hot topics

Yes, Ted was even better than Beckley, even though fewer hits and triples. None of the others warrant a place, though, though Newcombe’s close to the bottom, with a little MiL credit but not much.

1. (N/A) Ted Williams. Better than Ruth if he hadn’t had to fight two wars. Wouldn’t want to fly in a plane piloted by Ruth, whereas Ted – no problem.

2. (N/A-9-9-10-7-7-5-5-4-3-5-6-5-3-4-3-4-4-3-2-2-1-1-2-6-4-4-2-1-1-1-3-
1-2-2-1-1-2-2-1-1-2-2-3-1-1-1-1-2-1-3-1-1-2-1-1) Jake Beckley. Paul Waner is a very close comp (it was 37 years till we found one) and it thus makes no sense to have Waner far above Beckley. Adjust his 2930 hits to full seasons and he's up there with Nap, above Babe, over 3200 hits, and OPS+ of 125 better than Van Haltren and slightly short of Wheat’s 129. Isolated power .127 vs “slugger” Wheat .135, in a less power-centered era. Marginally ahead of Welch, as we have seen more 307-win pitchers (now 10 others among currently HOM-eligible) than 2930-hit hitters (now 8 others). TB+BB/PA .455, TB+BB/Outs .707. Played for un-famous teams. Better than Keeler, almost as good as Crawford. More than a borderline HOMer, somewhere in the reaches well above the border but below the immortals.

3. (15-14-11-12-10-9-6-8-7-7-6-7-6-3-3-3-2-3-2-2-3-2-4-5-4-2-3-2-3-3-
2-3-3-2-2-3-7-5-5-3-2-2-2-4-2-3-3-2-2-4-3-2-2-3-3-4-2-3-2-2-3-2-4-2-2-
3-2-2) Mickey Welch. 307-210 comes to impress me more and more, particularly as we get more and more of the 1920s and 1930s pitcher glut – 7 more wins than Lefty Grove! 1885 looks like a pretty good peak too; 44-11 with a 1.67 ERA is pretty impressive, compared for example to Clarkson’s 49-19 at 2.73 in 1889. With 4802 IP, OK at an ERA+of 113 (but he never heard of ERA) he was far better than most of the 00s and 20s pitchers under consideration, none of whom (other than Young, Matty and Alex) got near 300 wins, and many of whom had ERA+s little better than Welch.

4. (N/A-6-4-3-3-3-5-3-4-4-3-3-5-5-3-4-4-5-6-4-4-3-3-4-3-5-3-3-4-3-
3) George Sisler. 2812 hits, OPS+ 124 puts him just below Beckley and Welch. TB+BB/PA .482, TB+BB/Outs .748. Better singles hitter than Ichiro!, his record having been set in a 154 game season. And he had power too. Undervalued by sabermetricians.

5. (N/A-10-8-7-6-4-3-3-5-9-7-8-6-4-4-4-6-4-5-6-5-4-6-7-6-5-5-6-7-5-5-4-
4-5-4-6-4-4-5-4-4) Eddie Cicotte. Only 208-149 and an ERA+ of 123, but 3223 IP, more than Waddell and should get about 25% of the bonus for the 300-win career he should have had (he was, after all, a knuckleballer, who tend to peak late.) Much better than the 20s glut – only loses to Welch on longevity – Newhouser a close comp, but Cicotte had a longer career. Successfully cursed Red Sox AND White Sox for over 8 decades!

6. (N/A-15-N/A-5-4-4-6-10-8-9-7-5-5-5-7-5-6-7-6-6-7-8-7-6-6-7-8-6-6-5-
5-6-5-7-5-5-6-6-5) Pete Browning. Recalculating, to adjust ’82 as well as ’83-’92, he had 2,177 “normalized” hits, with no AA discount. However, TB+BB/PA .511, TB+BB/Outs .855. the same as Tiernan, not quite as good as Thompson, but he got no significant boost from the 1893-94 run explosion. Career OPS+162 vs. 146 Thompson and 138 Tiernan, but you have to discount a bit for AA

7. (N/A-7-7-6-8-6-6-7-7-6) Addie Joss. I’m convinced I missed him earlier. 2327 IP at an ERA+ of 141. 160-97 by age 30. If you assume the rest of his career would have been 1800 IP, 120-90 with an ERA+ of 110 (somewhat conservative, assuming you boost his last sick season, though pitchers didn’t last as long as they did later) then 50% credit would put him at 3227IP, 220-142, with ERA+ of 130, at #3 on this list. 25% credit puts him at 2777 IP, 190-120, with ERA+ of 136, still good for just above Rixey.

8. (N/A-12-10-9-10-9-8-7-7-8-9-7-7-6-8-8-7-9-8-7-9-8-7) Eppa Rixey, 266-251 and ERA+ of 115. Huge 4,494 IP. Better than Lyons with WW1 credit.

9. (N/A-10-9-8-11-N/A-15-15-14-10-10-11-12-10-12-11-9-8-9-10-10-9-
8-9-10-9-8-7-9-9-8-10-9-8-10-9-8) Charley Jones. Short career – only 1,780 normalized hits, even when adjusted to nominal 130-game-played season (but that’s more than Pike, with much less of an adjustment, and Jones too missed two prime seasons.) But OPS+ 149, TB+BB/PA .473, TB+BB/Outs .722, so above Pike and non-CF 90s OF.

10. (N/A-14-13-15-N/A-15-N/A-14-N/A-10-8-7-6-5-5-7-11-9-10-8-6-6-6-8-
6-8-8-7-11-12-13-13-12-12-12-13-14-13-13-13-14-13-11-10-9-11-10-9) Clark Griffith credit for 1892-3 moves him up a notch. 3385 IP, 237 wins (say 270 with credit) and an ERA+ of 121 not outstanding, but his winning percentage is good and his 1898 peak is nice.

11. (N/A-12-10-12-10-11-10-7-7-8-9-7-9-13-11-10-11-12-12-11-11-11-
12-12-11-11-12-13-12-15-14-12-14-11-10) Sam Leever. Pity he wasn’t able to start at the normal time; 2 more years would have made him a NB. Only 2660 innings, but was blocked till 27 by the one-league 1890s and having a steady job as a schoolteacher. Believe he needs to be looked at seriously by others, and included in pitcher analysis. Mild plus for high level of moral probity.

12. (N/A-11) Bob Lemon 207-128, ERA+ of 119, plus he could hit with OPS+ of 82. Distinctly better than Ferrell, and deserves a year or so’s war credit, since he didn’t start till 25.

13. (N/A-9-8-8-9-10-8-10-9-8-7-8-11-11-10-10-10-11-11-10-9-11-12-
11-14-13-11-13-13-13) Wally Schang. When you normalize his career to 130 game seasons for the first 18 years, as I do for catchers, he gets to 1941 hits, more than Groh at an OPS+ of 117, very similar. Furthermore, TB+BB/PA=.455, TB+BB/Outs=.728, also significantly better than Groh, over very close to the same period. And he was a catcher, more difficult than 3B. Not as good as Hartnett, though.

14. (N/A-10-9-12-11-13-15-14-14) Bobby Doerr. 2042 hits but missed a year for the war. OPS+ only 115, but they’re using a funny corrector for Fenway, as his raw stats are much better than Boudreau, whose OPS+ is 120. 2042 hits (plus 1 wartime season) TB+BB/PA .508, TB+BB/Outs .754. Down a bit on reflection.

