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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Monday, September 19, 20051960 Results: Ee-Yah! Prince Hal and Jennings (Finally!) Make the Hall of Merit!In his first year of eligibility, Tiger star lefty Hal Newhouser was elected to the HoM comfortably with 79% of all possible points. Demolishing Lip Pike’s record of 43 years on a ballot before becoming a HoMer, famed Baltimore Orioles captain Hughie Jennings was finally elected (barely) after 53 successive tries (he first became eligible way back in 1908). He also now owns the dubious record of the lowest percentage of all possible points for an inductee at 38%, breaking another record of Pike’s (the latter had 40% in 1940). Rounding out the top-ten were: Joe Medwick, Earl Averill, Red Ruffing, Wes Ferrell, Biz Mackey, Clark Griffith, Eppa Rixey, and George Sisler. There’s a very good chance that the next inductee for 1961 will come out of this group. Our electorate tied last “year’s” record with 73 candidates finding their names on a ballot for this election. RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 n/e Hal Newhouser 924 47 21 5 6 3 2 3 1 2 2 1 1 2 5 Hughie Jennings 443 28 6 2 4 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 3 Joe Medwick 430 32 1 4 2 3 1 2 1 2 2 1 2 3 5 1 2 4 8 Earl Averill 412 31 2 1 3 2 3 1 2 2 2 4 1 1 2 3 2 5 4 Red Ruffing 403 27 3 2 5 3 4 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 6 7 Wes Ferrell 375 26 3 2 3 2 3 2 1 4 1 1 2 1 1 7 6 Biz Mackey 371 29 1 1 2 2 3 2 5 3 2 3 1 1 3 8 10 Clark Griffith 350 23 1 4 3 1 1 3 2 1 1 2 3 1 9 9 Eppa Rixey 347 25 1 3 3 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 4 2 2 10 11 George Sisler 307 23 1 4 2 1 1 5 1 3 1 1 1 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 13 Cool Papa Bell 283 22 4 1 2 1 1 3 2 1 2 2 3 12 12 George Van Haltren 274 20 2 3 1 1 2 3 2 1 1 2 2 13 14 Jake Beckley 274 18 1 4 2 2 2 3 3 1 14 15 Cupid Childs 226 19 3 2 2 1 3 2 2 3 1 15 21 Pete Browning 225 16 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 16 16 Willard Brown 219 20 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 3 4 1 17 19 Hugh Duffy 210 15 1 1 3 3 1 3 1 1 1 18 17 Joe Sewell 209 16 1 2 3 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 19 18 Bobby Doerr 206 15 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 3 1 1 20 23 Cannonball Dick Redding 199 17 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 3 4 21 20 Mickey Welch 193 11 3 1 2 3 1 1 22 24 José Méndez 174 14 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 23 22 Dobie Moore 174 12 1 2 3 2 1 1 2 24 28 Joe Gordon 164 17 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 3 4 25 26 Alejandro Oms 160 12 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 26 30T Rube Waddell 148 13 1 1 1 2 1 3 2 2 27 25 Bucky Walters 141 10 2 2 1 3 2 28 32 Charley Jones 134 9 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 29T 35 Burleigh Grimes 122 9 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 29T 27 Tommy Leach 122 9 1 2 2 2 1 1 31 29 Gavy Cravath 118 9 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 32 33 Edd Roush 115 11 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 33 34 Wally Schang 113 8 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 34 30T Roger Bresnahan 107 8 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 35 36 Bob Elliott 91 8 1 1 1 2 2 1 36 38 Quincy Trouppe 90 9 1 1 1 1 2 3 37 37 Larry Doyle 79 6 1 1 1 1 1 1 38 39 Bill Monroe 61 6 1 1 2 1 1 39 47 Charlie Keller 55 5 1 2 1 1 40 41T John McGraw 54 4 1 2 1 41T 44T Tommy Bridges 53 5 1 2 1 1 41T 43 Bob Johnson 53 5 1 1 1 1 1 43 41T Dizzy Dean 51 4 1 1 1 1 44 49 Ernie Lombardi 49 4 1 1 1 1 45T 48 Sam Rice 45 5 1 1 2 1 45T 40 Jimmy Ryan 45 5 1 2 1 1 47 51 Luke Easter 43 3 1 1 1 48 46 Dizzy Trout 40 3 2 1 49 50 Ed Williamson 38 4 1 1 1 1 50 44T Ben Taylor 38 3 1 1 1 51 67 Vic Willis 28 3 1 1 1 52T 53T Addie Joss 27 2 1 1 52T 52 Dutch Leonard 27 2 1 1 54 53T Chuck Klein 25 2 1 1 55 55 Carl Mays 24 2 1 1 56 57 George J. Burns 19 2 1 1 57 56 Bobo Newsom 18 2 1 1 58 58 Pie Traynor 18 1 1 59 59 Dom DiMaggio 17 2 1 1 60T 60T Ed Cicotte 17 1 1 60T 60T Fielder Jones 17 1 1 62T 62T Tommy Bond 16 1 1 62T n/e Johnny Pesky 16 1 1 64 70 Hack Wilson 15 2 1 1 65T 64T Dolf Luque 15 1 1 65T 62T Bobby Veach 15 1 1 67 66 Dick Lundy 14 2 2 68 64T Leroy Matlock 14 1 1 69 71T Frank Chance 13 2 1 1 70 68 Fred Dunlap 11 1 1 71 69 Lefty Gomez 10 1 1 72T 71T Sam Leever 7 1 1 72T 71T Rabbit Maranville 7 1 1 Ballots Cast: 49 John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy
Posted: September 19, 2005 at 08:08 PM | 166 comment(s)
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I had problems with Jenning's career length, but there's no denying that he was a great one for five years. He has that HoM spell to me, IOW.
