hot topics

Someone is going to get more than 6 "elect me" votes this time!

I have Feller as a RA+ Pythpat equivalent record of 254-171, with more on my "big year bonus" than anyone since Grove and Hubbell. I had Ruffing #1 on my ballot last year. I'd put Feller and Ruffing as close, but I'll tip it to Feller for peak value. Not too far behind Hubbell, and pretty clearly on the right side of the in/out line.

I see a line of pitchers that runs from Amos Rusie through Feller to Nolan Ryan. Who else is in that club? And how do they differ?

I'd put Feller and Ruffing as close, but I'll tip it to Feller for peak value.

I personally see a lot of daylight between Feller and Ruffing. Rapid Robert will be #2 on my ballot.

And, in 1962, let's raise a glass to toast Dummy Hoy and his long wonderful journey through life, much as we raise a glass to Double Duty Radcliffe in 2005.

Partial Prelim Off the Top of My Head

1. Jackie Robinson--not close
2. Bob Feller--not close in either direction
3. Dobie Moore--down from #1
4. Joe Medwick
5. George Sisler
6. Tommy Bond
7. Pete Browning
8. Ralph Kiner
9. Monte Irvin--but this deserves a lot more thought before it is even a prelim.

I have Feller at 1, Jackie at 8, just below Joss, who looks a close comp (even if you add 3 more years to Jackie, he's still only just 2000 hits), and being dead was just as much of a disadvantage as being African American. Irvin's at 22, just above Oms (his OPS+ of 126 is pretty unimpressive for an outfielder, and he had only 731 hits; even if you treble the hits and add 10 OPS+ points it's still not that impressive.)

IMHO, Robinson and Irvin, while both fine players, are the most overrated players in baseball history except possibly Koufax and Dean. Even so, Robinson's a fairly easy HOMer, though not Irvin in my view.

Let me just say here that I always thought "The Money Store" was an absolutely ridiculous name for a business. That's all I have to say about that.

Except, when he was playing for the Yankees, Scooter lived in Newark and his daughter went to grade school in a Newark public school with my father.

Besides that, I have no idea whether he'll be on my ballot or not. How much credit do you give a guy who (by WARP3) had only 2 seasons from age 28 on (post-war) as good as his 2 pre-war seasons at age 23 and 24. He had good years and bad years, but there's really no "pattern" to hook on to.

Like Kiner, I've also met Rizzuto.
I was waiting for an elevator near Scooter at the Yankees' home opener this year, and the delay gave the photo hounds a chance to pounce.
Phil has aged a lot in the past year or two, alas, and he's pretty frail now. But he gamely posed with a couple of kids who obviously have no idea who he is.

I rode that same elevator with Rizzuto and Bill White, his longtime broadcast partner, about 15 years ago. About as funny a 45 seconds as I can remember.
I know other people who know "The Scooter" pretty well, all speak quite highly of him.
Not relevant to HOM voting, but cool that these are living contemporaries!

Not exactly a prelim ballot, but here's what I know so far:

I will have Feller/Robinson #1 and #2.

Monte Irvin will need careful consideration.

Phil Rizzuto and Al Rosen will not make my top 30.

I and others should not forget about Bus Clarkson. Dr. Chaleeko's fine work on him shows that he's a serious candidate.

Ellis Kinder should get more attention. From what I've seen so far, I'm doubtful that he's really a serious candidate. But we should at least try to refine our analysis.

It'll be easy at the top this year, but down ballot there should be a lot of action.

NEWBIES ESTIMATE:

1. Feller
2. Robinson
11. Clarkson
12. Irvin

OFF BALLOT
Thompson
Rizzuto

Pretty strong class this time...

Can we get Feller and Rizzuto threads? Probably a Rosen thread as well because he's peakerific enough to be considered. Thanks.

Karl,

How does your system have Robinson as overrated? I see him as one of the most underrated PLAYERS ever. Everyone always sees him as the first black MLBer, however he had a monster peak (a great offensive force combined with gold glove defense at two different positions) with his normal peak-age seasons being absorbed in the minor leagues. Maybe he would have actually peaked in his 30's, but chances are he was still a damn fine player in his early to mid twenties as well.

And he was in the minor leagues, not because MLB didn't know that he was MLB caliber, but because he was black and there needed to be a test ground. his 1946 season was huge. He probblby deserves war credit as well.

I htink he is the 4th best 2Bman ever, behind the big three of Morgan, Hornsby, and Collins. He may even be as good as them.

As for Feller how much war credit is being given by most? As a peak voter I don't really care if he could still throw later in his career. He seems to have missed his best years. Had he traded two peak years for the final five years of his career (isn't this the downside to giving a pitcher war credit?) he would rank even higher. More like a 1a. instead of a 2.

And lastly, does Al Rosen interest anyone else? Monster peak, kinda like a Jennings-lite. Being two years, next three years or so not as good, then nothing.

Oh, and to me, Rizzuto with my war credit is like a duplicate of Joe Sewell, just not as consistent.

David, I'll set them up tomorrow morning, including any NeL pages for prominent new candidates of '63.

I too see Rizzuto as not close to the ballot. Yes, there's war credit, yes there's one great season, yes there's a glove, but I dunno. It just doesn't seem to add up. Not at all clear that he's better than Lundy or Bancroft, probably better than Maranville and Tinker.

Shortstops eligible now and through 1969

1. Dobie Moore
2. Pee Wee Reese
3. Vern Stephens
4. Joe Sewell
5. Dick Lundy
6. Dave Bancroft
7. Phil Rizutto--close to Bancroft
8. Is Clarkson a SS? I have him here but can't remember if he's a SS!
9. Perucho Cepeda--a wild guess
10. Rabbit Maranville
11. Johnny Pesky
12. Joe Tinker
13. Dick Bartell
14. Herman Long
15. Art Fletcher
16. Ray Chapman

Al Rosen OTOH is an interesting candidate. I don't see him making my ballot, but how many 3Bs have a higher OPS+ and more defensive WS? Two.

Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews. Period.

How many have a higher WS peak? Six.

1. Baker
2. Schmidt
3. Matthews
4. Santo
5. Boggs
6. Brett
7. Rosen

David, I'll set them up tomorrow morning, including any NeL pages for prominent new candidates of '63.

Thanks John, you rule as usual!

And lastly, does Al Rosen interest anyone else? Monster peak, kinda like a Jennings-lite. Being two years, next three years or so not as good, then nothing.

You know, he's probably not going to get many (any?) votes due to the major career length issue. He did manage to be Eddie Mathews two years before Eddie did and his 1953 season is on the short list of best all-time seasons for the position. We've had threads for lesser players, but I suppose it wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't get one.

I have Rizzuto as clearly better than Bancroft as he has a peak. I think anyone who loves defense at SS and weighs that very heavily should really look into Rizzuto, especially if you like Sewell.

However, for me Rizzuto isn't really ballot material.

How many have a higher WS peak? Six.

1. Baker
2. Schmidt
3. Matthews
4. Santo
5. Boggs
6. Brett
7. Rosen

But if you're going to talk 3B peak's, McGraw should be in the conversation...

He can be in the conversation, but his WS peak as opposed to rate is not this high.

He can be in the conversation, but his WS peak as opposed to rate is not this high.

He does get a bit of a boost due to season length adjustments. My head is spinning thinking of all of those factors of 162/154 flying around these charts. Does the longer season help Santo/Boggs/Brett pass Rosen?

I had forgotten how much WS loves HomeRun Baker's peak. Wow.

1. Feller (PHOM 1962)
2. Robinson (PHOM 1962)(could switch)

3. Welch (PHOM 1901)
4. C Jones (PHOM 1906)
5. Browning (PHOM 1921)
6. Ferrell (PHOM 1958)
7. Keller (PHOM 1957)
8. Duffy (PHOM 1919)
9. Walters (PHOM 1958)
10. Trouppe (PHOM 1960)
11. Ohms
12. Irvin
13. Brown
14. Willis (PHOM 1942)
15. Easter
16. Grimes (PHOM 1961)
17. Moore
18. Van Haltren (PHOM 1939)
19. Roush (PHOM 1940)
20. Cooper
21. Mackey
22. Childs (PHOM 1932)
23. Burns (PHOM 1938)
24. Leach
25. Ruffing
26. Medwick

Rizzuto? Even with 3 years of war credit, he is about 85th - 90th. Clarkson is about 60th - 65th (lack of big prime). Rosen is about 55th - 60th without any adjustments or credits.

I have been very good (imo) about not letting personal feelings get in the way of my analysis of the candidates. I figure that they have to prove it to me, or they don't get my vote.

Until this year.

My top 2 candidates did not make my ballot when I ran the numbers. I looked and looked and just couldn't do it. We are dealing with one of the most IMPORTANT players in the history of baseball along with my favorite pitcher ever.

I do not think they are out of place at the top of my ballot, so, barring any major complaints, I am keeping them there.

So, here is my prelim ballot.