15. (N/A-8-7-8-14-13-14-13-9-9-10-11-9-11-10-13-13-15-N/A-15-N/A-
15-N/A-15) Cupid Childs. OPS+119, almost the same as the 90s trio, and TB+BB/PA .470, TB+BB/Outs .797 highly competitive with them. Main negative is only 1720 hits, or about 1780 even if you normalize him to a 130 games played season. Nevertheless, he was a 2B. Back on ballot after a few years just off.

OFF 15-BALLOT

16. (N/A-10-9-8-10-11-10-13-12-14-N/A) Ernie Lombardi 2137 hits, normalized to a 130 game season, and an OPS+ of 125 makes him a little better than Schang, but some of it was during the war years and he fielded badly, so now a little below. TB+BB/PA .492, TB+BB/Outs .719., the ratio between the two very low because of strikeouts, I assume. Plus a great nickname!

17. (N/A-10-12-N/A) Ralph Kiner Only 1451 hits, but an OPS+ of 149. Doesn’t really deserve war years bonus (too young.) TB+BB/PA .617, TB+BB/Outs .991. Closest comp is Hack Wilson, but Kiner was a little better. Down a bit because of short career.

18. (N/A-11-14-N/A) Rube Waddell Given Joss’s new elevation, he’d dropped a bit too far at 32.

19. (N/A) Vern Stephens. Short career – only 1859 hits, but comparing him to Reese he was much better, and not far short of Doerr. TB+BB/PA .508, TB+BB/Outs .756. Best season 1944, however.

20. Quincy Trouppe. Not quite as good as Lombardi or Schang, but will on ballot in quiet years. OPS+118, about 1900 adjusted hits. Much better than Mackey.

OFF BALLOT


21. (N/A-7-13-11-13-14-14-14-N/A-15-15-15-N/A-14-15-15-15-N/A-
14-N/A-15-15-N/A) Hack Wilson TB+BB/PA = .588, TB+BB/Outs = .954, OPS+ 144. (he does appear to have known about BB, unlike some others.) Very short career, but quality too good to ignore. OPS+ slightly below Jones, so here he goes.

22. (N/A-14-14-N/A) Chuck Klein. Shortish career but very good one. Similar player to Beckwith, beats Hack on career length, but Hack was better. TB+BB/PA .575, TB+BB/Outs .909, but only 2076 hits. OPS+137.

23. Indian Bob Johnson. Very similar career to Klein but infinitesimally less good. TB+BB/PA .569, TB+BB/Outs .890., only 2051 hits. OPS+138

24. (N/A-15-N/A) Alejandro Oms. New MLE OPS+ of 125 moves him down a bit. Shorter career than Beckley, and not quite as valuable, but he was a darn good player nonetheless.

25. Red Ruffing. Somewhat above average pitcher, with excellent counting stats because he happened to pitch for the Evil Empire (he was lousy for the Red Sox – typical). War credit would inflate his counting stats even further, but probably to just below 300 wins as he was winding down. ERA+ only 109, but 4333 IP and 273-225.

26. (N/A-11-12-11-11-12-13-14-12-15-15-15-15-N/A) Carl Mays
27. Ben Taylor. Not all that far below Beckley and better than Van Haltren. Put him above Suttles – he’s better, so will be on ballot in weak years.
28. (N/A-12-12-14-N/A) Tony Lazzeri
29. (N/A-11-12-15-14-N/A) Joe Sewell
30. Willard Brown. If he’d been a SS for the whole of his career he’d be close to Doerr or even a little above, but he was mostly a CF.
31. (N/A-14-N/A-15-N/A) Sam Rice
32. (N/A-6-5-9-8-9-8-7-10-11-8-9-7-7-6-6-9-9-8-6-6-6-5-4-8-7-9-12-
N/A-14-13-15-N/A) Hugh Duffy
33. (N/A) Mickey Vernon 2495 hits plus say 300 for war credit. OPS+116, TB+BB/PA .477, TB+BB/Outs .711
34. (N/A-13-15-N/A-15-15-N/A) Vic Willis
35. Sal Maglie. At 175% of visible career he would have been 208-108, with a 126 ERA+ in 3015 innings. That puts him about here.
36. (N/A) Burleigh Grimes.
37. (N/A) Heinie Manush
38. (N/A-9-10-10-13-N/A) Mike Tiernan
39. Bob Elliott
40. (N/A) Dick Lundy
41. (N/A-9-12-11-14-13-14-12-11-12-13-11-11-9-9-13-14-12-14-14-N/A) Levi Meyerle.
42. Biz Mackey. Not quite as good as Schang, very similar to McGuire. Better than Bell, though.
43. (12-15-N/A-11-10-12-10-10-9-8-11-12-10-10-8-8-14-15-13-15-15-N/A) Harry Wright.
44. (N/A-10-9-8-7-6-7-8-5-12-10-10-N/A-10-8-11-11-N/A) Jimmy Ryan
45. (N/A-13-12-13-13-12-14-15-12-13-11-11-N/A-11-9-12-12-N/A) George van Haltren. TB+BB/PA .469, TB+BB/Outs .765, not overwhelming for the 90s.
46. Joe Medwick. Probably a bit better than Joe Judge or Billy Herman, even after WWII discount, but not all that much better. 2471 hits at OPS+ of 134, but a lot of them in the war years. TB+BB/PA .526, TB+BB/Outs .792
47. Cool Papa Bell. Hugely overrated by history. Lou Brock minus, without 3000 hits and Brock would only just make this ballot.
48. Kiki Cuyler
49. Deacon McGuire
50. Jack Quinn
51. Tony Mullane
52. Pye Traynor
53. Jim McCormick
54. Dick Redding
55. Joe Judge
56. Edd Roush
57. Spotswood Poles.
58. Larry Doyle
59. Roger Bresnahan.
60. Wayte Hoyt.
61. Joe Gordon.
62. Harry Hooper.
63. Jules Thomas.
64. Wilbur Cooper
65. Bruce Petway.
66. Jack Clements
67. Bill Monroe
68. Jose Mendez
69. Herb Pennock
70. Chief Bender
71. Ed Konetchy
72. Jesse Tannehill
73. Bobby Veach
74. Lave Cross
75. Tommy Leach.
76. Tom York

karl,

You say in your preamble that Newcombe is close, but I don't see him listed. Is that an oversight, or did you mean he was close to getting on the list of top 76?

Sorry, I can't resist this one...

Yes, Ted was even better than Beckley, even though fewer hits and triples.

And Beckley was even better than Fred Pfeffer, even tho fewer home runs and stolen bases.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/pfefffr01.shtml

Yes, Ted was even better than Beckley, even though fewer hits and triples.

Since Williams would have had more hits and everything else besides triples* than Beckley if he had played instead of being in the military, that kind of deflates the notion that Beckley is near the Thumper as a player, don't you think? :-)

* I would bet my bank account that Ted would have had more than Eagle Eye if he had played during the Inside Baseball Era.

1966 Ballot –I use a little of WS, WARP, RCAA, OPS+, and traditional stats, as well as reputation.

1. Ted Williams That was easy.

2. Pete Browning There were two better hitters through the 1880’s, Brouthers and Connor.

3. Dick Redding We’re missing his best years.

4. Larry Doyle We generally elect hitters of this caliber, no matter what the fielding.

5. Dobie Moore Leapfrogs a couple of guys this week.

6. Bob Elliott I think that everyone has been penalizing him for mediocre wartime seasons, and are not carefully looking at 1947-1951.

7. Cupid Childs Fine 1890’s representative.

8. John McGraw Yes, he was injured, yes, he didn’t have a long career, but when he played, he played exceptionally well.

9.Biz Mackey A better pure catcher than Bresnahan, with a lower hitting peak.