BTW, how come nobody ever asked for a page for Jennings after 53 years of eligibility?
Anyone want to guess who well end this project as the all-time vote getter?
Very good news though that's we've elected a golden oldie -- would have become VERY boring otherwise, even though this particulalr one doesn't free up space on my ballot. Come on, fans of Beckley, WElch and Browning!
Only 1 electee next year, I think, BTW.
Same here! Congrats to Hughie!
Of course, Prince Hal deserves some attention as well -- there were a lot of questions about him two weeks ago and it appears he passed muster with flying colors. Congrats Prince Hal!
It's corrected. The new system is somewhat tempermental. :-)
If we'd done this logically, we'd have had Pike eligible for 1884 (when he'd have had serious oppo from Pearce and Meyerle, but few others!) so technically he he still has a few years on Ee-yah!
Of course, we would have elected Jim Creighton, Bob Ferguson, and Harry Wright then due to lack of worthy candidates. :-)
Good point, karlmagnus. I always think of him as an earlier player.
Browning made a big jump, though he still is no where near being electable.
dan b: +2
Dan G: +1
Howie Menckel: 0 (in more detail, about -.3)
andrew siegel: -2
Al Peterson: -2
Chris Cobb: -2
...
jimd: -9 (median)
...
Dolf Lucky: -17
Dr. Chaleeko: -18
karlmagnus: -20
yest: -21
Gadfly: -26
I was at -3. Pretty high, in context, given that I didn't vote for Jennings.
Jennings 16976
VAN HALTREN 15839.5
BECKLEY 15240
DUFFY 15140.5
GRIFFITH 14270
Pike 13399
BROWNING 13145.5
Thompson 12349
WADDELL 11616
Bennett 11503
WELCH 11065
CHILDS 10994
Caruthers 10704
RYAN 10647.5
Beckwith 9920
H Stovey 9576
Start 8378.5
McGinnity 8232
Pearce 8073
McVey 7985.5
RIXEY 7971
Grant 7969.5
Suttles 7696
BRESNAHAN 7608
T LEACH 7429
(Sisler 7386, C Jones 6527, Sewell 5923, Ferrell 5587, Monroe 5324, Averill 4784, Roush 4487, Doyle 4473, Redding 4467, Mendez 4405, Williamson 4361)
Van Haltren would be only a little more than four yrs worth of votes away from the top spot at his 1960 vote pace; realistically he might do it in 6-7 years.
I placed Hughie on my ballot for the very first time at #15, but he was in the lead when I finally submitted my ballot. I wont take credit or blame for his election. :-)
It took a long time for him to get down to that level, but he finally made it.
I wouldn't say that I have been his best friend, but he has been on my ballot every year for 53 years. It will be strange submitting a ballot without him on it somewhere.
I never imagined it would matter so much, though. I guessed I'd wind up electing Ruffing over my beloved Rixey because I gave Ruffing a fairly high slot!
The few stalwarts who always had Hughie way up there will be the most amazed, I imagine.
I also put Averill on my ballot for maybe the first time ever. If it hadn't taken me so long to vote (Saturday), I could pretend that I created a buzz about him!
I'd vote for Jake the Snake Beckley,
Or maybe I should say I'd NOT vote for Beckley.
;)
Now, if we can just get Averill ahead of Medwick for 1960. Centerfielder power!
I really didn't think he would get elected. It will indeed be strange not having Hughie on my ballot. Dobie Moore was #2, too, BTW, and it will really be strange having Dobie at #1. I doubt that he's ever gotten a #1 vote.
Lip Pike appeared on 26 of 51 ballots when he was elected in 1940. That is the record low. He garnered a slightly higher percentage of possible points, however, because he received more elect-me votes than Hughie did, although Hughie did receive more elect-me votes than anybody but Newhouser this year.
I'll be a bit surprised if Pike's record low survives the 1960s.
See, I know in my mind anyway, that I have Medwick pegged correctly. However I acknowledge that the margin for error on Jennings, was much higher. There's a justification for having him as high as #2 on this ballot (Newhouser was a better overall pitcher than Koufax, comfortably in my opinion, equivalent peak and easily on career), due to the insanely high peak, I certainly could be wrong there. I see no such justification for Medwick, who was just a very good OF for awhile, and while at the top of the pack (maybe) isn't nearly as compelling.
Did that make any sense? I would have been really made if my 13th place vote for Medwick would have pushed him past Jennings :-)
You mean "elected," right? :)
No Italian jokes. I meant 'mad'.
:-)
ee-yah!
Congrats to Jennings, who despite not receiving a vote from me for several years, has been in my PHOM since 1927.
; )
For the next 53 years I guess it will have to be Dobie Moore, my new #1.
Dan G: +1
Howie Menckel: 0
The last couple elections I've reclaimed my standing among the consensus leaders. I've always been a high consensus voter, but I faded from the leaders for about 25 years during the Negro league candidate days.
Pending new information from the HOF's Black baseball study, the only viable NeL candidates are Mackey and Bell, both currently on my ballot. Well, and Irvin, who seems like a shoo-in for election.
I hear Robinson is good, too. But perhaps he gets in with no NeL credit. I may be the only one, but Jackie only becomes high or top ballot for me with the NeL credit.
