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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Monday, April 18, 20051949 Ballot Results: Pitchers Rule This Year With the Election of Hubbell and Lyons!In his first year of eligibility, New York Giants legend Carl Hubbell received almost 96% of the possible points to win the first spot for election to the Hall of Merit. White Sox star Ted Lyons garnered enough votes to win the second spot in only his second year as a candidate. Rounding out the top-ten were: Mule Suttles, John Beckwith, Eppa Rixey, Wes Ferrell, Earl Averill, Clark Griffith, Biz Mackey, and George Sisler. RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 n/e Carl Hubbell 1171 51 39 7 3 1 1 2 3 Ted Lyons 818 47 1 14 8 4 3 3 4 2 4 1 2 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 4 Mule Suttles 751 47 3 8 8 2 1 7 2 4 3 1 2 3 1 2 4 5 John Beckwith 649 43 2 5 4 10 2 1 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 2 5 6 Eppa Rixey 388 31 2 2 2 3 3 3 6 3 3 1 1 2 6 7 Wes Ferrell 358 29 1 4 2 3 4 1 1 4 1 3 2 3 7 8 Earl Averill 358 28 1 2 1 2 4 2 2 1 5 3 1 2 2 8 10 Clark Griffith 336 26 1 1 4 4 1 1 3 4 1 1 3 2 9 n/e Biz Mackey 329 33 4 1 2 3 1 1 2 4 5 4 6 10 9 George Sisler 303 24 1 3 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 4 2 1 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 11 Hughie Jennings 303 20 5 1 2 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 1 12 17 Cool Papa Bell 290 25 1 2 3 1 1 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 13 12 Jake Beckley 285 22 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 5 14 14 Joe Sewell 246 18 4 2 2 2 2 3 1 2 15 13 George Van Haltren 233 18 1 1 4 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 1 16 18 Edd Roush 229 19 1 1 1 1 3 2 3 2 1 1 2 1 17 15 Hugh Duffy 225 17 1 4 2 2 2 1 2 3 18 16 Mickey Welch 198 12 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 19 26 Burleigh Grimes 170 14 2 1 2 3 2 1 2 1 20 23 Tommy Leach 169 15 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 21 19 Rube Waddell 165 16 1 2 3 3 3 1 2 1 22 20 Cupid Childs 163 14 1 3 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 23 21 Dick Lundy 162 12 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 1 24 25 Charley Jones 140 10 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 25T 28 Roger Bresnahan 138 12 1 1 2 1 2 1 4 25T 24 Cannonball Dick Redding 138 12 1 2 1 3 1 3 1 27 29 Wally Schang 132 11 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 28 22 Pete Browning 132 9 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 29 27 José Méndez 129 11 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 30 31 Larry Doyle 97 8 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 31 36 Gavy Cravath 95 7 1 1 2 1 1 1 32 30 Bill Monroe 81 8 1 1 1 2 2 1 33 32 Sam Rice 79 7 2 1 1 2 1 34 n/e Chuck Klein 77 6 1 1 2 1 1 35 35 Dobie Moore 72 8 1 1 3 2 1 36 n/e Tommy Bridges 71 6 1 2 1 1 1 37 34 Dizzy Dean 71 5 1 1 1 1 1 38 33 Jimmy Ryan 69 6 2 1 1 1 1 39 39 Ben Taylor 44 4 1 1 1 1 40 48T Carl Mays 43 5 1 1 1 2 41 41 Vic Willis 42 5 1 1 2 1 42 40 John McGraw 41 4 1 1 1 1 43 38 Pie Traynor 38 3 1 1 1 44 42T George J. Burns 27 3 1 1 1 45 44 Ed Williamson 20 3 2 1 46 37 Lefty Gomez 20 2 1 1 47 n/e Lon Warneke 18 2 1 1 48 42T Ed Cicotte 16 1 1 49 47 Tony Mullane 15 2 1 1 50T 51T Buzz Arlett 14 2 1 1 50T 61T Addie Joss 14 2 1 1 50T 48T Hack Wilson 14 2 1 1 53T n/e Wally Berger 14 1 1 53T 53T Fred Dunlap 14 1 1 55T 53T Dolf Luque 13 1 1 55T 56T Bobby Veach 13 1 1 57 45 Kiki Cuyler 12 2 2 58 46 Tony Lazzeri 11 1 1 59T 50 Tommy Bond 10 1 1 59T 59T Fielder Jones 10 1 1 59T 59T Sam Leever 10 1 1 59T 56T Spotswood Poles 10 1 1 63 56T Wilbur Cooper 9 1 1 64 61T Buddy Myer 8 1 1 65T n/e Frank Chance 7 1 1 65T 51T Heinie Manush 7 1 1 65T 65 Urban Shocker 7 1 1 68T n/e Dick Bartell 6 1 1 68T 63T Harry Hooper 6 1 1 Dropped Out: Donie Bush(63T), Jack Quinn(55).