1. Jackie Robinson
2. Bob Feller
3. Red Ruffing
4. George Van Haltren
5. Willard Brown
6. Eppa Rixey
7. Joe Medwick
8. Jake Beckley
9. Biz Mackey
10. Cool Papa Bell
11. Mickey Welch
12. Tommy Leach
13. George Sisler
14. Dobie Moore
15. Hugh Duffy

16-20. Roush, Irvin, Rice, Ryan, Childs
21-25. Griffith, Monroe, Powell, Trouppe, Doerr
26-30. White, H. Smith, Streeter, Gleason, Redding

Posted by KJOK on October 03, 2005 at 10:24 PM (#1660755)
NEWBIES ESTIMATE:

1. Feller
2. Robinson
11. Clarkson
12. Irvin

KJOK,
Why do you place Clarkson 11? I see some things that are interesting in his career lines, but I don't see anything that make me think ballot worthy. I see you had Bob Elliot at number 12 on the previous ballot, how would you contrast Bus and Bob.

To me is looks like maybe he is Ron Cey, or Vern Stephens, which makes him a little less than ballot worthy.
Thanks,
Mike

Monte Irvin: When you prorate his MLEWS to 162 games and compare him against other corner OFs, the guys he falls next to are Clemente, Oms, Winfield, Goslin, Billy Williams, and Keeler. Not inner circle, but more meritorious IMO than Earl Averill or Joe Medwick or Red Ruffing.

Phil Rizzuto: That MVP season ends up boosting him up into my SS consideration set, where he's on the fringe near to Wallace and Herman Long, but behind Boudreau. He's a little ahead of Stephens.

Bus Clarkson: There's still small gaps in our knowledge about him, however, the picture we've got seems pretty fleshed out. He's between Gordon and Sewell in my rankings.

Feller and Robinson: #1 and #2 or #2 and #1. I'm not sure it matters either way. Feller comes out somewhere in Hubbell's vicinity for me too. That's with no war credit. While Robinson's in the area of Alomar and Gehringer. He could be better, but that's where he is right now, and it's good enough to get an elect-me slot.

Hank Thompson: I wish he'd had a full career; he's a great Moneyball player.

Ellis Kinder: With pbp data or full game logs at retrosheet, I've no concept of his usage. He looks like a shorter-career version of Eck to me, though without the SP peaks.

Al Rosen: I rank Rosen as the 23rd best 3B career ever as-is. I do wonder if there's any war credit or MLE credit to be had here. After adjusting everyone to 162 games, his 3-year WS totals are 3rd among 20th-century 3Bs, and his 5-year total is sixth. He's really good, and we should carefully review him just in case.

Oh, someone asked about Clarkson's position. As best I can tell, he would have been a SS for roughly the first half of his career, then a 3B the second half. In reality he played SS/3B most of his career.

Rusty,

What numbers are you running where Feller and Robinson aren't ballot worthy?

What numbers are you running where Feller and Robinson aren't ballot worthy?

At any rate, your system needs an overhaul.

I can't speak for Rusty (and Feller tops my ballot), but Robinson without any non-ML is not that impressive for a career voter.

Daryn hit it on the money. I am a career voter who likes Win Shares. Both men come up short.

I often alter these rankings when I find evidence that shows me that it is missing something that I think is valuable.

In the case of these two fellows I am just saying, 'screw it. I know that they belong on the top of the ballot so I am putting them there without running around trying to drum up justification'.

This is not something I normally do.

In the case of these two fellows I am just saying, 'screw it. I know that they belong on the top of the ballot so I am putting them there without running around trying to drum up justification'.

This is not something I normally do.

I have done that when my system gives me a bizarre answer now and then.

Daryn hit it on the money. I am a career voter who likes Win Shares. Both men come up short.

Yeah, I understand its good to have both career voters and peak voters, but I think you might be overdoing it a bit with Feller. 3827 IP is good for 46th on the all time list.

KJOK,
Why do you place Clarkson 11? I see some things that are interesting in his career lines, but I don't see anything that make me think ballot worthy. I see you had Bob Elliot at number 12 on the previous ballot, how would you contrast Bus and Bob.

A 120 OPS+ SS for 8,533 PA's make him a better hitter than Quincy Trouppe, who I have as equal to Gary Carter, so Clarkson, as primarily a SS, moves slightly ahead of him AND slightly ahead of Bob Elliot who's at #13...

My question with Clarkson is what kind of a fielder was he? My impression is that he wasn't any better than a C fielder, which is why he was constantly being shifted around the infield. I think the comparison to Elliott is an apt one in as much as I think Clarkson could probably have been a good defensive 3B instead of a so-so SS.

Or am I wrong in my assessment of his defense? I'll gladly defer to the experts!

Feller is 29th in Win Shares of the players I am currently tracking.

The certainly doesn't doom him to a 29th place vore or anything, but it is a BIG jump from there to the top of the ballot.

Jackie Robinson is 51st. Another big jump.

Nevertheless, I am willing to make those jumps.

(It should be noted, that before I made thsoe changes, Satchel Paige and Jud Wilson were going to be my PHoM entries, clearing up some backlog. Maybe next year.)

Rusty,

This should be seen as evidence that us peak voters are right! ;-)

Feller: six time WARP All-Star in the 10 years from 1938-1947 (considering he lost 1942-45 to WWII, he couldn't have done any better). Best player in baseball 1940, 1946. He needs WWII credit to get even with Lefty Grove, not to get into the HOM.

Robinson: with NO war credit and NO NeL credit, he's just behind Jennings. 6 time WARP All-Star from 1948-1953. Best player in baseball 1951 and 1949 (by a whisker over Ted), and part of the discussion for 1952. This is a 2B-man, aged 29-34, when most are fading away. Give him any kind of comparable credit for WWII and NeL years, and he's inner-circle.

Just my opinions.

This should be seen as evidence that us peak voters are right! ;-)

I do agree :-), but even putting on the "career voter blinders" for a bit, I see:

122 ERA+ in 3827.0 IP

What's not to like there? A bit behind Hubbell, perhaps, but I'd figure he'd be ahead of Ruffing and Rixey fairly easily.

well apparently his career WS are low (though that is going happen more and more the closer we get to the modern era) and don't rixey and Ruffing have over 4000 IP, especially with war credit factored in.

But I see your point David, Feller is as easy a #2 as Jackie is a #1 for me. The question for me is, does Irvin rank above Ferrell, Medwick, and Duffy?

well apparently his career WS are low (though that is going happen more and more the closer we get to the modern era)

For his era and position, his WS are outstanding.

1962 prelim.

The most similar ML career age 28+ to Robinson's so far is Gehringer's, and that seems like a reasonable level of extrapolation. #1 on prelim.

Feller is #2. Nothing against him, just think that a Gehringer-type career at 2B is a greater accomplishment than a Feller-type pitching career.

Rizzuto was a defensive star who lost 3 years of his probable peak to the war. He gets more war credit in my system than any other player so far, but makes it only to #14. But hey, I've got lots of infielders on my ballot.

Based only on extrapolation of his major league performance, Irvin would not even be in the top 100. But I put enough trust in his historic reputation to place him at #15.

Rosen had a meteoric rise and fall. His high peak/low games total is a little like McGraw's. Not enough there to make my ballot.

Kinder has a good argument to be the greatest relief pitcher so far. But when a starter such as Brecheen can put up a superior ERA+ performance for more innings (even adjusted for WWII), I can't give Kinder the kind of bonus that would be necessary to even come close to my ballot.

1. Jackie Robinson.
2. Bob Feller
3. Wally Schang
4. Joe Sewell
5. Red Ruffing
6. Joe Gordon
7. Bobby Doerr
8. Charlie Keller
9. Tommy Bridges
10. Cool Papa Bell
11. Joe Medwick
12. Lefty Gomez
13. Jose Mendez
14. Phil Rizzuto
15. Monte Irvin

Joe Sewell continues his slide, as two more backlogged players passed him this ballot.

A little review: Great defensive shortstop. Very good hitter for a shortstop. By far the outstanding MLB SS of his day, altho it was a weak position at the time; but he had tremendous value to this teams.

Here's a good comparison. Does Alan Trammell strike everyone as a HoMer? Three time silver slugger award, 4 time gold glove winner. Tell me Sewell wouldn't have trumped those awards if they had existed in his day? Sewell's OWP and EqA are higher than Mr. Trammell's. His FRAA is about as good. Yes, you can adjust for competition and say Alan is more deserving. Yes, Trammell had more career length - part of that is he was in the majors at age 19. Neither man led the league in a major category, but Sewell did lead in doubles once, and both wee on the MLB leaderboard in multiple impt categories. Both came close to wining an MVP (Trammell 2nd once, Sewell 3rd and 4th).

I assume Alan Trammell will be a HoMer. I think Joe ought to be one as well. Those who vote for Scooter next week, does Rizzuto's admittedly great defense make up for the large difference in offensive abilities? In the immortal words of Al on Home Improvement, "I don't think so, Tim".

I'd been meaning to make this comparison:

Clarkson 315 32-26-25/115
Sewell 277 29-29-26/125

And then:

Stephens 265 34-32-27/129

Clarkson .285-.371-.435/120 in 8500 PAs
Sewell .312-.391-.413/109 in 8000 AB+BB
Stephens .286-.355-.460/118 in 7200 AB+BB

Clarkson had a longer career than Stephens but then everything hinges on whether he would have had a longer career in the MLs or not. At a glance they seem similar otherwise.

