into the HoM without my support. Anyway, so what if I don't vote for Carey? I'm not voting for Donie Bush either. :-)

Hughie Jennings: Definite greatness, but hurt by shortness of prime. In my top 20.

George Sisler: Very good first half of career, but I don't see his prime as any greater than John McGraw's, who I rate similarly. Second half of his career adds little to his case.

Clark Griffith. Next best 1890s pitcher. In my top 20.

Mickey Welch. I'd pick top-tier pitcher Tommy Bond from the 1870s before another second-tier pitcher from the 1880s.

The polls don't close here until next Monday afternoon, but I thought it would be fitting if I voted here on election day.

1938 Ballot

1. Lip Pike (5-4-2-1-2-2-1-1-1-2-2-7-5-5-3) -- Pick Lip! Triumphantly returns to the top of my ballot. Great 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.
2. Heinie Groh (ne-4-8-6-6-4) -- Best 3rd baseman of the late teens. Peak is not close to McGraw's but doesn't have the career issues that Johnny Mack has.
3. Stan Coveleski (ne-9-7-7-5) -- 127 ERA+ over 3000 IP. Best human pitcher between 1915 and 1925.
4. Larry Doyle (nr-14-11-9-8-6-7-10-8-8-6) -- I think the electorate is underrating him. Fine second baseman for great Giants teams. Solid peak, in fairly short career. Fielding was mediocre, but not as horrific as WARP suggests.
5. Charley Jones (nr-nr-13-12-11-9-7-6-5-5-6-11-9-9-7) -- Unfairly blacklisted. Appears to be a hybrid or Pike/Stovey/Thompson, guys I've ranked fairly highly.
6. Hughie Jennings (14-12-14-14-13-11-9-7-6-7-8-13-11-11-9) -- I like peak and boy does Hughie have peak. Short career, though. Unlike McGraw, poor seasons outside his peak slip his career rate stats a bit. Also unlike McGraw, he was quite durable inside his peak.
7. John McGraw (10-10-11-10-9-8-6-5-4-4-5-12-10-10-8) -- 135 OPS+ is aided by the fact that its OBP heavy. In fact, his OBP is 3rd all time. Playing time issues -- even for this peak voter -- are keeping him below Groh.
8. Cupid Childs (nr-15-12-10-9-8-9-14-12-12-10) -- Very comparable to Doyle. OPS+ is OBP heavy. Fielding was good, but not A-level.
9. Mickey Welch (nr-14-11-11-12-15-13-13-11) -- 300 game winner. Played for great teams in an easy era to win games, but research here 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.
10. Dick Redding (ne-12) -- 2nd best fastball of the 10's. Conservative early ballot placement for Redding here.
11. George Sisler (ne-14-13) -- Peak candidate... before the injury (184 RC+) is was a top-tier hitter, trailing only Ruth, Cobb, Hornsby, Speaker, Jackson with a big gap down to the next group of Heilmann, Youngs and Roush (155 RC+). After the injury, he was quite mediocre (103 RC+). Peak is high enough to make the ballot. His peak is shorter and lower than JJackson's which is what keeps him relatively low.
12. Roger Bresnahan (15-15-nr-nr-13-11-10-10-11-15-15-14) -- 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 from his era.
13. Tommy Leach (nr-15) -- Hard to rate due to mix of 3B & CF. Wouldn't make the ballot on CF alone, 3B play boosts him onto the ballot.
14. Clark Griffith (nr-15-12-10-8-7-9-10-14-nr)-- 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.
15. Pete Browning (nr-15-13-13-14-nr) -- 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.

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.
Carey -- I'm not sure I understand the high level of support he's getting. I love the SB & SB%'s. Long career, too. But there just isn't enough bat for an OF candidate.
Waddell -- I love the strikeouts, I like the 3 of 4 year peak. Evidence several years ago shows that he gave up more than his share of unearned runs, though. Doesn't have the peak necessary for a "short" career induction. Could be swayed, I suppose.

Well… at least the Yankees lost this year!
Covaleski and Groh make my pHOM this year.

1. Pike (2-7-5-5-3) – Finally back to the top of my ballot. He was a star as a secondbaseman in the 60’s and a centerfielder in the 70’s. A star in this era should rate higher than just a very good player from any other era.
2. Covaleski (8-6-6-4) – Just a little better for longer than the other pitchers on the ballot. More peak than Cooper, more career than Shocker.
3. Griffith (4-9-7-7-5) – Unfortunately his support his fading. Covaleski with a little less peak
4. Groh (12-10-8-6) – Tremendous peak and enough career for a thirdbaseman, considering the attrition rate at this position.
5. Leach (10-13-11-9-7) – Another infielder who is greatly underrated. Should rate close to Groh but probably doesn’t get the positional boost Groh is getting. Similar career to Ryan/VH comes out ahead when taking into account his time at third base. Probably just on the good side of my in/out line.
6. Mendez (7-15-13-10-8) – Great peak, a little more career and he would be a clear HOMer. Now he is still a borderline candidate.
7. Van Haltren (10-8-8-11-9) – Made my pHoM a few years ago and was probably the last of the 19th century to do so.
8. Shocker (14-12-13-11) – Typical 10’s/20’s pitcher who makes my ballot based on his great peak. Underrated by this group.
9. Carey (15-14-12) – More career value than any of the remaing candidates who have at least a distinguishable peak.
10. Ryan (6-6-11-9-12-10) – Nearly identical to VH.

11. Redding (13) – Using Chris Cobb’s Win Share estimates, he rates very similar to Cooper.
12. Cooper (21-17-16-15-14) – Steadily rising in my ranking. Still have to see if he stood out enough from his pears to remain so high.

13. C. Jones (19-21-22-16-15) – Every now and then Ol’ Charlie reappears on my ballot. Jones leads a large group of very good players who I don’t feel are HoM-worthy.
14. Roush – See #13
15. Hooper – See #13

Posted by Buddha on November 01, 2004 at 07:26 PM (#947829)
You want an explanation? See my ballot for 1937 and figure it out.

Considering that your top couple of votes have changed order quite a bit and your bottom 5 are all new, I think the burden, perhaps, is on you.

Regarding Buddha's no-comment ballot. My first reaction was the same as Marc's (Sunnyday2), that it was missing comments, that this is a rules violation.

Upon reflection, I don't think this is so serious an offense as to cause his ballot to be disregarded. It's more a simple breach of protocol that any newer voter could fall into.

Now, I don't mean to dismiss the issue. There are good reasons we require comments. Mainly, it's by the give and take of the discussion that we gradually thrash out the best consensus. Like others here, I hope that Buddha takes the time to submit his rationale for his ballot. If he does not, I think we can accept it anyway; it is certainly a reasonable listing and this election has clear favorites for election.

However, I think this should be a one-time pass. Having now been alerted to the requirements, Buddha would be expected to conform in future elections or have his ballot excluded.