10. Roger Bresnahan Best available major league catcher, by a good margin.

11. Tommy Bridges Seems to be a lesser Whitey Ford. Durability seems to be an issue, but maybe those late 30’s early 40’s Tigers were revolutionary in protecting arms. They sure had a lot of good young pitchers (Bridges, Trucks, Trout, Newhouser, Rowe, Benton, Hutchinson, Auker) during this time, and maybe realized (like the aughts Cubs) that they could defy convention and use a few more starters then most teams.

12. Jose Mendez I think that I can’t ignore Mendez, who was probably the pitcher that Ferrell was, and may have been as good a hitter.

13. George Van Haltren Has gotten an elect-me vote on my ballot before.

14. Bill Monroe The ultimate overlooked candidate.

15. Joe MedwickHad enough to be a HOMer.

LAST YEAR TOP TEN/NEW NOTABLES (a lot of new notables this year)

16. Clark Griffith Looks like he’ll make the ballot next year.

17. George Sisler May make the ballot next year.

18. Cool Papa Bell

19. Willard Brown

20. Ben Taylor

Red Ruffing – No really outstanding seasons, but a lot of good. Still, I think I would rather have Lefty Gomez. For what it is worth, I see him as behind all HOM P except Red Faber.

Bob Lemon – I see him as virtually identical with Bucky Walters. Close but not enough.

Eppa Rixey – I’ve supported him in the past, but now I like a little more peak.

Al Dark – Not enough. Not sure if he was a good manager or a lucky one.

Bobby Thomson – Great home run from a solid player.

Gil McDougald – If only he had gone to the Angels.

Don Newcombe – Closer to the ballot than I realized. Seems to be in the Walters/Lemon mold.

Willie (Puddin’ Head) Jones – My father is from Philadelphia, and here is one of his favorites.

Bob Rush – Made a couple of All-Star games.

Ray Boone – Good player, great genes.

Jim Hegan – The Mike Matheny of his day.

Whitey Lockman – Replaced Tookie Gilbert, the man who replaced Johnny Mize.

Irv Noren – Yankee trade bait. One of three Yankee outfielders at the 1954 All-Star Game.

Johnny Groth – Journeyman with some value.

Ted makes the ballot, but no other new candidate even comes close.

1. Ted Williams - No explanation needed

2. Mickey Welch - 300 wins should not be an automatic stat to get you in. Everyone says wins were easier to come by back then. Pitchers were used more, and thus able to win more. Wow, I guess the pitchers back then weren't aware of this since not many of them won 300 games. Welch may have pitched against worst teams...wasn't Welch and Keefe (who got elected) on the same team pitching against the same teams for quite awhile? Top 10 pitcher in almost all major pitching categories from 1880-1889. Was never "the" best, but was consistently one of the best over and over.

3. Joe Medwick - Some really big impressive years in the first half of his career. Enough career value for me to push him up this high on my ballot.

4. Clark Griffith - wonderful career value

5. Bob Lemon - Top 3 in wins 8 out of 9 years, top 10 in wins 9 years straight.

6. George Sisler - Even his "bad" years were still pretty darn good

7. Biz Mackey - I've always felt he was a star. He wasn't Josh Gibson, but who was?

8. Bobby Doerr - Good hitting 2nd baseman. Enough career to make my ballot.

9. Red Ruffing - Did he pitch for good teams? Absolutely. That's not his fault.

10. Burleigh Grimes - Between 1918-1931 he was pretty durable. A couple bad seasons mixed in, but all in all a dependable pitcher and I'm a career type of guy for the most part.

11. Joe Sewell - You couldn't strike the guy out! I absolutely love that about his career.

12. Jake Beckley - not quite the peak, but plenty of career. Enough to scratch the bottom of my ballot.

13. Sam Rice - Top 10 in hits 12 of the years between 1917 and 1930, 8 times top 10 in Batting Average.

14. Rube Waddell - Not quite Newhouser's peak, but not too shabby himself

15. George Van Haltren - I welcome George back to my ballot after a long time away. I did decide to move him up quite a bit, but I also felt the need to move Schang and Rixey down on my ballot after taking another look at them (yet again).

16. Eppa Rixey - Not as excited about him as I once was, but he's hanging around the bottom of my ballot.

17. Wally Schang - Lots of extra credit for being a durable catcher.

18. Joe Gordon - If his peak had been higher, or his career had been longer, I'd like him a lot more

19. Pie Traynor - I can understand why everyone didn't fall head over heals for him, but I didn't imagine that he would recieve so little support.

20. Cool Papa Bell - creeps up a little bit to take over this position from Bresnahan

Chris, to answer your question, Newcombe's close to the 76, not the full ballot. It's very flat down there, so I could argue for having him on at about #60 or so, but not higher, so he won't make my full ballot.

Not-Grandma, I'm delighted you've accepted my contention that Beckley belongs in the same discussion with Ted Williams. Not QUITE as good, I agree :-)

Williams wasn't that fast and hit the ball damn hard; even competing with Beckley he'd have had trouble racking up huge numbers of triples -- they'd all have kept soaring soggily over the fence, which would have caused him to stamp his feet and spit at the umpire!

PHoM: Ted Williams & Jud Wilson

1. Ted Williams (new)
2. Red Ruffing (1,1,3)

3. George Van Haltren (2,2,2)
4. Joe Medwick (5,5,5)
5. Eppa Rixey (6,4,4)

6. Mickey Welch (7,9,7)
7. Jake Beckley (9,6,8)
8. Willard Brown (4,3,6)
9. Biz Mackey (10,8,10)
10. Cool Papa Bell (8,7,9)

11. Dobie Moore (11,11,12)
12. George Sisler (14,12,15)
13. Hugh Duffy (15,13,14)
14. Tommy Leach (12,14,13)
15. Edd Roush (15,15,x)

16. Clark Griffith (x,x,x)
17. Jimmy Ryan (20,x,x)
18. Quincy Trouppe (18,x,x)
19. Sam Rice (19,x,x)
20. Cupid Childs (x,x,x)

21-25. Lemon, Powell, H.Smith, Streeter, White
26-30. Strong, Gleason, Redding, Browning, Greene

1966 ballot.

1. Ted Williams (new) For the combination of supreme baseball skills with being a lightning rod for all the bad feelings the press and some of the fans have about the game, probably only Ty Cobb and Barry Bonds are in the same category.
2. Red Ruffing (2, 3, 2, 1, 3) Offense-ajdusted RA+ PythPat 282-201, which is too good to ignore.
3. Larry Doyle (2, 4, 3, 3, 4) Big hitter in low scoring times - nearly as good a hitter as the backlog outfielders. Mediocre defense, but occupied the position for a long time.
4. Joe Medwick (3, 5, 4, 4, 5) His value shape is rather unusual. Perhaps Bill Terry? I see those two as pretty close to each other. For three years, he hit like one of the greats, but the rest of his career falls far below that.
5. George Van Haltren (4, 6, 5, 5, 6) Where he's been for me for a long time.
6. Eppa Rixey (5, 7, 6, 6, 7) A successful long-career inning-eater. No peak.
7. Ralph Kiner (5, 8, 7, 7, 8) His career may not have lasted very long, but during it he played every day and he hit a LOT of home runs.
8. Joe Sewell (8, 10, 9, 9, 9) If only he'd had 2 or 3 more good years - then he'd be an easy choice.
9. Quincy Trouppe (15, 17, 16, 17, 9) As with all Negro Leaguers, a lot of this is guesswork.
10. Biz Mackey (11, 12, 11, 12, 11) Catcher is a tough position, and catchers do tend to grow old early. Even Cochrane and Hartnett didn't have the hitting careers needed for election as a corner player.
11. Jose Mendez (13, 13, 12, 13, 12) A peak-value pitching candidate.
12. Dick Redding (13, 13, 14, 13, 14, 13) A career-value pitching candidate.
13. Jake Beckley (10, 11, 10, 10, 14) Not much peak, long career. Was he really better than Vernon? Maybe defense, maybe a position-scarcity argument. Offensively, I don't see it.
14. Bob Lemon (---, 15, 15) Ferrell, Lemon, and Walters form a pretty tight group. I think Ferrell is probably the best of the group, but not by a huge margin. And Walters is right there, too. But I don't see him ahead of Ruffing.
15. Bob Elliott (14, 15, 14, 16, 17) Roughly the equivalent of Dixie Walker as a hitter, plus 1300+ games of pretty good 3B.