John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy
Posted: April 18, 2005 at 11:12 PM | 130 comment(s)
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Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Voters returning from previous years: Carl G, Mike Webber. At least, I'm assuming that Carl G. is the the same person as Carl Goetz.
Average consensus score: +1.8.
Best possible: +17.
Individuals:
Howie Menckel +13
Carl Goetz +12
Chris Cobb +11
Trevor P +11
Ardo +10
.
.
.
Eric C -8
sunnyday2 -9
Gadfly -10
karlmagnus -12
yest -16
He could tell you, but then he would have to kill you. :-)
Actually, I can figure the average. It comes out to 4 per voter on the nose.
Congrats to Van Haltren for grabbing the all-time lead - for one year, anyway. Jennings likely claims the spot next year, though.
VAN HALTREN 13434.5
JENNINGS 13400
Pike 13399
DUFFY 13167.5
BECKLEY 12760
Thompson 12349
Bennett 11503
GRIFFITH 11453
BROWNING 11426.5
Caruthers 10704
RYAN 10362.5
WADDELL 10344
Stovey 9576
WELCH 9251
CHILDS 9250
Start 8378.5
McGinnity 8232
Pearce 8073
McVey 7985.5
Grant 7969.5
BRESNAHAN 6619
Galvin 6585
Sheckard 6377
LEACH 6156
Sutton 6070
(C. JONES 5275, BECKWITH 5020, RIXEY 4785, SISLER 4764, MONROE 4672, WILLIAMSON 4192, SEWELL 3902)
I was at the O's/Yankees game Sunday. John Flaherty and Geronimo Gil started in place of Jorge Posada and Javy Lopez. It got me to thinking that often teams will rest stars on Sunday afternoons. I was at a Giants/Phillies Sunday game a few years back and Barry Bonds sat out, much to my dismay (I hadn't seen him play since the 1992 NLCS).
Could this have been at least somewhat contributory to Lyons great ERA+ from his years as a Sunday starter? If his W-L comes up low for his ERA+ (not taking into account offensive support), this could be evidence. Since his teams would also rest some starters occasionally it would hold that his run support would be a little lower than expected, so any given ERA+ would produce fewer wins than one would expect.
I haven't checked to see if this is true, it's just a theory at this point.
Might be true, but wasn't it also true that lots more Sunday double-headers were played back then? If so that might mitigate some of the Day-of-Rest factor.
I can see how someone might think Eppa was slightly better, but that's about it.
As for the Sunday thing, we're really only talking about resting catchers, and this is primarily because they are playing a day game following a night game. When Lyons was a Sunday pitcher, just about every game was still a day game, so there would be less reason to pick Sunday as a day to rest starting catchers.
Also, the game in question is really exceptional, in that both the Yankees and Orioles have two stellar starting catchers, and two dreadful reserves. Most teams don't have that big a gap between starter and reserve at the position, and even if they did, we're only talking about one spot in the lineup. I went to every Orioles Sunday game for about seven years, and typically the only guy who got rested was the catcher (in this case, Chris Hoiles.) Everybody else played.
For his career, Lyons has 312 Win Shares. His best three seasons are 80 WS; his best five are 124; his best seven are 164.
Rixey has 315 WS. His best three seasons are 76 WS; his best five are 121; his best seven are 164.
So in other words, their statistical profiles are nearly identical. I give Lyons the edge because I think the American League was a tougher league to pitch in than the National was during this time period, and thus Lyons was the more valuable pitcher. I can see switching them around, I guess, but I can't see how anyone would find the argument that Lyons was superior to Rixey "unfathomable."
Rixey's teammates were also much worse than Lyons'. Those two small edges push Rixey signifcantly ahead of Lyons in my opinion. For some reason, everyone seems to forget to give Rixey a prime year and a half of war credit. I think that's why I have him ahead of the pack, and the consensus has him in it.
Not sure where you get that from, Joe - I don't see it.
By the BP cards, Lyons does drop .01 ERA more than Rixey, so I guess you could say by that metric that his teammates defense was slightly worse. But the league difference more than makes up for that teeny edge.
On second look, Lyons teams were worse than I thought (the White Sox were .459 from 1923-42, 12 out of 16 teams). Rixey's teams were better - I missed that. Philly was basically .500 from 1912-20, Cincy was .477 from 1921-33. Philly was worse (.477) during the years that Rixey was pitching more (1916-20). I didn't realize Lyons' teams were that bad.