1938 ballot
Smokey Joe Williams and Ray Schalk make my personal HoM this year
I probably should have voted here yesterday

1. George Sisler Bill James’s biggest mistake (made my personal HoM in 1936)
3. Mickey Welch please see his thread (made my personal HoM all the way back in 1898)
4. Pete Browning 13th in career batting avg. (made my personal HoM in 1906)
5. Jake Beckley 30th in hits (made my personal HoM in 1915)
6. Rube Waddell most Ks/9IP 7 times in a row tying with Vance for the record led in it 1 more time (made my personal HoM in 1917)
7. Hugh Duffy had 100 runs or RBIs every full year he played (made my personal HoM in 1908)
8. Addie Joss 2nd in era (made my personal HoM in 1918)
9. Clark Griffith 54th in wins (made my personal HoM in 1912)
10. Edd Roush323 batting avg (made my personal HoM in 1937)
11. Ray Schalk the best catcher ever (makes my personal HoM this year)
12. George Van Haltren 31st in runs (made my personal HoM in 1925)
13. Jimmy Ryan 30th in runs (made my personal HoM in 1926)
14. Lip Pike 465 slugging percentage (made my personal HoM in 1910)
15. Bobby Veach most doubles twice (made my personal HoM in 1931)
16. Jake Daubert 29th in triples (made my personal HoM in 1930)
17. John McGraw 3rd in on base percentage (made my personal HoM in 1930)
18. Gavvy Cravath most active HRs 1918, 1919 and 1920 (made my personal HoM in 1928)
19. George J. Burns most walks 5 times (made my personal HoM in 1932)
20. Ginger Beaumont 1902 batting title (made my personal HoM in 1932)
explanation for players not on my ballot
Heinie Groh no third base bonus
Stan Coveleski is now 26th on my ballot
Max Carey not a good enough hitter for me for a outfielder
Hugh Jennings is now 27th on my ballot

sorry a bought missing number 2 make my
1938 ballot this instead
Smokey Joe Williams and Ray Schalk make my personal HoM this year
I probably should have voted here yesterday

1. George Sisler Bill James’s biggest mistake (made my personal HoM in 1936)
2. Mickey Welch please see his thread (made my personal HoM all the way back in 1898)
3. Pete Browning 13th in career batting avg. (made my personal HoM in 1906)
4. Jake Beckley 30th in hits (made my personal HoM in 1915)
5. Rube Waddell most Ks/9IP 7 times in a row tying with Vance for the record led in it 1 more time (made my personal HoM in 1917)
6. Hugh Duffy had 100 runs or RBIs every full year he played (made my personal HoM in 1908)
7. Addie Joss 2nd in era (made my personal HoM in 1918)
8. Clark Griffith 54th in wins (made my personal HoM in 1912)
9. Edd Roush323 batting avg (made my personal HoM in 1937)
10. Ray Schalk the best catcher ever (makes my personal HoM this year)
11. George Van Haltren 31st in runs (made my personal HoM in 1925)
12. Jimmy Ryan 30th in runs (made my personal HoM in 1926)
13. Lip Pike 465 slugging percentage (made my personal HoM in 1910)
14. Bobby Veach most doubles twice (made my personal HoM in 1931)
15. Jake Daubert 29th in triples (made my personal HoM in 1930)
16. John McGraw 3rd in on base percentage (made my personal HoM in 1930)
17. Gavvy Cravath most active HRs 1918, 1919 and 1920 (made my personal HoM in 1928)
18. George J. Burns most walks 5 times (made my personal HoM in 1932)
19. Ginger Beaumont 1902 batting title (made my personal HoM in 1932)
explanation for players not on my ballot
Heinie Groh no third base bonus
Stan Coveleski is now 26th on my ballot
Max Carey not a good enough hitter for me for a outfielder
Hugh Jennings is now 27th on my ballot

Yest,

Ironic for me to point this out in light of my earlier unnumbered and confusingly spaced ballot, but I think you are missing your number two slot. Should we just slide everyone from Welch downward up one ranking?

Yest,

You fixed it as I hit "submit"!

However, I think this should be a one-time pass. Having now been alerted to the requirements, Buddha would be expected to conform in future elections or have his ballot excluded.

There are times when a ballot gets posted with no comments for last-minute time constraints or the poster leaving for a vacation or whatever. I don't have a problem with that happening occasionally.

But here? Its still only Wednesday. He's got plenty of time. The strange thing is that he comes back with attitude in #34. Sure, we don't want to be so bold as to talk about excluding his ballot yet... and maybe he's not going to check the board until next week I dunno. But, if he's still around, he's got five more days. Why can't he just re-post with explanations? What would be the big deal about that?

I have to say that even though Buddha's ballot #19 moderately favors both Beckley and Welch, so I would of course be inclined to accept it gratefully, I think it better to enforce the rules strictly. Otherwise we may set a precedent for a difficult "hanging chads" situation in an election that is genuinely a cliff-hanger. Selective enforcement doesn't work, better not to have the rule, which would be more transparent, than to enforce it selectively.

1938 ballot.
1. Larry Doyle (5, 9, 7, 7, 3) Big hitter in low scoring times - nearly as good a hitter as the backlog outfielders. Mediocre defense, but occupied the position for a long time. Jim Sp has crawled way out on a limb putting him #1. This is probably crazy, but I think I'll join him out there.
2. Stanislaus Kowalewski (-, 10, 8, 8, 4). The best of the 3000-inning pitchers, other than maybe Vance. Ethnic identity has always meant a lot in America, and it meant more in baseball in the first half of the 20th century. (Bill James said - with some hyperbole - that once the Black guys came in, everyone else was just White.) So I'll let Stan be Polish on my probable last ballot for him.
3. George Van Haltren (3, 7, 5, 5, 5) 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.
4. Heinie Groh (6, 11, 9, 9, 6) I've never been particularly enthusiastic about him, but he was an MVP candidate more than once. I have no objection to his election.
5. Jimmy Ryan (4, 8, 6, 6, 7) Nearly indistinguishable from Van Haltren. 30th year on my ballot.
6. Hugh Duffy (7, 12, 10, 10, 8) 32nd year on my ballot.
7. Max Carey (--, 12, 12, 9) The Beckley of oufielders. The dominant base stealer of his times. His offense wouldn't put him this high, but he was also a superior defender.
8. Edd Roush (----, 10) Nearly the same offensive value as the leftover 1890's guys; better hitter than Carey, but the nod goes to Carey's defense.
9. Rube Waddell (8, 13, 11, 11, 11) The best one left from his generation, and I have him ahead of Griffith - but he's going to lose ground to a new generation of pitchers, of whom Coveleski is only the first.
10. Jose Mendez (12, 17, 16, 17, 15)
11. Dick Redding (----, 23) We've got lots of good pitchers, and are about to get more. Mendez and Redding belong in the discussion; exactly where is impossible to figure.
12. Roger Bresnahan (9, 14, 13, 13, 12) Very good offense for a catcher; not enough if we think of him as an outfielder.
13. Jake Beckley (10, 15, 14, 14, 13) No peak, long career. But still more peak than Hooper.
14. Wally Schang (----, 14) Offensive value comparable to, oh maybe Clyde Milan. If he had some more games played at an ordinary level - some padding - I'd be comparing him offensively to Daubert, Leach, Ken Williams. No match for Bresnahan offensively, but he's all catcher and Bresnahan isn't. It all boils down to the idea of a catcher bonus.
15. George Sisler (---, 15, 15) My peak-heavy offensive evaluation system likes Chance ahead of Sisler, and Sisler ahead of Beckley. The order gets reversed because of playing time. There are a couple of top years, but his whole peak doesn't rank anywhere near Jackson, Flick, or Magee.
16. Gavy Cravath (11, 16, 15, 16, 16) A big offensive peak. 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.
17. Frank Chance (13, 18, 17, 18, 12) I could have him higher; huge offensive seasons, discounted for his lack of playing time.
18. Tommy Leach (18, 24, 23, 25, 19) Not as much offense as either Groh or Carey, but not that far behind them, either. Those are the ones to compare him to.
19. Ben Taylor (-, 19, 18, 19, 20)
20. Vic Willis (16, 22, 21, 22, 21) I could reasonably have him right up there with Waddell.
21. Mickey Welch (14, 20, 19, 20, 22) 300 wins, but ERA and RA don't really support the record.
22. George J. Burns (15, 21, 20, 21, 24) A better leadoff hitter than Carey, but didn't last as long.
23. Clark Griffith (24, ---, 25) Another good pitcher, but I don't see me ever moving him up to an "elect me" spot. Ed Cicotte could be in here somewhere as well, if I wasn't so suspicious of anything having to do with his 1920 season.
24. Dave Bancroft (---, 23, -) A very good player.
25. Hugh Jennings (25, - 25, --) On the edge of consideration.
Others to consider: Monroe, Evers, Fournier, Hooper, Adams, Long, Tinker.
Nothing to say about Pike that I haven't said many times.