You mean "elected," right? :)
I meant electable in the sense that the electorate as a whole feels he's not at this point. I have him on my ballot, so I certainly feel he's electable. :-)
"Elect me" positions:
Glasscock (1904), Radbourn (1905), Hamilton (1907), Delahanty (1909), Nichols (1911), Burkett (1912), Dahlen (1915), Davis (1915), Stovey (1916), Young (1917), Clarke (1917), Kelley (1919), Keeler (1919), Walsh (1920), Bennett (1921), Lajoie (1922), Mathewson (1922), Wagner (1923), Crawford (1923), Plank (1923), G. Johnson (1925), Magee (1926), J. Jackson (1927), Baker (1928), Sheckard (1930), Santop (1932), W. Johnson (1933), Wheat (1933), Cobb (1934), E. Collins (1935), Alexander (1936), J. Williams (1936), Torriente (1937), Heilmann (1937), Coveleski (1938), Faber (1939), Rogan (1940), Ruth (1941), Hornsby (1941), Vance (1942), Charleston (1943), Cochrane (1943), Gehrig (1944), Goslin (1945), Stearnes (1946), Simmons (1946), Grove (1947), Hartnett (1947), Gehringer (1948), J. Wilson (1948), Hubbell (1949), Waner (1950), Dihigo (1950), Foxx (1951), Cronin (1951), J. Gibson (1952), Ott (1952), Greenberg (1953), Dickey (1953), Vaughan (1954), Wells (1954), Leonard (1955), R. Brown (1955), Appling (1956), DiMaggio (1957), Beckwith (1957), Hack (1958), Paige (1959), Mize (1959), Newhouser (1960)
#2 (in an elect-1 year): Sutton (1908), Galvin (1910), McPhee (1913), Flick (1918)
#3: Wallace (1929), Speaker (1934), Lloyd (1935)
#4: Start (1912), Groh (1938), Frisch (1944)
#5: Rusie (1904), Lyons (1949), Boudreau (1958)
#6: Richardson (1905), Spalding (1906), 3F Brown (1925), Terry (1942)
#7: Grant (1926), McGinnity (1928)
#8: Carey (1939), W. Foster (1945)
#9:
#10: McVey (1914), J. Collins (1921), Suttles (1956)
#11:
#12:
#13:
#14:
#15: R. Foster (1932)
Off-ballot positions:
#17: Billy Herman (1958)
#19: Thompson (1929)
#21: Caruthers (1930)
#24: Pearce (1931)
Not listed: Pike (1940), Jennings (1960)
Everyone that I've ever put into an "elect me" position has eventually been elected, with four exceptions: George Van Haltren, Larry Doyle, Joe Sewell, and Red Ruffing. All of them are still on my ballot.
If I may ask, who is my most similar voter, if you're still keeping track of such things?
As for who'll lead the all-time points standings...I'll go with a dark horse and Clark Griffith. I suspect, though I don't know, that we won't quite ever reach him in the backlog before he's pushed down again, and he is gaining on GVH/Beckley in votes right now.
Without OCF's reponse, I'd bet on Sunnyday2 as your nearest voting comp. He had Moore and Mendez way up high on his ballot as you did.
I actually enjoy how divergent the ballots are in our group; I know there has been concern about the low consensus elections of Pike (and now Jennings, I guess), but what it tells me is that there is little if any groupthink going on here. We all form our own opinions. :)
I suspect Jennings was close on more ballots than you might expect, as it was the additional votes he picked up at the bottom that put him over the top, and he had potentially more votes to gain by ballot expansion than Medwick, whose strength was in his ballot appearances.
However, an answer to the question depends in part on how the sub-15 slots were valued. If slots 16-20 were added and valued at 5-4-3-2-1, for example, Medwick, on average, would have had to pick up 6 more votes than Jennings for extension of the ballot to this range in order to close the 13-point gap between him and Jennings. I am doubtful that adding 5 spots valued thusly would have changed the course of the election.
If the on-ballot bonus were retained in an expansion of the ballot to 20 or 25 spots, then I think Medwick's chances of benefiting significantly from the change would go up, as he would have to add only two or three ballot appearances more than Jennings in order to close the gap.
That's the question, isn't it. You can see how their votes were distributed, Medwick in every slot, Jennings just here and there. If Medwick's support #16-20 were anything like his #11-15 support, it would probably be enough to overcome 13 points.
I also believe that some of those 4 #15 votes for Jennings would have been lower if the ballot had been expanded. That the last spot on the ballot is often used for "well, I'll put him on the ballot" votes. Meaning that on a 20-man ballot some of those would be 20th place votes. It's a pet theory, anyway.
21 people did not vote for Jennings; 17 did not vote for Medwick. That's a really large amount of the electorate going unmeasured. It would be easy to conceive of Medwick's support among these voters to be strong enough to overcome the 13-point ballot difference.
The question could also be framed different ways. 1) If we used a yes/no ballot like the Coop, which player would've fared better? 2) If we used a 100-space ballot, who would do better? How about 50 slots?
I'd add, though, that the will of the electorate in choosing not to expand the ballot was that the electorate's decisions should be based on the distinctions made at the top end of our rankings only. Differences between a player ranked 20th and a player ranked 35th were not held, in the end, to be important enough to count.
So I think the electorate has defined fairly clearly how its will is to be interpreted.
