hot topics

I'd say Waner is in. I can see a close race for the second spot among Cronin, Suttles, and Beckwith. Focusing on those three might be pertinent. Of course, we also have to figure out how to slot in Dihigo.

We don't have all that many Negro League 2nd basemen, do we? What's the scoop on Scales?

There are voters with Suttles well ahead of Beckwith: TomH, EricC, Chris J, Adam Schafer, SWW, PhillyBooster, Mike Webber, Brad G, Brent, to name most of them.

There ave voters with Beckwith well ahead of Suttles: John Murphy, Chris Cobb, Ardo, OCF, KJOK, Gadfly. (And I probably missed a couple.)

Would anyone in either of those two camps care to explain further why you have them in the order you do? (Yes, I know I'm in the second group myself.)

This is going to be an interesting election. I agree that Waner is a lock; Cronin, Suttles, Dihigo and Beckwith will probably fight it out for induction. It will be interesting to see what the voters make of Dihigo.

As for Scales, Riley has him with a lifetime .313 batting average, although it seems that his average would have been higher without the tail end of his career. Riley says he was a line-drive hitter with a good eye at the plate.

I think he warrants further study. Can you create a thread for him, John?

The Current Fantasy

1 Waner: Have I mentioned he was born on my birthday????!!!!??? ; )
2 Cronin: Value pattern much like Sandberg's.
3 Dihigo: Temporary placement until I get a stronger sense of his real value and his value vis the other candidates. He seems to have a good deal of black and gray ink, suggesting that as a hitter he may have been better than Rogan. Yet I come away from Riley thinking he's not quite as good of a pitcher as Bullet.
4 Suttles*
5 Beckwith
6 Duffy*
7 Cravath
8 Van Haltren*
9 Burns*
10 Mendez*
(11a Lyons)
11 Rixey*
12 Poles*
13 Averill
14 Ferrell
15 Roush*
?? Vic Harris (James likes him)
?? George Scales (As suggested by David Jones, a thread would be great)
?? Dick Seay (I think he's a light-hitting waterbug, but I'm not certain)

Also, I'm pleased to announced the opening of Dr. Chaleeko's pHOM/House of Chicken-Fried Steak/Yuengling Taproom/Family Amusement Center. Come one, come all to the good doctor's ancestral homeland, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, for great players, great food, great drink, and the best mini-golf for three counties.

Candidates with asterisks above are current members of Dr.C's pHOM/HOCFS/YT/FAC. Needless to say, the body electorate and I have disagreed numerous times, and I've also changed my mind on guys here and there....

In the HOM, not in Dr.C's pHOM/HOCFS/YT/FAC:
Barnes
Thompson
Spalding
Faber
Terry
Lyons
Carey
Pike
Coveleski

In Dr.C's pHOM/HOCFS/YT/FAC, not in the HOM: all the asterisked guys above.

Players Passing Away in 1949

Candidates
Age Eligible
88 1909 Chief Zimmer-C

Zimmer was the last surviving member of the Metropolitans. RIP.

I am getting married this Saturday, so I’ll be unavailable to submit a ballot for next week. Can someone post this to the ’50 thread next week (assuming my under-educated placement of Dihigo doesn’t cause my ballot to be invalid). For lack of time, I’ve only slotted in new candidates, not reviewing returnees. Thanks, and have a good discussion everyone!

Patrick W’s 1950 Ballot

1. Paul Waner (n/a), Pit (N), RF (’26-’44) (1950) – 11 seasons of 7+ WARP3 tend to get you an upper spot on the ballot. 2nd best right fielder to date.
2. Mule Suttles (1), St.L - Nwk. (--), 1B / LF (‘23-‘42) (1946) – Just loses out on all the peak measures to Carl, but my calc of his career value is just above Hubbell. Hubbell’s sub-replacement hitting gives Suttles the ’49 crown.
3. Joe Cronin (n/a), Wash. - Bost. (A), SS (’28-’44) (1950) – With a nice Rate2 of 108 during his peak years in WAS (what happened in BOS those first 3 years?!), and a career EQA of 0.286, Cronin rates very well in my system.
--. Jud Wilson, Balt. (--), 3B / 1B (’22-’38) –
4. John Beckwith (4), Bkn (--), SS / 3B (’19-’34) (1940) – Appears to me to rank solidly among banned HOMers (a little above Grant Johnson). I estimate an EQA of 0.330 from the MLE’s. Short career, but definitely worthy by the numbers.
5. Biz Mackey (5), Hilldale (--), C / 3B (’20-’41) – Catcher bonus helps him immensely of course (he’d be in Dick Bartell territory w/out); Santop is obviously the better rate player, but Mackey’s guesstimated 2300 more AB’s closes the race to a photo finish. I think he’ll go in pretty soon on my ballot, but I’ll take Suttles, Wilson and Beckwith first.
6. Cool Papa Bell (6), St.L (--), CF (’24-’42) – Bid McPhee is the comp for me. My guestimate is that Bell has the better EQA and longer career. The A+ fielding is at a different (and lesser) position but McPhee was at the top of my ballot, and Bell would be too – except I’d first take the guys ahead of him on this list.
7. Martin Dihigo (n/a), Cuba (--), RF / P (’24-’45) – B.James’ ranking as the #1 RF has a lot of weight attached with little other information. However, Bingo DeMoss is #1 at his position too, so grain of salt and all. Right now, best I can say is he looks better than Dick Lundy but not any of the others above him now. I hope he’s not elected, because I need more time to look him through.
8. Joe Sewell (7), Clev. (A), SS / 3B (’20-’33) (1939) – On a second look, I can’t justify Sewell over Cool Papa Bell.
9. George Van Haltren (8), NY(N), CF / LF (’87-’03) (1926) – Leads the pack from the 90s holdovers.
10. Jimmy Ryan (9), Chic. (N), CF / RF (‘85-‘03) (1926) – Don’t really understand the lack of support.
11. Dick Lundy (10), Atlantic Cty (--), SS (’16-’34) – I see a comparison here with Frank Grant. Those who liked Grant should see something worthy in Lundy. As such, my guess is he makes the P-Hall and falls short of the group HOM.
12. Tommy Bridges (11), Detr. (A), SP (’31-’43) – Urban Shocker with close to 400 more IP.
--. Red Faber, Chic. (A), SP (’14-’33) –
13. Eppa Rixey (12), Cinc. (N), SP (’12-’33) – Solid above average ERA for a good number of innings.
--. Heinie Groh, Cinc. (N), 3B (’12-’27) –
14. Ben Taylor (13), Ind. (--), 1B (’10-’26) (1938) – Similar to Beckley and Beckley’s in the P-Hall.
15. Jake Beckley (14), Pitt. – Cinc.(N), 1B (’88-’07) (1929) – Treading water.


Wes Ferrell – Larry French almost jumps him on the list. He drops off the in favor of 3 rookies. He’ll be under consideration for a long while.
Earl Averill – I think Averill only tops Van Haltren with a steep timeline adjustment. My system tries to counteract that somewhat while still acknowledging that competition improves over time. I see Earl as close to (but below) the Beckley / Hooper / F.Jones group among OF/1B. It’s a judgment call, but I’ll stay with the old timers over the rookie.
Clark Griffith – In that vast cloud of players just off the ballot.
George Sisler – I’ve had no love for Caruthers or Sisler, only a little love for Dean. You’d think a Cardinals fan would show more favor to the borderline players from St.Louis. At least I had Wallace on top once.

Ferrell, Averill, Griffith & Sisler were in last year’s top ten, but not in my top 15.

I'm a bit surprised Waner is considered such a "lock", as he's only about the 10th best RF in history, while Cronin is around the 5th best SS in history?

Right now, I'm leaning towards:

1. Cronin - 5th best SS in HISTORY, and well ahead of his contemporaries

2. Dihigo - In the top 10 of all-time Negro League players?

3. Waner - In top 10 of All-time RF, and definitely NOT the best RF of his time...(Ruth, Ott, then Waner probably..)

Congratulations Patrick!

Some advice regarding your love of baseball and your new marriage:

1. Although you're really on the 'Net looking at baseball statistics, history, etc, on occasion, tell your wife you are looking at porn, just to spice things up. Then duck.

2. If she gets mad at you for spending too much time researching, tell her you will buy her whatever she wants when your Win Shares book is published. If she finds out that it has already been published, shout, "Damn that Bill James, he's always stealing my ideas!"

3. When she complains that you are not sensitive, turn on Field of Dreams. She'll appreciate your inevitable waterworks during the father-son catch.

4. Remind her that Judy Johnson is <u>not</u> an ex-girlfriend.

5. You can only quote Kevin Costner's Bull Durham speech once. Don't try it if she's already seen the movie.

6. If certain things are happening prematurely, she might actually appreciate your thinking about baseball. Just don't recite OPS+ numbers or your HOM selections out loud.

Enjoy married life!

Reposting the 1949 recap:
Part 1:

Top 15 position players by win shares
AL

Williams    of  40
Joost       ss  35
Stephens    ss  32
Doerr       2b  25
Kell        3b  24
D DiMaggio  of  24
Doby        of  24
Henrich     of  24
Chapman    of  24
Valo        of  24
Pesky       3b  23
D Mitchell  of  23
Wertz       of  23
Rizzuto    ss  22
C Michaels  2b  22

Williams has led every full season he played since 1941.

Top pitchers in AL by win shares

 Lemon      31 (tie)
Parnell    31
Trucks     27
Newhouser  25
Kinder     22
Garcia     21
Hutchison  19
Page       19
Raschi     19
Benton     18
Wight      18

This is Newhouser’s sixth straight year on the AL all-star team by win shares.
The Red Sox had 5 players in the top 14, the Yankees had 1. The Yankees win by a game.

Top 15 position players in NL by win shares.