16. Mickey Vernon (----, 16) Another loooong career 1st baseman, searching for a peak.
17. Willard Brown (16, 18, 17, 17, 17) If he really could hit for that batting average, he's Kirby Puckett. If not, he's Juan Gonzalez. Worth a look in any case.
18. Hugh Duffy (17, 19, 18, 18, 19)
19. Bucky Walters (18, 20, 19, 19, 20) Offense-adjusted RA+ PythPat 197-148, with a peak that nearly rivals Ferrell's.
20. Phil Rizzuto (-. 21, 20, 20, 21) A glove-first SS candidate. Not a great offensive player, but at least useful on offense in an OBP-first shape, with good baserunning. But even with war credit, his career's not particularly long.

21. Cupid Childs (19, 22, 21, 21, 22) Like a lot of people, his career is too short. Not the offensive peak of Doyle, but it is a real peak.
22. Joe Gordon (19, 23, 22, 22, 23) Not much to choose from between him and Herman.
23. Tommy Bridges (21, 24, 23, 23, 24) RA+ PythPat 190-124. Ferrell had a higher peak, but Bridges was a terrific pitcher.
24. Cool Papa Bell (22, 25, 24, 24, 25) A legend, of course, with a very long career. He's down here because I'm not sure his peak is any better than Willie Wilson's.
25. Edd Roush (23, 26, 25, 25, 26) Nearly the same offensive value as the leftover 1890's guys; better hitter than Carey.
26. George Sisler (24, 27, 26, 26, 27) My peak-heavy offensive evaluation system likes Chance ahead of Sisler, and Sisler ahead of Beckley. The order gets reversed because of playing time.
27. Vern Stephens (25, 28, 27, 27, 28)
28. Bobby Doerr (26, 29, 28, 28, 29)
29. Dobie Moore (27, 30, 29, 29, 30) Short career, high peak.
30. Bob Johnson (28, -, 30, 30, -)

In raw major league accomplishments, Don Newcombe starts out well off my ballot. But every adjustment to that is in his favor. I can't quite make the whole trip to bring him to the ballot, but I could understand how others might.

1966 ballot

I’m an extreme peak voter; career numbers matter very little to me, except as a tiebreaker.

Before this year’s vote, I decided that I’d still been underrating pitchers in general. While trying to rectify that, I did a bit more work with PRAA and PRAR, and that shuffled the deck a bit among all my pitcher rankings, helping some (Dean, Griffith, Joss, Grimes, newcomer Newcombe) and hurting others (McCormick, Lemon, Mays).

Besides the obvious new entry, Earl Averill gets into my pHOM this year.

1. Ted Williams (pHOM 1966). Duh.

2. Dobie Moore (pHOM 1932). Just enough to satisfy my (admittedly small) minimum requirements. Best unelected hitter not named Ted Williams, at least for the peak-centric.

3. José Méndez (pHOM 1960). We still need more pitchers, and to me, he looks like the best one still out there.Would have loved to see him pitch.

4. Rube Waddell (pHOM 1919). I think I’m still his best friend, even after demoting him a bit a few years back. Love his PRAA, love his strikeouts, and the unearned runs don’t bug me that much.

5. Joe Medwick (pHOM 1958). The peak is persuasive.

6. Hugh Duffy (pHOM 1930). It seems many of us agree this era is a bit underrepresented; it’s just that we can’t agree on whether Duffy, the peak candidate, or Van Haltren, the career candidate, deserves to go in. Poor Jimmy Ryan gets lost between the two.

7. Cupid Childs (pHOM 1938). Another high-peaking infielder.

8. Vic Willis (pHOM 1961). Underrated (or so says my dropping consensus score). Impressive peak, lots of Ks.

9. Ralph Kiner (pHOM 1964). He still looks pretty good to a peak voter.

10. Willard Brown (pHOM 1964). A great hitter, even if he didn’t walk much.

11. Ed Williamson (pHOM 1931). Still the best of the remaining 3Bs, for my taste. And, hey, from that underrepresented era again!

[11a. Earl Averill (pHOM 1966). An outfielder I’ve made wait a bit longer than most did. Not the best of the remaining CFs, but in the top group of them.]

12. Quincy Trouppe. All the hard evidence makes him the best of the remaining eligible catchers.

13. Dizzy Dean. He’s back! My reevaluation, my look into PRAA peak seasons, and my thinking process as Koufax approaches have all made me think I might have had him pegged right in my first few votes. It’s a really short peak (which is why he’s not higher), but it’s an impressive one.

14. Bucky Walters. Another underrated pitcher with an appealing peak.

15. Al Rosen. I remain pretty lonely on Rosen. Normally even I don’t go for guys with peaks this short, but his position gives him a decent boost in my system—I think we need more 3Bs.

16. Charlie Keller. Quite close to Kiner overall; a very underappreciated and underrated player (well, if you’re a peak voter, anyway).

17. George Sisler (pHOM 1939). The stretch to 20 brings Gorgeous George back to my (unofficial) ballot, after being demoted on reappraisal a few years back.

18. Roger Bresnahan. We need more catchers, and he played the position enough to qualify (if he’d played it more, he’d be significantly higher).

19. Joe Gordon. A solid infielder I may still be underappreciating.

20. Charley Jones. Another player I may still have too low; I’ve never been fully happy with my analysis of him (or of Pete Browning, who’s a few places below). His peak is prodigious, but how real are those numbers?

21-25: Doyle, [Reese], Browning, Redding, [Slaughter], Mackey, Berger
26-30: H. Wilson, Oms, Cicotte, Poles, Griffith
31-35: Leach, McCormick, Cravath, Joss, Doerr
36-40: Roush, Chance, Ryan, Burns, Dunlap
41-45: Pesky, Welch, Van Haltren, Grimes, Lemon
46-50: Veach, Rizzuto, McGraw, Newcombe, B. Johnson

Required Explanations:

•Ruffing. Obviously not a peak voter’s cup of tea. The new pitcher evaluation helped him a bit, but he still doesn’t crack my top 50.

•Lemon. He has a nice little peak, with the emphasis on “little.” Probably the best AL pitcher for at least a few years, but I’m not a big fan of many of the AL pitchers of this era. I expected my PRAA reevaluation to help him, but in fact it hurt him a bit, dropping him to #45.

•Mackey. The numbers, at least in the MLEs and the actual data, just aren’t there—not enough peak. I can’t bring myself to elevate him on reputation alone; he’s at #24.

•Rixey. Still above Ruffing, and the reevaluation helped him some. But still no peak to speak of, and still just outside my top 50.

•Griffith. One of the biggest gainers from my reevaluation—he has a better PRAA peak than I’d expected. He moved from near the bottom of my top 50 to #30. He could move further in future years—I wanted to be conservative about this for the time being.