(1) Van Haltren (3rd)
(2) Moore (4th)
(3) Averill (5th)
(4) Ferrell (6th)
(5) Rixey (7th)
(6) Childs (8th)
(7) Oms (10th)
(8) Duffy (9th)
(9) Ruffing (11th)
(10) Sisler (12th)
(11) Medwick (13th)
(12) Roush (15th)
(13) Ryan (14th)
(14) Mackey (off/ 17th)
(15) Sewell (off/18th)
__________________
(16) Beckley
(17) Kiner
(18) Joe Gordon
(19) Bob Johnson
(20) Bobby Doerr
(21) Jose Mendez
(22) Charley Jones
(23) Willard Brown
(24) Bob Elliot
(25) Cool Papa Bell
_____________________
(26) Dick Redding
(27) Bresnahan
(28) Leach
(29) Walters
(30) Griffith
(31) Doyle
(32) Monroe
(33) Vic Willis
(34) Frank Chance
(35) Schang
(36) Troupe
(37) Veach
(38) Keller
(39) Welch
(40) Berger
(41) McGraw
(42) Cravath
(43) Williamson
(44) Shocker
(45) Lundy
(46) Dean
(47) Cuyler
(48) Bridges
(49) Griffin
(50) Browning
(25) Burleigh Grimes
It points to compromises made in the formation of our rules. We have some allowance for registering strongly in favor of a candidate. However, there is little balance on the other end of the spectrum, meaning strong disfavor towards a candidate counts for nothing (or very little).
Anyone want to guess who well end this project as the all-time vote getter?
OCF once speculated that no one would break Sam Thompson's total, iirc. BTW, in the Detroit News, or Detroit correspondence to Sporting Life about 1904, I read that Sam Thompson still didn't have his release from the Philadelphia Phillies, so he remained ineligible to play anywhere else in organized baseball. He was playing with the Detroit Athletic Club, probably semipro. I don't know whether he still had offers to play-manage in OB but I infer that he could raise the capital to be everything from player to minority owner in Class C or so.
After the election of Newhouser and Jennings from OB, the HOM has a flavor quite different from what I anticipated about twenty years ago, with Carey elected, Sewell and Rixey imminent. Briefly scintillating stars, you may think, but Prince Hal and "Ee-yah" (and Luther Sam) all make me think Detroit.
Jennings goes in with two voting "worsts" and one second (see the header paragraphs and #24). However his 57% support is only 8% behind Medwick, who is second to Newhouser in that dimension. While it's true in a sense that 1-2 votes and 3-4 votes elected Jennings (15 voters or 31%; no more than 10 voters or 20% for any other candidate), it isn't true that Medwick or Averill has broad support
Eight men appear on half of the ballots, up from five about twenty years ago, early in Beckwith's time iirc.
Joe Dimino
Did that make any sense? I would have been really mad if my 13th place vote for Medwick would have pushed him past Jennings :-)
mad from a poisonous bite by your own creation!
karlmagnus #9
Things were still Flying in 1884; not eligible for HOM till 1890. Until I just checked, I had assumed {Bob} Ferguson was an outfielder; since he played mainly 2B and 3B it should have been "Death to Bouncing Things!"
Catching pops, bloops, and liners was no easy task in the barehand days. Ferguson notched some amazing putout numbers at third. (For most of his career, I suppose that did include many fouls on the first bounce. On a moderately hard surface with lots of flat open space --how common was that?-- a third- or firstbaseman might have ranged quite far indeed.)
In 1953 Medwick was not yet eligible. Jennings was 12th in the overall voting and 20th with 4 mentions at #16-20.
Last year neither of them was among the top 15 and I didn't keep my tally so can't tell you what the differential was. But they would have been down to 3 mentions or fewer. I'm quite sure both got mentions, however. So the difference couldn't have been more than 2 ballots either way.
But that, of course, is not counting the half of the electorate who didn't provide the info.
I don't do this every year, you know. But this year was interesting enough to give it a shot. In the following list, the second name is the most similar voter to the first name, and the number is a similarity score on a 0-100 scale.
Adam Schafer Daryn 66Al Peterson dan b 71
Andrew M Dan G 75
andrew siegel jschmeagol 75
Brad G Mike Webber 76
Brent Tiboreau 84
Chris Cobb Dan G 74
Chris J Dan G 74
dan b Jeff M 76
Dan G Andrew M 75
Daryn Rusty Priske 74
David Foss jschmeagol 65
Devin McCullen OCF 57
Dolf Lucky Patrick W 63
Don F SWW 78
Dr. Chaleeko Tiboreau 59
Eric C Chris J 67
Esteban Rivera Mark Donelson 68
favre Chris J 63
Gadfly Jeff M 48
Howie Menckel Chris J 72
Jeff M dan b 76
Jim Sp Eric C 67
jimd Andrew Siegel 66
Joe Dimino Howie Menckel 64
John Murphy KJOK 53
jschmeagol Tiboreau 79
karlmagnus Daryn 56
Ken Fischer Al Peterson 63
KJOK David Foss 55
Mark Donelson sunnyday2 75
Michael Bass Brent 73
Mike Webber Brad G 76
OCF Trevor P 69
Patrick W Thane of Bagarth 67
PhillyBooster Daryn 62
Rick A Ron Wargo 66
Rob Wood Trevor P 65
Ron Wargo Rick A 66
Rusty Priske Daryn 74
Sean Gilman Rick A 61
sunnyday2 Mark Donelson 75
SWW Don F 78
Thane of Bagarth Patrick W 67
Tiboreau Brent 84
TomH Dan G 75
Trevor P OCF 69
yest Adam Schafer 56
Michael Bass - sunnyday2 is only an agreement score of 48, so that wasn't a very good guess.
The single lowest agreement score is, unsurprisingly, Gadfly - karlmagnus at 5, although Gadfly was in single-figure agreement with several other voters, including me.
That's because we're not conformists. :-)
Interesting group of HOMer teammates for Jennings, ranging from Kelley-Brouthers-Keeler in the early days to McGinnity-Sheckard-Dahlen-Flick-Delahanty later on.
1900 Brooklyn becomes the 9th team with 6 HOMers (Dahlen Keeler Kelley McGinnity Sheckard Jennings).
All-time leaders still are 1927-28 Philadelphia A's with 7 (Cobb ECollins Cochrane Simmons Grove Foxx, plus Wheat in '27 and Speaker in '28).