*Agree with PhillyBooster on ballot economy.
*Agree with Sunnyday on Buddha's ballot -- that's too much economy.

1938 Ballot

1. Coveleski, Stan – Negatively affected by not pitching as long as some of the other pitchers under consideration, so his career numbers are not as impressive. However, every other player who scored as high in my system has been elected.

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. Groh, Heinie – Excellent fielder with a high extended peak. Would fare better on my ballot if he played a bit longer and had some more grey or black ink. But still damned good.

4. 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.

5. Sisler, George – Thought he would come in higher, but has poor defensive scores and WARP doesn’t like him much. Also doesn’t have the typical HoM RBI and runs scored numbers (even though I realize those are stats dependent on others).

6. 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. Groh is more deserving.

7. Roush, Edd – Fine hitter without a lot of pop, but he certainly didn’t have any trouble getting around the bases for triples. Had several MVP-quality years (by WS standards – WARP doesn’t like him quite as much if you adjust the way they calculate defense). Not as good as Carey in the field, but contributed a lot more at the plate, and that’s a bigger factor in the outfield.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Duffy, Hugh -- Some good counting stats, good grey ink and scores well on WS and WARP1 measures.

11. Mays, Carl – Better peak than career, and WS looks better than WARP1. A couple of MVP caliber seasons, and several other All-Star caliber seasons. Probably won’t make my PHoM, but is right on the edge.

12. 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. But then again, he wasn’t a full-time catcher.

13. Waddell, Rube -- Comparable to Griffith, but win totals are far less impressive. Can't see putting him ahead of Griffith, unless you overvalue strikeouts. He floats on and off my ballot.

14. Veach, Bobby -– Back on the ballot. Several near-MVP years, but just doesn’t end up with truly impressive WS or adjWARP1 numbers.

15. Carey, Max -– Excellent defender and a good, but not great hitter. Defense only counts so much in the outfield. It doesn’t make up for the difference between his hitting and the centerfielders we tend to elect.

Required Disclosures:

Beckley, Jake – All career. Not much peak as HoMers and HoFers go. Only ordinary in black ink and Keltner tests. He’s #17 in my system, behind Tommy Leach and ahead of Tony Mullane. Only 34% of the group thinks he is top 10.

Pike, Lip – He’s #32 in my system, behind Urban Shocker and ahead of Hughie Jennings. 40% of the group thinks he is top 10.

Jennings, Hughie - He’s #33 in my system, behind Pike and ahead of Charlie Buffinton. I’ve never been comfortable enough with his career length to place him highly, and when I adjusted his BP defense ratings, he plummeted.

25 ballots, which is about halfway. No candidate has more than 4 first place votes or 5 second place votes; no candidate has been named on all of the ballots. Early projections suggest that consensus scores may challenge 1931 for the lowest I've seen.

Early projections suggest that consensus scores may challenge 1931 for the lowest I've seen.

I think 1931 will still own the record, but you never know.

"Early projections suggest that consensus scores may challenge 1931 for the lowest I've seen."

next year's may be lower than this year's!

1938 Ballot

After a lot of easy ballots, this one was hard, especially the top 5, though lots of rethinking produced only one change in rank order.

1. Stan Coveleski. (3). Reaches the top of my ballot. A lot of controversy over him this election. I’ve taken a long look at him again, and I’ve stayed with a high ranking. The knocks on him are (1) by win shares it’s not clear he’s the best pitcher available and (2) his advantages in ERA+ (which are evident) are not enough to make up for his disadvantages in innings pitched and his terrible hitting. Looked at this way, Cooper, Cicotte, Griffith, Mays, Waddell, and Willis have an argument to be as good as Coveleski among post-1893 pitchers. In Coveleski’s favor is WARP, which rates him as clearly better. All my analysis on the contribution of fielding support to pitchers’ records, on changes in pitchers’ innings per season, on the relative distribution of defensive responsibility between pitchers and fielders, backs up WARP’s assessment. Coveleski’s superiority is subtle but substantial.
2. Clark Griffith. (3) Reaches an elect-me spot for the first time after many years on my ballot. Statistically similar to Coveleski, but at a time when his innings pitched didn’t mean quite as much. His dominance is understated, however, by baseball-reference’s top-ten lists and their black ink & gray ink measures, since most of his best years were in a twelve-team league rather than an eight-team one. If you look at his placements in the top 15 on ERA+ and innings pitched for the 12-team years, he matches up pretty well to all eligible, post-1893 pitchers except Coveleski.

Top 10/15 finishes in IP and ERA+

Coveleski 8 in IP, 8 in ERA+
Cooper 8 in IP, 7 in ERA+
Willis 9 in IP, 4 in ERA+
Griffith 5 in IP, 7 in ERA+
Shocker 6 in IP, 6 in ERA+
Cicotte 6 in IP, 6 in ERA+
Mays 6 in IP, 5 in ERA+
Waddell 4 in IP, 7 in ERA+

If you look at the number of good seasons, career IP and ERA+, DERA, batting value, the total package, Griffith comes out ahead of everyone but Coveleski. I fear with so much attention on Coveleski, Griffith will be neglected, but I hope he will get a very serious look for election in 1938-40.
3. Hughie Jennings (5) During his 1894-1898 peak, he was the best position 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. His five-year peak is #11 all-time among position players in 1937, trailing only Wagner, Ruth, Barnes, Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby, E. Collins, G. Wright, Gehrig, and Connor. Very underrated. I think he should be elected, but Griffith should go first for the 1890s.
4. Heinie Groh (7). One of the best peaks of the teens, setting aside the all-time greats. On track for election this year, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
5. Mickey Welch. (6) 8th-10th best player of the 1880s. We have “enough” 1880s pitchers, but not necessarily the right ones. Welch belongs in. Coveleski is the 4th best pitcher of the 20s, Griffith the 4th best pitcher of the 90s, Welch the 4th or 5th best pitcher of the 80s, so they land 1 – 2 – 5 on my ballot. All three are had similar sorts of careers: well above average every year for at least seven years, and good pitchers for at least 10 years.
6. Dick Redding (8). A workhorse. Similar to Red Faber, but 5% worse.
7. Jose Mendez (9) Career Cuban winter-league record of 59-18, if achieved with avg. support, would translate into a 150 ERA+ in major-league competition. Even assuming he was pitching for good teams, they would have to have been powerhouses indeed for Mendez to get that W-L record without being a solid HoMer. Negro League record of 40-14 tells the same story.

--The top half of my ballot has 5 pitchers. We should be electing mostly pitchers through 1940. After 1940, we will elect only a few of the very best pitchers until we reach the 1950s.