•Van Haltren. Not a peak voter’s kind of hitter. He’s at #43.

•Bell. Also not a peak voter’s type, unless you go entirely on reputation, which I’m not willing to do. Not terribly close to my top 50.

•Newcombe. A tricky guy to evaluate. The peak isn’t stellar, though, and no racism and no Korean War would have made it longer, I can’t assume it would have made it higher. The reevaluation helped him a bit, but only enough to move him from just outside my top 50 to just inside; he lands at #49.

•Dark. Those first few years were pretty great, but it’s not a high enough peak to make up for the falloff thereafter. Not close to my top 50.

No other new candidates were even close to being close to my top 50. :)

1966

Ted Williams and Willard Brown go PHoM.

1. Ted Williams (new, PHoM 1966)--like the man said, no explanation needed.

2. Dobie Moore (1 last week-1-2, PHoM 1942)--Still the best player available at his peak.

3. Joe Medwick (3-2-3, PHoM 1954)--if we get our full complement of voters this year (i.e. unlike last year when several voters missed due to technical difficulties) Ducky should probably slide back behind Ruffing but will get elected someday

4. George Sisler (4-3-4, PHoM 1938)
5. Pete Browning (5-5-6, PHoM 1961)
6. Ralph Kiner (6-6-8, PHoM 1964)--more big peak hitters.

7. Rube Waddell (7-8-9, PHoM 1932)
8. Jose Mendez (8-9-10, PHoM 1957)--re-evaluated pitchers, both move ahead of Tommy Bond.

9. Tommy Bond (9-4-5, PHoM 1929)--he doesn't fall too far.

10. Willard Brown (13-12-13, PHoM 1966)--push comes to shove I gotta have Willard in my PHoM ahead of Country.

(10a. Enos Slaughter (10-new)--not enough peak to slide into PHoM right away but clearly ballot-worthy.)

11. Addie Joss (11-10-11)--second best prime ERA+ available after Waddell.

12. Ed Williamson (12-11-12, PHoM 1924)--comps include Jimmy Collins and Stan Hack.

13. Charley Jones (14-14-15, PHoM 1921)--without blacklist credit.

14. Dick Redding (15-13-14)--remains behind Joss, stays ahead of Lemon.

15. Joe Gordon (16-15-x)--top of the middle IF who could hit glut

(15a. Stan Hack)

16. Vern Stephens (17)
17. Larry Doyle (18)
18. Bobby Doerr (19)--closes out the middle IF who could hit glut

19. Bob Lemon (20)--I had underrated Lemon, he is now the #4 ML pitcher, though also behind Mendez and Redding.

20. Charlie Keller (x)--better than Hack Wilson and Chuck Klein, not better than Ralph Kiner among the short career Moneyball guys.

(20a. Harry Stovey and Earl Averill not too far behind here though I kinda like Hugh Duffy a little more. Might not matter, don't know.)

PHoM/not HoM--Harry Wright, Jones, Williamson, Cupid Childs, Bond, Waddell, Sisler, Moore, Medwick, Mendez, Browning, Kiner, W. Brown

HoM/not PHoM--Sutton, Galvin, Stovey, Keeler, Kelley, Hill, Sheckard, Faber, Hack, Averill, W. Ferrell, Slaughter. Slaughter, Stovey, Hack and Averill queued up.... The rest are doubtful.

Oops, forgot the required comments. Usually I append the rest of my top 50 where you would see all of the following except GVH and Bell.

Rixey--in the 20s somewhere
Ruffing--in the 30s
Mackey--in the 40s after Trouppe and Bresnahan
Griffith--in the 30s
GVH and Bell--in the 60s or 70s, sorry Charlie, they're down around #8-10 among CF

Mark,

I just wanted to say that Al Rosen is thisclose to my ballot this year and hasn't been lower than #22 since he became eligible. So you are not completely alone on him, it just looks that way when we see only top 15's.

And isn't it odd that the three Marks/Marcs in the project are all guys who like a good peak?

1. Ted Williams – If it weren’t for the wars, he could have had quite a good career.

2. 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.

3. Cool Papa Bell – 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). I have to say I disagree with (and almost resent) comments that we are “beyond” things such as the SABR poll. You just have to decide how you are going to weight all the information.

4. Eppa Rixey – see Grimes comment.

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

6. 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 Rixey at 4 and Griffith at 16, which results in 7 pitchers in the middle part of my ballot. All three of Rixey, Ruffing and Grimes are among the top 50 all-time in PitchingWinShares.

7. Jake Beckley -- ~3000 hits but no peak at all. Crawford (HOMer) and Wheat (HOMer) are two of his three most similars. 3200+ hits adjusted to 162 games. After voting for him at the very top of my ballot for 50 years, I have come to realize that his peakless career is rarer than I thought and also less deserving.

8. 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.

9. 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 Bresnahan (17) or Schang (29).

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

11. Ralph Kiner – He is my highest peak/prime only candidate. I cannot ignore seven consecutive home run titles and a 149 career OPS+.

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

13. Bob Lemon – a bit of a ringer for Ferrell, who was one spot ahead when elected. I take Ferrell’s hitting advantage over Lemon’s slight pitching advantage.

14. 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.

15. George Van Haltren – 40 wins, 2500 hits, never dominated. Pretty good adjusted win shares.

16. Clark Griffith – 921 similarity score with mcginnity, who was 1st on my ballot when elected. I’ve decided to slot him right behind the two short career pitching balloters, though he could just as easily be ahead of them. He is barely better than Harder, Warneke, Smith, Bridges, Gomez, Hoyt, Mendez, Joss, Dean, Luque, Pennock, Trucks, Matthews, Quinn, McCormick, Newcombe, Cicotte, Willis, Bender, Mays, Cooper, Shocker, Mullane (highest WS of any non-candidate by far), Byrd and Mullin. It is tough to separate the wheat from the chaff among the pitchers.

17. 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.

18. Jimmy Ryan – 2500 hits, good speed, lots of runs. Hurt by timelining.

19. Jose Mendez – somewhere between here and Waddell seems about right. Looks like he was the 7th best blackball pitcher.

20. Sam Rice -- 2987 hits speaks to me. In fact, it says "only 7 eligible candidates -- all of them elected easily by us -- have more than that".

>3. Cool Papa Bell – I have chosen to rely, in part, on the 1952 Courier poll and more importantly the 1999 SABR poll.

Can somebody clarify? Was the 1999 SABR poll a poll of the general membership of SABR? If so I can pretty much guarantee that the participants here in the HoM know vastly more about these players than the SABR pollees (?) did.

If the poll was of some other more specialized group, great....

1966 ballot, our 69th

I am convinced that overall there is too much emphasis on WARP3 and WS, which are intriguing tools but which are not yet sufficiently mature.
So my preference for ERA+ and OPS+ helps, I like to think, as a reality check on the newfangled toys.

1. TED WILLIAMS - Led AL in OBP, 1940-42. WW II, 1943-45. Led AL in OBP, 1946-49. Also would have led in 1950, but only played 89 Games. Led AL in OBP 1951. Korean War, 1952-53. Led AL in OBP, 1954. Also would have led in 1955, but only 98 G. Led AL in OBP, 1956-58. Also would have led in 1960, but only 113 G. Not mentioned: 6th in OBP, 1939; and would have been 9th in 1959, but only 113 G.
2. EPPA RIXEY - See my notes on the Bob Lemon thread. A very misunderstood career, I think because people found him wanting compared to other guys with that incredible number of IP. But pretend he's a shorter-career guy, and suddenly he looks better than the Ferrells or the Lemons. Plus he's got his own solid collection of top 10 IP finishes, so we don't have a Griffith situation here. Eppa missed his age 27 season to WW I (and much of the age 28 season), and I wonder how many have accounted for that, either. Better than Ruffing over full career context, too.