Any chance of me finding out who my most similar voter was last election?
Thanks,
Kelly IN SD
Kelly from SD - Brent : 59
With 49 voters there are a total of 735 ballot slots available worth a total of 9,947 points.
Pitchers have 251 of those ballot slots (34.1%) for 3,723 points (37.4%).
To really draw any conclusions we would want to know what the percentage of pitcher balloting has been throughout the whole process. And it yndoubtedly is less on average, this being an elect-a-pitcher year.
It might be more accurate to look just at the backlog where pitchers have 204 ballots and 2,799 points out of 660 and 8,580, or 30.9% and 32.6%.
I'm not sure that this is valid and especially whether it tracks our history, but if we are casting 31-37 percent of our votes for pitchers and have only elected 28 percent, then we are distributing our pitcher votes more widely than our position player votes.
So here I am with Tommy Bond on my ballot, but just as food for thought here are the top half and bottom half of pitcher vote-getters.
TOP HALF
5. Ruffing
6. Ferrell
8. Griffith
9. Rixey
GAP
20. Redding
21. Welch
22. Mendez
26. Waddell
27. Walters
29. Grimes
GAP
41. Bridges
43. Dean
BOTTOM HALF
48. Trout
51. Willis
52. Joss and Leonard
55. Mays
57. Newsom
60. Cicotte
62. Bond
65. Luque
68. Matlock
71. Gomez
72. Leever
I s'pose it would be strategic voting to say that we ought to see if there is anyway to shift some votes from the bottom half to the top half, from Willis and Joss to Waddell, for instance, or Matlock and Luque to Mendez, or Leonard and Newsom to Ruffing, or Mays to Grimes, etc. etc. No, I didn't think that would be legal. But maybe everybody oughta do a bona fide pitcher re-evalution. Otherwise, I don't see how we're going to get near 30-33 percent.
1962: Bob Feller, Ellis Kinder (RP)
1964: Bob Lemon, Virgil Trucks (possible war credit), Sal Maglie (possible war credit, plus MxL and other credit)
1966: Don Newcombe
1967: Johnny Antonelli (possible war credit)
1969: Early Wynn
1970: Billy Pierce (my personal stealth candidate)
1971: Warren Spahn
1972: Robin Roberts and Sandy Koufax
1973: Whitey Ford, Lew Burdette, and Stu Miller (RP)
1975: Don Drysdale
1977: Jim Bunning
1978: Hoyt Wilhelm (RP)
1980: Juan Marichal
There's a lot of pitchers in that group that are either NBs or who fit the mold of pitchers who are currently receiving heavy support.
Meanwhile, between now and 1980, we'll elect something like 10-12 backloggers. If we go by 1960's results, we'll end up electing Ruffing, Ferrell, Griffith, and Rixey as well.
THEN we start getting into the big winners of the 1960s/1970s, and if things haven't evened out by that point, they soon will because Gibson, Palmer, Carlton, Sutton, Ryan, Blyleven, and their cohorts will be popping up onto the ballot about every two to three years, plus we'll have the Firemen of the 1970s/1980s to sort through as well.
As a final hopeful note, we might also have better NgL information by that point as well, so Mendez, Redding, Cooper, Matlock, and others will have a better shot at getting wider support.
I might be overly optimistic, but I do think the whole thing will sort itself out.
And maybe we'll elect a slew of '60s and '70s guys.
But that just casts Chris' question in a slightly different light. That is, rather than "we haven't elected enough pitchers" it becomes "we haven't elected enough pitchers pre-1970," which is of course the precise era when individual pitchers were real workhorses. Is it fair that we might elect Bert Blyleven and not Eppa Rixey? I don't know, but that is what the question will morph to.
Rixey 266-251, 3.15 (116) in 4495 IP
OK, that was just off the top of my head. Not sure it isn't kinda sorta close, but... Also in Bert's favor, a great sense of humor, or so they say.
Here's how I group the pitchers on Dr. Chaleeko's list:
Shoo-Ins: Feller, Wynn, Spahn, Roberts
Serious Candidates: Lemon, Trucks (with war credit), Newcombe (with war credit), Pierce, Koufax, Ford (with war credit?), Drysdale, Bunning, Wilhelm, Marichal
Not Serious candidates: Kinder, Antonelli, Burdette, Miller
No Idea: Maglie
Just to keep pace on pitchers, we should elect 9-10 from this group between 1962 and 1980, which means the four shoo-ins plus 5 or 6 of 10 from the "serious candidates" pool. Then we need three out of the backlog to catch up on our current pitcher deficit, weighing the remainder of the "serious candidates" group against the current backlog.
Of course, we have "The Great Generation" of 1965-1985 pitchers on the horizon, but after that pitching boom comes the 1980s pitching bust, so I see it as both prudent and historically fair to try to keep the HoM pitcher representation close to balanced as we move forward.
Circle Me Bert!
One of the all-time great Berman-isms as well "Be Home" Blyleven.
I have heard that the dugout prankster from the 1980s may have been a bit moodier in the 1970s, perhaps contributing to his strange shutouts-and-shellings distribution of game performances that led to his perennial underperformance versus Pythag. He'll be a fascinating read on Chris J's website.
I guess I'll qualify why I put these specific guys on my list of candidates.
Kinder and Miller are, in fact, serious candidates if compared against other relief pitchers. My own brief study of the matter shows them both to be among the best relievers, compared to their leagues, that we'll encounter. I've looked at about 70 RPs, adjusting their WS in a similar way that I adjust SPs' WS. Kinder ranks about 7th, Miller about 9th. It is, however, an open question whether the HOM as a group will consider pre-1970s relievers in a systematic and serious way. I hope we do.