Musial        of  40
Kiner         of  37
J Robinson    2b  36
Reese         ss  32
Slaughter     of  29
Ennis         of  27
B Thomson     of  26
Campanella     c  24
Snider        of  24
Elliott      3b  23
Furillo       of  23
Stanky        2b  21
Hodges        1b  21
Schoendienst  2b  20
4 tied with       19

Top pitchers in NL by win shares

Spahn          24 tie
Pollet         24
Heintzelman    23
Newcombe       21
Raffensberger  20
R Meyer       20
Roe            19
Dickson       19
Koslo          19
Brechen        18

League all-star teams can be figured by the above numbers except for AL catcher: Berra 21, and first: Vernon 21

The STATS all-time handbook agrees with the NL win shares team completely, but for R Meyer over Heintzelman.
In the AL, they choose Eddie Robinson over Vernon, Stephens over Joost, and Kinder over Newhouser.

Win Shares Gold Gloves: AL listed first, underlined player with most
C: Hegan, Campanella
1b: Vernon, Hodges
2b: Doerr, Schoendienst
3b: Pesky, Elliott
ss: Stephens, Hamner
of: D DiMaggio, Chapman, H Evers, Thomson, Ashburn, Musial

MVP voting:
Ted Williams
Jackie Robinson

Rookie of Year:
Roy Sievers
Don Newcombe

No Cy Young yet, but highest MVP placement by a pitcher in each league:
Joe Page, 3rd
Warren Spahn, 7th.

Both pennant races were decided by one game, Yankees and Dodgers over Red Sox and Cardinals. The Red Sox had the best home record, 61-16, but lost the pennant because they were 35-42 on the road – 8 games worse than the Yankees, who had the best road record. Similarly, the Cardinals had the best home record in the NL, but lost the pennant to the team with the best road record.
Other info: St Louis and Washington were the worst major league teams, both losing over 100 games. The fans in Chicago could compare whose team was worse than the other as they finished with the 13th and 14th worst records in the game.
The best any team did against another was 17 wins, Yankees over St Louis, Red Sox over Chicago, Cardinals over Cincinnati, Dodgers over both Cubs and Cincinnati.

Other info: The Dodgers led the majors in steals by 55 with 117 (White Sox next with 62). STATS lists caught stealing for the Dodgers and their percentage is 73% successful. The Yankees are the best percentage stealers in the AL at 66%. Detroit is only successful on 43% of their attempts.
This was the height of the walk-boom and the AL averaged one more walk per game than strikeout. Not so coincidentally, the average AL team turned 186 double plays this year.
16 AL pitchers walked over 100 men, including Dick Weik of Wash who only threw 95 innings.
Ted Williams just missed his THIRD triple crown when George Kell won the batting title by .34291 to .34276. Joe DiMaggio hits .346 in limited playing time.
Williams’ and Stephens’ 159 RBI would be the highest between Foxx’s 175 in 1938 and Manny Ramirez’s 165 in 1999 (and Sosa’s 160 in 2001.)

The Giants sign their first black players, Monte Irvin and Ford Smith, a pitcher who never makes the majors. Irvin and Hank Thompson (who was the first black to play for the Browns also) become the first black players for the Giants.
By the end of the year, there are 8 black players on teams: Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Monte Irvin, Hank Thompson, Larry Doby, Luke Easter, and Satchel Paige. That is 5 Hall-of-Famers and Luke Easter who was born too early.
First black players in All-Star game: Robinson, Campanella, Doby, and Newcombe.

Fred Saigh controls 90% of the Cardinals.
The Browns are now controlled by the DeWitt brothers.
Joe DiMaggio becomes the first $100k a year player, suffers from heal problems for much of the year.
Several lawsuits against baseball over Mexican League bans in various stages.
Monuments unveiled in Yankee Stadium.
Elmer Valo becomes first AL player with 2 bases loaded triples in one game.
Johnny Mize hits 300th career homerun.
White Sox move their fences in to create more homeruns then move them out when Yankees come to town; AL bans moving fences once season starts.
Bobby Shantz pitches 9 hitless innings in relief in his second appearance ever.
White Sox score in all 8 innings in a game at home.
Earl Torgeson misses several months after separating his shoulder in an attempt to block Jackie Robinson while trying to turn a double play.
The Indians start the year so badly, they hold a second Opening Day.
Eddie Waitkus is shot by 19-year old admirer.
Talk about overkill: Monte Kennedy hits a grandslam and shuts out the Dodgers, 16-0.
Also, Giants sweep a double-header 10-0, 9-0.
Wally Moses gets 2000th hit.
Luke Appling sets record for most games at short.
Dom DiMaggio has 34 game hitting streak ended by his brother.
First forfeit in 7 years as Philadelphia fans throw bottles at an umpire.
Mize acquired by Yankees as pennant race insurance, but injured for most of the race. One of several moves that causes leagues to create various trading deadlines.
Latrell has some old company: Pepper Martin suspended for rest of season for choking an ump in minors.
First benefits granted under player pension plan. In less than 25 years, labor strife will cause the first regular season games to be cancelled. Early stirrings of players seeking to assert their rights as workers.
White Sox trade Joe Tipton for Nellie Fox.
Gillette buys World Series broadcast rights with all money going to player’s pension fund. Again, this leads slowly to greater player consciousness and the Players’ Union.
Bill Veeck sells Indians. Hank Greenberg named GM.
Yankee players suffer 71 different injuries that cause them to miss games during the year.
Pat Mullin, Det, hits 3 home runs in game, hits 9 in over 300 AB the rest of the year.
Andy Seminick, hits 3 home runs for Phillies.
Walker Cooper hits 3 for Cincinnati.
Bob Elliott hits 3 for the Braves.
Only Seminick hits more than 20 during the year.
Wally Westlake, Gil Hodges, and Stan Musial each hit for cycle.
Jackie Robinson leads league in average and stolen bases and is second in RBI.
The Giants have 3 of the top 5 pitchers in batting average against.
Joe Page leads AL in saves by 17, 27 – 10.

World Series: Yankees win their third against the Dodgers in 9 years, 4 games to 1. Series was famous for Duke Snider tying a record by striking out 8 times.
Game 1: Pitchers’ duel #1. Tied at zero until Tommy Henrich hits a homer off of Newcombe in the bottom of the ninth.
Game 2: Pitchers’ duel #2. Preacher Roe wins 1-0 on the strength of Snider’s single scoring Robinson in the second.
Game 3: Pitchers’ duel #3. 1-1 in the top of ninth when the Yankees score 3. Dodgers have homers by Luis Olma and Campanella, but lose 4-3.
Game 4: Yankees 6-4 when Allie Reynolds provides great work out of the bullpen.
Game 5: Yankees blow out. Go up 10 – 1, coast to 10 – 6 victory.

Overall attendance is over 20 million, but a slight decrease (700,000) from the year before. Yankees and Indians are over 2.2 million. Browns draw 270,000.
American League considers allowing the spitball, but the measure fails, 7 to 1. (I wonder who voted to allow it?)
There are 384 night games. There were only 81 in 1940.

Charlie Gehringer elected to Hall of Fame by BBWAA and Kid Nichols and Three-Finger Brown by the Old-Timers Committee.

On a serious note Patrick. Find out which player on your favorite team she is most attracted to and cultivate this. You won't believe how many Redsox games she'll watch just for Johnny Damon! And she's actually learning about the game too. She still thinks this project and all of my diamondmind play is stupid, but its progress.

Patrick,

Signing someone to a long-term contract, but at least you'll have cost certainty.... ; )

Carl Goetz is right, find out who her favorite players are early and often. Then you can seem really attentive by reporting on their exploits and emailing her pictures of them in action, or even getting her their baseball cards for fun.

Best of luck!!!!!

Prelim

PHoM matches my top two votes.

I have some guys that I would like to see get in, but they have to wait as three new candidates push them down.

As an aside, for people wondering about my Hubbell vote, my reasessment gets him up to #5 this year.

1. Paul Waner
2. Martin Dihigo
3. Joe Cronin
4. Mule Suttles
5. Eppa Rixey
6. George Van Haltren
7. John Beckwith
8. Jake Beckley
9. Mickey Welch
10. Biz Mackey
11. Cool Papa Bell
12. Tommy Leach
13. Edd Roush
14. George Sisler
15. Hugh Duffy

16-20. Rice, Lundy, Ryan, Averill, Mullane
21-25. Griffith, Grimes, Powell, Moore, Monroe
26-30. Streeter, Childs, Sewell, Doyle, White

btw, next time the Sox and Yanks play at Fenway, I'm going to gm 3 Sat July 16th and will be sitting almost exactly where the Sheffield incident happened last Thursday.

CRONIN VS. WANER

It's true, these candidates are, in many ways, very close to one another.

I'm a bit surprised Waner is considered such a "lock", as he's only about the 10th best RF in history, while Cronin is around the 5th best SS in history?

However, I'm not certain that Cronin is the fifth-best SS in history. It depends quite a bit on how you value peak and career. And how you define someone's position...

CLEARLY AHEAD OF CRONIN:
Wagner
Lloyd
Vaughan
Yount
Ripken

IN THE SAME VICINITY:
Dahlen
Appling
Davis
Banks

????
Wright
G Johnson
Jennings
Wells
A-Rod

BEHIND:
Beckwith
Boudreau
Reese
Larkin
Moore
Glasscock

So he could be anywhere from 6-12 depending on your preferences.

As for Waner, I lump all corner OFs together, so that might not be fair to them, but...

CLEARLY BETTER
Ruth
Bonds
Williams
Musial
Aaron
Ott
O'Rourke
Henderson
F-Rob
Burkett
Delahanty
Crawford
King Kelly

IN THE SAME AREA
Yaz
Reggie
Clarke
J Jackson

???
Irvin
Dihigo
W Brown
P Hill

BEHIND
Raines
McGee
Kelley
Sheffield
Heilmann
Gwynn
Kaline
Wheat

So Waner could be anywhere from 14th-21st best corner OF which, since I'm covering both corners at once, is close to the same as Cronin being the 6th-12th best SS.