But note that while Stephens is the one whose defense is often questioned, he is the only one of the three who played his entire prime at SS, and even moved Johnny Pesky off the spot at one time. My bullshit dump says that Clarkson's ML career wouldn't have been 8500 PAs and that Stephens' defense was better than reputed. So I would rank the three Stephens, Clarkson, Sewell.

He probably won't get a vote but I wanted to bring up Howie Pollet. Besides some really good years for the Cards he pitched lights out in Houston of the Texas League for two years. Check it out from Texas-League.com:

Howie Pollet, Houston 1940-41…
Pollet was 20-7 and 20-3 in his two seasons at Houston. In 1941 he led the league with a 1.16 ERA. Only one other pitcher, Walt Dickson at 1.06 in 1916, has had a lower ERA in league history.

Add in the following facts as well. Howie left mid 1943 for WWII (doing very well first half of the year) and was gone thru 1945. 1946 he returned and was rode hard down the stretch to get the Cards to the WS, causing his 1947 and 1948 campaigns to be pitched with arm injuries before bouncing back.

His story makes for a pretty good "what-if" had conditions been different.

We all know that comparing across eras is hard, and that two very similar players can end up 30-40 spots apart on our ballots. I thought it would be interesting to submit prelim. ballots by era/cohort.

ML Peak/Prime Lively Ball 1920-

1. Jackie Robinson
2. Bob Feller
3. Joe Medwick
4. Ralph Kiner
(4a. Stan Hack)
5. Joe Gordon
6. Vern Stephens
7. Bobby Doerr
8. Charlie Keller
9. Eppa Rixey
10. Bob Johnson
11. Dizzy Dean
12. Joe Sewell
13. Bob Elliott
14. Hack Wilson
15. Chuck Klein

Negro Leagues

1. Dobie Moore
2. Monte Irvin
3. Jose Mendez
(3a. John Beckwith)
4. Willard Brown
5. Dick Redding
6. Quincy Trouppe
7. Alejandro Oms
8. Bill Monroe
9. Hilton Smith
10. Cool Papa Bell
11. Bill Byrd
12. Andy Cooper
13. Dick Lundy
14. Biz Mackey
15. Leroy Matlock

Deadball

1. George Sisler
2. Rube Waddell
3. Addie Joss
4. Larry Doyle
5. Gavy Cravath
6. Eddie Cicotte
7. Edd Roush
8. Roger Bresnahan
(8a. Jimmy Sheckard)
9. Wilbur Cooper
10. Bobby Veach

19C

1. Tommy Bond
2. Pete Browning
3. Ed Williamson
4. Charley Jones
5. Hugh Duffy
6. Mike Tiernan
7. Cupid Childs
8. Jim McCormick
(8a. Willie Keeler)
9. Tony Mullane
10. Fred Dunlap

And for the record, since the list on top has newbies every year and the others are done with that, I would expect my ballot to have 50 percent from that list, and 50 percent from the other lists in an average year.

Sunnyday2, your system doesn't work, because of overlaps. Beckley and Welch have to be on there somewhere.

Overlaps in eras? I don't rank them by era first and then blend them, I just pulled these out of my BIG list.

But Welch is of course 19c and he is next at #11.

Beckley, good point, I don't know where I would put him in terms of era. Because of his lack of peak,I have never given him a lot of thought. If I put him in 19C he would be after Welch-McGraw-(Joe Kelley)-Silver King-Jake Beckley (#14). If I put him in deadball he would be in the same place on the big list but after Veach-Leach-Beckley (#12).

Sisler was not a clear cut case either, Roush a little easier, etc. etc.

This is off-topic, but I'm not sure where to post it.

The 1954 Ballot Discussion Thread is missing.

Try it now, Guapo.

Still not working for me.

The link on the Important Links page is to:

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/1954_ballot_discussion

Am I doing something wrong?

OK, it worked when I tracked it down from the archives. I guess the Important Links page just needs to be fixed. Thanks, John.

Initial reactions:

(1) Feller (new)--I love Jackie Robinson and fully expected to have him number 1, but, having never looked at Feller's records before, I was simply blown away. He's an easy HoMer w/o/ war credit and is the easiest case for big chunks of high-level war credit I've ever seen. He's Hubbell plus war credit or Grove minus his minor league credit. And to find comps you have to look backwards or jump forward 30 years. An all-time top 15 pitcher, very possibly top 10.

(2) Robinson (new)--I'm with the fans. The number 4 2B of all-time.

(3) Van Haltren (1st)
(4) Moore (2nd)

(5) Monte Irvin (new)--He's very much in the mix with the other OF's on the ballot. This placement is based on an assessment that he was a tick better than Oms and Duffy.

(6) Wes Ferrell (4th)
(7) Cupid Childs (5th)
(8) Eppa Rixey (6th)
(9) Alejandro Oms (7th)
(10) Hugh Duffy (8th)
(11) Red Ruffing (9th)
(12) George Sisler (10th)
(13) Joe Medwick (11th)
(14) Edd Roush (12th)
(15) Jimmy Ryan (14th)--He, Mackey, Sewell, and Beckley are effectively even in my system. One of them will claim the last spot.

I can see the argument for Rizutto but it requires giving him the benefit of the doubt on virtually every assumption or question. I'm inclined to see him as similar to Bancroft, Long, and Tinker, which would put him in the top 100, but not in the top 50.

I'm dubious about Clarkson's defense; at best, he's the Larry Doyle of the Negro League candidates. He's around number 40 for me right now.

Al Rosen's peak was great, but the reason Hughie Jennings got in on five years of play was that he was more valuable on defense than any other non-pitcher ever. 1940s-1950s 3B simply didn't hgave enough defensive resposibility to create a 5-year HoMer (unless the guy hit like Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds at his peak). He's out of the top 50; somewhere in Chuck Klein territory.

I guess the Important Links page just needs to be fixed.

With the new changeover taking place, almost all of our files have been either closed or archived. Once I opened it again, that thread was okay to access again.

But note that while Stephens is the one whose defense is often questioned, he is the only one of the three who played his entire prime at SS, .

Maybe this depends on your def'n of "prime"? Both moved to 3B at the age of 30.

WARP defensive ratings:
SS: 102 in 1300G - 3B: 103 in 300G -- Stephens (Offense: 112)
SS: 107 in 1200G - 3B: 104 in 600G -- Sewell (Offense: 110)

In BP's opinion, Sewell was worth more defensively at SS, about 5 runs per hundred games, though Stephens was worth more with the bat (about 2 runs per hundred games). At 3B, the two are close to identical, though Stephens did not last as long (he declined more quickly). Sewell got about two extra full season equivalents at the end, though Stephens came up one season earlier.

The career difference is about 1.3 extra (154G) seasons for Sewell, plus more value per season while playing SS, for a 20.1 WARP difference in career to his advantage. At this level of player, these differences make a large impact on the player ratings.

Since this year's election is essentially a foregone conclusion - let me ask the group a question:

Who, in your opinion, is the best player totally off everyone's radar? In other words the best player that you can't even remember the last time appeared on any ballot.

I'd say Urban Shocker. Discuss.

Good question, Chris?

Players - I think it is definitely Mike Tiernan.

Pitchers - I'd agree that Shocker is it.

BP sees Rizzuto and Stephens as flip sides of the coin. Rizzuto's D was about as valuable as Stephen's O, while Stephen's D was about as ordinary as Rizzuto's O (above average though).

However, the extras weigh in favor of Rizzuto. Stephens played during the war, and those seasons need to be discounted somewhat. Rizzuto lost prime time to the war, and deserves extra credit for that. Is it enough to make my ballot? I think he's close, but not quite.

jimd's comment raises a methodological point.

Stephens played during the war and we discount those seasons.

Rizzuto was in the military so we give XC for the war years and in effect we give full credit for what he *would have done* based on pre- and post-war baseball (no discount). But if Rizutto had indeed played during the war, wouldn't those years get discounted, too?

Or if we project him into a world in which WWII hadn't occurred, then Stephens wouldn't get discounted either.

It seems that in a head to head comp like this one, the method(s) unfairly advantage(s) Rizzuto.

Marc--

But isn't the idea that, in that world in which WWII never happened, the heightened competition (because of the players not away at war) would have meant Stephens's numbers would be lower than they were? That's the way I've always taken it. So docking Stephens and extrapolating Rizzuto isn't inconsistent at all.

Am I wrong about that?

Best player not on a ballot: Long, Poles, or Arlett (who are in the same viscinity as one another in my world)
Best pitcher not on a ballot: Easy---Wilbur Cooper by a landslide.

Am I wrong about that?

I don't think you're wrong about it. Like sunnyday2 said about Rizzuto, we're giving "full credit for what he *would have done*" to Stephens if there had not been a war. The difference is, we have to extrapolate entire seasons for Rizzuto, while we only need to adjust Stephens for his weakened competition. By doing so, we have a better idea (still imperfect) of what each player would do in a non-war season and can better compare across eras.

IOW, I'm just reaffirming what you said!

Stephens played during the war and we discount those seasons.

Well, I know there are multiple meanings to "discount". In this context, I used it to mean "removing a percentage", not "disregard". The latter would not be fair to Stephens; he did play those seasons.