Antonelli's on this list because his career has numerous breaks in it that I don't know much about. I think he was in the service a couple years at least, and, therfore, may end up being a peak-happy voter's candidate. I doubt it, but I added him JIC.
I added Burdette because others have mentioned his name as a peak candidate.
Relief Pitchers
This is about a 5 year old list, not up to date with active pitchers.
1. Wilhelm 223 (a score of 200 is almost automatic HoF status)
2. Eck 190
3. Quiz 187
4. Sutter 181
5. Goose 172
6. Fingers 170
7. Smith 169
GAP
8. Lyle 140
9. Kinder 130
10. Hiller 124
11. Myers 122
12. Marshall 122
GAP
13. Perranoski 112
14. Radatz 111
15. Face 103
16. Miller 98
17. Marberry 98
18. McDaniel 93
BIG GAP
19. Konstanty 79
20. Grandma 72
I use this list as a first pass, consideration set kind of thing. On further review, Goose Gossage has a peak--I don't remember right now, but it seems like it's about 9 years at 190 ERA+, so he goes up toward the top. He pitched enough innings to dilute that peak where a lot of 'em didn't, but he was better at his peak/prime, just a monster really.
So in short I see Hoyt, Eck and Goose as HoMers.
Quiz, Sutter, Fingers and Smith will have to scrap for spots, though Quiz is criminally underrated.
All the others, no. Miller looks great for his time but not so great in hindsight. Of course, we're not supposed to be voting hindsight, but even without hindsight one has to ask whether he rates ahead of guys like Rixey and Griffith and Dean and Ferrell and, yes, Tommy Bond.
Great for his position is important too.
To me the central question for all relievers is how much great relieving makes a guy better than Rixey, Griffith, Dean, Ferrell, Ruffing, Bond. Or for that matter Sisler, Kiner, or Averill.
If the borderline for relievers is to be drawn near to Eck, then the de facto answer is that five great years of relieving, plus three or four good (but not great) years as a starter can get you into the HOM. Is that equivalent to a Rixey? Or better than Griffith? Or Cool Papa Bell?
Without leverage indices to tell us how earlier relievers were used, we risk losing their sense of value completely, especially since ERA+ will be a less reliable measure of effectiveness with a reliever's lower innings totals.
Well, if you also have another 10-15 seasons as an average to slightly above-average starter or reliever. The peak voter may not notice, but Eckersley does have a 24-year career.
If one sets aside those extra 10-15 seasons, Kinder's career has a somewhat similar shape to Eckersley's, except that he wasn't as good as a starter or a reliever as Eck.
A serious question on Kinder, though, will be, "What was he doing before 1946?" He breaks into the majors at 31, after all.
Without leverage indices to tell us how earlier relievers were used, we risk losing their sense of value completely.
Well, WARP and win shares both make efforts to include a leverage factor in their assessments: neither system simply treats all innings pitched as equal in value. So both these metrics can give us some guidance in these matters, even if they're not perfect.
Well, Eckersley (the starter) does have somewhat better 3-yr (26.9 vs 24.8) and 5-yr (39.3 vs 38.3) peaks than Rixey, measured by WARP. If this makes Eckersley an "average to slightly above-average starter", then what is Rixey? More of the same?
I just assumed he was black. :)
Yes, but both use "Saves" as an indicator for leveraged innings. If reliever usage is dictated by the "fireman model" (use him whenever the inning appears to be critical; popular during the 50's and 60's) instead of the "save model" (save him for the last inning of close games), their leverage adjustments will tend to underestimate the value of the leveraged innings by missing the "fireman innings" whose importance are not captured by the summary stats, but require play-by-play to determine.
His "deadball obituary" says that his professional career started in 1938 (age 23), the war didn't start drafting players en masse until 1943 (age 28), so even withouth the war, he was going to break into the majors fairly late. He was acquired by the Browns from Memphis of the Southern Association before 1946. I suppose there are minor league numbers out there for him somewhere.
» May 17, 1947: A seagull flies over Fenway Park and pelts St. Louis Browns P Ellis Kinder with a 3-pound smelt, missing him by a gill. The unflappable Kinder holds on to top the Red Sox, 4–2, giving up six hits, including Eddie Pellagrini's 3rd homer of the year."
Chris, perhaps its a few years to early to have this discussion, but why do you see Early Wynn as a shoo-in? To me, he looks a lot like Burleigh Grimes. Am I missing something?
Well, I could be proven wrong, but I predict that, as with Hal Newhouser, when the electorate comes to examine Wynn's career closely, he'll be elected very easily.
He does look a lot like Burleigh Grimes as a type, but I think he'll appear _better_ than Grimes in most respects.
The differences between Wynn and Grimes: 1) Wynn is even more durable: he throws 500 more innings in an era in which innings are harder to come by. He has more IP than Ruffing or Rixey. 2) Although he has league quality issues as does Grimes, he does much better by WARP3 than Grimes or Rixey or even Ruffing. 3) He has a better peak than Rixey or Ruffing. Where Grimes seems to generally rank behind R & R, my sense is that Wynn will generally rank ahead of them.
I'm not saying yet that I believe Wynn is definitely worthy, but when I look at him in relation to our standards for long-career pitchers, it looks to me like he will place higher than our high backlog pitchers, who will be elected or on the cusp of election when he becomes eligible.
Thus, I predict easy election.
So here's the question: does anyone know how to calculate Leverage Index? If so, I can either give you data on relievers as we go along and you can crunch it, or else you can tell me how to do, and I'll just do it myself. Either works for me.
Doc,
I'd start here:
Tango Tiger Leverage Articles
Its possible that Tango himself would help you out
If I understand your question, Ruffing is the answer...