I think I know why. In my 1920s Diamond Mind League he pitches for the Tigers. I knew he pitched for the White Sox at one point, but in my head I garbled it that he pitched for both teams, and just assumed he was on the Tigers when they were good in the mid-30s! Wow, talk about missing a key detail.
As for the league issues though, I think the NL basically caught the AL in 20s and at worst the leagues were even from there until the war. Steve Treder concluded the same thing in this article:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a_tale_of_two_leagues_part_one/
I still like Rixey's package more, but it's closer than I realized. I still see Lyons as your typical good-not-great pitcher until he went to Sundays. Rixey had 4 big years with full workloads, Lyons just 2 (and 2 years with ERA+ in the high 120s). Lyons' low workload in the later years reduces the impact of those eye-catching ERA+'s. Lyons never had a run like Rixey did from 1921-25.
I give Rixey War Credit, but notice that the surrounding years to the war weren't exactly his 'prime' even though he was at 'prime' age.
OCF,
Yup Carl G and Carl Goetz are one and the same.
Yahtzee! You win! :-)
In my mind the +12 signifies that you are the second-smartest voter, lol.
Highs
Mule Suttles -- 61.4%
John Beckwith -- 53.0%
Cool Papa Bell -- 23.7%
Lows
Joe Sewell -- 20.1%
Rube Waddell -- 13.5%
Dick Redding -- 11.3%
Bill Monroe -- 6.6%
Jimmy Ryan -- 5.6%
Pie Traynor -- 3.1%
Harry Hooper -- 0.5%
Do you believe Rixey needs a 1919 bonus for WWI as well? He did get 154 IPs at below Replacement. Was he wounded in the war; something that would have lingered and hurt his performance? If so, I'd be inclined to give him a bonus for 1919. If not, the war was over by the 1919 season and I'd be inclined to let his record stand.
What's the deal with the two screen names?
I have one for posting on a thread and another for posting threads because of some incompatibility that seems to be affecting only me. I wasn't sure if something like that was going on with you.
Yes. The mean and the scale change every year depending on how divided the electorate is. It matches points as opposed to positions so the elect-me votes weigh heavier. OCF knows the details.
The voting numbers also provide for other fun info which is sometimes reported like 'most similar ballots', 'least similar ballots', etc.
It involves three 19th century OFs: GVH, Ryan and Duffy.
After reading the collective postings and doing some of my own due dilligence it becomes very hard to pick from any of these 3 as the top gun, yet GVH and Duffy seemingly far outweigh Ryan in the collective mind of the HOM constituency.
Duffy seems to be the slightly better slugger given his .449 slg rating and his 106 HR and 1302 RBI in 300 fewer games than Ryan and 250 fewer than GVH.
GVH gets the nod for playing more games a more valuable defensive position CF than either guy, but both Duffy and Ryan played more games as a CFer than at either RF or LF. (note: Duffy gets points for having a higher FP and RF versus the league than GVH or Ryan; all 3 were NLers for most of their career).
Granted all 3 are fringe HOMers and only Duffy got voted into the HOF but all 3 guys have excellant black/grey ink and HOF standards and all 3 have 8 of 10 "most similars" as HOF members.
Given all I've said and the many previous posts from "friends" of all three candidates, why does GVH rank slightly higher in the minds of the electorate than Duffy; why do both GVH and Duffy rank significantly higher than Ryan?
I personally would have no problem with all 3 as HOM members but would be skeptical if one or two got in and not the third.
IMHO: any of the three look to be as good or better candidates than Joe Kelly or Fred Clarke or an even earlier player, Lip Pike.
Well, that's easy, because I don't give war credit for anyone, and this will include players who missed time to WW II.
After reading the collective postings and doing some of my own due dilligence it becomes very hard to pick from any of these 3 as the top gun, yet GVH and Duffy seemingly far outweigh Ryan in the collective mind of the HOM constituency.
Not long after they became eligible, these three became known as 'The Glut' due to the fact that the electorate agreed with you... they are indeed very hard to rank. This fact has actually hurt their candidacies. They split each others votes, people are less likely to boost them if they know they have to boost all three. Often a candidate that sticks out or is unique will fare better than one who is part of a 'glut'.
As far as Kelley, Clarke & Pike go. Pike is from a different era, fairly unique and took about 40 years to induct. His combination of high peak and pre-NA credit made him one of the more non-consensus inductions. Clarke flew in with relative ease, I think you might be underrating him. Kelley was inducted in the late teens near the inductions of Keeler & Stovey. The electorate was pretty clearly in favor of those guys OF-guys over the aforementioned 'glut' at that time. Check the old ballot/discussion threads for details.