3. JAKE BECKLEY - His OPS+s as a regular: 152 44 38 33 31 28 27 27 26 26 26 24 22 12 12 05 02
Long, long career of "quite good" is almot unique. His fielding had value, he played every day, he hit well - there's nothing remotely like this career among the unelected hitters from 1875-1935. 13 OPS+s of 120 or better. Rivals came and went; it's only he who lasted. Some parallels to Rixey.
4. DICK REDDING - Leapfrogs Ruffing with a second look at Red. A little bit caught between peak/career types, and of course parts of his career are shrouded by history. A rare Negro League pitcher who lasted, deserves much credit for that. I agree that this is the missing Negro League pitcher in our experiment.
5. RED RUFFING - I had been giving him a little too much credit for longevity, when his first half-dozen years add almost nothing. His 'main' 2850 IP are similar to Lemon's career, but I like the Ruffing peak a little better. Also, the extra IP are better than nothing.
6. BOB LEMON - So close to this bunch. Seven straight years in the top 4 in IP, and in four of those years he was right there with the best "rate" pitchers as well. Also a very good hitter; how much that is worth to you may determine the fate of a lot of these pitchers.
7. GEORGE SISLER - The comparison with Medwick in an earlier ballot discussion thread was instructive: There is an argument whether his best season was any better than George's, but there are too many voters using other systems that work against Sisler. A slight pitching boost, too.
8. CUPID CHILDS - A full-length career for this brutal and underrepresented era is darn impressive. I discount the heck out of the silly 1890 AA season, but still find seven other 120 OPS+s here.
9. PETE BROWNING - Seven OPS+s above 163. 10 regular seasons, a good number for the era. Almost would be No. 2 on my ballot if he could field. He stunk at it, sometimes, but played some 16 pct of his career in the infield. Was OF fielding hugely important in this era? I doubt it.
10. RALPH KINER - Just a tad better than Medwick; I like mashers like this, and a little war credit. Is getting underrated by the electorate.
11. GAVVY CRAVATH - Moves up 5 spots after further review. The key is the half-season opportunity in 1908; even then he clearly was a quality major league hitter, so there's little reason not to significantly credit either 1907 or 1909-11. And his work in his 30s is just outstanding. I think Gadfly's estimates on the Cravath thread are way too kind to him, BUT I hope people don't reject his whole case on that grounds. Doesn't need a lot of minor-league credit to beat Medwick. Comparison to Kiner is even more fascinating.
12. CLARK GRIFFITH - Refuses to depart my ballot. Is everyone considering 1892-93 credit for him? If not, that may be all it takes for more votes. I don't believe the amazing W-L is a fluke; pitching conditions were a ton different then, and he was focused on Ws in a non-HR era. Lack of innings a problem, I admit, but he stands out over most contemporaries for the body of work.
13. COOL PAPA BELL - This is conceding that park and steals led him to be quite overrated. But if we just 'rated' him, he'd have been in the HOM almost 20 years ago. Discounting the myth doesn't mean ignoring a very long and productive career.
14. JOE MEDWICK - Very nice 5, 8, 10-year numbers. But look closer, and it's basically a Kiner-esque career with a few part-time seasons on the fringes.
15. BOB ELLIOTT - Probably better than HOMer Hack, has returned to my ballot. Wish he'd play all 3B and not so much OF, but c'est le vie.

EXPERIMENTAL 16-20
16. MICKEY WELCH - Will return to the ballot someday. The Ws are great, but hovered in the 3 to 5 ranking in IP when only a dozen or so guys were hurling serious innings. One outstanding, one excellent, one very good year ERA+-wise. The category is not a perfect tool out of that era, but the dominance also wasn't quite there.
17. GEORGE VAN HALTREN - Yes, the three levels of league-average SPing are worth something. I dismissed him long ago, but as the ballot thins it's inevitable that he would sneak back toward the top 15.
18. ROGER BRESNAHAN - I could use a few more innings at C and not OF, but he was great in OF some years.
19. JOE GORDON - Candidacies of Doby and Slaughter confirmed that Gordon has gotten screwed in terms of WW II war credit in comparison.
20. BURLEIGH GRIMES - Climbs quite a bit after another look. I dismissed him as short of Rixey and Ruffing, and he was. But as they move up, there's no reason not to put Grimes back in the equation, at least.

(Moore-Mendez-Sewell-WBrown-Doerr-TLeach are 21-25. I tentatively slotted each at 'No. 20,' but was not overly enthusiastic about any. I guess this is about as deep as I'm willing to go.)


NEWBIE UNWORTHY
DON NEWCOMBE - Unlike Cravath, there is no MLB half-career that demands our strong consideration. Picks up all kinds of potential side-credit, but that's just to even get into the conversation.

TOP 10 RETURNEE STILL SNUBBED
BIZ MACKEY - I like the Sisler and Deacon McGuire comparisons in his thread. Sisler - one good half-career, one 'not worth much' half-career. McGuire - long career as a C, but played not always that often or that well. Unfortunately for Biz, the latter seems more on the money. He's fallen off my radar, as fielding by a C is not as key in my eyes as 2B-SS, among others. How much was that really worth?

1Ted Williams - "Didja hear about that alligator? Terrible thing!"
2George Van Haltren - A Giant among men.
3Red Ruffing - "Red, you're 39-86 in Boston! You need a change of scenery!"
4Mickey Welch - You li'l smiling screwball, you!
5Joe Medwick - Say it with me now: "Ducky Wucky."
6Biz Mackey - He wasn't Josh Gibson…he was better.
7Cool Papa Bell - 3-12: "Batter out, hit by own line drive."
8Jake Beckley - Twenty. Five. Thousand. Chances.
9Eppa Rixey - Greatest chemist/ballplayer named Eppa ever.
10George Sisler - Singles, going steady.
11José Méndez - The Monarch of Cuba.
12Hugh Duffy - And the hits just keep on coming!
13Ralph Kiner - Tell Branch Rickey to shut up.
14Pete Browning - Drunk, braggart, lousy fielder. Who could ask for more?
15Bobby Doerr - Shoulda named the tunnel after him.
16Cannonball Dick Redding - Devastating.
17Joe Gordon - "…and that's why I carry the American Express card!"
18Joe Sewell - (insert "strike out" reference here)
19Dobie Moore - Blazed across the sky with a rifle for an arm.
20Quincy Trouppe - 20 Years Too Soon.

RMc's post hereby nominated for the monthly creatvity award. Beautiful lunchtime humor.

Oh, and I get an award for my kreeaytiv spelling of creativity.

If you really want to make Ruffing's face Red, point out that he was 39-96 with Boston - not 39-86.

Funny stuff, though.