Then if you compare their 162adj WS head to head...

PW....JC
38....37
36....36
34....35
34....33
32....32
32....25
29....25
29....24
29....23
27....20
27....18
23....17
16....07
15....04
12....04
11....04
09....03
07....02
05....01
00....00


PEAK: BEST ANY 3
107...107
difference, 0 WS/year

EXTENDED PEAK: BEST ANY 5
172...171
difference, .2 WS/year in favor of Waner

PRIME: BEST ANY 10
319...289
difference, 2 WS/year in favor of Waner

EXTENDED PRIME: BEST ANY 15
412...340
difference, 4.8 WS/year in favor of Waner

CAREER (EACH 20 SEASONS)
444...350
difference, 4.7 WS/year in favor of Waner

So I suppose it all comes down to how much you value position over longevity. Waner isn't so much better than Cronin in peak or prime that he's a slam dunk, but once you're reaching ~5 WS/year, you're talking about him being 1.5 wins better per year, or 31 wins better over his career.

Obviously this should bring us back around to Pennants Added on which I am less well versed, so I'll leave that one to Joe D.

Rough prelim:

(1) Waner (new)
(2) Cronin (new)-- Jennings undoubtedly better over their top 5 seasons but Cronin's seasons 6-10 more than make up for the peak deficit.
(3) Jennings (2nd)
(4) Suttles (4th)--Up one spot as I try to correct for my over reliance on Chris's wonderful numbers.
(5) Dihigo (new)-- A tough call but this is where I think he fits; was uniquely valuable in the context in which he played but that is a good thing, not a bad thing.
(6) Duffy (3rd)--Stays constant in my assessment, just passed by other folks.
(7) Beckwith (8th)--Every Negro League star whose offensive numbers come in multiple standard deviations below his makes it harder to hold him back.
(8) Averill (5th)
(9) Ferrell (7th)
(10) Van Haltren (9th)
(11) Mackey (10th)
(12) Childs (11th)
(13) Rixey (12th)
(14) Grimes (13th)
(15) Moore (14th)-- I need to spend some time with his records. I think there is a substantial possibility that he is a match for Joe Cronin.

I recently posted this on the 1949 ballot results thread as well.
HOM Voters: As a longtime observer and an infrequent poster, but someone who cheers on your noble task, I have a question for the collective HOM voter braintrust.
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.

I agree they are close. But comparing Van Haltren to Duffy--

Duffy I believe got into the HoF mostly based on his gaudy (.440!) batting average in 1894.

Who was the better hitter? Career OWP and EqA both go to GVH.

GVH had a longer career; many more PAs, plus 700 IP.

GVH has more career Win Shares, AND a higher WS/year rate; although this last item might be a function of his pitching.

The overcrowding of the ballot has widened the gap between them from a few spots to many

The one thing that's clear (at least to me) is that Ryan is third in the pecking order of the three glutatious CFs.

I flip-flop the other two pretty routinely.

'The one thing that's clear (at least to me) is that Ryan is third in the pecking order of the three glutatious CFs.'
Why? Ryan's got more career value than Duffy and their peak value is virtually identical(using Win Shares anyway). To me, Ryan's the best of the 3.

I have GVH a little ahead of Ryan because he was more consistent. After Ryan got hurt, he was just an OK player, while Van Haltren was a consistently good player throughout the '90s. Duffy is below the other two (with Mike Griffin in between) because there just isn't enough weight to his career for me. I also have Max Carey and Spotswood Poles around GVH and Ryan, with Averill just a little bit ahead. And Cool Papa Bell is currently there too, but I'm still very uncertain on him.

Duffy is on my list of people I worry that I might be underrating, but there's a lot of guys on that list (including Edd Roush, if you want to throw another CF in there).

Yeah, it's tough going with all those dang CFs glutting things up. It's like they're all iterations of the same person with teeny-tiny differences.

Perhaps that's why none of them has been elected...as James put it: uniqueness is often a sign of greatness.

re: OCF's post #2
Prior NeL expert opinion (Suttles strong!) and a small hesitaiton about Beckwith's temper make the diff for me.

A prelim ballot from me: I'll be scarce the next 3 weeks.

(x) indicates where I voted for them last ballot
[y] indicates their consensus rank from last ballot

1-Paul Waner {new}
2-Joe Cronin {new}
3-Mule Suttles (3) [3]
4-Clark Griffith (4) [8]
5-Joe Sewell (5) [14]
What is there NOT to like about him? He hit great for a shortstop, for any time period, not just his. He fielded great too.
6-Wes Ferrell (6) [6]
7-Martin Dihigo {new}
Unique and Talented.
8-John McGraw (7) [FORTY TWO!?!]
The peak of Hughie Jennings, with a longer prime. HoM is short on 1890s infieders. And short on 3Bmen overall. Outstanding RCAP. Mugsy will keep me from ever being the highest consensus guy I guess!
9-George Van Haltren (8) [15]
Hit. Ran. Played D. Pitched. Long career.
10-Cool Papa Bell (11) [12]
I envision the basestealing of Vince Coleman with the CF ability of a Paul Blair with afterburners.
11-Biz Mackey (14) [9]
Too many people thought Mackey was too good to leave him off my ballot.
12-John Beckwith (15) [4]
bumped up a bit
13-Earl Averill (10) [7]
14-Cupid Childs (9) [22]
15-Roger Bresnahan (12) [25]

just off: Pie Traynor, Eppa Rixey, George Sisler

I’ll be on vacation out of the country so this will have to be my ballot. If someone can move it to the ballot thread I’d appreciate that.

Unlikely anyone below Dihigo will go in soon, and Waner and Cronin are going in now or later, so if more information causes me to move Dihigo down
I’ll do that next election.

Scales and Vic Harris look interesting but off ballot.

Griffith, Bresnahan, Welch, Joss, and Jose Mendez are in my PHoM but off my ballot.

1)Waner--Clearly qualified.
2)Cronin--Clearly qualified.
3)Dihigo--In his leagues, I think he was tremendously valuable.
4)Averill--Looks like a HoMer to me even without PCL credit, but I do give him some PCL credit as he was obviously major league quality before arriving in the majors. Compare him to Goslin: Averill has a higher OPS+ (133/128), and is an A+ CF vs. a C+ LF. Goslin has career length, mostly because Averill plays in the PCL for a while.
5)Sewell--109 OPS+, reasonably long career, good shortstop (A- Win Shares). Yes, I am allowing for his switch to 3B at the end of his career.
6)Schang--His rate stats would put him in the HoM, but a look at each individual year isn’t impressive. Still, a hitting catcher with his career length isn’t common...Bill James rates him a C+ fielder in Win Shares, but says he was a good catcher in the NHBA.
7)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.
8)Beckwith-- Was Beckwith, in his prime, was the best hitter in the Negro Leagues? He played a considerable amount at the difficult end of the defensive spectrum. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on his “unusual circumstances”. His selection as manager indicates to me that his intangibles weren’t all negative. Could be higher. He made my PHoM in 1940 over Coveleski and Faber.
9)Mackey--#2 on my 1949 prelim, but more data on his hitting has dropped him to here.
10)Suttles--Struggling with where to put him.
11)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, we’re not talking about Ed Kranepool here.
12)Rixey—Early Wynn will be the next pitcher with more IP, his W/L percentage isn’t high because he didn’t get a lot of support. ERA+ is very good at 115 for such a long career.
13)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.
14)Cravath— Great peak, great high minor league play.
15)Bill Monroe—Riley’s Biographical Encylopedia likes him a lot.

Ferrell—one of the top 100 pitchers of all time, but not on my ballot currently.
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.
Griffith In my PHoM but off the ballot. #20
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.
Cool Papa Bell--#22.

Paul Waner is going to be #1 on my ballot. There is an interesting article on his minor league days with the SF Seals. That can be found here. It shows he could have been hitting in the majors before his eventual purchase by the Pirates.

Man hit with the best of them.

I posed a question on the 1949 ballot thread that most likely got lost in the shuffle so I will repost it here.

I see that some people have Chuck Klein on their ballot without Hughie Jennings even in their top 20. Can I ask why this would be? Both are peak heavy players without much career value. Klein Klein has slightly more career value over his entire career (a smaller advantage than you might think because after schdule adjustments), but Jennings peak was significantly better. In short Klein's edge comes in playing more sub par seasons or at least having slightly better sub par seasons than Jennings. If you are a real peak guy though (and you would have to be to like Klein right?) then below average seasons shoudln't be something you give much weight to.

Klein does have more black/gray ink, the higher OPS+, and flashier offensive numbers. But Jennings was an all-world defensive SS who didn't play in an extreme hitter's park. Jennings also played shorter seasons. I can't really even see placing Klein ahead of Jennings, but I guess reasonable people can disagree. What I really am puzzled by is ranking Klein at #8 or so with Jennings around #25. It's not like we are having a peak/career value disagreement here.

Carl Goetz is right, find out who her favorite players are early and often. Then you can seem really attentive by reporting on their exploits and emailing her pictures of them in action, or even getting her their baseball cards for fun.

Thanks guys. She used to like Tony Womack, because she got his autograph at a game last year. But now he's a Yankee, so she doesn't like him anymore. I tried to explain to her that Womack as a Yankee is a good thing (for non-Yankee fans), but no luck so far ...

I want to post this here, it is how my top five candidates grade out in my WS system.

Name....Career..WSAA..WSPS..s15
Waner....423.....157...50....12
Cronin...333.....128...38....12
Jennings.236......93...43.....5
Suttles..378.....135...24....12
Beckwith.315.....104...13....12

Career is career WS. WSAA is all Win Shares earned above 15. WSPS stands for Peak Score and is all Win Shares earned above 25. s15 is the number of seasons at or above 15 WS. This is my ranking of those palyers at the moment.