24 Charley Jones
28 Pete Browning
31 Gavy Cravath
34 Chuck Klein
53T Wally Berger
Someone want to do a comparison of OWP, RCAA/RCAP, WS, WARP, all-star/MVP seasons or other means between them, using the 'best available' extra data from minor leagues, war credit and blacklisting? Their combined total # of votes was only 33, so unless one of them emerges as the best of this group, their candidacies are going nowhere.
They are all deserving, imo.
May I ask why you are not going to give WWII credit at all? it sint' like these players had a choice between the militarya nd baseball, if you could possibly have fought (or even played ball in the service) you were in the service. I am not sure I follow you here.
That's what is holding me back, too.
For me, choice isn't the issue; performance is. I've argued about this on this site before (though not for a few years) and I know my opinion is in the minority and I'm okay with that. My position is simply that we are evaluating these people as baseball players, based on how much they actually helped their team win games. In fact, I think that phrase is used in the guidelines for Hall of Merit elections. And the way I interpret that is simple. When Ted Williams was off fighting a war, he wasn't helping the Boston Red Sox win any games. It's fine to speculate about what he "might have done", but for the purposes here I'm principly concerned in what he actually did on a baseball field.
Is this position "fair"? Not really. But life isn't fair. It wasn't Mickey Cochrane's fault, for instance, that Bump Hadley decided to throw at his head, thus ending his career. But the fact is it happened, and that's that.
I will say this...I will give slight credit to ballplayers who played baseball during the service, but only very, very slight, since they were playing for really weak teams with no schedules at all. I give it about as much credit as I give Biz Mackey's 1932 sojourn through Japan, which is to say, very, very little.
I just think that when you project what somebody "would have done" you assume a lot. Take Joe DiMaggio for instance. From 1943 to 1945, he was supposed to be playing baseball, but most of the time was too sick and injured to play. Would the Yankees have helped him stay healthy during that time? Perhaps so. But how would his having played from 1943-1945 affected the rest of his career? His body, after all, took so much abuse during his career, and it ended with him being a pretty ineffective hitter and fielder by 1951. Would that decline have come on sooner if he had been playing from 43-45? I don't know, and neither does anybody else.
So my reasoning is very simple. You get credit for the baseball you played, not the baseball you might have played if history had been different? We're dealing with how history actually was here, not how it might have been.
I recognize that this means that my ballot will have shortage of 40s players. But so what? Organized baseball ALSO had a shortage of good players during the middle of that decade, so I don't see why my ballot shouldn't reflect reality.
Composite team record (weighted by pitcher's decisions):
261-256 .505 Rixey
225-265 .459 Lyons
Team finishes by seasons as a regular pitcher:
Rixey Lyons 1 1 0 2 6 0 3 1 3 4 1 2 5 3 5 6 1 3 7 2 3 8 3 2 18 18While Rixey was playing for a number of pennant contenders (1,2) in Philly and Cincinnati, Lyons played for "middle-division" teams (3-6). Rixey played for better teams overall during his career. Also, IIRC, BP says that the NL did not catch up the AL until late in Rixey's career, during Lyons' prime.Rixey played in one World Series (1915). It was game 5 and Philly was facing elimination. In the top of the 3rd inning at Baker Bowl, Harry Hooper hit a HR to tie the game; it was followed by a long fly to center and a Tris Speaker single to right. Manager Pat Moran apparently had seen enough and changed pitchers; young Eppa Rixey, a four year veteran at 24, came on in relief, and induced a DP grounder to end the rally. In the 4th, a Fred Luderus HR and a Harry Hooper error gave Rixey a two-run lead. However, in the 8th, Duffy Lewis hit a two-run HR to tie the game. In the top of the 9th, Hooper redeemed himself with another HR to clinch the Series. Side-note: there were 4 HRs hit in the 5-game World Series, and all 4 were hit in this game.
Those Phillies were an annual contender during the mid-teens. In addition to 1915, they finished 2nd in 1913, 1916, and 1917. (In 1914 they were hit hard by injuries and the Federal League.) IIRC, Rixey enlisted, which might explain why he was late getting back in 1919; anyway, he left a contender and came back to a last place disaster. The Reds of the 22-26 period were also contenders, finishing 2nd in 1922, 1923, and 1926. In both 1922 and 1923, the Reds had problems getting going out of the starting gate, getting 11 or more games behind in May before getting untracked, finishing 7 and 4+ games behind; they outplayed the Giants after Memorial Day, but not by enough to make up for the dreadful starts.