8. Max Carey (10). Despite not being as valuable on a per-game basis as Roush, his durability makes up most of the difference. My weighing of peak, career, and rate stats has Carey and Roush dead even, so if WS is undervaluing defense _at all_, then Carey would rank ahead. That breaks the tie.
9. Edd Roush (11). Less career than Carey or Van Haltren, but has the peak that they lack. A great contributor to a World Series winner.
10. George Van Haltren (12) All-around, consistent talent.
11. Tommy Leach (13) Another player similar to Carey. Last star of the aughts who is a serious candidate for election in my view. He slipped through the cracks in the teens elections, but I think he’ll continue to rise now.
12. Lip Pike. (14) Still around (35th consecutive appearance on my ballot), treading water until the next gap in great new arrivals gives an early player another shot at election. He had a great peak, however one adjusts for era.
13. Urban Shocker (14) A very underrated player; he might well be a HoMer. He had a couple of great seasons in 1920 and 1921, and he was above average every single year he pitched.
14. George Sisler (16). A very fine player at his peak, slightly overrated by the electorate as a whole.
15. Larry Doyle (17). Last made my ballot in 1933. Slightly better than the teens outfield glut.

Top Ten Returning Players from 1935 Who Don’t Make my 1936 Ballot

Rube Waddell; see #20 below
Jake Beckley: see #38 below

1936 Off-Ballot

16. Spotswood Poles (18)
17. Harry Hooper (19).
18. Hugh Duffy (20).
19. Wilbur Cooper (21)
20. Rube Waddell (22) See Shocker comment above for more on how I compare Waddell to later pitchers. Waddell was a great talent, and he was one of the greatest characters in the history of major-league baseball. He’s thus deserving of his place in the Hall of Fame, but I think his value is just below the threshold for Hall of Merit induction. In the context of his time, just the eighth-best pitcher of the aughts.
21. Carl Mays (23).
22. Roger Bresnahan (24).
23. Wally Schang (25).
24. Ben Taylor (26)
25. Bobby Veach (27)
26. Jimmy Ryan (28)
27. Cupid Childs (29).
28. Fielder Jones (30)
29. Dobie Moore (31)
30. Gavvy Cravath (32)
31. Herman Long (33)
32. Tommy Bond (34)
33. George J. Burns (35)
34. Charley Jones (35)
35. Bruce Petway (37)
36. Bill Monroe (38)
37. Babe Adams (39)
38. Jake Beckley (40) Like Childs, 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.
39. Dave Bancroft (nr).
40. Frank Chance (nr).

We ought to enforce the rule requiring explanations for ballot rankings. Given that informed discussion is what should set our choices of which players to honor apart, it's an appropriate rule. Not everyone reads the comments on every ballot, but they are basic to the way we work.

1938 ballot
1) Lip Pike—155 OPS+. Top 7 or better in OPS+ in 5 out of 7 documented seasons, top 10 in slugging all 7 years.
2) Cannonball Dick Redding—2nd best NeL pitcher of the deadball era.
3) Stan Coveleski—Still the best eligible Caucasian pitcher. Last time I checked, his 274 PRAA (all-time) & 77.4 WARP3 are the best among eligibles. 3.71 DERA is basically tied for tops with Joss and Waddell. 142 WS in top five seasons is second to Waddell (145) among pitchers who played mostly in the 20th Century. 400 IP edge in Translated IP gives him a distinct edge over Waddell.
4) Pete Browning—.309 EQA (all time), 30.81 WS/162G.
5) Hughie Jennings—That peak is hard to resist—54.2/151 in top 5 WARP3/WS seasons.
6) Ben Taylor—As I see it, one of the top 3 NeL 1st basemen of all time. That puts him well ahead of the likes of Beckley & Sisler for me. Taylor should be on at least half the ballots Beckley is on, last election he was on less than ¼ (6:27).
7) Rube Waddell—Coveleski may have an edge, but Waddell is next in line. 142 ERA+. 3.69 DERA. 244 PRAA. 455 PRAR/145WS in 5 best seasons are tops among eligibles. 81 WS/1000IP is right up there with the rest of the top guys.
8) Addie Joss—Best of eligibles in Top 3/5 PRAA seasons: 150/213. 31.51 WS/season is best for 20th Century eligibles. 1700 Translated IP is lowest by far of pitchers in my top 20. Good fielder (109 Rate), horrible batter (20 OPS+). Hitting and IP keep him out of top 10.
9) Jose Mendez—Excellent NeL pitcher. The distance from Redding at #2 to Mendez at #9 is not that great.
10) Heinie Groh—Good fielder, solid peak. 85 WARP3 & 272WS is more than enough to put him ahead of most of the “career” players.
11) Dobie Moore— The Black Hughie Jennings is slowly creeping toward the top 10.
12) Charley Jones—OPS+ of 149. 29.17 WS/162g is second only to Browning among eligibles. Bump for missed years.
13) Bill Monroe—He had been consistently behind Childs and Dunlap, but upon reevaluation, I think I was giving more credit to other NeLer’s reputations than I was to Monroe.
14) Urban Shocker—Top three seasons were a bit below Cicotte’s, but career and 5-year peak totals of WS, WARP3, PRAA are very close or better the Ed’s. Significant edge in DERA (3.79 vs. 4.04) and WS/1000IP (84 vs. 77) for Shocker. It’s close but Shocker comes out ahead.
15) Ed Cicotte—His top three seasons were outstanding: 94 WS, 160 RSAA. Top 5 and career totals bring him back to the rest of the pack:
160/400 top 5 PRAA/PRAR, 124 top 5 WS, 4.04 DERA, 77 WS/1000IP. Vic Willis is right on his heels.

Just off ballot:
16) Vic Willis—see Cicotte comment. His IP advantage shrinks quite a bit when you look at Translated IP.

17) Long Levi Meyerle—164 OPS+ in career that is 75% of Pike’s documented length. Top 8 or better in OPS+ 6 out of 7 seasons--better than Lip 4 out of 7; 1st twice.

18) Chino Smith—Exceptional peak makes him the Dobie Moore of outfielders. I think he could be easily overlooked. Seems to have hit .400+ on a semi-regular basis (granted they’re small samples). Premature death really throws a wrench into the evaluation. According to McNeil and the Pitts. Courier Poll, he’s somewhere between the 4th and 6th best NeL outfielder. He’s very close to being on my ballot.

19)Fielder Jones—Seems like he gets passed over in a lot of the OF debate. 94 WARP3 is very close to Hooper & Carey, ahead of Roush, GVH and a host of others. A+ fielder like Hooper & Carey and significantly better WS/162 at 26.28 puts him ahead of those guys even though they played a bit longer.

20)Mike Griffin—Slightly more tenuous argument for placing him above Hooper and Carey. Along the same lines as F. Jones, though—26.27 WS/162, 44.5 top 5 WARP3 is better than Max or Harry…88 career WARP3 is respectable compared to the others.

Top 10 Left Off:
27) Max Carey—I have him right below Harry Hooper. Long career, but there are a lot of pretty good OFs with long careers. 20.71 WS/162G is not outstanding against the competition.

61) Jake Beckley—He’s no Ben Taylor.

43) George Sisler—His peak years aren’t any higher, at least top 5 in WARP3 (~44), than a lot of the outfielders who played longer that I have above him.

21) Clark Griffith—He’s definitely in the mix of pitchers that are close to the ballot for me. Deflation of his IP by Trans. IP hurts him a bit. Better DERA keeps him ahead of Carl Mays.

48) Mickey Welch—I don’t think he was horrible or anything, I’m just not that impressed. WS/1000IP (74) and WS/Season (29.5) are in line with the growing group of pitchers that I see as slightly below HoM-worthy. Like Griffith, hurt by Translated IP, but Mickey’s is cut by half, Clark's is only 1/3.