A few things...

Waner peak looks better than Jennings in this table. But Jennings beats him slighltly in 3yr WS (108 to 102) and 5yr WS (168 to 164) while having a better peak score in my WARP system 18.8 17.3. They are probably even when it comes to peak, though I still grade Jennings slightly ahead.

I have done a mental downgrade of Cronin's WS because I think that WS is overestimating his defense. I see him more of a B/B+ fielder than an A- guy.

I think that Chris' WS estimates for Beckwith have smoothed out his peak a bit which is why he is in this group instead of Wes Ferrell or Cupid Childs. I believe that 8-10 WS shoudl be added to his peak score.

Suttles peak is slightly inflated by his one big season and I do a mental downgrade for this. He is still slightly better than Beckwith in my estimation.

So hopefully this sheds some light on my thought process this year and in other years. I weight the peak column the most, followed by the WSAA, then the first and fourth columns are roughly tied.

I've been meaning to ask this for a couple years now....

In the back of my mind I keep a list of candidates that I am afeard I am getting wrong. A personal bugaboo list. For me some of those guys are ones the electorate is itself divided on:
Browning
C Jones
Griffith

Then there are the real tough ones where I've got the sinking feeling that I've missed entirely:
Ben Taylor
Nip Winters
Andy Cooper
Marbury
Oms
Fournier
Monroe
Williams
Newt Allen
Fred Dunlap
John Donaldson
Webster McDonald

Cravath used to be on that second list, now, thanks to more information, I have him on my ballot.

Whoops! hit submit too early.

So the question was, does anyone else have a little personal bugaboo list like these?

Re: #25, Al, I posted Waner's numbers while in the PCL to the Waner thread.

San Francisco in the PCL had Paul Waner in the outfield from 1923 to 1925 and Earl Averill from 1926 to 1928. (and Lloyd Waner for cups of coffee in 1925 and 1926.) Joe DiMaggio would come along in 1933 (1932 for a few games at shortstop). That is a lot of outfield.

Re: #29, guys I may have missed on...
Clark Griffith - am I too hard on him for not pitching as much as other pitchers in his era?
Dick Lundy - rep or translations, translations or rep. am I too attached to players having big years?
Ben Taylor - see Dick Lundy
John Beckwith - should I give more credence to the Hornsby comparisons?
Jack Fournier - How much credit do I give for his minor league hiatus in the middle of his career?
Carl Mays - am I reducing his ranking too much because of the great offensive and defensive support he received?
Bill Monroe - see Dick Lundy
Spots Poles - see Dick Lundy
Most middle infielders - do they need a bonus like I give catchers?
Schang / Bresnahan - Do I need to give more a bonus to early catchers than I give to later catchers?
Also, the first basemen between the ABC players and Gehrig.

Those are some of the different players I have questions about.

Schmeagol,

Doesn't that list remind you of Sesame Street -- one of these things doesn't belong? Jennings finished dead last in three out of the four categories -- getting crushed in two of them. When you say you give WSPS the greatest weight, you aren't kidding -- you'd have to give it about 80% weight to justify Jennings in the middle of that group.

I use almost the same type of system as a starting point for my analysis -- giving approximately equal weight to each category -- and Jennings doesn't crack my top 30.

So the question was, does anyone else have a little personal bugaboo list like these?

Bugaboo? What about the Bugaloos?

"The Bugaloos, the Bugaloos,
We're in the air and everywhere
Flying high, flying loose
Flying free as a summer breeze
Happy as a summer breeze."

:-)

Joy was a cutie-pie, IIRC.

What the heck is a Bugaloo?

What the heck is a Bugaloo?

My fuzzy memories often mix these guys with Sesame Street's Tweedle Bugs for some reasons, but they were one of the Kroft Superstars shows of the 70s.

Bugaloo Songbook

Bugaboos
Addie Joss and Wes Ferrell and other high peak argument pitchers. Something tells me I should give higher weight to 'peak value' for pitchers than hitters because its harder for pitchers to have long productive careers.

Daryn,

There are other factors in my rankings like best 3/5/7 non consecutive years, the same type of system in WARP3, and position adjustments as well. The difference bewteen Beckwith's 104 and Jennings 94 in WSAA is very small when compared to the rest of the electorate. The difference bewteen the peaks of Jeninngs and Suttles/Beckwith is huge when compared to the rest of the elctorate.

I dont' think you can look at those categories evenly. Here is what I mean. If one guy has 300 career WS and a PS of 25 in my system that is much more valuable than a player with 310 WS and a PS of 15. 10 WS of peak score is much harder to accrue (and therefore has more value) than ten Win Shares added onto a player's career totals. The same is true with the WSAA that I use. The number of seasons above 15 WS and career WS carries very little weight with me but I included them anyway.

Jennings 43 number is huge in that only three players have a higher number in the next six elections (50-55) and they are Paul Waner (whose overall peak doesn't grade out quite as well for me for the reasons stated in my last post), Jimmie Foxx and Mel Ott. Ott and Foxx have better peaks only becuase they had bet 25-30 WS seasons, not becuase their top 3 and 5 years totals are any better than Jennings. I dont' think that Jennings HOM case shoudl depend on whether or not he was as good as Mel Ott or Jimmie Foxx. I would prefer, however, to have guys who at their best were as godo as those two in the HOM.

To me a player with 400 WS who never had more than say 23 in a season is in no way a HOMer. You may disagree but then our disagreement is ideological and not methodological.

JS,

You are correct that our disagreement is idealogical. Career value and 20WS seasons are important to me, and I can't think of a situation where someone could earn 400 WS (as flawed as this metric can be) and still be left off the top of my ballot.

Carey is the highest career Win Share earner I can think of that never made my ballot.

'I dont' think that Jennings HOM case shoudl depend on whether or not he was as good as Mel Ott or Jimmie Foxx.'
When you're relying on 5 seasons of peak as your only case for enshrinement, he does need to be that good.

When you're relying on 5 seasons of peak as your only case for enshrinement, he does need to be that good.

As I see it, here are the 5-year consecutive peaks of the three players, in season-adjusted, fielding adjusted win shares (no quality of competition adjustment):

Jennings 196
Ott 187
Foxx 182

As WARP3 sees it:

Ott 59.3
Foxx 58.4
Jennings 58.2

Looking at peak value only, Jennings has a good argument to be as good as Mel Ott or Jimmy Foxx, for a 5-year stretch.

Carl G.,

What Chris said is pretty much what I was getting at. It is arguable that those two gusy had higher five year peaks and both of them were obviously better players than Jennings. At their best they may have been equals though.

Daryn,

400 was a bit of hyperbole. Maybe I should have said 330-350, i.e. Jake Beckley whose peak scores are 0 and 0.1 in my WS and WARP3 systems, respectively. I do understand, however, why someone woudl vote for Beckley, I just dont' agree with it.

Here's my preliminary ballot.

1. Martin Dihigo. Riley calls him the most versatile man ever to play the game, and I tend to agree. Obviously, if he had been in the majors he would have been pushed into one position, probably as a hitter, but analyzing his career in the context of the Negro Leagues, I am inclined to think the player he actually was made him one of the most valuable in the game, black or white, at his time. I mean, a guy who can rank near the top of the league in pitching and in hitting is incredibly valuable. I don't think he was the best hitter or the best pitcher at any point, but I do think he was near the top for much of his career, and his utter domination of the Mexican League and the game in his homeland is significant. Putting it all together, I just think that he's better than Waner or Cronin, and so he gets the top of my ballot.

2. Paul Waner. I have him (barely) over Cronin. Somebody said that Waner was only the 10th best rightfielder of all time, whereas Cronin was the fifth best shortstop, and while this may be true I think it mischaracterizes things somewhat. In terms of outlier careers, there are a few more right fielders than there are shortstops (at least in white baseball at this time), but I don't think that in and of itself tells us much. Waner seems to have been more consistent when at his best than Cronin, and so he gets the coveted second spot, though only barely.

3. Joe Cronin. I really like him as a player. Good power, good on-base, good defense. He had a couple very good to great years and many stellar seasons. I have to take him over Beckwith.

4. John Beckwith. Holding steady. Still give him the slight edge over Suttles, though I look forward to the day when both of them will be elected and off my ballot.

5. Mule Suttles. See above.

6. Jose Mendez. I'm not sure if he's ever going to be elected; it would be a shame if he wasn't. Incredible peak, and enough legs to move him ahead of Waddell in my rankings.

7. Edd Roush. Another guy I hope gets elected. I like him more than Averill; though I have nothing against Earl. But comparing the two directly, Roush is ahead of Averill 314 to 280 in Win Shares. In terms of top three seasons, Roush is at 96 and Averill at 93. Averill was a bit more consistent over his extended peak, but still I think the nod for overall career value needs to go to Roush, which is why he's a few spots ahead of Averill on a very crowded ballot.

8. Wes Ferrell. Add up the pitching peak and the offense, and he's better than people give him credit for. Also had to pitch in a really tough league, facing the Philadelphia and New York offenses all the time.

9. Rube Waddell. I like him over Dean by a little bit because his peak was longer.

10. Cannonball Dick Redding. Doubt he will ever be elected, but the numbers and translations suggest a HOM-caliber pitcher to me.

11. Ben Taylor. A change, as I'm moving Taylor one spot ahead and dropping Sisler one spot. I think in many ways they were similar players: both of them were line drive hitters who hit for good averages and fielded well. At his best I am fairly certain that Sisler was better, but Taylor deserves credit for playing well longer than George did, and he also contributed some pretty good pitching to go along with his hitting in a few seasons.

12. George Sisler. See above.

13. Dick Lundy. C'mon guys, let's give this guy some votes! Lifetime .330 average. Great defensive shortstop. .341 average in eight seasons in the Cuban winter league.