There's plenty of opportunities to study Rixey under pennant-race conditions. OTOH, Lyons never had the opportunity except for April-May "pennant race" games, and a brief flurry in Sept. 1940 (well past his prime).
I know that he was specifically wondering why some of us rate two of the three highly and not the third, usually Duffy and GVH on one side and Ryan on the other. But he also seemed to wonder why those three are on the outside of the HOM while Kelly, Keeler, and Clarke are on the inside. I wasn't around for the latter group elections so they aren't in my system. However, one reason for our 'failure' to elect the 1890's trio may be the discrepancies between WS and WARP on those three.
To wit:
Name.......Career..WSAA...WSPS
Duffy.......327.....133....41
GVH.........372.....151....26
Ryan........341.....104....26
Name.......Career..WAA....WPS
Duffy.......76.8....31.3...5.2
GVH.........82.5....25.....1.5
Ryan........76.2....21.4...3.0
*WS are schedule adjusted to 154 games and WARP3 scores are most likely not the most up to date version.
These are pieces of my system for evaluating players in Win Shares and WARP3. Career is the career totals in the respective areas. WSAA and WAA means Win Shares or WARP Above Average, average being 15 WS and 4.0W. WSPS and WPS is my peak score or WS above 25 and W above 7.
I know you would have to take my word for it here, but the top table shows three VERY good players. However, WARP3 shows three very ordinary players when in a HOM discussion. You may say that this is because WARP3 is grading the 1890's too hard as a league in comaprison with more 'modern' eras. But Hughie Jennings and Cupid Childs grade out just fine in WARP3 while being very well liked by WS as well.
I know that Michael Bass is a guy that relies on WARP pretty heavily (especially in respect to WS) and many of us try and balance out the two. It is my belief that WS is overrating these players AND that WARP is most likely underrating them a little. In fact CF is a position in which these two measures seem to disagree. Still, these three gusy aren't the obvious candidates taht WS and other measures patterened after them (like Pennants Added) or in which they derive from (James' RC formulas) would tell us. Thus they have yet to crack the HOM.
By the way Duffy was #8 on my ballot because of his peak in comparison to the other two, GVH was #15, and Ryan was somewhere in the 30's. I will have to look into that because I really don't see the difference between GVH and Ryan.
I can see the aspect of a "glut" of similar players, that no single one of the 3 stood out from the others as a major reason none of the 3 got elected.
I also see the tradeoffs of Duffy's peak/slg vs the career length for GVH and Ryan as offsetting factors to equalize their candidacy but no one has answered why GVH and Duffy get many more votes than Ryan. I'm sorry but Joe Kelly just isn't equal to any of these three and yet he got elected and they have not as of yet (and it's growing ever more doubtful they ever will be elected).
This is because it rates players by the statistics and assigns expected wins to them. The number of wins the team actually accomplished appears to be ignored.
For most players, ignoring fluke winning or losing seasons tends to even out and does little damage (though it could affect peak ratings). However, these two teams were consistently efficient, over a period of many years, both from the Pythagorean point-of-view, and also at both preventing runs and producing runs (their raw stats do not justify their run numbers either, before you start evaluating that their runs do not justify their wins).
WARP's totals shortchange these teams, so the team members are also getting shortchanged. Win Shares gives them proper credit because they did manage to win those games, however they managed to do it, though it spreads the credit out proportionally because it has no clue as to who specifically might deserve the extra credit.
(I have not found any teams that underperform so consistently for multiple years. Outside of a couple of marginally significant examples, they do seem to be flukes.)
I disagree. In 1917 he postd a 124 ERA+ in 281 innings. That followed a 143 in 287 innings from 1916.
In 1919 he comes back halfway through the season, is behind the 8-ball and posts an 81 ERA+, after not having played competitively in a year and a half. The next year he's basically league average (98 ERA+) and after that he's off on his merry way, 129, 113, 139, 136, 142 over the next 5 years.
I don't do this, but I think it's entirely reasonable to say the war basically cost him 1918, 1919 and 1920 as an above average pitcher. From 1915-1929, those are his only years with an ERA+ under 109.
I'm more conservative than that, but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that without WWI Rixey is a 300 game winner - he certainly would have won 290. He only would have needed to win 51 games over those 3 years, as opposed to the 17 he actually won. That's 17 per season, a total he acheived 6 times in the other 12 years. For 290, we're talking just 41 total wins, or 13.7 per year. Outside of 1918-20, he exceeded that every year from 1915-29, except for 1915, 1927 and 1929.
May as well not beat around the bush, but I find this stance absolutely ridiculous. It's the one 'personal choice' a voter could take that I find utterly indefensible.