New guys in top 100:
38) Eddie Rommel—He starts off just above Hippo Vaughn/Babe Adams territory.
96) Frank Warfield—Poor man’s Bingo DeMoss?

1938 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 speed. I don’t believe in much extra value for “peak”. Some subjective estimating of ability across time and place.

This year’s ballot includes 5 pitchers, 5+ infielders, and 5- outfielders.

1-Stan Coveleski (4)
127 ERA+ for 3000 IP is a fine record indeed. Hearing no substantial negatives about Stanley, he vaults one place this week to the top.
2-Heinie Groh (6)
Good stick, good glove. Jumps up this week, as I compared him to his peers over many metrics, and he stood out.
3-Clark Griffith (3)
As many voters give Welch credit for pitching to the score, they ought to do the same for Griffith!

“Hall of very good” starts right about here……..#4 ain’t much different than #17. Which will be more of a pain as one of them may get an “elect-me” vote on the next ballot or two!

4-George Van Haltren (5)
Hit. Ran. Played defense. Pitched. Long career. No timeline discount for 1890s. Solidly on my ballot.
5-John McGraw (7)
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 tho.
6-Lip Pike (8)
AdjEqA of .302. Fine WS and OPS+. Played infield too. Some concerns about his ethics’ affect on team performance.
7-Roger Bresnahan (11)
A nod to position scarcity. A great player when he was on the field. Re-reading Bill James’ “Whatever happened to the Hall of Fame”, it’s amazing how he trashed the Bresnahan HoF selection so often in that book, and now Roger is #16 in his NBJHA. The truth seems to be somewhere in the middle.
8-Rube Waddell (10)
Six time leader in KOs, 3 ERA+ titles. Unearned runs drag him down a bit. We’ve already elected 8 pitchers from his prime – that nudges him down a bit.
9-Max Carey (9)
Bonus for great World Series, bonus because stolen bases give more “wins per run” than some models account for, but un-bonus because WS and WARP overrate leadoff men IMHO, by giving them more credit for extra PAs, but not considering that #4 hitters PAs are more important per event.
Some have criticized Carey for his low WS/162games, but much of that is his truly poor performance in late career – drop the last few years off and he only loses 25 total WS, but his career rate goes way up.
10-Larry Doyle (14)
A 2Bman with such a high OWP deserves to be on the ballot.
11-Addie Joss (13)
Bonus points for his great pennant exploits gets him on the edge. Also see Rube W comment above.
12-Tommy Leach (off)
As an infielder he’s solidly on my ballot. As an OFer he’s off. And so he lands here.
13-Cupid Childs (off)
A fine hitting second sacker indeed, whose glove was okay too. Difficulty of playing a long career as an infielder in the 1890s gives him a few bonus points.
14-Mickey Welch (off)
I figure he was maybe 10 “wins” better than his ERA+/WARP/WS data suggests, based on his distribution of runs allowed. This is more credit than I had been giving him previously, so he moves up from 25th-ish to the bottom of my ballot. Welcome, Smiling Mickey.
15-Ed Roush (12)
Easy to compare directly with Carey; and he loses by a hair.

Almost……..
Jake Beckley (15)
Somewhere between Doggie Perez and Fred the Crime Dog McGriff. He’ll have a Ruff time getting into the HoM tho. Passed this ballot by Childs and Leach and Welch. Pretty directly comparable with Roush (good hitter, not much defensive value), and he loses by a hair in career value above mediocre in virtually all measurements, if a bit of timelining is included.
Hughie Jennings (always on the edge)
Great for 5 years. Same problem this ballot as Mister Beckely.

Urban Shocker
Little plusses: Decent hitter and bunter, made very few errors on the mound. Little minuses: Pitched poorly in his only W.S.
Frank Chance
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. Small bonus because I assess that he would have played a few more games if he weren’t managing
Wally Schang
Directly comparable to Bresnahan; and he loses by more than one hair. Maybe “square root of 3”, or e, or Pi/2 hairs at least.
Dick Redding
Not sure where to place him, but I’m hesitant to elect him or Mendez, who are AT BEST the 6th or 7th greatest NegLeg hurlers, and possibly lower.

Also near the edge: B Monroe, H Duffy, C Jones, J Ryan, G Sisler.

As for Sisler, I’m a career voter, and he doesn’t have enough of one. If we had a PEAK Hall of Merit, George would be a fine candidate.

1938 ballot. Where did all the inner-circle guys go?

1. Rube Waddell (3). Won six straight strikeout titles, top 10 in Ks per 9 innings 10 straight years - dominance you don't get everyday. In addition to major league service, he competed in PCL, AA, Western League throughout his career, having success but seemingly frustrating managers. One of the first AL superstars - his pitching was guaranteed to bring in a large crowd and help support the fledgling league.

2. Heinie Groh (4). Peak numbers shape up nicely. Positional leadership over others at 3B in the same era is the key here.

3. Pete Browning (5). Hitter with few rivals. Star of the AA which is alright - I don't give extreme discounts for that league.

4. Hughie Jennings (6). Peak-riffic. SS with plenty of glove and bat in his prime, albeit for a short stretch of time.

5. Stan Coveleski (7). Some durability, some peak, just a quality pitcher.

6. Jimmy Ryan (8). Yeah, I got nothing to add. Something about 30 years of him on the ballot does that to ya.

7. Edd Roush (9). Another CF to throw into the mix...

8. Jake Beckley (10). Still no 1B have jumped greatly ahead of him so that shows something about his worth.

9. John McGraw (11). 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.

10. Dick Redding (13). The evidence is spotty in places but what we have shows a candidate at the least.

11. Bobby Veach (12). Maybe penalized him too harshly in the past due to tough OF competition in his career.

12. George Sisler (29). Said I would jump him up and so here he is. The seven-year peak should not be diminished by some average play after his return from injury. Star college player who was highly sought after by many teams.

13. Cupid Childs (14). 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.

14. Mike Griffin (15). Switched positions for him and Duffy. Consistent player, both seemed to use the leather. Griffin was more of a full-time CF than Hugh.

15. Tommy Leach (17). An A+ fielder at two positions who also was an effective hitter. Since I'm a fan of 3Bmen there is a place on the ballot for him.

Down below:
16-20: Van Haltren, Griffith, Duffy, Poles, Carey
21-25: Mullane, Bresnahan, Mendez, Doyle, Welch
26-30: Tiernan, Schang, Taylor, Willis, Cravath
31-35: Pike, Moore, Dunlap, Hooper, F Jones
36-40: C Jones, Mays, Chance, Cooper, Cicotte

Top returnees not on ballot:
Carey (20). The increased value from SBs and defense get him closer but not quite on ballot.
Pike (31). Short peak, abrupt end to career. I'm fine with the work done on NA/NL early years.
Griffith (17). He'll come back eventually.
Welch (25). Fine pitcher, struggling against pitchers from other generations. Still has shot at ballot in the long run.

REPOST with explanations.

First off, sorry to offend, won't happen again. Secondly, some of you take yourselves very seriously. This is a fun exercise and one I put some time into, but it's not like we're deciding the fate of the world. But rules are rules and I should and will play by them like everyone else.

Again, sorry for causing problems.

1) Stan Coveleski: Reexamined. Like his career totals a bit more than Waddell's peak.

2) George Sisler: One of the most dominant hitters before his eye problems and still a top performer afterwards. Combined with his reputation for good defense, I think he belongs.

3) Rube Waddell: Dominating pitcher, love the K's and the ERA+.

4) Max Carey: No great peak, but such great defense at such an important position.