WARP1 sees Stephens 3 best seasons as 1943, 1944, and 1949, at the ages of 23, 24, and 28.
WARP3 sees Stephens 3 best seasons as 1949, 1947, and 1943, at the ages of 28, 26, and 23.
Not everybody ages in the usual way, but WARP3 shows a fairly typical pattern, while WARP1 shows an early peak. I tend to believe the discount.

Both WARPs show Rizzuto's 3 best seasons to be 1950, 1947, and 1942, at the ages of 32, 29, and 24. There are no guarantees, but typical might be having at least one peak season in either 1944 or 1945, probably edging out 1942.

Thoughts on the newcomers...

Feller is fabulous, mega-peak, obvious #1 if it weren't for that Robinson fellow. As an aside, his 1946 is mind-bogglingly great.

Jackie would be at worst #3 on my ballot before any non-MLB credit. Maybe #2, but it's all academic, as he's obviously top 2 with pre-MLB credit. The question is whether he catches Feller; he's quite a bit behind Bob before the credit, and I'm doubtful he'll get enough to reach him. Feller holds on for #1 on my ballot.

Rizzuto should not be entirely dismissed; I am a SS dork after all. Not going to be on my ballot, but will be in my top 30. Certainly not a serious candidate for worst HOFer, not even a top 20 candidate for it.

Rosen...not nearly enough career or long enough peak/prime. Two peak seasons alone aren't going to do it, or Charlie Buffinton (3 peak seasons) would be on my ballot. Not a serious candidate.

Irvin, I'm still working on, but he'll be on my ballot, I believe, as high as 3, but more probably mid-ballot. Clarkson has 3 seasons projected above 22 win shares. I much prefer Lundy, who isn't on my ballot either.

I have a question...

I wasn't around in 1908, but were people then saying the same things about Jennings that they are now saying about Rosen?

I will have Rosen in my top 25 and wouldn't be surprised if he moves up from there.

Hughie's top 5 WARP1 years:
16.1/15.3/15.3/12.6/10.3

Rosen's top 5 WARP1 years:
12.6/10.8/8.9/7.2/6.6

And that disadvantages Hughie...WARP1 doesn't adjust for shorter 1890s schedules.

They are not even remotely comparable.

They are not even remotely comparable.....using WARP1! We've rehashed for a while what some of us think about WARP's ability to produce an absolutely historic amount of wins for Jenning's defense. And yes, while they don't adjust for schedule, they also don't adjust for competition.

Here's the rest of that prelim ballot that I started in #5.

1. Jackie Robinson--not close
2. Bob Feller--not close in either direction
3. Dobie Moore--down from #1
4. Joe Medwick
5. George Sisler
6. Tommy Bond
7. Pete Browning
8. Ralph Kiner
9. Rube Waddell
10. Monte Irvin--I'm getting comfortable that this is about the right spot. Better than Willard Brown, not better than Browning and Kiner. This is 1 spot down from my prelim prelim, however. Not an inner circle guy.

11. Jose Mendez
12. Addie Joss
13. Ed Williamson
14. Willard Brown
15. Charley Jones

Drops off: Joe Gordon, Dick Redding

16-20. Gordon, (Hack), Redding, Stephens, Doyle, Doerr
21-25. Keller, Trouppe, (Stovey), Duffy, Rixey, Cravath
26-30. Tiernan, Roush, Cicotte, Childs, Bob Johnson
31-35. Dean, Oms, Monroe, H. Smith, Sewell
36-40. Griffith, McCormick, Bell, Byrd, Elliott
41-45. Bresnahan, H. Wilson, Klein, Traynor, Berger, (Keeler)
46-50. Mullane, Gomez, A. Cooper, Lundy, Mackey

Required: Ruffing #52, Ferrell #51

Other Changes: Roush was too low last week at #37 (from my CF re-eval. of a few weeks ago, which resulted in Averill moving all the way from #25ish to #15; Roush should have shadowed Averill upwards) and moves up to #27. Otherwise not much happening in the backlog after the big moneyball shake-up of the week before (Browning, Keller and Johnson up, Klein down) as well as Coimbre dropping down last week.

Browning moved up first in my CF re-eval (from #20ish to #12ish), then moved up again in my moneyball study (to #5). I don't think I noted on my ballot last year that Pistol Pete was my PHoM choice last week just ahead of Ralph Kiner.

Newbies: Rizzuto #54, Rosen #57, Clarkson #67, all three need a little more thought but it's not like they're threatening to make the ballot any time soon. I'm fairly sure that Rizutto belongs right in there with Lundy (#47) and Bancroft (#53). And I'm pretty sure Rosen belongs just behind H. Wilson (#42), Klein (#43) and Berger (#45) among the high OPS/OPS+ guys. Clarkson is too low as he seems fairly comp to Sewell (#35), but that adjustment will have to come next week.

The Rosen-Jennings comparison is fun, actually.

While WARP may be warped in some cases, at this point I would say that Jennings' fielding was more valuable than Rosen's. But I'll look further at that.
Also, Jennings' argument in favor is about being the best player in all of baseball multiple times.
It's one thing to call Rosen the best player in the AL in 1953, for example; but you'd have to put him past Snider and Musial that year as well (which you could do) to make that a 'best player in baseball' year.

Anyway, I think that's the hurdle for Rosen to reach. Jennings only was 15th on my ballot when he was elected, so dueling with Jennings doesn't necessarily put him on my ballot. But it's food for thought, anyway.

Prelim -- newbies at 1, 2 and 17. I can't figure out Irvin.

1. Bob Feller – probably number 3 without war credit, easily #1 with war credit. Conservative war credit takes him to 320+ wins, which is inner circle. I’d say he is easily a top 20 all-time pitcher.

2. Jackie Robinson – without the reputation and without pre-1947 credit and without taking into account the circumstances under which he compiled his ML stats, Jackie doesn’t make my ballot. With all those things considered, he should be between 2nd and 4th. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, because a man has few heroes, and Jackie’s one of them.

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. 3200+ hits adjusted to 162 games.

5. Eppa Rixey – see Grimes comment. Nice to see him reaching the top 10.

6. Red Ruffing – fits nicely in between Rixey and Grimes – definitely better than Grimes, perhaps better than Rixey.

7. Burleigh Grimes – as a career voter, I have difficulty seeing the vast difference others see between Rixey and Grimes. There is not much of a spread between here and Griffith (who is at 19 this week), a five person group of whiteball pitchers that includes Waddell and Ferrell.

8. Cool Papa Bell – I have decided to move Bell up from the outfield glut to here. As flawed as they may be, I have chosen to rely, in part, on the 1952 Courier poll and more importantly the 1999 SABR poll. I know the former has its flaws but it doesn’t appear to canonize Bell (he is a 2nd team all-star there). I know the SABR poll takes into account non-playing influence, but it has Bell ahead of Charleston and Gibson, among others, and that must mean something (particularly when it accords with all the anecdotal evidence and a possible Cobb MLE of over 4000 hits).

9. Dick Redding – probably the 6th best blackball pitcher of all-time (behind, at least, Williams and Paige and likely behind the Fosters and Brown), and that is good enough for me.

10. Biz Mackey – I vote career over peak, so I like Mackey the best of the eligible catchers. It is close though, and Mackey is not that much ahead of Schang.

11. George Sisler – I like the hits, the OPS+ and the batting average.

12. Ralph Kiner – He is my highest peak/prime only candidate. I cannot ignore seven consecutive home run titles.

13. Wes Ferrell – Wes has been hanging around in my 20s for a decade or so. I finally realized the significance of his 100 OPS+.

14. 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.

15. Rube Waddell -- I like the three times ERA+ lead, the career 134 ERA+, the .574 winning percentage, the 46 black ink points, and, of course, all those strikeouts (plus the 1905 Triple Crown). I simply don’t understand how Vance and Newhouser get elected easily and Rube gets hardly any votes.

16. Joe Medwick – 10 time all-star, great 1935-1938 peak. Edges ahead of the outfield glut.

17. Monte Irvin – he takes Willard Brown’s spot on (off now) the ballot. Like Suttles and Beckwith before him, I have some real trouble placing him correctly on the ballot, or off it for that matter.

They are not even remotely comparable.....using WARP1!

Well, then let's look using Win Shares.

Jennings' top 5 WS years:
36/32/29/29/24 Total 150
42/32/34/34/28 Total 170 when schedule adjusted to 154G
(Note: 1898 gets no adjustment)

Rosen's top 5 WS years:
42/31/29/27/25 Total 154

If you don't adjust for schedule length, WS sees Rosen as slightly better. Once you do, Hughie averages 3 per year better (or about 10%).

WARP's ability to produce an absolutely historic amount of wins for Jenning's defense.

Is it justifiable?

Distribution of defensive PO's
Tot PO --K- -OF- -IF-
213509 .086 .232 .681 During Hughie's day
331637 .150 .257 .593 During Rosen's day

As you can see, infield defense was roughly 15% more important in the mid 1890's, when compared to the early 1950's. The breakdown for Jennings is 116 BWS and 54 FWS. Granting him an additional 15% for the increased importance of infield defense gives him an additional 8 FWS during those peak years. (Probably more because the Orioles' team FWS were capped every year of their run.)

Final peak score: Jennings 178-154 Rosen. I don't see them as that close, though I do see Rosen as somebody to examine more closely.

they also don't adjust for competition

I tend to agree with sunnyday2 vis-a-vis timelines.