David, when comparing Ted Williams to Barry Bonds, how can you dock Ted Williams 4 1/2 years because the country just happened to be in a war during his time? How can you not find that stance utterly ridiculous? How does that in any way make Ted Williams a zero baseball player?
I realize we try to keep things on a high level around here, and please don't take it as a personal attack. I want to be clear that I'm attacking your stance, not you.
"So my reasoning is very simple. You get credit for the baseball you played, not the baseball you might have played if history had been different? We're dealing with how history actually was here, not how it might have been.
I recognize that this means that my ballot will have shortage of 40s players. But so what? Organized baseball ALSO had a shortage of good players during the middle of that decade, so I don't see why my ballot shouldn't reflect reality."
Because from a baseball perspective that was an 'artificial' reality.
I don't have the energy to get any deeper into this right now. If someone else wants to pick up the torch, I would be forever indebted . . .
He was a LF that played some CF whereas the others were CF that also played RF/LF (actually Duffy has only about 40% of his career in CF). So they'd get a defensive edge. Is a 133 LF worth more than a 122 or 124 CF? I don't know. It's close I'd say.
I'd rank them:
Kelly
Van Haltren/Ryan (too close to call)
Duffy
But I agree that the group's fade doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have them just off the ballot right now - but they could just as easily be ranked in my top 10, it's just really close right now.
I have no clue as why Ryan has fallen off the most. I don't see how someone could rank Duffy above Ryan.
If thats the case, I probably should give him credit for the other half of 1919 then. Although, he was below replacement level when he actually played that year so that won't help his case at all. I give him credit already for being a league average pitcher in 1918. I understand your argument about WWI hurting his 1919 and 1920, but I'm not willing to imagine better stats for seasons he actually played whether its fair or not. All that said, now that Hubbell and Lyons have been elected, Rixey is clearly the best pitcher on the ballot. You're not going to convince me that Rixey was better than Lyons, but now you don't have to.
That's what is holding me back, too.
There was at least one "rough sketch" MLE performed that came up with approximately 350 Win Shares. Is there someone who has taken it upon himself to perform a more specific calculation? Is there some specific task I could do to assist this individual?
In general, my view is to act with the best available information, and adjust up or down as new information becomes available -- not to wait until some sort of final analysis is reached. I think that gives better answers.
I think we're getting pretty close on Cravath. The most recent post on the Cravath thread (from you), says this:
"The main gap right now is PCL team batting data for 1906-07 (especially team runs scored). Maybe PhillyBooster has them. (I believe he has the PCL History that you linked to in # 72.)
[---quoting Brent]
I have the book, and while it does not contain team data, it does contain data for each individual player on the team. It shouldn't be too hard to put the data into a spread sheet to come up with team data. Just time consuming."
So I think that we're essentially hoping you can come up with enough contextual data on those two seasons that Brent can create a more accurate set of MLEs than my previous guesstimation of them.
If David Foss would then be willing to create his always stellar OPS+ MLEs from Brent's "final" conversion data (final if such a word can be used for MLEs), then I'll be happy to put my Chris-Cobb hat on and try my hand at converting those MLEs into WS estimates.
I hope he'll correct me along the way, but as I understand Chris's methodology...
1) Use MLE OPS+ to gague the offensive level of the player in question and compare him to similar MLB players' rates of OWS acquisition.
2) Figure the probable playing time of the MLE player if it might be different from what the MLEs suggest.
3) Apply the OWS rate to the MLE player's playing time.
4) Determine how WS would grade the MLE player's defensive ability based on available evidence (which is ample in this case).
5) Estimate defensive innings.
6) Apply FWS rate of MLE player to est. defensive innings to get FWS.
7) Add crushed ice, stir, pour into gimlet glass, garnish with lime and appropriate disclaimers. Serve.
Sound good to everyone?
Joe and I battled this (war credit) out on the 1921 and 1922 discussion threads and there is good analysis there on both sides of the issue. You can start at Post 192 in 1921 and 220 in 1922.
As you will see, I was as staunchly against war credit as you were, but have softened my position following the debate.
All I do collect pitching-removed league-average pitching data and then a bit of simple division, but I'd be happy to do the same thing I do with Chris's data.
I assume that the MLE's are normalized to a particular context (please specify AL, NL, or MLB) and then go from there. Contexts can sometimes change quite a bit from year to year, so be careful there. As always, I'll include the intermediate numbers in my report so you can see if something fishy is going on.
Point me to the MLE's when they are ready (can't find them at the moment). Thanks.
Sounds good to me, Doc.
It's easy to find the threads for any Negro League player. Links are always available on the HOM front page. Not so those for the major leaguers. Someone like Rixey who has been a candidate for awhile requires rummaging around in the archives. A page of such links for the MLB players would be very useful when and if the invaluable organizer of this site (the estimable John Murphy) has the requisite free time.