14. Biz Mackey. Great defensive catcher, solid hitter for the first half of his career. Solid hitting catchers who play defense are hard to come by.

15. Vic Willis. Holding steady at the bottom of the ballot.

Just off my ballot, 16-20: Cool Papa Bell, Dizzy Dean, Earl Averill, Clark Griffith and Lefty Gomez.

Only potential change will be when I see the George Scales numbers. Right now, based on what I've read about him I have him in the 20s on my ballot. A second baseman who could get on base, marginal power. We'll see how the total picture looks.

12. Ben Taylor. .334 lifetime average and a good defensive first baseman. A touch behind Sisler in both areas, I suspect,

Oops....the "12. Taylor" comment was when I started writing and realized I had him at the wrong number. Forgot to delete it. My bad.

Here's my initial ballot; strong cast this year. In my mind, the in/out line is somewhere between Rixey and Bresnahan, though I wouldn't be upset if any of the 15 got in.
1)Paul Waner- Overall peak matches Jennings in my estimation although Jennings does slightly edge him in best 3 and best 5 seasons. Plus he's got the most career value of anyone on the ballot. A no-brainer.
2)Joe Cronin- Hearing that Cronin's defensive WS were overrated, I slashed 1/3 of them off(Roughly a 10% cut in his overall WS). He's still the best IF on the ballot. Some OFs have better numbers after the cut, but given that he's so much better than the others at his position(and similar positions) he is still a 1st year electee in my opinion.
3)Martin Dihigo-Others have said it better than me; I don't care what he would have done in the Majors, he was clearly of extraordinary value to the teams he actually played for.
4)Earl Averill-I forgot to give him PCL credit last 'year' which is why he's moved up.
5)Mule Suttles-Great mix of career and peak. Its just a matter of time for Mule.
6)John Beckwith-Ditto to Mule. He's clearly the best 3B on the ballot.
7)Cool Papa Bell- More career value than Averill, but not quite the peak. He's not quite the player we all thought going in, but he's still a HoMer; eventually.
8)Gavvy Cravath- This is a 'safe' placement for Cravath while I wait for the new WS estimates. This is a pretty good guess for his spot, but he could move up or down depending on final analysis. I'll have a better explanation for his placement on my actual ballot.
9)Eppa Rixey- More of a peak would have him higher, but he's still the best pitcher on the ballot.
10)Biz Mackey-Career v peak argument against Bresnahan. In my mind, they're basically tied.
11)Roger Bresnahan.
12)Hughie Jennings- Love those 5 years. Wish there was more.
13)Clark Griffith-Only Rixey(among pitchers) has more career and Clark's got a better peak.
14)Vic Willis- Alot of value packed into those 13 seasons(almost as much as Griffith and Rixey got in over 20). Alot of my placement of Rixey over these 2 is based, not on numbers, but on my gut feeling that Joe is right and WWI ruined about 3 seasons in Rixey's career instead of just 1.5. Based purely on numbers, the 3 are basically dead even and much better than Ferrell and Waddell(the next 2 pitchers on my list)
15)George Sisler-His peak is leaps and bounds better than Beckley by I measure of peak that I employ. He's not that far behing in career value either.
16-25 (in no particular order)
Jake Beckley
OF Glut(Ryan, Duffy,Roush)
Herman Long
Cupid Childs
Ned Williamson
Joe Sewell
Will Ferrell- I even added 10% to his 1929-1931 WS based on the argument that he was facing disproportionally better offenses than others. This brought him basically even with Waddell, but still a couple good seasons behind the 3 pitchers who made my ballot.
Rube Waddell

1950 Preliminary Ballot

I'm not sure if I'll be able to post a ballot next week--I'm in the process of moving from KC to Idaho. If I don't manage to get online before the 2nd, please consider this my official ballot. Thanks!

1. Martin Dihigo--A long career and versatility score high points with me. I think overall the electorate is not giving enough support to the negro league candidates. (PHoM in 1950)

2. Jake Beckley (PHoM in 1927)
3. Mickey Welch (PHoM in 1926)
4. Eppa Rixey (PHoM in 1939)
5. Burleigh Grimes (PHoM in 1940)--the top four holdovers I'd like to see elected; they all fit my criteria well.

6. Biz Mackey (PHoM in 1949)--Probably the best defensive catcher of his time. I see no reason not to induct him.

7. John Beckwith (PHoM in 1945)
8. Mule Suttles (PHoM in 1950)--Two excellent hitters, I don't see much difference in value between them.

9. Dick Lundy
10. Cool Papa Bell--See my comments on Dihigo.

11. Tommy Leach (PHOM in 1942)--Like Dihigo, both versatile and durable, which scores well in my system. These are players who proved maximum utility for their teams.

12. Dick Redding
13. Jose Mendez (PHoM in 1932)--The next-best pitchers after the big-inning trio of Welch, Rixey, and Grimes. Like Suttles and Beckwith, I have a hard time separating them.

14. Carl Mays (PHOM in 1939)--Another versatile, athletic player with a fairly long career.

15. Paul Waner--I really expected to have him higher, but he doesn't score any points for his glovework. Similar to Bill Terry, I think, just a solid bat but not much else. I have my in/out line down around #22 now, so I definitely support Waner's induction--I just don't think he's the most deserving candidate.

Other newcomers:
32. Joe Cronin--A good, well-rounded player, but not enough career length or gray ink to make my ballot. Sorry, Joe.
Allen, Goodman, and Demaree probably won't make anyone's ballot...I'm still working on George Scales, but he'll probably rank in the 50's or 60's.

Tiboreau,

If you're moving, you may not be able to make any changes to your ballot, as you are moving, but your rankings of Waner and Cronin are, well, in need of reconsideration.

How, for example, can you call Tommy Leach "versatile and durable" and have him and his 2156 game career at 3b/cf at 11 on your ballot and have Joe Cronin and his 2124 game career almost entirely at SS at 32?

In a career of very similar length, Cronin had a higher OPS+ while playing a more demanding defensive position. He wasn't quite as good, relative to the position, as Leach was, but he was an above-average defensive player.

In terms of gray ink, since you mention it, Leach has 114 while Cronin has 102.

Cronin undoubtedly played for a stronger league.

Neither WARP nor WS appears to support the notion that Leach was the better player, either, as I interpret their numbers.

So I ask, How do you justify these rankings?

Hmmm, an interesting crop this year.

1950 prelim:

Clear HoMers; I'm sure of this order.
1. Waner (new)
2. Dihigo (new)
3. Cronin (new)
4. Averill (3)
5. Beckwith (4)
6. Griffith (5)
7. Lundy (6)
8. Roush (7)
---------------------
Iffy HoMers; not sure of this order.
9. Rixey (10)
10. Suttles (11)
11. Sewell (9)
12. Bell (13)
13. Sisler (12)
14. Ferrell (15)
15. Mendez (8) - a fine pitcher, but how much better was he than Dolf Luque? I've been ranking him too highly, even though he is in my PHoM.

16-25 and all HoM-worthy someday: Beckley, Duffy, Mackey, Leach, Bridges, Van Haltren, Jennings, Redding, Schang, Williamson.

I would like to clairfy that Chris is not talking to tiboreau in his last post but instead is aiming his questions at jhwinfrey.

And I would like to know how you (jhwinfrey) put Waner below Beckley, since Eagle Eye's candidacy rests on carer value and Waner has more career value then he does. Let's concede that they are even or maybe even a slight edge to Beckley, Waner has a FAR superior peak/prime.

It is unilkely to affect who gets elected, but I just want to see why that ranking is the way it is.

I have often wondered if this PHOM thing screws up some people's ballot.

Take GVH for example, on my first ballot I had him second, and I guess that would put him in my PHOM. Now he is in the 30's on my list.
Why? Well some of the guys on that ballot I now have ahead of him having gained a little bit of knowledge, like Roger Bresnahan.
But mostly its because a bunch of guys are on the ballot now that I am confident are better than he is, even though I am not sure they are HOM worthy, say Grimes and Traynor.

I wonder if some voters figure, "Hey this guy is in my PHOM, so he must be a top 15 candidate." The comments they list read that way sometimes.

Anyone agree, or disagree?

'but he doesn't score any points for his glovework. '

According to BB-Ref, his range and Fielding percentage are about league average. Since they don't differentiate between OF that far back, he was probably slightly above average for the RF population. Also, 15% of his career WS come from fielding which is about normal for an OF. What evidence is there of poor glovework?

'Similar to Bill Terry, I think, just a solid bat but not much else.'

Solid bat?! Thats like saying 'Babe Ruth hit for a little power.'

I wonder if some voters figure, "Hey this guy is in my PHOM, so he must be a top 15 candidate." The comments they list read that way sometimes.

I don't know if that's true or not, Mike, but it is another good reason why I don't bother with a PHOM. :-)

'I don't know if that's true or not, Mike, but it is another good reason why I don't bother with a PHOM. :-) '

I've abandoned mine since rejoining the electorate too and this is a good reason why.

John Murphy sez:

I don't know if that's true or not, Mike, but it is another good reason why I don't bother with a PHOM. :-)

Mike, that's because Tom York would be a member of John's PHOM. :-)

Actually, many of us do "alter" their PHOM from time to time, or recognize that PHOM mistakes have been made. I think sunnyday2 and karlmagnus don't alter theirs, but they admit that perhaps they inducted a player too early.

I alter mine by removing players. Poor Harry Hooper got elected to my PHOM in 1931, but upon further reflection, I felt that Bobby Wallace was more deserving.

Right now, my top candidates are all PHOM inductees, or are fairly recent, but they all seem (to me) better than those before. For example, here is my 1950 prelim.