1962 Prelim

For whatever reason, this whole Averill election has thrown me a bit. I really thought it would be Medwick, and now with Irvin's support uncertain, the entire 1962-1980 elections are taking on a very different shape and color.

1. Bob Feller
2. Jackie Robinson: Robinson's peak is awesome, just not quite as good as Feller's. I do think the 1945 NAL was probably a little weak due to the war, which waters down Robinson's big year just a bit. On the other hand, I'm not offering him any credit prior to 1945. He was clearly an amazing athlete who very quickly became an amazing baseball player. And as the story of his mustering out and, of course, of his breaking the barrier proves, he was a person of amazing personal courage. I don't often say this, as you all know, but he's one of the few cases where character mattered. I admire him as much or more than any other baseball player.
3. Jose Mendez
4. Charley Jones: Charley is the name of my sister's conyer (sp?), which is a type of exotic talking bird. Hers was rescued by animal lovers, having been discovered walking down the streets of the Bronx.
5. Leroy Matlock: Still his bestest (and onliest?) friend.
6. Bucky Walters: Get lucky, vote Bucky!
7. Hugh Duffy
8. Willard Brown: Better than I thought. Better than Irvin or Oms.
9. Alejandro Oms: On par with Irvin, slightly longer career with similar peak but more prime value...I think.
10. Monte Irvin: Long, productive career with a peak better than, say, GVH. The comparisons to Clemente, Williams, and (to throw out another name) Winfield are right one.
11. Joe Medwick: It's extremely close among these three (Oms, Medwick, and Irvin). There's career on one side, peak on the other. I usually defer to peaks, but questions about Medwick's helpful pythag treatments keep him here.
12. Pete Browning
13a.(Hal Newhouser: pHOM eta 1964)
13. Gavy Cravath
14. George Sisler
15a.(Stan Hack: pHOM eta 197?...like I said, the whole thing is up in the air right now, but I think by 1972, he's likely to get a plaque in my pHOM.)
15. Quincy Trouppe: My big cause on this week's preliminary ballot is to ask everyone to remember that Trouppe's career is longer than is being credited so far. He spent several years in the mid 1930s playing in North Dakota with Satch and the gang. In those years he's at least an average and developing player. Those years add between 30-50 WS of career bulk to Trouppe, and in my system that propel him from Bresnahan's zone into Gary Carter's. In fact, if anything, I'm underrating Trouppe because I systematically underrate catchers. If I were the kind of voter who placed catchers higher, I'd have him as a top-six guy on my ballot. Anyway, so if you're comparing him to Schang, aim higher. If you're comparing him to the Duke of Tralee or the Biz of Mackey, aim yet higher again. He's better than all of them.

16a. (Billy Herman)
16. Wes Ferrell: Three newbies means he falls off.
17a. (Ted Lyons)
17. Red Ruffing
18a. (Hughie Jennings, pHOM eta is something like 1980.)
18. Dobie Moore: With Jackie on board, I've got the infielder on board that I crave.
19a. (Earl Averill)
19. Eppa Rixey
20. George J. Burns: How the not-all-that-mighty have fallen. Anyone heard from Spots Poles lately?

Does Rosen remind of Jennings?
No.
Enthusiasts who discovered Jennings in this venue wrote things like "the best of all for five years" --an exaggeration comparable to "the best of all for two years" written of Rosen.

He does get a bit of a boost due to season length adjustments. My head is spinning thinking of all of those factors of 162/154 flying around these charts.

Try this.
162 - subtract 1/20
154 - no problem :-)
140 - add 1/10
132 - add 1/6
1981,1994 - add 1/2
1918,1919 - combine with wartime competition effect?
1943,44,45,46 - wartime competition effect?
1995 - 7% solution. blech

Note how many years are covered by the first three lines.

The flappable chaleeko:
For whatever reason, this whole Averill election has thrown me a bit.

Over the hill with Aver-ill

I really thought it would be Medwick, and now with Irvin's support uncertain, the entire 1962-1980 elections are taking on a very different shape and color.

What do you think of this Koufax? I think he may be ready to break out. Too late to make the Hall of Merit, of course.

Over the hill with Aver-ill

...and Tippecanoe and Tyler, too! :-)

Interesting post by farve in the Monte Irvin thread comparing the MLEs and WS info for him to MLB players with similar win shares got me thinking that should be tried with other players. So that's what I did. Not necessarily in quite as much detail - I couldn't find a block of incredibly similiar career stats guys like farve did - but a more basic version.

Take a NeLe candidate, find players from similar fielding positions within about 10 win shares & 1000 PA (ideally within a couple hundred PA) of him, and compare OPS+s.

Here's what I got for Alejandro Oms:

Players......WS...PA....OPS+
Oms..........340..9056..133
Van Haltren..344..8979..121
Sheckard.....339..9118..120
Keeler.......333..9594..127
Ashburn......329..9736..111

Something's up with Oms's OPS+. Van Haltren and Sheckard are the closest on WS, are both within 1% of career PA, and have OPS+s 12-13 points lower. Ashburn's even further off, but he's also the furthest off in WS, PA, and was also an alltime great defensive stud in CF. Keeler's the most comforting comparison, but even he's well under Oms's OPS+ despite about 500 more PA. I don't know if his OPS+ is off or his WS are off, but something's up.

Willard Brown:

Players......WS...PA.....OPS+
Brown........321..8989...131
Ryan.........316..9106...124
Slaughter....323..9084...123
Parker.......327..10184..121
Ashburn......329..9736...111
Cruz Sr......313..8931...120

One of these things is not like the other . . . Again, the NeLe'r has too dang high an OPS+. Ignoring Ashburn again for his defensive prowess, Brown's still way ahead of anyone else in OPS+. The guys closest to him in PA are around 120-4. Slaughter's the best match for him in WS & PA and he's down at 123. Parker technically shouldn't be here because he's got too many PA, but I tossed him in because he's more a power hitter than the others and thus maybe a better comp. His OPS+ is 10 points lower.

I couldn't really do Mackey & Trouppe. Only two catchers near their WS - Cochrane and Freehan, and they both had much shorter careers that made them bad comps.

Speaking of a player with no good comp for his MLEs, there's Cool Papa. 13637 fourth all-time in PA. And the guys in front of him had OPS+s well over 100, so there's no real good comp there either.

The MLEs list him with 419 WS in 13637. Let's assume his credit comes as much from base running & fielding as possible. How much would he get from hitting.

Well, let's see if I can find a guy with a long career, an OPS+ around 100, and not much running/fielding value as a benchmark. Bill Buckner - over 10,000 PA, and an OPS+ of 99. The Win Shares book lists him as having 226 career win shares - 83% came from hitting. That works out to 187-8 hitting win shares. Let's say 187.5. In 10,033 PA, that's an offensive win share every 53.4 PA. Lovely. If Bell kept up that pace for his 13637 PA, he'd have 255 offensive win shares. Now Buckner does have some stolen bases in there (183! I never would've guessed), but that's as good a guy as I can find to start with.

So that's 255 WS down, and that MLE had Bell with 419. 164 to go - all from defense and base running ability above Buckner's.

Defense - well, let's use Speaker as a guidepost. Speaker had 23880 innings in the OF going by the Win Shares book. Bell had about 13.8% more PA so let's give Cool Papa 27165 innings (which would be the most ever by a sh1tload). If he had the same FWS/1000 innings as Speaker (4.93) he'd end up with 133.9 FWS, which would put him ahead of Speaker and almost 30% ahead of Willie Mays. Heck, only Ozzie Smith would have more. He'd still need 30 win shares from baserunning. Don't know how feasible that is.

No one in the top 100 can match Speaker's WS/1000 inning rate though, so that's likely too high. Give him Max Carey's rate instead - 118.7 FWS. Edges out Speaker for most ever by an OFr. Give him Willie Mays's rate and he ends up with 111.65 FWS. Either way he needs around 50 more win shares just from base running. I don't see that.

Then again, I've had misgivings about Bell's MLEs (see the Ichiro comment I made about him in the Bell thread -- to that I'd add it seems like his hitting got a lot better when he left St Louis. Coincidence? From what little I know that was supposed to be a big hitters' park, and if my theory is true that he was legging out his hits with his speed like Ichiro, he wouldn't get nearly as much advantge from the short fences as others would and thus the park factors would downwardly distort his offensive contributions). . . . I think I'm just rambling at this point.

Great analysis Chris. It still leaves Bell with close to 400 WS, which is pretty elite territory.

As you said, Favre's comps on Monte Irvin were really compelling. It appears Irvin's MLE-WS are inflated for some reason, as his other MLE stats just don't compare to the Williams, Wheat, Clemente group.

It is the best work Favre has done all season (though Monday night's comeback attempt was a close second).

Daryn,

I see the evidence on the MLEs pointing not toward inflation, but rather toward deflation.

If Oms and Brown each have higher OPS+s but the same number of WS as their comparable players, then shouldn't they have more WS than the comps? Not the same number?

Also, I think Oms's OPS+ is closer to 125 than 133. I initially posted a number in the 130s, but Chris C. correctly pointed out that I was using pitcher-inclusive hitting data. Once pitchers were removed from the mix, Oms went down to somewhere around 125.