1966 ballot
Ted Williams and Sherry Magge make my PHOM this year

1. Ted Williams (makes my personal HoM this year)
2. George Sisler I believe everyone knows my view on him by now (made my personal HoM in 1936)
3. Cool Papa Bell the lack over support for Bell is mind boggling to me he was almost universally considered one of the top 5 Negroe Leaguers ever the stats that we have for him are amazing he played good for almost 25 years he was one of the smartest players in Negro Leagues (made my personal HoM in 1948)
4. Pie Traynor most 3B putouts 7 times (made my personal HoM in 1942)
5. Mickey Welch please see his thread (made my personal HoM all the way back in 1898)
6. Joe Sewell love the strikeouts (made my personal HoM in 1939)
7. Biz Mackey another Cooperstown mistake (made my personal HoM in 1949)
8. Chuck Klein 4 hr titles (made my personal HoM in 1951)
9. Sam Rice if he got 13 more hits would he make the HoM? (made my personal HoM in 1940)
10. Pete Browning 13th in career batting avg. (made my personal HoM in 1906)
11. Jake Beckley 30th in hits (made my personal HoM in 1915)
12. Rube Waddell most Ks/9IP 7 times in a row tying with Vance for the record led in it 1 more time (made my personal HoM in 1917)
13. Bob Lemon weaker league keeps him down (made my personal HoM in 1964)
14. Hack Wilson 4 hr titles (made my personal HoM in 1940)
15. Joe Medwick 1 triple crown (made my personal HoM in 1956)
16. Ralph Kiner 7 HR titles (made my personal HoM in 1961)
17. Hugh Duffy had 100 runs or RBIs every full year he played (made my personal HoM in 1908)
18. Addie Joss 2nd in era (made my personal HoM in 1918)
19. George Kell very good hitter and fielder at important and under elected position (made my personal HoM in 1963)
20. Clark Griffith 54th in wins (made my personal HoM in 1912)
21. Heinie Manush 330 batting avg. (makes my personal HoM this year)
22. Edd Roush 323 batting avg (made my personal HoM in 1937)
23. Hilton Smith see his thread (made my personal HoM in 1964)
24. Ray Schalk the best catcher ever (made my personal HoM in 1938)
25. George Van Haltren 31st in runs (made my personal HoM in 1925)
26. Jimmy Ryan 30th in runs (made my personal HoM in 1926)
27. Rabbit Maranville best shortstop before Ozzie (made my personal HoM in 1939)
28. Bobby Veach most doubles twice (made my personal HoM in 1931)
29. Jake Daubert 29th in triples (made my personal HoM in 1930)
30. Ginger Beaumont 1902 batting title (made my personal HoM in 1932)
31. Gavvy Cravath most active HRs 1918, 1919 and 1920 (made my personal HoM in 1928)
32. John McGraw 3rd in on base percentage (made my personal HoM in 1930)
33. Kiki Cuyler 2299 hits
34. Jim Bottomley 2313 hits
35. Lloyd Waner had the most OF putouts 4 times, finished 2nd once and finished 3rd twice
36. George J. Burns most walks 5 times (made my personal HoM in 1932)

explanation for players not on my ballot
Eppa Rixey I don’t find anything special in most of the 20’s pitchers
Red Ruffing is just off my ballot

I'd never noticed that 39-96 start for Ruffing. Can any Hall Of Famer/Meriter come close to that start for futility? I thought Koufax's 36-40 was bad.

I'd never noticed that 39-96 start for Ruffing. Can any Hall Of Famer/Meriter come close to that start for futility? I thought Koufax's 36-40 was bad.

The book "The Worst Pitchers of All-Time" gives their "Sold His Soul to the Devil" award to Ruffing.

Roberto Clemente had an 89 OPS+ through his first 2500 PA. But he was still only 24 at that point.

Not to take the ballot discussion too far off target but I wonder if it ever occurred to Bill Carrigan or the Red Sox ownership that after 2 consecutive years batting over .300 and slugging .488 and .439 in 1928 and 1929, they might have had another Babe Ruth on their hands with Mr.Ruffing?
Not to imply Red was Babe's equal with a bat (or as a pitcher given Babe's stellar pitching record his first 5 years in beantown) but after seeing Ruth become what he then was....the most dominant player in baseball and he being an ex Red Sox pitcher who could hit, I wonder if any similar thoughts went through managements head, especially with Red struggling on the mound.
He was 39 and 93 by the end of 1929 with an ERA well below league average, having pitched well over 1000 innings.
Looking at statistics only (which I doubt any manager did in detail back then) would lead one to believe Red's stuff wasn't all that great.
Red must have had something else going for him that a poor ERA and lousy won/loss record couldn't show on paper.

Not to take the ballot discussion too far off target but I wonder if it ever occurred to Bill Carrigan or the Red Sox ownership that after 2 consecutive years batting over .300 and slugging .488 and .439 in 1928 and 1929, they might have had another Babe Ruth on their hands with Mr.Ruffing?
Not to imply Red was Babe's equal with a bat (or as a pitcher given Babe's stellar pitching record his first 5 years in beantown) but after seeing Ruth become what he then was....the most dominant player in baseball and he being an ex Red Sox pitcher who could hit, I wonder if any similar thoughts went through managements head, especially with Red struggling on the mound.
He was 39 and 93 by the end of 1929 with an ERA well below league average, having pitched well over 1000 innings.
Looking at statistics only (which I doubt any manager did in detail back then) would lead one to believe Red's stuff wasn't all that great.
Red must have had something else going for him that a poor ERA and lousy won/loss record couldn't show on paper.

Sorry about the double post

I must say that it is fun to get into my PHOM backlog. This year it is Charlie Keller, next year it looks to be two of Dobie Moore, Bucky Walters, and Larry Doby.

On to the ballot
1966 ballot
Williams and Keller make my PHOM

1. Ted Williams (x, PHOM 1966) - Easy choice, probably one of the five best MLB players ever. Ruth, Bonds, Wagner, Mays, Williams by my reckonin'.

2. Cupid Childs (1, PHOM 1939) - Childs looks to be my new pet candidate not with Hughie gone, though I have less help with this one. I think that Cupid was the 19th century's best 2B.

3. Joe Medwick (2, PHOM 1958) - He looks to go in one of these years, but I would have figured he would be in already. Big WS peak, mostly because his teams were so good, and/or they beat their pythags. However I think he was a big part of that.

4. Hugh Duffy (3, PHOM 1964) - Best of the 1890's CF trio based on his superior peak.

5. Dick Redding (5, PHOM 1965) - 2nd best NeL pitcher of the dead ball ear behind Smokey Joe Williams, which is none too shabby.

6. Bob Lemon (4, PHOM 1965) - Very similar to Wes Ferrell but with a slightly lower peak.

7. Charlie Keller (6, PHOM 1966) - With a few more decent seasons he would be an easy #2, monster peak. One of the players who needs the most war credit as he lost some peak years.

8. Dobie Moore (7) - Next in line for PHOM, Moore was the black Jennings. His peak wasn't as high as Jennings but he did have more career.

9. Bucky Walters (8) - Pitcher in the Ferrell/Lemon mold, not as good a hitter and got a boost with some good years during the war.

9a. Larry Doby
9b. Earl Averill
10. Ralph Kiner (10) - Another high peak OFer, great hitter and a truly atrocious fielder.

10a. Bill Terry
11. Clark Griffith (11) - Best 19th century pitcher we have yet to elect. 4th best pitcher of the 1890's, decent peak.

12. Quincey Trouppe (12) - I like him more than Mackey. He has a higher peak because he had great in season durability for a catcher.

13. Joe Gordon (13)- Very good prime and very good fielder.

14. Pete Browning (14) - For once he is not the best hitter on the ballot. Bigger in his own time than Medwick and Keller but his time was one of questionable competitiveness.

15. Eppa Rixey (15) - He is the career pitcher that I like more. With war credit he was better than Redding. Pitched a lot of innings and he pitched them well.