1. Paul Waner - I happen to like solid hitters, especially those solid hitters that could regularly bat third for 15 years. PHOM 1950

2. Martin Dihigo - Still not sure. PHOM 1950

3. Joe Cronin - Historically, there really aren't too many better shortstops.

4. John Beckwith - PHOM 1942

5. Mule Suttles - PHOM 1949

6. Cool Papa Bell - Not yet in any PHOM, but probably will be soon.

7. George Van Haltren - PHOM 1929

8. Jake Beckley - PHOM 1928

9. Jimmy Ryan - PHOM 1930

The three long careers have been on my ballot longer than their careers lasted. Hugh Duffy is close to the ballot, and has remained off because of so many good new candidates.

10. Earl Averill - Not there yet.

11. Eppa Rixey - PHOM 1939

12. Wes Ferrell

13. Dick Redding

14. Burleigh Grimes - I can't put him too far from Rixey.

15. Dick Lundy

Mike W,

I just opened my pHOM, but only because it took me all this time to actually get to the elections before I started up. I have similar problems to you with guys who I had way up high on early ballots where I didn't have my best thinking going, where my system was a bit troubled. On the other hand, i also think that the electorate will come around on some of the choices I've made, and I'll come around to theirs (since guys like Carey, Faber, Terry, Lyons are all within the top n at their position, and I have a semi-soft long-term quoata on positions.

Chris Cobb and jschmeagol,
Thanks for scrutinizing my ballot--it always makes me take a more critical look at it. I'm currently ranking players on a scale of 1 to 100 in each of 6 categories, and using the average to arrange my ballot. The gap between #2, Jake Beckley,(who scores a 56) and #50, George Sisler, (who scores a 46) is 10 points. So there's not much distance that separates these players--they're all good.

Leach vs. Cronin:
Two things put Leach ahead of Cronin. First, I think the moderate defensive advantage for Leach outweighs the slight offensive advantage for Cronin. In terms of career length, production, and dominance (gray ink), I have them virtually even. The other thing that puts Leach ahead is a slight positional bonus for his time as a 3B. Maybe I should be giving SS bonuses, too, but I don't see shortstop as under-represented as third base and catcher.

Beckley vs. Waner:
Beckley's advantage is solely his skill as a gloveman. I have Waner ranked at league average (0) while Beckley scores a 67 out of 100 for his defense. And as far as career value goes, I give Beckley credit for 15.6 seasons and Waner credit for 16.6. Not enough of a difference to outweigh Waner's average fielding.

Mike, that's because Tom York would be a member of John's PHOM. :-)

I still think that he was woefully under-supported by the electorate. He had a ton of prorated WS and left field was tougher in his day.

But even this anti-timeliner had to make room for the newer guys.

Now the guy that I'm glad didn't go in was Tip O'Neill. Fortunately, my support for him wasn't that long lasting.

As a latecomer to this train-wreck of an election process :), can someone explain the concept of a PHOM? Are their rules defining when somebody becomes a PHOM, like for instance, they have to get a certain number of votes over a period of years or reach a level (top 5, say) of your ballot; or is it just a matter of somebody saying, "If I had the only vote for the HOM, this guy would be in."

If its the latter, then I'd like to state for the record that all 15 guys on my ballot this year, plus Cool Papa Bell, Dizzy Dean and Earl Averill, would all be in my PHOM. There may be others beyond the top 18, but I am at a library right now and don't have my list at home to know for sure. As far as the years when these guys became PHOMers, most of them reached it when they became eligible or when I joined the discussion in 1945. I think a couple of exceptions to that would be Wes Ferrell and Vic Willis, both of whom I moved up fairly significantly upon doing my first thorough review of all the candidates around 1948 or so.

Also, just so I'm clear on what a PHOM distinction means, does it suggest that not only does this voter THINK this guy should be in the HOM, but this voter is CONVINCED he belongs?

PHOM = Personal Hall of Merit.

From what I've gathered, some of the guys who began voting way back in 1898 unofficially but consistently kept track of who'd be in the HoM if each of them were the only voter. In other words, what players have they already put in elect-now spots.

Flowing from that, if you put players X & Y in slots 1 & 2 one year, but they ain't elected, and then player Z the next year, all three would be in your PHOM because if your ballot was the only one, X & Y would've been elected the previous time, and Z thus would be in the elect-now #1 slot this year.

I tried putting together a PHoM when I joined up around 1915, but it's such a pain in the butt to go back and seriously evaluate all those that came before and how I'd vote that I decided screw it.

Seemed like there was tons of talk about PHOM when I started but it slowed up as we got more voters. Or maybe some just got too embarressed to bring it up after putting Sol White in their PHoM ;)

Re: PHOM

Some guys keep a global list of their all-time rankings. From that, its pretty straightforward to generate a PHOM (and regenerate when your rankings change).

For me, once a guy is inducted, he's off the list. To do a PHOM, I would have to take a guy like Caruthers who was at the bottom of my ballot when it was inducted in the late 20s and continue to track him and rank him versus newer guys like Carey, Faber & Vance each year -- when such comparisons are not necessary for the ballot I submit. Its a quite a bit more work, but it is fun to see other peoples lists. :-)

I'll go along with Mike W's comment, though. It seems to create inertia for the backlog. I have enough inertia in my backlog already. :-) Its easy when a candidate is above or below the backlog, but its challenging to insert a candidate in the middle of the backlog. Its a bit similar to DanG's "vote for the best and ignore the rest" comment in the results thread. I'm going to try and reevaluate my 11-15 guys and make sure I'm being fair to newer candidates.

For me, once a guy is inducted, he's off the list. To do a PHOM, I would have to take a guy like Caruthers who was at the bottom of my ballot when it was inducted in the late 20s and continue to track him and rank him versus newer guys like Carey, Faber & Vance each year -- when such comparisons are not necessary for the ballot I submit. Its a quite a bit more work,...

That's a nice capsule description of why I have never bothered with a PHOM. Once the decision has been made, whether I agreed with it or not, that person is out of my decision set and it's time to look forward.

There are also a couple of voters who include the already-elected as "3a" or whatever. That's an interesting piece of information about that voter's thought processes. You won't see me do it.

'And as far as career value goes, I give Beckley credit for 15.6 seasons and Waner credit for 16.6'

Is your career value measure solely the amount of time they played? I would think the fact that Waner was a much better player during those seasons would give him more career value.

Although I've never actually posted it, I've informally kept track of a PHOM for players I've voted on since I started voting (1931 election), treating all pre-1931 elections as given. When a candidate would be entering my PHOM, I typically reexamine their credentials, and a couple of times that's led me to lower a candidate's ranking when I felt their credentials might be questionable. On the whole, I think going through the process has helped me ensure that candidates who rank high on my ballot are well qualified.

I certainly have guys in my PHoM who I no longer vote for.

They are guys that I have changed my opinion on but I promised myself I wouldn't go back and alter my PHoM.

You used GVH as an example. I can't use him because I think he is a clear HoMer, but I can use Spotswood Poles. He was in on my first ballot for me, and now he is nowhere near my ballot. He is below 30.

Is your career value measure solely the amount of time they played? I would think the fact that Waner was a much better player during those seasons would give him more career value.

On Beckley vs. Waner:

I actually have two ratings categories that relate directly to career--one is simply based on career length, and the other is based on productivity. I give Waner a slight edge in career length, but I have them even in production. Again, it's Beckley's defense that gives him a few extra points in my rankings, putting him at #2 instead of #15.

Why not just use career production? Because I think just being on a roster for a long stretch of time is valuable. Whether they're traded or not, the fact that they have long careers means their teams have more options and have more resources free to pursue other players. How often does a team pursue a free agent only to have him retire after a season or suffer a career-ending injury? Waner and Beckley (and the other names on my ballot) all held up over the long haul, as much from mental as physical toughness. And that's something, in my opinion, that we ought to be recognizing and rewarding. The 20-year career with a moderate peak is more difficult to achieve than the 10-year career with flashier single season numbers.

Back to Waner and Beckley... Looking at their stats, I don't see evidence that Waner was a "much better player" with "more career value." Waner had a full season, mid-career (1938) where he posted a sub-100 OPS+. Beckley had only two partial seasons (1906&7) below league average. In the slightly above average seasons, Waner had about 3 seasons in the 100-110 OPS+ range, while Beckley had only 2. Beckley only had one OPS+ year of 140 or higher to Waner's 4, so Waner had the better peak, but I don't think that translates to "more career value" in this case. Again, when you factor in Beckley's positive defensive value compared to Waner's neutral defense, I give the edge to Beckley.

I'm putting my computer in a box tomorrow, so you guys will get the last word on this!

Waner had a better career OPS+(134-125), more career WS(423-318), more WS/Repl(320.8-232.9), more career(112.8-85.7) WARP, better career Avg(.333-.308), for Karlmagnus, more career hits (3152-2930). The only possible justification I can find for putting Beckley ahead of Waner in career value or peak value is ranking them alphabetically.
That 1 slightly below average season you point out follows 12 consecutive 600+ PA seasons in which his WORST season was 129 OPS+. He was also 35 by that point. And he bounced back to 120 the next year. He then hung on for 5 years as a very good part-time player.

"The 20-year career with a moderate peak is more difficult to achieve than the 10-year career with flashier single season numbers."

We could go back and forth on this all day but since you gave me the last word...

I don't believe this to be true. I think it is harder to be one of the 3,5,10 best players in baseball than it is to be slightly above average with a peak that never puts you into that top echelon.

Also 'below average' for a 1B isnt' under a 100 OPS+ even in Beckley's time. I would think that anything under a 110 OPS+ is below average and that number might even be higher.

I actually have Waner marginally ahead of Beckley, but it's very close -- they're 1-2 on this ballot. Cronin is about #9 (I'm not a fan) and Dihigo is tentatively on the 15-man ballot but towards the bottom -- appears a poor man's Caruthers (neither his pitching nor his hitting appear to be as good as Caruthers' 123 ERA+, 135 OPS+, though he went on for longer.) Probably good enough to elect, though.