It is entirely possible that a lot of people have Duffy/GVH/Ryan jsut off their ballot right now. I can't really think of anyone who has really coem out against them And if they are bottom to off ballot for everyone that doesn't lead up to a lot of votes.
I will say that I taek jingoists' point and that I am going to look into raising Ryan. It was just one of those things taht happens after 8-10 elections, guys wedge themselves in bewteen other groups. I dont' think that Ryan was as good as teh other two, however.
David cj,
The one thing I want to clear up is that I dont' think that players playing military ball should get any different treatment than players that were fighting in the service. You canmake a case that guys who chose a military career don't deserve ML credit. But during WWII, most of the fighting MLB players actually asked to fight (Williams, Feller, Myer, etc.). I don't think they shold be docked for wanting to fight over playing baseball in hawaii.
John is way ahead of you. :-) "Selected 20th Century Players" has a Faber/Rixey/Quinn thread.
Faber/Rixey/Quinn
Everytime I see these three, I think of the 1889 White Sox, with Van Haltren in left, Ryan in center and Duffy in right. This may have been the best young outfield in history.
Its not worth much, but in 1889, Ryan was far ahead of the other two (who had each just started). In fact, at this time Ryan had an argument as the best player in the league. Duffy may have a similar claim for 1893-94. Van Haltren never had that argument.
Despite the promising outfield the 1889 Sox (with
Duke Farrell catching, Fred Pfeffer at 2nd, Tom Burns at 3rd, and a washed-up Ned Williamson splitting time with Charlie Bastian at short, not to mention HOMer Cap Anson at 1st) finished in 3rd. Pitching did them in, as Bill Hutchison was a year away from superstar status, Frank Dwyer and Ad Gumbert were a bit young, and John Tener was solid, but unspectacular.
They finished 19 games out of first behind the New York Giants (HOMers Ewing, Connor, Ward, O'Rourke, Gore, and Keefe, not to mention candidates Welch and Tiernan) and 18 games out of first behind the equally stacked Boston Beaneaters (HOMers Bennett, Brouthers, Richardson, Kelly, Clarkson and Radbourn).
What a concept! Where was I sleeping when that thread was created?
Only since last September, Jim. :-)
IOW we are always trying to elect the best players and to do that we adjust for the context in which they played.
If players who missed 3-4 years out of the prime of their careers for reasons that had nothing to do with baseball do not get an adjustment we are pretending that they were not as good as they really were.
I mean, we clearly are not electing the 220 most valuable players in terms of WS or WARP or whatever. We are trying to elect the best players by adjusting for context.
Some say that we are pretending that they played ball for several years when they didn't. I say you're pretending that they were not the players that we know they were.
It's just a question of pretending consistently for purposes of this project, or pretending in different ways for different players.
Aren't we still waiting on MLEs for Cravath? I'm hoping someone does a WS estimate for the appropriate years also so I can fit him into my current system.
I'm sorry for the delay. I've posted what I've done so far (MLE batting statistics) on the Gavy Cravath thread. Still don't have the win shares though. I will do them in the next two or three days, unless Dr. C or someone else fills them in first.
Suttles and Beckwith are no better than Rixey, Averill, Griffith, Beckley, Sewell, Van Haltren, Roush et al. What is different is that the leading ML candidates are only slightly better than the pool. The NeLers, meanwhile, look "more better" than their respective pool.
If this hypothesis is correct, I would suggest that belief that it posits is nevertheless mistaken. IOW, I don't really see Suttles and Beckwith as being that much better than Lundy, Redding, Taylor, Moore et al.
IOW, the consensus surrounding Suttles and Beckwith depends upon underrating the other NeLers who are getting votes in a way that we are not underrating the Rixeys and Averills.
On the other hand, all of the current theorizing about my/our translations/WS going on over on the Mackey thread suggests that the translation method is more likely to underrate the very best seasons than it is to underrate good seasons, and Beckwith and Suttles have more of the very best seasons than any of the other eligibles (among hitters -- pitchers are a separate, difficult problem).
If true, this would work against your hypothesis, _except_ in the case of Moore, whose meritorious depends on his peak. If his peak has been undervalued in the translations, then he is probably being underrated by the electorate, though the issue of how to value his play while in the military also probably contributes to underrating him.
Ditto.
How many NeLers have pulled the now-classic fade of Duffy/Van Haltren/Sewell/Waddell etc al? Any? This is another advantage NeL candidates enjoy over the MLB guys. The NeL guys are a definite "group" that is isolated and studied apart from the general sweep of history. Also, we will never stop learning more new information about them, so they will continually receive those important "attention effect" boosts that are invaluable for long-time candidates.