Career WARP1
Lyons: 114.8
Wynn: 119.4
Top 5 WARP1
Lyons: 10.6, 10.3, 9.1, 8.8, 8.7
Wynn: 11.3, 9.2, 9.0, 8.1, 7.9
WARP3 treats them about the same as WARP1, owing, I would assume to the AL's very slow integration.
Wynn would appear to have a touch more career, neither are really peak candidates, Lyons looks to have the better prime. I prefer Lyons, but given how quickly he flew in, Lyons minus a touch (which Wynn appears to be) probably is going in soon, too.
Of course, now that I've looked at how Tango does it, I don't think it's feasible for me to do. He's using software to sift through event tables, I'm using, um, Docware to look at game-by-game situations.
However, I think there's a compromise... I think I can at least describe the leverage of the situations Miller (and subsequent relievers) entered into. That's better than nothing.
Tangotiger and Bill James appear to be in agreement on the maximum degree of leveraging that is possible by placing relief aces in highly leveraged situations.
From the conclusion of Tangotiger's article on Sutter, Gossage, and Lee Smith:
The save statistic is perhaps one of the most poorly used statistic in trying to determine the value of a player. We should look beyond the save total to determine a player's true value. Once we get the save numbers out of our mind, we are left with 3 very good pitchers, whose contributions were limited by the innings they threw. The impact of an 80-inning reliever is no more than that of a 160-inning starter. And that's how we should view them.
The key point here is that the maximum leverage gain is 2:1 -- a highly leveraged reliever's innings will be worth twice as much as a starting pitcher's innings.
I dont' have James' quote with me at the moment, but in _Win Shares_ he says essentially the same thing, as he explains why the formula for giving additional innings to relievers for the purpose of calculating win shares is capped at at 2x actual innings.
Tango's studies show that the ninth inning _is_ a high-leverage inning, so well-used modern closers tend to approach a leverage index of 2.0 in their top seasons. Sutter had a career leverage index of 1.9.
We can use this theoretical upper bound and estimates of how closely relievers approached it to estimate how close WARP1 comes to giving the pre-closer top relievers their full value, by comparing our leverage index estimates to the ratio of their xip estimates to actual ip.
This approach isn't perfect, but it may help us to decide at least whether or not to take a relief-pitcher candidate seriously or not.
Tango uses his leverage index to give Sutter 1980 equivalent IP for his 1042 actual IP, and Gossage 2961 IP for his actual 1809 IP. WARP1 xip (based on decisions and saves) gives them 1536 and 2320 equivalent innings pitched, respectively.
We can then pro-rate their WARP1 totals into the more accurate accounting of their leveraged usage value provided by Tangotiger. We won't have as exact an accounting for earlier relievers, but since the "fireman" model seems to fit their usage patterns, we can infer that their leverage index will be similar to later firemen and post-1990 closers.
(WARP1 xip, btw gives Mariano Rivera a leverage index of 1.61, which is probably a bit low, but much closer to his real value than WARP1 gets for the fireman-style relievers.)
Mariano Rivera, for instance, has about 800 career innings. Let's say he retired tomorrow. Max him out at 2:1 and he's at only 1600 innings. The HOM has already established that 1600 innings is not enough for election. In fact, the threshhold is much higher (around 2500 I think). So a reliever must pitch 1250 relief innings at the theoretically highest degree of leverage to even sniff the HOM.
Maybe that's not a bad thing if you think the HOM should have only one reliever in it. If you think it should have three to five relievers, it becomes a problem. I don't know if anyone's talked about how many relievers the HOM should have ideally have, I would guess it's 3-5 by 2007. Could it be more? Should it be less?
As for the "theoretical" upperbound, I think the highest I've found is at 2.3. It is definitely possible to make it 2.5, with proper usage. Using 2.0 is a fair thing to do.
***
It's silly to have a min IP limit, if this is what is being discussed. If a guy is 2 runs per 9 IP better than average, and he pitches 1800 leveraged innings, that makes him 400 runs (40 wins) above average. The gray area would be at 30-35 wins.
But there's this problem:
Lou Brock: 21 G, 92 PA, .391/.424/.651 plus 14-2 as a basestealer.
Ernie Banks: O G, statistics N/A.
If we triple Brock's record and add it to the appropriate seasons, then it makes a distinct difference to his value, especially his peak value. But is doing that fair to Banks?
And that's from the era of the one-layer postseason; never mind cases like Rivera and Smoltz.
As for the notion of a "min IP limit": no one was talking about a strict number there. The reference is really to such cases as Dizzy Dean. With his flashy, 130 ERA+, 2000 IP career, the bulk of our electorate has looked him over and decided that that's not enough.
Also, as for post-season, the danger is that when Mariano becomes eligible, all of a sudden his post-season record will be used as XC, whereas nobody else's post-season record has ever really been discussed.
IOW in order for it to be fair to give Rivera a post-season boost, we really ought to calculate all the other post-season values, all-time, to make sure the list isn't getting skewed. Rivera (or whomever) shouldn't get extra credit nobody else got. It's like giving Ted Williams WWII credit (or more to the point, giving Enos Slaughter and Pee Wee Reese WWII credit) and nobody else.
I'm fine with post-season credit...applied systematically.
Given that my proposal would
(1) raise the value of pre-closer relief aces significantly significantly above the value currently being assigned them in our two main comprehensive metrics and so, if generally accepted, would substantially help relief pitcher candidates
and that
(2) it is consistent with the best current analysis of how much value relief pitchers actually add,
if its general acceptance by the electorate meant that Wilhelm were the only relief pitcher elected, I would be willing to accept that conclusion as appropriate. I don't believe that it is at all likely that we will elect Wilhelm and no others, however,
So a reliever must pitch 1250 relief innings at the theoretically highest degree of leverage to even sniff the HOM.