5) Hughie Jennings: Great peak, great in the field, but no longevity.

6) Jake Beckley: Then anit-Hughie, no great peak but lots of longevity.

7) Clark Griffith: Long career of being really good.

8) Heinie Groh: Yeah he was a 3b and there aren't that many of those represented but still, not so great. Put him below Griffith this time because, well, that's how I felt that day.

9) Cupid Childs: Kinda long career of being really good.

10) Pete Browning: Really good, not great.

11) Mickey Welch: Ditto.

12) Eddie Cicotte: Like him a lot but just can't get past 1919.

13) Gavy Cravath: If NLer stats count, shouldn't PCL and AA stats?

14) Hugh Duffy: Great hitting career during a great time to be a hitter.

15) Frank Chance: Good numbers and good defense at a time when first base defense was more important than it is now. Good leader by all accounts.

Buddha,

Thanks!

I'm probably one who seems to take the project awfully seriously, but for me the seriousness is part of the fun. It's pleasant, in this one little corner of my life, to be able to try to get things right by means of reasoned argument.

Others mileage may vary, of course, which is why we have rules :-) .

FWIW . . .

1. Heinie Groh—Of all the candidates, Groh is the one I feel most comfortable about. Only Jennings had a higher Win Share total in his five best consecutive seasons.
2. Stan Coveleski—See comments on Rube Waddell.
3. Hughie Jennings—Jennings had the highest peak of any of the available candidates. His peak also comprised of 73.3% of his warp1 and 70.1% of his WS. (Decided to rate Jennings higher after Cobb’s persuasive stumping.)
4. Max Carey—Sticks out like a sore thumb among a similar group of center fielders with very good career and good peak numbers. His 351 Win Shares is the highest among HoM candidates (non-19th century pitchers division).
5. Lip Pike—After Negro Leaguers, Pike and Cravath are the hardest for me to judge. In the end, I gotta give credit to a man who reputedly outran a horse, though. . . .
6. Larry Doyle—Siding with Win Shares' interpretation of his defense, combined with an adjustment for Childs’s 1890 AA competition, gives Doyle the edge between the two second basemen.
7. Cupid Childs—See comments on Larry Doyle.
8. Rube Waddell—Coveleski played 14 seasons; Waddell played 13. Coveleski accumulated 245 WS and averaged 29.85 per season; Waddell accumulated 240 and averaged 30.59. They have the same dERA: 3.58. The difference between the two, other than strikeouts, is the comparison between their peers, but on “The Ballot of the Very Good” this is the spot that I think Waddell deserves.
9. Jose Mendez—Has been compared to Mr. Rube Waddell.
10. Tommy Leach—Very good career, good peak, a part of the underrepresented third baseman class. . . .
11. Dick Redding—Best Negro Leaguer pitcher from 1917 – 1919 according to Bill James, great nickname to boot. . . .
12. George Sisler—First half his career established his HoM candidacy, second half pushed him past the all-peak dudes (exempting Hughie "Ee-Yah, I have an insane peak" Jennings, of course).
13. Spotswood Poles—Referred to by some as “The Black Ty Cobb.”
14. Gavy Cravath—“He played ball, and lived his life, with a minimum amount of effort and nervous energy.” Cravath gets extra credit for his minor league performance, obviously, especially as the star of the Minneapolis Millers. And it’s Gavy, right?
15. Bill Monroe—Negro Leaguers are definitely the hardest to figure out. I’m reasonably confident on where I have Mendez, Redding, and Poles (although it’s certainly not set in stone), but am less so concerning Monroe. For now he gets the token 15 spot ahead of “The Centerfielders.” (An interesting class in and of themselves. . . . )

Disclosures:

Jake Beckley—Very good career numbers, however, his peak numbers are the lowest of any candidate besides Lip Pike. Even with fielding adjustments, there are still other very good career, good peak guys I'd put ahead of him.

Buddha, thank you very much. I'm often accused of being flippant, and indeed I am generally flippant, but if I'm going to put the modest but significant and quite long term time into this project that it deserves, I'd very much rather that its rules be clear and not "fuzzy" and that we run as little risk as possible of "hanging chads" and ill feeling.

Greek guy, if Pike, in spite of having 1/3 of Beckley's career is nevertheless ahead of him because he outran a horse, I would point out that this is not the horseracing Hall of Fame, and anyway, it may have been a slow horse! :-)).

My #1 and #2 were elected again; this five-year streak will end. Old exhibits are again suppressed. We’ll elect a couple from the backlog in 1938 as we welcome the weakest group since 1924. In 1939 it’ll take some serious study to sort out the top of the ballot; Red Faber and Joe Sewell lead a big gob of glut that also includes Maranville, Rixey and Quinn. The next year it’s more of the same with Grimes, Rice, Luque, et al, although Joe Rogan may top them all.

1)Lip Pike (3,5,5) – His 41st year on my ballot, finally hits #1. If the HoM is about respect for all eras, then Pike is a “n-b”. IMO, his era is very underrepresented and he seems unchallenged as the best remaining candidate. Number of HoMers playing regularly during his career:
1866: 2 (Pearce, Start)
1867: 3 (the above 2 plus Wright)
1868: 5 (above 3, Barnes, Spalding)
1869: 7 (above 5, White, McVey)
1870: 8 (above 7, Sutton)
1871: 9 (above 8, Anson)
1872: 10 (above 9, O’Rourke)
1873: 11 (above 10, Hines)
1874: 11
1875: 11
1876: 10 (Pearce token)
1877: 9 (Barnes injured)
1878: 11 (Start, Wright, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson, O’Rourke, Hines, Bennett, Kelly, Ward)

In 1879 it explodes to 16; in 1881 it hits 20 and stays at 18+ until the late teens.

Slugging average .300+, age 30+, 1876-82, minimum 600 PA:

1—.420 Lip Pike
2—.387 Joe Start
3—.386 Jim O’Rourke
4—.378 Deacon White
5—.331 Bob Ferguson
6—.327 Ezra Sutton
7—.311 Andy Leonard
8—.302 George Wright

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

2)George Van Haltren (4,6,6)—The 1932 election may have been his last, best shot at induction. For a while, anyway. Now in his 30th year eligible. As to why he rates above Ryan: he excelled in the contraction years 1892-1900, a period lagging in HoM representation; he had 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. Players with 2850 times on base 1889-1901:
1—3392 B. Hamilton
2—3134 G. Van Haltren
3—3046 J. Burkett
4—3043 E. Delahanty

3)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.

4)Stan Coveleski (6,11,15) – It is clear he is in the same class as Griffith. Easily outshines Mays. FWIW, Stan and Carl are each others most similar player (945). About a year ago I did a close look at Mays-Ferrell-Walters, having always assumed that Mays was the most deserving of the HOF of that trio. I ended up changing my mind and putting Mays 3rd. While his raw stats are superficially better than the other two, he played half his career in the deadball era while spending nearly his entire career with excellent teams.

5)Max Carey (7,9,9) – His career win shares and WARP3 are very similar to Heilmann’s, as his fielding and base stealing add enormously to his OPS+. He missed most of the 1919 season due to injury or illness (sources conflict). Why did his career suddenly nosedive after 1925? Is there any reason to doubt the conclusion that he was a scintillating fielder? Outfielders with 280+ assists, 1911-2004:
1—383 Tris Speaker
2—338 Max Carey
3—300 Harry Hooper

6)Tommy Leach (8,8,7) – With 3B and CF lagging in HoM members, you’d think he’d get more attention. Longevity, defense and speed keep him above Groh. 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).