Good Doctor,


You gave your explanation on post 61 of Irvin, but it didn't convince me. When I look at this:

Williams: 374 WS, 10519 PA, 2711 H, 1045 BB, 4599 TB, 132 OPS+
Clemente: 377 WS, 10212 PA, 3000 H, 621 BB, 4492 TB, 130 OPS+
Wheat: 380 WS, 9996 PA, 2884 H, 650 BB, 4100 TB, 129 OPS+

Your MLE’s for Irvin:

Irvin: 375 WS, 8278 PA, 2120 H, 1030 BB, 3682 TB, 146 OPS+

I see a fundamental flaw. Career WS are supposed to be a stat that gives you a good idea of someone's career value. ~800 fewer hits, 500 to 800 fewer total bases, 3 seasons shorter career. As a career voter, Irvin doesn't touch these three guys, regardless of adjustments in context and for fielding. So your MLE-WS for Irvin are very problematic for me. I have come to the point where I have decided to trust the MLEs, but not the Ws or OPS+ conversions. That may just be me, but that's where I am.

Irivin's 15th on my ballot, by the way. Clemente would be a close second to Feller, ahead of Robinson. Zack Wheat was 3rd in 1933 when he got elected, and my #1 hitter/fielder.

Note how many years are covered by the first three lines.

Thanks. This helps a bit. We have been spoiled by having 154G for so long.

What do you think of this Koufax? I think he may be ready to break out. Too late to make the Hall of Merit, of course.

That short left-field screen in the coliseum was killing him, his road numbers looked pretty darn good. Even still he led the league in K's, K/BB and H/IP. It will be interesting to see how he plays in the new stadium that's for sure.

Killebrew appears to have recovered from being a Bonus Baby, so you never know. Koufax is only 25, so he probably still has 10-15 years of pitching ahead of him.

Daryn,

As a career voter, your argument seems very logical to me. It's not one I choose to follow, but it's not illogical insofaras Irivin is concerned. But looking at Oms and Brown, whose PAs match their comps much more closely, I think the deflation is evident.

Also, if you are going to trust the MLEs statistically, I would recommend that you then further go with the OPS+ but ignore the WS. The OPS+ are done the usual way, comparing the MLE figures against known MLB norms: there's nothing there to create distortions. The SFWS are more likely to contain distortions, so were I skeptical, I would be skeptical of them. The OPS+, though, ought to be pretty sound.

Now, for me, the fly in the ointment about Irvin and his comps is that I would have Clemente somewhat down the ballot because he just didn't have the peak I'm looking for, but I simultaneously don't want to totally ignore his career. In an integrated list of RFs, I see Clemente as about the 17th all-time best at his position (depends on who counts as RF and LF). I know that will strike many as heretically low, but RF is a totally stacked position in baseball history. Here's some guys above him in my pecking order:

Ruth
Aaron
Ott
Frank Robinson
Crawford
P Waner
Rg Jackson
King Kelly
Joe Jackson (he's 1/2 LF, 1/2 RF)
Sheffield
Heilmann
Gwynn
Kaline
Flick
Slaughter
Keeler
(maybe Oms or Irvin too)

Remember, I don't timeline, so I'm looking for concentration of value and trying to balance it with long-term value.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Doc, if Clemente didn't have a peak, what exactly did Sheffield have? Or Slaughter or Keeler for that matter? Or...

Doc,

I'll take a look at Oms again. Right now I have paired him with Van Haltren, who was once mid-ballot for me but is now low-30s. I have paired Brown with Medwick and both Brown and Medwick were on the bottom of my ballot last year.

Am I the only one who is still pairing NeLers with MLers? It used to be somewhat common but I don't see many people referencing it anymore.

Oh, and on your list, I'd move Heilmann, Gwynn, Kaline and Keeler up to Reggie Jackson level and put that group plus Clemente in my 7 to 12 rankings.

Adjusted to the same schedule length (162), Keeler's just a little better at every interval than Clemente. Remember I use discontinuous seasons for my peak/prime evaluations, so my idea of a peak may differ from yours.

I want to say that as a peak voter I dont' really look at the career WS numbers of these players. My problem with them, and it may be a problem with our method of extracting WS from the MLE's is that none of these guys (Brown, Oms, Irvin) look to have been a best in the game or best at a position type player. In fact my system gave Earl Averill a higher peak than them and Averill didn't go in because of his peak.

I agree that the career WS seem a bit high, but the peaks seem a bit low. Is it possible that we are overrating their career WS while smoothing out their peaks and making them all look like George Van Haltren. Shouldn't there be some more high peak or all prime players with fewer than 300 WS in the NeL?

#74 on Oms, et al.
Something's up with Oms's OPS+. Van Haltren and Sheckard are the closest on WS, are both within 1% of career PA, and have OPS+s 12-13 points lower. Ashburn's even further off, but he's also the furthest off in WS, PA, and was also an alltime great defensive stud in CF. Keeler's the most comforting comparison, but even he's well under Oms's OPS+ despite about 500 more PA.

Scheckard seems to be historically great in the field.

Your logic ("despite") on Keeler is mixed up, I think.

Dr. Chaleeko #76:
Oms's OPS+ is closer to 125 than 133. I initially posted a number in the 130s, but Chris C. correctly pointed out that I was using pitcher-inclusive hitting data. Once pitchers were removed from the mix, Oms went down to somewhere around 125.

That settles it for the moment.

Yeah, overall, as a trend the NeLers have very high career totals and very low peaks. That is an artifact of the MLEs.

Generally, I think most NeLers would have entered the MLs later and exited sooner than the MLEs suggest. It (getting to the MLs) is not just a function of (production X conversion), in the real world there is almost always a lag before the decision-makers recognize that the player is ready. So while Oms, Brown and/or whomever may have been capable of playing the MLs at the time the MLEs suggest, it does not necessarily follow that they would have.

So the real world friction drags down the actual MLers while the hypotheticals escape that drag.

And it's been said many times that the MLE method smooths out peaks.

So when it comes to NeLers, I am voting "what kind of ballplayer he was" not "how much value did he have." With MLers it's the other way around, and so the integration of the two lists is very hard.

Moving this over from the Feller thread where I mistakenly stuck it.

Posted by Dr. Chaleeko on October 07, 2005 at 03:01 PM (#1669182)
OK, this is wayyyyyyy off topic, but it's been of interest to me for the last couple of days.

Where do Ichiro and Godzilla fall in the pecking order of corner outfielders? Before the last couple days they had no ranking---too few seasons. But to be fair I decided to try translating their Japanese careers.

Using no park factors, nor any regression, nor again using the JCL or JPL league totals, I simply applied a conversion factor. Clay Davenport's research suggested something around .94, so that's what I used. For slugging rather than use the square of the average conversion, which would have been .88, I knocked it down to .85 to account for the seeming lack of power shown by Japanese imports and for the uptick in power shown by the likes of Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera in Japan. I did not make any attempt to translate walk rates. (Which becomes important later....)

Playing time was a simple proration from Japan's 135-145 game schedules to a 162 game schedule. I then used each guy's stateside AB/G to guide my AB projections.

I then did my usual thing with OPS+ (aka the David Foss method) and the usual SFWS routine, using each guy's US FWS rates as a blanket guide. The results may surprise you...or not???

Ichiro
Ichiro's translated line is 0.326/0.385/0.434. He is fairly durable, and after two cuppa-joe years in 1992 and 1993, he plays 1042 games from 1994-2000 or 149 games a year. He gets 1525 hits and walks 452 times. His OPS+ for the period is just 113, lower than his stateside 124, but I think the translations have some difficulty capturing the essence of his game. Short-form win shares sees him as an above-average hitter and a VERY good fielder, netting 3WS/1000 defensive innings. This helps Ichiro rack up All-Star level seasons. His WS from 1994-2000:
33.9
31.0
28.2
29.5
29.6
25.4
28.6

Of course, this makes no accounting for his stolen bases. He's stolen at 76.5% clip in the US so there's some value there too.

Ichiro totals 207 MLEWS for his Japanese play, which would put him around 315 for his career. The sum of his US and Japanese careers make him not quite as good a candidate for the HOM as Bobby Veach, but he's probably near to or better than Minoso (sans MLEs). In numerical terms, he's somewhere around the 30th best RF I've looked at.

GODZILLA
WS sees Matsui as a poor fielder, as in below 2.0 WS/1000 innings. On the other hand, it loves his bat! Matsui's career Japanese line translates to .285/.391/.495, and he's the Cal Ripken of Japan, averaging 159 games a season from 1994-2002. His career Japanese translated totals include 6719 PA, 5724 AB, 1633 H, 995 BB. He averages about 100 walks a year for his Japanese career, a trait he hasn't shown in the US. I found IBB only for his last year in Japan; he had 17 on 114 total walks. His Japanese translated career OPS+ is 129, and here's his year-by-year OPS+ for 1994-2002:
93
95
127
128
127
136
145
155
172

Win Shares loves him, here's his nine full seasons 1994-2002 by WS:
18.4
18.4
30.9
29.6
29.2
34.3
38.7
37.5
42.2

His ten-year total is a whopping 283.8. Add that to his 74 U.S. WS, and you're at 358 with a huge peak and prime that looks just like Yaz's and which would slot Matsui, in my system, just ahead of Reggie in the list I made earlier in this thread.