A big thanks to Kelly for his amazing yearly reports. Here is another tidbit from 1949 that I didn't know about until recently (I was leafing through Dean Sullivan's "Middle Innings" and "Late Innings")

"In 1949, [Jackie] Robinson was asked by Branch Rickey to testify at the infamous McCarthy hearings about the famous black entertainer and activist Paul Robeson’s statements concerning blacks’ unwillingness to fight against Communist Russia because of how their own country, the United States, treated them. Robinson did speak at the hearing, not to attack Robeson, but to represent those blacks who were not famous and had no political voice. He wished the world to know that blacks were Americans who deserved the chance to fight for their country, even though black people had been so terribly mistreated and even killed because of American racism."

See,even karlmagnus has Waner ahead of Beckley! And he's a bigger Beckley fan than Beckley's mom!

I was a mother to Caruthers, I'm only an auntie to Beckley :-))

FWIW, I'll have Waner and Cronin somewhere in my top-five. Great players, but not what I would call no-brainers for "elect me" spots this "year."

I'm still working on Dihigo.

"In 1949, [Jackie] Robinson was asked by Branch Rickey to testify at the infamous McCarthy hearings

It was so infamous that the House of Representatives named it the McCarthy hearings even though "Tailgunner Joe" wasn't even a congressman. :-)

I was a mother to Caruthers, I'm only an auntie to Beckley :-))

Is there something we should know about you, karlmagnus? :-)

Yes, I was born in 1843, which is why I operate a reverse timeline -- these new-fangled players aren't as good as the ones I saw in the 1880s!

Yes, I was born in 1843, which is why I operate a reverse timeline -- these new-fangled players aren't as good as the ones I saw in the 1880s!

LOL

'Yes, I was born in 1843, which is why I operate a reverse timeline -- these new-fangled players aren't as good as the ones I saw in the 1880s!'

A reverse timeline. Now your rankings are starting to make sense! :)

I currently have three PHoMers that are no longer on my ballot: Cupid Childs, Bill Monroe, and Sol White.

All three are, broadly, in my 16-40 category. I don't keep them on solely because the made my PHoM, but they still hover around for the same reasons that I voted for them initially. My PHoM/Non-HoM list is currently over 10 names. Eventually, I would have HAD to stop voting for some of them anyway.

I have Bell at 16 and am still looking at Scales.

1. Waner -- 400+ WS usually does it for me. So does 3000 hits.

2. Cronin – barely ahead of Welch.

3. Mickey Welch – 300 wins, lots of grey ink. RSI data shows those wins are real. Compares fairly well to Keefe. I like his oft repeated record against HoMers.

4. Jake Beckley -- ~3000 hits but no black ink at all. Crawford (HOMer) and Wheat (HOMer) are two of his three most similars.

5. Eppa Rixey
7. Burleigh Grimes – as a career voter, I have difficulty seeing the vast difference others see between these two candidates. There is not much of a spread between here and Ferrell, a five person group of whiteball pitchers that includes Waddell and Griffith, the latter of whom I am souring on.

6. Martin Dihigo – I think he is as good as Caruthers. Gadfly calls him Babe Ruth in reverse. Note that he is ahead of Grimes, I just didn’t want to split up the commentary.

8. Dick Redding – probably the 5th or 6th best blackball pitcher of all-time (behind, at least, Williams and Paige and likely behind Rube Foster, Rogan and Bill Foster), and that is good enough for me.

9. Biz Mackey – I vote career over peak, so I like Mackey the best of the eligible catchers. It is close though, and if new negative info comes, I could have Mackey as low as Schang (who I have in the low 20s).

10. 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.

11. George Sisler
12. Sam Rice – I like the hits. Sisler way out peaks Rice.

13. Mule Suttles – I’m getting more sold on Suttles and less sold on Beckwith. Suttles’ MLE WS are tough to overlook even if you apply a modest discount.

14. Rube Waddell -- I like the three times ERA+ lead, the career 134 ERA+ and, of course, all those strikeouts (plus the 1905 Triple Crown). My personal, in/out line is here, which is the highest it has been ever. Once I had only 5 guys above my in/out line.

15. Beckwith – The Beckwith thread is funny – Gadfly has him hitting .400 with 40HRs per year and Cobb has him at 315 career WS, which is pretty much how I see him.

I was looking at the years I only had 5 people above my in/out line (1931 and 1932), and saw that in 1932 GVH finished third in the balloting, barely behind Rube Foster. He was the #1 MLB candidate (Santop was #1 on the ballot that year). He was ahead of Pike and a few others who have now passed him but have also not yet been elected. If he never makes it that will be a tough one to swallow for his avidly-watching descendants.

Duffy was in the top 10 that year.

Well, one reason that guys like GVH have been passed over could be new voters. I started in 1935 and have Pike in my PHOM. GVH hasnt' been above 11 and has been as low as 20 for me. Top 5 to off ballot is a pretty big difference when the points are tallied, if there are more 'new' voters like me then I can see why GVH slipped.

Highest finishes by unelected players:

<u>3rd Place</u>
Van Haltren 1931, 1932
Sewell 1940
Rixey 1942
Beckwith 1945
Suttles 1946, 1949

<u>4th Place</u>
Van Haltren 1930
Griffith 1931, 1932
Sewell 1939, 1942
Rixey 1940, 1941, 1945
Beckwith 1946, 1949
Suttles 1947, 1948

<u>5th Place</u>
Duffy 1913
Beckley 1930
Van Haltren 1933
Jennings 1938, 1939, 1940
Sewell 1941
Beckwith 1942, 1943, 1944, 1947, 1948
Griffith 1945
Rixey 1946, 1949

<u>6th Place</u>
Beckley 1931, 1932, 1933, 1938
Rixey 1939, 1943, 1944, 1947, 1948
Griffith 1940, 1941, 1942
Jennings 1945
Averill 1946
Ferrell 1949

More comment requirements to come.

As promised.

<u>7th Place</u>
Duffy 1910, 1912, 1914
Beckley 1929, 1935, 1936, 1937
Griffith 1930, 1933, 1938, 1939, 1943
Jennings 1931, 1932, 1941
Sisler 1940
Van Haltren 1942, 1944
Ferrell 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948
Averill 1949

<u>8th Place</u>
Duffy 1908, 1911
Ryan 1909, 1913
Van Haltren 1929
Childs 1931
Waddell 1932
Jennings 1933, 1937, 1942
Sisler 1938, 1939
Beckley 1940, 1943
Leach 1941
Ferrell 1944
Sewell 1945
Griffith 1946, 1949
Averill 1947, 1948

<u>9th Place</u>
Duffy 1907, 1915, 1932
Ryan 1910, 1912
Beckley 1913, 1928, 1934, 1939
Griffith 1929
Ryan 1930
Bresnahan 1931
Waddell 1933, 1937, 1938
Leach 1940, 1942
Sisler 1941, 1945, 1948
Sewell 1943
Van Haltren 1944
Jennings 1946, 1947
Mackey 1949

<u>10th Place</u>
Williamson 1898
Browning 1906
Jennings 1908, 1920, 1930
Duffy 1909
Ryan 1911, 1914, 1931
Waddell 1918, 1919, 1935, 1939
Beckley 1927, 1941, 1942, 1944
Van Haltren 1928, 1936, 1940, 1943, 1945
Bresnahan 1932
Welch 1933, 1938
Sisler 1937, 1946, 1949
Griffith 1947, 1948

So if we had to comment on everyone who ever finished in the top 10 on any ballot, we'd have to comment on 21 guys:

P Griffith
P Waddell
P Welch
P Rixey
P Ferrell
C Bresnahan
C Mackey
1B Beckley
1B Sisler
1B Suttles
2B Childs
3B Williamson
3B Leach
3B Beckwith
SS Jennings
SS Sewell
OF Browning
OF Duffy
OF Ryan
OF Van Haltren
OF Averill

Ron,

These are interesting lists. One thing I notice is that most of the 21 players listed in the last post are still ranked pretty high on the latest ballot. In the 1949 election, 17 of the 21 were ranked between 3rd and 22nd. My thinking is that when we start electing 3 per year we will start drawing from the backlog again, so quite a few of these guys still have a chance at election.

The four former top-10 who have now dropped lower than 22nd are:

25T Roger Bresnahan
28 Pete Browning
38 Jimmy Ryan
45 Ed Williamson

My guess is that these four guys have little chance of ever being elected.

Ed Williamson is a player that I have had a lto of trouble dealing with. If you simply prorate his Win Shares he looks like a demi-god but so do most players of his era. His WARP numbers aren't very good simply becuase of his era. His offensive numbers dont' scream 'elect me' in the way that say, Lip Pike's did, but he palyed 3B. Is there anyone who is or was a Williamson supporter (or I guess an enemy) who might be able to clear things up for me. Is there a thread in which he is discussed in detail?

25T Roger Bresnahan

Bresnahan might benefit at a much later point in history if the electorate decides that catchers are being seriously underrepresented in the HoM.

OK, so next year we have to comment on (with their highest top 10 finish ever):

3. Suttles - 3rd
4. Beckwith - 3rd
5. Rixey - 3rd
6. Ferrell - 6th
7. Averill - 6th
8. Griffith - 4th
9. Mackey - 9th
10. Sisler - 7th

Everyone should at least be considering (or reconsidering):

11. Jennings - 5th
12. Bell - never finished in top 10
13. Beckley - 5th
14. Sewell - 3rd
15. Van Haltren - 3rd
16. Roush - never
17. Duffy - 5th
18. Welch - 10th
19. Grimes - never
20. Leach - 8th
21. Waddell - 8th
22. Childs - 8th
23. Lundy - never
24. C. Jones - never
25T. Bresnahan - 9th
25T. Redding - never
27. Schang - never
28. Browning - 10th

Also remember:

38. Ryan - 8th
45. Williamson - 10th

Haven't ranked the two major NLers yet. Of course, aside from them, not much interesting to comment on. Two likely first ballot electees, and a bunch of non-issues.