7) Jimmy Ryan (9,10,10)—Played with St. Paul in Western Lg in 1901. Best Power-Speed Number, 1886-1920
1—184.0 J. Ryan

8)George Sisler (10,12,ne) – Jake or George. I think Sisler is still among the top 220 players in history, which is clearly HoMer territory. This is probably not the case for Beckley, so he stays off my ballot til next year. OPS+ is only half the story: excellent runner (4 SB crowns), great rep as a fielder, great peak, long career (+9000 PA). Does WARP penalize him for the high quality of firstbasemen in his era?

9)Heinie Groh (11,13,14) – His subtle skills must not have impressed kingmaker Frisch. Groh’s hitting is in the HoMer class; glove looks pretty good. Played 2B two years, then 3B for ten yrs. Outstanding peak, similar career length to Williamson. Mediocre power and speed. Was replaced by Freddie Lindstrom as Giants’ 3B. Highest career FA, 3B, 1876-1927, minimum 750 games at 3B:

1—.967 H. Groh

10)Edd Roush (12,ne,ne) – Between Hooper and Ryan seems about right.

11)Wally Schang (13,ne,ne) – A little more sure about this ranking. Catcher bonus puts him here for now.

12)Roger Bresnahan (14,14,11) – Catcher is 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+.

13)Harry Hooper (15,15,12) – Hard to see why Beckley shows up on so many more ballots. 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.

14)Hughie Jennings (--,--,--) – Back after four years off. I think I’m getting a bit more peak-friendly. 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. Is there any good evidence that Jennings’ defense wasn’t as brilliant as WS makes it out to be?

15)Jake Beckley (--,--,13) – 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.

Rube Waddell – Not under serious consideration. Often brilliant but unreliable. Had only two seasons as regular with a Win % of .600+. His career seems to contain contradictions, mainly a won-loss record out of sync with his ERA. Perhaps he was a notorious hot/cold pitcher, getting raked over the coals after a couple shutouts. Can anyone do a study on this--is his standard deviation for RA higher than others? May deserve some credit for minor league performance.

Pike, in spite of having 1/3 of Beckley's career

I'm sure you meant to say 2/3. Pike played 13 full years at the highest level (1866-1878) while Beckley played 19 (1888-1906).

Sorry to be so picky.

Jake Beckley—Very good career numbers, however, his peak numbers are the lowest of any candidate besides Lip Pike.

Not sure I get this... Pike's career OPS+ is better than any single season of Beckley's with the exception of the rookie half-season in 1889.

There must be a season-length explanation for your statement.

1938 ballot

1. Heinie Groh
Great six-year peak with another six years of strong play, plus timeline, gets him here.

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. Stan Coveleski
I have him in a dead heat with Griffith; advantage to Clark based on 1890's NL.

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

6. 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.

7. 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 he played in a stronger league than his comps by my estimate.

8. Edd Roush
Some peak, some career, not tons of either.

9. Max Carey
A great player, but never an MVP candidate really.

10. 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.

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

12. George Sisler
Gotta respect the peak, but not good enough for long enough.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

Left off
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.

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.

Dave Bancroft
A historically great defensive SS. Could be a mid-ballot pick in a weak year.

Wally Schang
Two 20-WS seasons ain't gonna get it done for me.

Not sure I get this... Pike's career OPS+ is better than any single season of Beckley's with the exception of the rookie half-season in 1889.

There must be a season-length explanation for your statement.

Seasonal adjustment issues . . . I realized right before I voted that I forgot disclosures, scanned the 5 year warp1 column (since I don't have Pike's Win Share numbers) and forgot the seasonal length issues.

Greek guy, if Pike, in spite of having 1/3 of Beckley's career is nevertheless ahead of him because he outran a horse, I would point out that this is not the horseracing Hall of Fame, and anyway, it may have been a slow horse! :-)).

Horseracing Hall of Fame (or Hall of Merit--what sort of adjustments do you think would be needed to account for a horse's speed?) it most certainly is not! I made the Beckley comment a little too quickly, since I forgot it earlier. Pike obviously gets credit for performance prior to the NA and adjustments for season length. Also, Beckley's spot is more firmly set in stone than Pike's spot on my ballot.

Buddah, you rule!

John, #73:
I think 1931 will still own the record, but you never know.
Tom, #74
next year's may be lower than this year's!

John - 1938 is going to be worse than 1931. You and I both look to have scores in the -5 to -3 range - and we'll both be above average.

Tom - you're right. None of Maranville, Sewell, Rixie, or Faber fit anyone's idea of a first-ballot candidate, and all of them will be controversial - but I wouldn't stake too much on a bet against one or two of them being elected immediately.

John - 1938 is going to be worse than 1931. You and I both look to have scores in the -5 to -3 range - and we'll both be above average.

Wow!

John - 1938 is going to be worse than 1931.

Why do you suppose this is? I can't imagine more contentious balloting that those days. Is it the fact that there are more backlog candidates splitting the votes? Maybe it just seemed worse then because it was the 5th or 6th backlog election in a row.

1938

1. 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. (1919)

2. 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. (1927)

3. Charley Jones (3)--Jones, Jackson and Browning look pretty interchangeable to me. (1929)

4. Hughie Jennings (6)--Like Sam Thompson, only a slightly better peak and he was a shortstop instead of a right-fielder. (1932)

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

6. Heinie Groh (8)--Peak not quite as high as Jennings or Childs, but better than the long career outfielders.

7. Roger Bresnahan (9)--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.

8. Stan Coveleski (10)--I’ve been systematically underrating pitchers as a reaction to the tendency of Win Shares and WARP to overrate them in the first 50 years or so of baseball. But I think I’ve been too hard on these two, so I’ve bumped them ahead of the outfield glut.

9. Clark Griffith (11)--About as close to Covaleski as can be.

10. Dick Redding (12)--Peak not quite long enough to put him ahead of these other second-tier HOM-probable pitchers.

11. Hugh Duffy (13)--Duffy’s got small (very small) edges on Van Haltren and Ryan in pennants added and win shares peak numbers.

12. George Van Haltren (14)--Gluterrific.

13. Ed Williamson (15)--His on-again/off-again relationship with my ballot continues. . .

14. Tommy Leach (16)--Still underrated by the group as a whole.

15. Jimmy Ryan (17)--Gluttastic

16. Edd Roush (18)
17. Larry Doyle (19)
18. Jose Mendez (20)
19. Rube Waddell (21)
20. Bobby Veach (22)
21. Max Carey (23)
22. George Burns (24)
23. Jake Beckley (25)
24. Ben Taylor (26)

1938 ballot, which is our 41st.
I thought a lot about the Covaleski debate. First I was going to spend a lot more time seeing where he fits in with the 1939-41 P candidates, but that ultimately seemed unfair if it helped him - and unfair if it didn't. So my current reservations will stand without increase or decrease.

1. MICKEY WELCH - If you look at the amount of lopsided scores AND compare them to the fewer and less lopsided losses by Keefe in yest's post in the Welch thread, the 'pitching in a pinch' circumstancial evidence is there. Went 61-34 vs HOMer pitching opponents.
2. CLARK GRIFFITH - A personal favorite; 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. His era is getting more underrepresented, which helps him.