Do I trust these two results? In one way, absolutely. They are in agreement with the real-life world in that they show Matsui's power/walks combination as having much more value than Ichiro's average-driven slash-and-run game. On the other hand, WS is going bonkers for Matsui's walks. What I don't trust is not WS, RC, OPS+, or anything like that, what I don't trust is my own ability to evaluate the Japanese game. It may well be that Matsui was pitched around A LOT but that he hasn't been in America. Is 65-85 walks his "true" walks level? Should I be translating his walks as only 2/3s of their Nippon totals? Ichiro comes out about equally as high on the walk side.

To find out the effect, I reduced both of their walks by one-third. This lowered Ichiro's OPS+ to 107 and his WS for the period to 195. Knocking back Matsui's walks dropped his OPS+ to 120 and his WS to 254 for the period. Still mighty monstrous, though probably enough to drop him into Cravath's territory instead of Reggie's.

Should I go with 2/3s the walks or full walks?

Anyway, I thought I'd share this with everyone since it was at least somewhat tangentially related.

I think that what's going on in the Irvin discussion is very illuminating in a metadiscursive kind of way that may at least shed a little light on where I'm coming from.

In 1942, the numbers say OPS+ of 211. His next bests aren't close, so I ratchet down by assuming some kind of fluky data thing, and figuring that it won't pass the group sniff test otherwise.

On the other hand, because the data is in such small and fragmentary bits, I'm combining winter and summer leagues to gather up as big a sample as possible.

But because I'm trying to preserve the nature of a player's peaks and valleys, I'm not using regression.

Then again, there are many instances where I'm required to fill in missing data, leading me to use career averages or surrounding-season averages which is, in effect, like regression.

So in the case of Irvin it all adds up to being at cross purposes: go with what the data says? Accept the unusual outlier point? And when questioned just say: "but that's what the data says." Or discard the small sample that boosts Irvin's 1942 to a way high level and present a total that is more in line with the remainder of his career, realizing that doing so will push focus away from "look at the outlier year!" to an examination of the player's other 15 seasons.

I don't know what's best, and I definitely don't have the answers. Which is why I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

The corrected Oms OPS+ is located at post #112 in the Oms thread, a couple posts beneath his revised MLEs.


Also, wow, the live preview thing is pretty neat! I just caught it for the first time right now.

I went back and looked at the NeLers' records just to be sure I have them in the right order. I looked at several things.

NeL Batting Record

The raw data. This is just BA but you have the rest of the profile in your head. I just want to get some kind of pecking order here *before* converting. Of course even the raw NeL BAs are questionable sometimes or at least ambiguous.

Dobie Moore .365---6.5 yrs NeL + ?7 yrs Wreckers
Artie Wilson .361
Chino Smith .354--very very short career
Piper Davis .353--are we missing on this guy?
Heavy Johnson .352--short NeL career but Wreckers also
Jimmy Lyons .348--very small sample of usable data
Ray Dandridge .338--but MLEs come out very low (?)
Bus Clarkson .333--nice career length
Sam Jethroe .332--somewhat short on career
George Shively .332--somewhat short on career
Ben Taylor .330--and a nice long career
Jules Thomas--.330

In the .320s--Papa Bell, Biz Mackey, Bill Wright
In the .310s--Bill Monroe, George Scales
In the .300s--Dick Lundy, Ollie Marcelle, Spot Poles

Dobie Moore and Dick Lundy > .350 in Cuba
Artie Wilson > .350 in Puerto Rico
Judy Johnson .348 in Cuba
Ray Dandridge .347 in Mexico
Bill Wright .335 in Mexico
Ollie Marcelle .333 in Cuba
Bobby Estalella .329 in AAA (U.S. MiL)
Clint Thomas .327 in Cuba

.310s--Clarkson (Mex), Dandridge (AAA), Poles (Cuba)

MLEs for Players Projected to 250 WS or More

MLE Career Length

10,000+ PAs--Bell, Estalella
9,000 - 10,000--Irvin, Brown, Oms, Lundy
8,000 - 9,000--Clarkson, Easter, Mackey, Scales, Trouppe

MLE Career OPS+

Irvin .312/.398/.508/146 in 9300 PAs
Brown .323/.355/.503/131 in 9500 PAs
Oms .333/.393/.468/125 in 9050 PAs
Clarkson .285/.371/.435/120 in 8500 PAs
Estalella .278/.378/.429/119 in 10,000 PAs
Scales .292/.392/.440/118 in 8150 PAs
Easter .276/.345/.463/115 in 8500 PAs
Trouppe .268/.372/.407/115 in 8500 PAs
Wright .296/.347/.419/111 in 7300 PAs
Bell .296/.365/.382/100 in 13,500 PAs

Lundy, Dandridge and Wilson in the 90s

OPS+ Peaks

Irvin 186-69-58-58-46-43-42-41-37-25
Brown 160-54-51-45-42-41-38-36-30-29
Oms 147-44-44-41-39-37-33-33-23-10

Trouppe 153-45-45-43-36-33-28-14-98-95
Mackey 142-31-22-11-10-10-9-8-7-4

Clarkson 159-45-38-36-31-27-25-22-1-96
Scales 144-40-35-29-27-23-20-18-13-2
Lundy 132-26-19-10-5-99-93-93-84-77
Wilson 126-22-18-19-17-96-88-85-71-67

Estalella 137-37-36-31-29-26-24-21-20-12
Bell 137-37-24-14-13-12-7-5-0-97
Wright 139-34-26-20-19-16-88-86-83-78
Easter 175-38-21-19-18-18-11-6-6-6

Win Shares MLEs

Bell 419/26-25-25/116
Irvin 372/32-30-29/129
Estalella 344/26-26-22/108
Oms 340/30-29-29/140
Poles 332/30-30-28/132.5

Brown 328/33-31-30/132
Taylor 326/30-25-25/116
Clarkson 315/32-26-25/114
Lundy 300/25-24-23/111
Easter 284/40-23-23/116

Mackey 278/26-23-19/105
Trouppe 277/32-26-26/112
Wright 258/26-25-23/110

What does it all mean?

What Does It All Mean I--the IFers

1. I remain convinced that Dobie Moore was the most gifted ballplayer among all the NeL position players (middle IF or not). His .365 raw NeL career BA is the best available, granting that he did not have a decline phase. He is also one of two eligibles with a career BA over .350 in Cuba. Add to that that we know he hit with some power and played an above average SS, though he was not perhaps Dick Lundy in the field.

His NeL peak of 36-34-31 and 151 is the best available. Next best is Brown at 33-31-30 or Oms at 140.

Yes he had a short career, 6.5 years in the NeL but plus 3-7 years (never quite resolved) with the Wreckers, who played and defeated white PCL teams, apparently frequently and with panache. And even at 9.5 years (lowest possible) of elite ball, he is not that far short of many of his peers from the very early days of NeL ball, when finding an opportunity to play in a place where a player could leave a record for people like us to find 75-100 years later was not an easy thing to do.

IOW he hit even more than the "hitters"--Irvin, Brown, Oms--and played SS like, well, Lou Boudreau? Not quite, but perhaps better than Joe Cronin or Arky Vaughan.

2. Sticking with the middle IF for a moment, what's with Artie Wilson (.361) and Piper Davis (.353) and the #2 and #4 available career BAs? And Wilson hit >.350 in PRWL as well, one of the best numbers available. Yet their conversions come out very poorly, Wilson at OPS+ 91, e.g. Of course their NeL records are supplemented by MiL play, and maybe the NeL was very weak by the time they came along. But they seem to suffer more of a drop from raw NeL numbers than anybody.

3. Further, among middle IF Bus Clarkson looks like the next best candidate (after Moore and assuming the Wilson and Davis conversions are correct). His NeL BA is 20 points better than Scales, and his OPS+ is consistently 5-10 points better than Scales through their eight best seasons each. Clarkson looks better all around than Lundy, though defensive value is hard enough to measure when you've got data. Still, the defense is in the WS and Clarkson leads Lundy 315-300 and 83-72 for 3 years.

For IF (throwing 3B into the mix, but there are no more great 3B candidates), it seems clearly enough to be:

1. Moore unless you're a career junkie--but Moore was better every year for 10 years than the next best IF candidate

(GAP, the next 3 are close)

2. Clarkson
3. Lundy--I'll move him ahead of Scales and Monroe but not Clarkson based on the glove
4. Monroe--but this is guesswork, his NeL BA is not that high, only out-hit Lundy by about 10 points, even this (ranking) assumes NeL was an extreme deadball environment at the time, which I believe it was, this represents a move downward BTW

(GAP, though I hesitate to say that this is the dividing line between serious candidates and not, but those below do not in their MLEs look like above avg. hitters though some of the raw numbers are not that bad)

(GAP)

5. Scales--only marginally better than those below, I don't see quite such a strong case here as I did
6. Dandridge--his raw NeL and AAA numbers are better than where he comes out overall
7. Wilson--but will the real Artie Wilson please stand up
8. Ollie Marcelle--.300+ in NeL, .333 in Cuba
9. Judy Johnson--didn't hit as much as Marcelle
10. Piper Davis--.353 NeL but very poor MLEs

We may be underrating the bottom 5 on the "vote the best, forget the rest" theory, which I am as guilty of as anybody. As we learn more about the proper conversions, does anything about these guys suggest that they are better than we might think?