1. Cronin - I'm a shortstopaholic, yes, but I think it's justified. Career, peak, prime, all working for him. Easy HOMer.

2. Ferrell
3. Jennings

4. Waner - Not as loving of him as I thought I might be. Career is obviously strong, some workable peak and prime, but not really blowaway. I certainly don't object to him getting in, just rather see Ferrell and Jennings go in first (of course, I'd have had them in long ago ;) ).

5. Mendez
6. Sewell
7. Beckwith
8. Dean
9. Waddell
10. Suttles
11. Griffith
12. Redding
13. Moore
14. Schang
15. Bartell

A couple of people have mentioned Vic Harris. In case anyone's wondering about him, here are his career stats from the Macmillan, 8th edition:

1923-43, 45
G-477
AB-1809
H-541
D-75
T-28
HR-24
SB-15
AVE-.299
SLG-.411

Holway doesn't give career totals for Harris. He was primarily a left fielder, and spent nearly his whole career with the Homestead Grays. He managed the team from 1935-43 and again in 1945 (he spent 1944 working in the defense industry). This coincided the Grays' greatest teams, so Harris was one of the most successful managers in NeL history. His home parks would have mostly been Forbes Field and Griffith Stadium.

I have more detailed stats for 1928.

Batting:
G-19 (team 19)
AB-73
H-21
D-4
T-3
HR-1
R-18
W-8
HP-0
SH-0
SB-0
AVE-.288
OBA-.358
SLG-.466

The Grays' home park was Forbes Field; the raw PF was 87, based on the very small sample of 12 home games, 9 road games.

He played 16 games in left, three in center.

Fielding-lf
G-16
DI-132
PO-34
A-1
E-2
DP-1
RF-2.32 (NeL east 1.97)
FPCT-.944 (NeL east .957)

<i>Dick Seay (I think he's a light-hitting waterbug, but I'm not certain)<i>

That would be pretty accurate, as far as I can tell. Dick Seay's career totals from the Mac 8:

1926-42, 46-47
G-310 (inc.)
AB-1363
H-313
D-17
T-4
HR-11
SB-15
AVE-.229
SLG-.272

Year of peak finish
----
1898 10 Williamson

1906 10 Browning

1909 8 Ryan

1913 5 Duffy 8 Ryan

1930 5 Beckley
1931 3 VanHaltren 4 Griffith 8 Childs 9 Bresnahan
1932 3 VanHaltren 4 Griffith 8 Waddell

1938 5 Jennings
1939 5 Jennings
1940 3 Sewell 5 Jennings 7 Sisler
1941 8 Leach
1942 3 Rixey

1945 3 Beckwith
1946 3 Suttles 6 Averill

1949 3 Suttles 6 Ferrell 9 Mackey
----
Notes:

Williamson 1898, Ryan 1909, Sewell 1940, Suttles 1946, Averill 1946, Mackey 1949 are all debuts.

Browning appears to have been hurt by the arrival of the early 1890's OF'ers (Ryan, VanHaltren).

Similarly, Ryan and Duffy by the late 1890's OF'ers (Kelley, Keeler, Flick).

1932 was the end of the "Great Candidate Drought". Loooong-careered stars of the 1910's hit the ballots in 1933 and after.

Your guess is as good as mine on the Jennings boomlet of the late 1930's.

RE: Leach. Was 1941 right after the new Pennants Added was published?

Correction: Sewell was not a debut. Sewell debuted in 1939 in 4th.

Your guess is as good as mine on the Jennings boomlet of the late 1930's.

Call it advocacy, call it persuasion. Several folks (I was one) took up Jennings' cause at that time, stressing the historic nature of his peak and the importance of giving the 1890s candidates a fair shake before the deluge of top candidates in the 1940s.

It brought Jennings back onto the radar of some, brought him some first-time support from newer voters.

Since 1940, I haven't felt Jennings has a case to be in an elect-me spot, and I've also been pre-occupied with the NeL candidates, so I myself haven't continued to campaign actively for him, and the others have let the campaign die down also.

Jennings' rise is an example that arguments do have effects on the voting at the HoM, though not enough of an effect in this case to lead to the election of the player receiving support.

Michael,

As a fellow shortstopaholic, I have to say you aren't representing the position very fully on your ballot with a mere 5 of them! If you consider them carefully I bet you can squeeze Dick Lundy and Dave Bancroft in there too!

To me, Lundy over Sewell is easy.

And Bancroft over Bartell, too.

But I got nothin' against Sewell or Bartell either.

Current SSs

1. Cronin
2. Jennings
3. Moore
4. Lundy
5. (Beckwith)
6. Sewell or should that be (Sewell)?
7. Bancroft
8. Maranville
9. Tinker
10. Bartell or H. Long

Actually, having thought about Lundy more this week, I realized there was no way I can justify having Bartell over him, so he's moving on up. The Lundy/Sewell difference isn't all that, so Sewell will probably move down a touch.

My new SS list

1. Cronin
2. Jennings
3. (Beckwith)
4. Sewell
5. Moore - I could stand to take a fresh look at him.
6. Lundy
7. Bartell
8. Maranville

Lundy will probably be 16, so just off ballot, so only 5 on my ballot counting Beckwith! But 2 of the next 5 would then be SS, so I won't be lacking in the grand scheme. ;)

In an effort to move the discussion of whether NeL players are getting fair treatment from the ballot thread to the ballot discussion thread, so we can go at it with vigor.

A few points on various matters:

David C. Jones wrote:

There are all sorts of legitimate reasons for being hesitant on early ballplayers that have nothing to do with the level of documentation.

And the advocates for early ballplayers argued tirelessly to persuade the electorate to stop being hesitant for those reasons. It's unfortunate that many of those old threads were partly eaten in the site redesign . . .

That bit of nostalgia past, let me say that I agree strongly with David on two points:

1) No quotas for Negro-Leaguers (it creates a double standard)
2) The fairest way to rank Negro-Leaguers is exactly where your best effort at estimating their value would place them.

I think that arguing for appropriate standards of fairness for less documented players is what we should be discussing.

We debated that subject quite extensively back in the 1920s when the first NeL players were becoming strong candidates and the first wave of all-time greats (Lloyd, Williams, Torriente) was just around the corner, but maybe it's time to raise them again.

We had less data for Frank Grant, Home Run Johnson, Pete Hill, and Rube Foster than we do for Martin Dihigo, and we accepted the most likely interpretations of the evidence and elected them. It took many years for Grant, about 4 years for Johnson, a bit longer for Foster, and Hill went in on the first ballot.

David's comments remind me of those discussions and elections and lead me to reflect on whether I am not ranking Dihigo where my best-effort estimate places him.

Might be best not to be so specific with vote counts, though, as there's an unwritten rule about not trying to lay out 'where things stand' for upcoming voters.

Howie is correct: it is customary not to state vote counts on the site prior to the close of elections, in order to discourage strategic voting and any appearance of encouragement to strategic voting.

Chris C comes through again.
I posted my responses within the ballot thread because I didn't want to try to enforce THAT rule, too!
But now that it's been mentioned, I'm done on the ballot side....

Continuing to tug the discussion this way:

jschmeagol wrote:

The problem I keep running into with Dihigo is that it is highly unlikely that he would have been both a Pitcher and an OFer in MLB. That isn't fair to Dihigo, though. He played in his time and place and was great in doing so. At the same time how can you directly compare him to Vaughn, Gehrig, etc. in 35 and 36 and say he was better when they had no opportunities to be two way players? Is it fair to them?

I think that the "day-off" playing time projection that I'm using for Dihigo provides a suitable check on the two-way play advantage that Dihigo enjoys.

For 1936, if we assume that Dihigo would have been _no better_ as a hitter had he been a one-way player but give him a boost from a B outfielder to an A outfielder and let him play a full season at that rate, he still earns 36 win shares, which puts him in the company of Gehrig, Ott, and Vaughn. So the pitching is giving him _some_ bonus over the one-way players in this estimate (as it should), but it doesn't turn a decent player into a great player. Rather, it turns a great player into a top-5 player.

If we make the reasonable assumption that, had he devoted himself to honing his hitting craft rather than learning to be a pitcher, he would have improved somewhat, it's seems very reasonable to expect that he would have been at least Waner's equal as a hitter and been a top-5 player by that route. Even without devoting himself to hitting full time, his hitting was comparable to Earl Averill's.

Regarding the last comment Howie made about Foster being perhaps overrated as a pitcher. He may well have been. But the Hall of Fame isn't just about stats and on-field performance. It's about what you do for the game of baseball. And the fact that the HOF declared, at one point, that all the deserving Negro Leaguers had been elected when they still hadn't put Foster in, who was not only a great pitcher but ALSO the single most powerful influence on the Negro Leagues in terms of organization and administration, is a galling, ignorant oversight. I don't know what to compare it to. It would be kind of like not having Al Spalding in the HOF, except 100 times worse. Rube Foster was kind of like Ban Johnson + Al Spalding for the Negro Leagues.

Howie is correct: it is customary not to state vote counts on the site prior to the close of elections, in order to discourage strategic voting and any appearance of encouragement to strategic voting.

Okay, I apologize, didn't know about that. Of course, somebody could just track the election and vote at the end to try to influence things one way or the other anyway, if they were so motivated, but it wouldn't take long before people would be on to their game.

Not a problem. The issue hadn't come up since you joined the group, so how would you know?

Not publishing in-progress vote counts certainly can't prevent strategic voting. But some voters try very actively not to know what's happening with the vote until they cast their own ballots, and discussion of the voting makes it harder for them to avoid knowing, though they can always avert their eyes when the subject comes up, I suppose :-) .