3. HUGHIE JENNINGS - 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.
4. HEINIE GROH - I think he may be a HOMer, but I'm happy to see him stew a while til we make sure. Needs major positional bonus and gets it here.
5. GEORGE SISLER - I never realized before this project the extent of the 'two Sislers' career. But he also matches some HOMer's peaks while also providing a significant added portion of a career.
6. STAN COVELESKI - A bit of a transitional time for pitchers, which makes them tougher to compare across eras than hitters. Fewer real years (11) and lesser peak than I'd like in a pitcher, at least to this point.
7. DICK REDDING - Suddenly I'm a pitcher-lover; didn't see that coming. Definitely should be on more ballots, though he will be a tough call against the coming crop of pitchers.
8. LIP PIKE - Moves up again as the talent pool sags further. I could live with him as a HOMer. The Dick Allen comparisons seem apt.
9. TOMMY LEACH - The half-career at 3B and his overall defensive skills don't get enough credit; we may have to be careful in general not to underrate the 'hybrids.'
10. JAKE BECKLEY - I'm finally convinced that he really wasn't as good as Keeler after all, but he can still grab a ballot spot in this bunch.
11. PETE BROWNING - I had him too high the past few years. Spectacularly good hitter, and his 1890 PL season says he could have done it in any league, any time. Has been discounted too much for AA numbers, and I'm not a big AA fan at all. 12. 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. But I can't say I'm sure he belongs.
13. JOHN MCGRAW - Might be first time I ever voted for him. More than just a few flashes of all-time greatness; weird career that deserves some note for the peaks.
14. WALLY SCHANG - Finding catchers is starting to become a challenge, and Wally did more while actually behind the plate than Bresnahan did.
15. JOSE MENDEZ - Outside chance he had enough peak to be a legit HOMer, but part of me suspects he didn't quite do it for long enough.

TOP 10S SNUBBED
MAX CAREY - The SBs/pct puts him ahead of Hooper, but Harry didn't get much time in on my ballot,either. WS overrates Carey, but I do dismiss those 'negative' end years, while others don't.
RUBE WADDELL - Not a HOMer; the 'anti-Welch' was Mark Fidrych with a longer but not-long-enough career. Strikeouts are an indicator of ability, not production.

1 (3)Heinie Groh--At his peak, he was the cornerstone of a championship team. His career numbers are solid, placing him at least the equal of Jimmy Collins, but shy of Frank Baker.

2 (4)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.

3 (5)Stan Coveleski--Head-to-head, Coveleski clearly ranks ahead of Cicotte, who I like. Much closer to Waddell, who stays ahead partly on the basis of all those shiny strikeouts…

4 (6)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.

5 (7)George Sisler--Not quite as dominant as I had thought, but that peak stacks relatively high.

6 (8)Max Carey--He and Duffy may be fairly close for awhile, since they seem pretty close in terms of overall merit. Carey was probably more fun to watch play. Nevertheless, both guys are in a pretty substantial OF glut, and I'm not sure I see either breaking away to induction-worthiness.

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

8 (10)Urban Shocker--More of a career vote than anything, since his peak can't compare with Cicotte or Waddell, Shocker was still very good for a pretty long time.

9 (11)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.

10 (12)Hugh Duffy--I had to separate some of the OF glut with the addition of so many good names. Duffy and Leach were pretty close, but in having to make a decision, I'll generally go with the peak guy. Hence, Duffy stays alive for at least one more year.

11 (13)Del Pratt--Numbers-wise, not all that close to Duffy, but an admitted positional adjustment gives a 2nd baseman a rare ballot appearance.

12 (15)Hughie Jennings--The peak stud. Not quite long enough of a career. As great a peak as Jennings had, it's laughable how it stacks up to a guy like Walter Johnson.

13 (14)Bobby Veach--Separating 2nd tier outfielders is like choosing your favorite Streisand movie.

14 (-)George J Burns--Which one is "The Mirror Has Two Faces"?

15 (-)Clark Griffith--Not that much space between Griffith and Shocker.

Top ten omissions: Lip Pike--hurt too badly by timeline issues at this point. Jake Beckley--hurt too badly by the fact that other players on the ballot were among the best in the league at one point or another.

1. Heinie Groh - best 3B available and in my opinion best player. Very nice peak, decent career value, and positional scarcity. Also my attempt to yet again have the highest consensus score of any voter.

2. Hughie Jennings - I am a peak guy and Jennings has a peak bettered only by members of the Cobb/Wagner class. He even has two average to above average years outside his peak , which gives him more career than some in my system.

3. Cupid Childs - Very good player in the tough one league 1890's.

4. Stan Coveleski - best pitcher available. I dont' buy the argument that pitcher's of his era were worse than pitchers of the 1880's or any other time period really. Coveleski is better than Welch, Griffith, et al. Is he better than the glut that is approaching? I don't know but he is near the top of it.

5. Lip Pike - last minute bump from #6. There is a drop from Covelski to Pike. Again, great WARP numbers in very limited games at a time that may not have been his prime.

6. Max Carey - dropped at the last minute as I do not see him much different from any of the other top 8 or 9 OFers. I still hvae him as the best, but it is close.

7. Tommy Leach - had he played 3B his whole career he would be in the top 5. Peak isnt' as impresssive as Groh's, though he has a peak and a career, more than Jake Beckley.

8. Dick Redding - Still not sure about him. Is he better than Mendez? Sources seem to think so, numbers are mixed.

9. Rube Waddell - Similar to Mendez only earlier and with a higher ERA+, 134-113. I dont' think that UER make up the entire difference.

10. Hugh Duffy - Back in the top ten after a few weeks hiatus. the 1890's-1880's outfielders have flip flopped a lot on my ballots, however I think I finally ahve them straightened out.

11. Bobby Veach - Don't know how I overlooked him up until now. 6 seasons with at least a 10 WARP1.

12. Jose Mendez, first time on the ballot. Got a bump as I lowered some OFers. I have been trying to get him here since I started voting.

13. Pete Browning - I am a peak guy and Browning has a much more impressive peak than GVH. So he is one notch higher.

14. George Van Haltren - best of the career candidates, unless you count Leach. Unlike Beckley and Hooper, GVH had a few very good years.

15. George Sisler - May very well move up, I love the first half of his career, but he doesn't get much credit for the second half. Actually has a career value near Jennings, without the peak value.

16-20 Bresnahan, Monroe, Taylor, Roush, Doyle

disclosures

32. Jake Beckley - Simply not enough peak, or any peak for that matter. He is behind Sisler, Taylor, Konetchy, and Chance among first base eligibles.

43. Mickey Welch - Yeah he had the wins, but pitchers from his time got more wins than pitchers from Coveleski's ear. They also pitched more innings. A bad ERA+ hurts him most however. The only reason he is this high is that many of you seem to think he is HOM worthy and I dont' want to forget about him just in case I am convinced.

Newbies

Rommell - not a fan, honestly. He is the best newby but he is below Shocker, Mays, and Cicotte.

Kelly - above Blue in my system, but barely. The worst HOFer ever?


Blue - That he and Kelly are very close should be all the evidence one needs that Kelly as a HOFer is an outrage. Both are still in my top 100, but barely. Hey, they are better than the other other George Burns.

My 1938 ballot:

1. Max Carey: great CF and base stealer; long career
2. Edd Roush: just a tad below Carey
3. George Sisler: superstar half career
4. Jake Beckley: very good long career
5. Larry Doyle: great offensive force
6. Rube Waddell: luv those strikeouts
7. Addie Joss: luv that whip
8. Lip Pike: best early star not in HOM
9. Stan Coveleski: very good pitcher for a long time
10. Urban Shocker: a very good pitcher for less time
11. Heinie Groh: offensive force and good 3B
12. Cupid Childs: very good second sacker
13. Harry Hooper: very good defensive OF
14. Clark Griffith: early star pitcher
15. Hughie Jennings: great peak is all he has