With Rixey/Averill/Griffith et al, we can easily see they are scarcely better than the pool. With Suttles/Beckwith we can't, given the fragmentary and fuzzy information we have to work with.
Without going back and checking, my recollection is that 1931-32 Spottswood Poles may have placed as high as 17th and was appearing on about 40 percent of ballots. As you see above, last election he was down to a single vote.
I think several other NeLers have also faded from earlier levels of support; probably Redding, Moore, Monroe. Petway used to appear on several ballots. There are probably others as well.
Beckley has 318 WS to Bell's projected 335. That's without projecting Beckley to the same amount of scheduled games that Bell had.
And giving Bell zero credit for 5 years in Mexico when he had 25 proj WS his 1st year back.
Carl, I wasn't taking anything from Bell. I took the 335 amount from post 70. I thought it represented his whole career. If not, then that's a different story.
I'm not doing that, either. That's why he was only at #9 on my ballot last election.
Were those numbers before or after Chris suggested that they needed to be reduced by 10%?
I did find an error in my spreadsheet that was causing a 20 WS over repl increase in Cool Papa's stats while trying to explain my system, so its good we're having this discussion.
Cool Papa's career over repl= 262.6 WS
I had been using 283.4.
This murks up the water a bit as this brings him roughly even with my OF Glut(Ryan,Roush,Duffy). Waner, Suttles, and Averill are now very clearly the best of the OFs. I'm confident Cravath belongs either in my Glut or somewhere between the glut and Waner, Suttles, and Averill. I'm waiting to determine this until the WS estimates for Gavvy come in. This may knock Bell off if I go straight by the numbers. I may move Beckley back onto my ballot because of this so congrats to karlmagnus. Beckley only rates 232.9 WS over repl by my syste(yes, karlmagnus, I've adjusted him to a 162 gm environment like everyone else), but at this point in time, I require less from infielders and catchers than from OFs.
Seriously Karlmagnus you should put a smiley after something like that. It was said tongue in cheek right?
No problem, Carl. karlmagnus is doing cartwheels as we speak. :-D
BTW, a miscalculation on my part had me place Quinn on my ballot for a couple of elections. It happens.
Now Waner v Beckley. After adjusting to a 162 season standard(I do this now because I figure I'll have to eventually anyway), Waner gets 445 'raw' WS and Beckley gets 364; a difference of 81. To make up this difference, you'd have to triple Beckley's current Defensive WS. Now I admit I sometimes question fielding WS, but do you honestly believe that WS is shortchanging him by giving only 1/3 of his actual defensive value? Bear in mind that he is already getting about 46 Defensive WS by this system, which is twice as many as Sisler or Chance got and is the highest total of a 1B that I can remember(in this project so far). Even if I thought he was being royally screwed defensively, I'd only add 10-15 to his career. He's still way behind Waner overall. I'm not saying you're wrong about Beckley's defense being undervalued. What I'm saying is that You're way over-adjusting for it. Also, every traditional defensive measure(alright Range and Fdg%) has Waner as an average defensive RF. He obviously has some defensive value, although WS probably does slightly overrate his defensive value. I'd be more inclined to drop his value by 5-10 than I would to raise Beckley's. Looking at the other infield positions of his era(the player's we've examined at those positions) 1B seems to be defensively valued at about 2/3 of a SS value in terms of WS. This seems about right to me. A 1B was more valuable then than now, but was not as valuable defensively as a SS.
James HOF 'criteria' was roughly 250 WS for a pitcher and 325 WS for a position player. I think he arrived at these numbers by taking a rough average of all HOFers. He does say many times that a lot o fHOfers who deserve induction have under 250 or 325 and that a lot of many more.
Karl,
While you did state your point twice re: Beckley and Waner, does this mean that I should tear up my system and it obvious inferiority? I mean you did say so. This is what I was getting at not the relative merits of Waner in comparison to Beckley.
"Tear it up and start again" is of course just me being unnecessarily confrontational and snotty, for which I apologise :-)
Of course, pitchers kick ass compared to position players when it comes to WS Per Season, so they do better when WS is quantifying quality rather than quantity.
I don't know what it has to do with the discussion at hand, but I thought it was interesting. :-)
I agree that hits can be a misleading category, but when you take a guy who played some short seasons, at a tougher fielding spot, and without major 'padding' late-career stats, it is amazing how Beckley is so distinct from almost everybody.
Rice may seem close, except longer seasons and easier position, so not really.
I do tend to be surprised by voters who have 15 guys ahead of Beckley, frankly.
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