Obviously, the HoM's eligibility policies mean that no official standard could be set, and as Tangotiger points out, a pitcher's value also depends on how effective he is in the innings he pitches, so no fixed ip standard makes sense. Mariano Rivera, for example, has been so extraordinarily effective (a 196 DERA+ [!!!]) that he would probably not need to reach 1250 ip to be a very strong candidate, esp. considering his post-season resume. (I think he has a pretty good shot at pitching 1250 innings before he's done, anyway.)
That said, for pre-1990 relievers, 1250 IP is by no means an extraordinary IP total. Wilhelm is far beyond it, as are McDaniel, Gossage, and Fingers. Elroy Face tops it, as does Lee Smith. Stu Miller probably has 1100 relief innings plus 600 starter innings, so he would seem above 2500 equivalent innings. Eckersley obviously isn't hurting for ip. Ellis Kinder and Bruce Sutter seem like they fall short of that threshold, but I don't think the record of relievers' innings pitched suggests that we would be setting the bar too high by looking, except in cases of mind-boggling effectiveness per inning, for 1250 or more outstanding innings from a relief pitcher for that pitcher to be a serious candidate for induction.
But what if I said that we need to have a pinch hitter in the HoM? You'd say, well, so-and-so may have pinch hit .400 with an all-time high in pinch hits (I'm making this up) but I going 200 for 500 is just not enough career bulk, and I would have to agree.
So, similarly, if we decide that pinch-pitchers with 1000 IP just don't have enough bulk even if their ERA is 2.00 or even less, again, I don't see that that conclusion would be wrong or unfair.
Dean has almost 2000 IP with a 130 ERA+.
As of this season, doubling his IP for leverage, Rivera has about 1600 IP, with a 190 ERA+.
Those 60 ERA+ points would likely be the major difference in the electorate's view of those two pitchers.
1835-1839 1-0 Pearce
1840-1844 1-0 Start
1845-1849 3-0 Pike, Wright, White
1850-1854 9-0 Barnes, McVey, O'Rourke, Spalding, Sutton, Hines, Anson, Bennett, Radbourn
1855-1859 11-0 Richardson, Stovey, Galvin, Keefe, Gore, Connor, Kelly, Brouthers, Glasscock, Ewing, McPhee
1860-1864 4-0 Ward, Thompson, Clarkson, Caruthers
1865-1869 7-1 Grant(?), Hamilton, Young, Delahanty, Burkett, Jennings, Nichols
1870-1874 12-1 Dahlen, JCollins, Davis, McGinnity, Rusie, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Wallace, Wagner, GJohnson, Lajoie
1875-1879 5-1 Plank, Flick, MBrown, Sheckard, RFoster
1880-1884 6-2 Crawford, Hill, Mathewson, Walsh, Lloyd, Magee
1885-1889 13-2 Williams, Baker, Cobb, Alexander, ECollins, WJohnson, Speaker, Wheat, Faber, Coveleski, Jackson, Rogan, Groh
1890-1894 4-1 Carey, Santop, Vance, Heilmann
1895-1899 7-3 Ruth, Torriente, Hornsby, Charleston, Frisch, Terry, Wilson
1900-1904 14-4 Grove, Goslin, Hartnett, Lyons, Suttles, Stearnes, Beckwith, Simmons, Cochrane, Waner, Gehringer, Gehrig, Hubbell, BFoster
1905-1909 12-5 Dihigo, Paige, Cronin, Appling, Dickey, Leonard, Foxx, RBrown, Wells, Ott, Herman, Hack
1910-1914 5-1 Greenberg, Gibson, Vaughan, Mize, DiMaggio
1915-1919 1-0 Boudreau
1920-1924 1-0 Newhouser
We have debated before whether a decade is over or under represented. There is an interesting pattern in the above data which may indicate that 15 years is a more useful grouping. At the very least, it indicates that there were HOM-clusters every 15 years during the early years of baseball, forming distinct generations.
Grouping up:
1835-1849: 5-0 (Pioneers; Pearce to G.Wright)
1850-1864: 24-0 (Barnes,McVey to Thompson,Clarkson)
1865-1879: 24-3 (Hamilton,Young,Grant to MBrown,Sheckard,RFoster)
1880-1894: 23-5 (Crawford,Hill,Mathewson to Santop,Vance,Heilmann)
1895-1909: 33-12 (Ruth,Torriente,Hornsby to Wells,Ott,Hack)
1910-1924: 7-1 (just starting; Greenberg,Gibson to Minoso?,Hodges?)
Viewed this way, it appears clear that we may have overelected somewhat from the group that was born 1895-1909, i.e. that peaked between 1920-1935 (give or take a couple of years). How many extra depends on how many we expected to elect from that group, based on "a pennant is a pennant". Although it does appear that we have elected both a full complement of MLB players, plus a healthy selection of NeL'ers.
For releivers, as with most players, I will only give postseaon credit in extreme positive situations, a la Rivera. I won't give it to someone who played in a lot of playoff games and was ordinary (tino) or someone who was bad (Bonds, pre 2002). I think I may give some to Ford, for instance.
Is this fair to those who never got in? No, not really, but inthe extremely positive situation, can you really say that Banks would have the post-season record of a Reggie Jackson? Jackson did have his postseason record and deserves some credit for it. Below him, in teh ordinary range, I don't think credit is really due. Oh, and somple size matters here to. 10 great at bats won't count, or won't really help.
As for post-season, I would be very careful about comparing post-season performance between generations. OTOH using it as a tie-breaker between contemporaries has a certain appeal.
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