I did re-look at Bingo DeMoss, Sammy Hughes, et al, and their hitting was generally horrible (.230-.250 in NeL, .215-.230 MLE). Are we understanding the environment correctly? But unless we are grossly wrong about that, I don't see any reason to bring them back to life.

What Does It All Mean II--the catchers

Mackey and Trouppe are for real. MLEs:

Mackey .302/.359/.395/98 in 8350 PAs
Trouppe ,268/.372/.407/115 in 8500 PAs

Mackey 278/26-23-19/105
Trouppe 279/32-26-26/112

Mackey 142-31-22-11-10-10-9-8-7-4
Trouppe 153-45-45-43-36-33-28-14-98-95

Oddly enough, Mackey had fewer projected PAs, yet he is more of the career candidate and Trouppe more the peak. Trouppe's 3rd best season is 145 OPS+ and 26 WS versus Mackey's 122 and 19. And that differential becomes even greater as you get down to their #5-6-7 seasons. But then Mackey is better as you get out to the #9-10-11 years.

But as a peak voter I prefer Trouppe. More to the point, where do they fit in with the IFers?

1. Moore
2. Trouppe
3. Clarkson--Trouppe and Clarkson's numbers are about as close as it gets--the rates, the WS, the OPS, evn down to the OPS distribution:

Trouppe 153-45-45-43-36-33-28-14-98-95
Clarkson 159-45-38-36-31-27-25-22-1-96

C defensive skills are more of a rare commodity, however, so I'll go with Trouppe.

4. Mackey
5. Lundy--the same logic applies here
6. Monroe
etc etc.

What Does It All Mean III--the hitters

1. Clearly it's Irvin, Brown and Oms, in that order, though Brown and Oms are close enough. After that:

2. Luke Easter remains an enigma, but one to whom I cannot give the benefit of the very many doubts and unknowns

3. Estalella! This is the great discovery of this whole project, the man that we wanted Luke Easter to be.

Easter .276/.345/.463/115 in 8500 MLE PAs
Estalella .278/.378/.429/119 in 10,000 PAs

And remember that Estalella actually has a ML record on which this is based. There is not a doubt that this is who Bobby Estalella was. (In case you don't recall, he was a slightly light-skinned Cuban who got to play in the bigs but like, say, Dolf Luque, had his opportunity severely truncated because of his ambiguous racial identity.)

Estalella .278/.378/.429/119 in 10,000 PAs
Bell .296/.365/.382/100 in 13,500 PAs
Bill Wright .296/.347/.419/111 in 7300 PAs

4. Further into the backlog we have overlooked and forgotten:

• Heavy Johnson--career NeL BA .352, don't have MLEs
• Ben Taylor--career NeL BA in the .320-.335 range and unlike Johnson a nice long career
• George Shively .332
• Sam Jethroe .332 and some other numbers that erase any doubt about what kind of player he was

5. But Spot Poles (.297-.319 are his est. career BAs in NeL and Cuba from different sources) just doesn't look that great unless like a Bingo DeMoss he was victimized by an extreme extreme extreme dead ball.

So the hitters:

1. Irvin--mid-ballot for now
2. Brown--mid- to low-ballot for now
3. Oms--20s for now
4. Estalella--40s for now
5. Taylor--40s or 50s
6. Bell--40s or 50s
(GAP)
7. Jethroe
8. Heavy Johnson
9. Bill Wright
10. Poles or Shively--all of these are lucky to be top 100

What Does It All Mean IV

Put them all together: The NeL position players eligible in 1962

1. Dobie Moore--for peak he is a clear #1, for 10-12 years he was consistently better than anybody else, even including:

2. Monte Irvin
3. Willard Brown--top 3 all on-ballot

(SMALL GAP)
4. Quincy Trouppe
5. Alejandro Oms
6. Bus Clarkson
7. Biz Mackey--all 4 very close to each other and close to ballot (e.g. 16-17-18 to 25ish)

(SMALL GAP)
8. Dick Lundy
9. Bobby Estalella
10. Bill Monroe
11. Ben Taylor
12. Cool Papa Bell--all 5 very close to each other, could possibly make ballot someday (30s and 40s today) if we elect 10-15 from backlog, but I doubt it

(BIG GAP)
13. Sol White--but no data to speak of
14. George Scales
15. Sam Jethroe
16. Coimbre--my thinking on Coimbre and Cepeda is not very well fixed, however
17. Ray Dandridge
18. Artie Wilson
19. Perucho Cepeda--Chacon may be better
20. Chino Smith--very short career--all of this cluster is pretty certain to never make my ballot (most 75 to 100 now)

21. Pelayo Chacon
22. Ollie Marcelle
23. Heavy Johnson
24. Wild Bill Wright
25. Judy Johnson
26. Spot Poles
27. Piper Davis
28. Jimmy Lyons
29. Newt Allen
30. Sammy Hughes--these are not in my top 100 right now

Honorable Mention--George Shively Jules Thomas, Clint Thomas, Bruce Petway, Dave Malarcher, Sam Bankhead

I am undoubtedly missing on some others who played mostly in Cuba, Mexico or Puerto Rico.

Sunnyday2,

Great analysis of the NgL position-player candidates.

You had questions about Wilson, Davis, and also Dandridge's MLEs. Their MLEs do show them to have good AVGs (well, not Davis, but...), but none of them hit for much power, and they drew relatively few walks (Wilson), frustratingly few walks (Dandridge) or exasperatingly few walks (Davis). Without the walks to counterbalance the lack of power, their OPS+ comes out poorly, and then RC shows them to be out munchers. Wilson and Dandridge, as very good defensive players, still register some value in SFWS, but Davis, who seems to have been an average at best 2B gets very little love. Of these three, I think Wilson is the most viable candidate because he also adds stolen bases to the mix, whereas Davis and Dandridge appear to offer little else.

Another way to think about this question would be to ask, what kind of player would they look like in the recent history of the game?
=Wilson would be a good-fielding Luis Castillo at SS, but without the walks
=Dandridge would be a better-fielding Aaron Boone, but with little of Boone's homerun power
=Davis would be Luis Salazar lite.

These players have value, but they each have glaring holes in their games.

Oh, yes, shoot, I missed Silvio Garcia. To me, he would probably go right around Dandridge and Artie Wilson.

BTW did you hear this one;

Reporter: Coach says some of the guys here are selfish. What do you say about that?
Player: I don't worry about that. I only worry about Jerome.

Or:

Coach: What is it about you, son? Is it ignorance or apathy?
Player: I don't know and I don't care.

Just noodling around with my ballot and my positional rankings...

One way I might construct a ballot would be to go position-by-position, and taking the highest available candidate in my all-time historical rankings for each position. Ties will go to the skill positions. If I did that it owuld look like this

1. Feller (6th ranked pitcher)
2. Robinson (7th ranked 2B
3. Mendez (8th ranked P)
4. Matlock (8th ranked P)
5. Walters (8th ranked P)
6. Irvin (11th ranked LF)
7. Trouppe (14th ranked C)
8. Oms (14th or 15th ranked RF)
9. Ferrell (15th ranked P)
10. C Jones (15th ranked LF)
11. Williamson (16th 3B)
12. Duffy (16th ranked CF)
13. Ruffing (17th ranked P)
14. Bresnahan (17th ranked C)
15. Monroe (17th ranked 2B)

16. W Brown (17th ranked CF)
17. Rixey (18th ranked P)
18. Mackey (18th ranked C)
19. Childs (18th ranked 2B)
20. Elliott (19th ranked 3B)
21. Browning (19th ranked CF)
22. W. Cooper (19th ranked P)
23. Grimes (19th ranked P)
24. Doyle (20th ranked 2B)
25. Sisler (20th ranked 1B)
26. Moore (21st ranked 2B)
27. Medwick (22nd ranked LF)

I wouldn't doubt that this would be a more successful strategy for constructing my ballots than the one I've used!

Doc, who is the 2B named Moore?

And who are 21 LFers better than Ducky Wucky?

Sorry, meant SS.

LFs as I currently rank them (the rankings change somewhat often, but usually only in small increments).
1 Bonds
2 T Williams
3 Musial
4 O'Rourke
5 Henderson
6 Burkett
7 Delahanty
8 Yastrzmski
9 Irvin
10 Clarke
11 J Jackson (he could be a RF too, career G in LF 584, in RF 559)
12 C Jones
13 Raines
14 Magee
16 Kelley
17 H Matsui (based on the translations I discussed previously on this thread; I don't know if he was a RF or LF in Japan, so I'm basing his position on his stateside play)
18 Wheat
19 Scheckard
20 B Williams
21 Stargell
22 Medwick

I think the cluster from Sheckard down is extremely close, so Medwick could be as high as 18. But right now, this is where I'm listing him because I have questions about how well Win Shares handles the pythag questions. Depending on Pete Hill's position, he could slot in here somewhere too.

17 H Matsui (based on the translations I discussed previously on this thread; I don't know if he was a RF or LF in Japan, so I'm basing his position on his stateside play)

I'm pretty sure he was a CF in Japan (as was Ichiro)...