16. Bobby Doerr
17. Al Rosen
18. Dixxy Dean
19a. Enos Slaughter
19. George Van Haltren
20. George Sisler

21-25 Oms, Waddell, Bresnahan, Berger, Mendez
26-30 Elliot, Cravath, Brown, Newcombe, Willis
31-35 Mackey, Roush (Carey), Bell, Lundy, Rizzuto
36-40 Monroe, Ruffing, Veach, Doyle, Sewell
41-45 Shocker, Johnson, Leach, Thomas, McGraw
46-50 Stephens, Wilson, Chance, Traynor, Cicotte
51-55 Burns, Taylor, Ryan, Klein, Schang
56-60 Bancroft, Easter, Scales, C.Jones, Gomez

Required

Newcombe - Decent pitcher, I may be overrating hima tad however. He seems to be in the Lemon/Walters class only without the peak.

Ruffing - Nothing special, I just can't see him as being better than Rixey. He would be our worst selection since I started in 1935. Maybe this means we are doing a good job by me.

Mackey and Bell are in the low thirties. I just dont' see either as being a true star when they were at their best. I also think we have inflated NeL career WS #'s.

I use Win Shares as the base for my ranking system, though I am now using a modified version (any negative values are converted into zeroes) of BRAR, FRAR and PRAR for the NA.

I am integrating the conclusions made by DERA with Win Shares for all pitchers.

I do place (to a certain degree) domination at one's position during the player's era. That doesn't mean that domination-by-default will necessarily help you though (Gil Hodges may have been the best first baseman of his era, but I doubt he'll make my ballot when he becomes eligible).

1) Ted Williams-LF (n/e): He was good. Best major league right fielder for 1939. Best major league left fielder for 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1954, 1955, and 1957. Best AL left fielder for 1952.

2) Roger Bresnahan-C/CF (3): Greatest catcher of the Deadball Era not named Santop. The poor man's Buck Ewing (Johnny Kling was the poor man's Charlie Bennett) is still good enough to be here on my ballot. Slightly better than Noisy behind the plate, but the Duke played longer and at other positions. Best major league catcher for 1905, 1906 and 1908. Best major league centerfielder for 1903.

3) Alejandro Oms-CF (4): Thanks to Chris' work, another gem has been uncovered. He should gather more and more support over the next few "years."

4) Willard Brown-CF/LF/SS (5): May deserve to go ahead of Oms. At any rate, I'm sold that he was an outstanding player.

5) Cupid Childs-2B (6): <6>Best second baseman of the '90s.</b> Too short of a career to knock out McPhee for tops for the 19th century, but not that far behind. Considering the average second basemen of his era, he was fairly durable. Best major league second baseman for 1890, (almost in 1891), 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1897.

Childs was the best major league second baseman more times in a season than Doyle was the best NL second baseman. IMO, there's no way that the Laughing One goes above the Little Fat Man.

6) Hugh Duffy-CF/LF/RF (7): "Only" the third best centerfielder of the '90s, but that position was very strong for that decade. Best major league right fielder for 1890 and 1891. Best major league centerfielder for 1892, 1893 and 1894.

7) George Van Haltren-CF/P (8): Long career of quality play. Best NL leftfielder for 1889 and best AA leftfielder for 1891.

8) Tommy Bridges-P (9): I'm giving him WWII credit, so that pushes him fairly high on my ballot. Still not sure about post-major league credit for him, though. Never the best in his league, but consistently of high quality throughout his career.

9) Jake Beckley-1B (10): Not much peak, but plenty of career. Better than his numbers suggest since first base was tougher during his time than during the ABC boys' era. Best major league first baseman for 1900.

10) Wally Schang-C (11): I've come to the conclusion that the two Erics have a point about Schang - his stats demand more respect from the electorate. Like Bresnahan, we're not doing a good job of placing catchers in their proper context, IMO. Best AL catcher for 1913, 1914. Best major league catcher for 1919, 1921.

11) Burleigh Grimes-P (12): Pitched for a long time behind crappy teams and defenses. Better peak, IMO, than Rixey or Welch places him slightly above those career guys. Best NL pitcher for 1921 and 1929.

12) Mickey Welch-P (13): I have to admit that the 1880's had some fine pitchers. Best major league pitcher for 1885.

13) Pete Browning-CF/LF (14): Gotta love the peak! Best major league second baseman for 1882. Best major league leftfielder for 1883 (close in 1890). Best AA centerfielder for 1885. Best major league centerfielder for 1887.

14) Frank Chance-1B/C (15): Best first baseman for the first decade of the 20th century. Even more so than Beckley, the Peerless Leader shouldn't be compared with the ABC boys or the post-1920 grouping of first baseman. The cream-of the-crop from Franklin Adam's famous trio. Best major league first baseman for 1903, 1904. 1905, 1906, and 1907 (close in 1908). Best NL first baseman for 1908.

15) Charley Jones-LF/CF (16): He was playing a more difficult position than the one that it evolved into. I gave him a little more credit for his (unfairly) blacklisted years. Best major league leftfielder for 1877, 1879 and 1884. Best AA centerfielder for 1883. Best AA leftfielder for 1885 (close to being the best in the majors).

16) Buzz Arlett-RF/P (17): I'm comfortable enough with his MLEs to place him here. A truly unique career. Probably would have been the best major league right fielder for 1926 if he had been allowed to play.

17) Pie Traynor-3B (18): Best white third baseman of his time, but Beckwith was better. Best major league third baseman for 1923 (Beckwith was better), 1925, 1927, 1929 (Beckwith was better) and 1932.

18) Tony Mullane-P/OF (19): Talk about forgotten around here. I don't think he's a HoMer, but the guy was up there.

19) Dobie Moore-SS (20): Terrific peak; wished he had a little more career. Probably would have been the best shortstop in the majors in 1919, 1921, 1922, and 1924.

20) Vic Willis-P (n/e): It's fun bringing some of my old ballot stuffers back from the grave. Willis pitched a ton of innings at an above-average rate for a long enough time for his era. Best major league pitcher for 1899. Best NL pitcher for 1901.

Medwick, Ruffing, Lemon, Griffith, Rixey, Mackey, and Bell all exist in my top-35, but they just fall short.

"With a few more decent seasons he would be an easy #2, monster peak. One of the players who needs the most war credit as he lost some peak years."

I thought Keller only lost a year and a half or three-quarters to the war . . .

1966 Ballot

My top 2 were elected in 1965. Among the 1966 new arrivals, Williams is one of the easiest players ever to rank; Newcombe is quite a challenge.

1. Ted Williams (n/e). The Splendid Splinter! With war credit, the #4 player of all time to date in my reckoning, behind Ruth, Wagner, and Cobb. He’ll be our first unanimous #1 electee in quite some time.
2. Clark Griffith (3). Best candidate available from the underrepresented and underrated 1890s. Without contraction, there’d be no questions about his career length, as he would have two more major-league seasons in 1892 and 1893. Superior to several elected pitchers by virtually every measure. I hope to see him elected in the 1960s.
3. Eppa Rixey (4). Long, solidly above-average career. Runner-up in 1942. he is now getting closer to election at last. Better than Ruffing, though it’s close. Would help to fill the 1915-25 drought.
4. Alejandro Oms (5). A great player in the 1920s, his run of solid to border-line MVP seasons is nearly a match for Averill’s, and he has much more value outside of his prime. His career tailed after his 1930 (injury?) season, but he remained a good hitter with gradually decreasing playing time in my projections. Brown beats him in OPS+, but I think Oms’ superior plate discipline makes him the better offensive player. Given the possibility that we are missing a season or two of major-league quality seasons at the beginning of his career, I am comfortable with Oms here. Tiboreau’s comparison of Oms to Slaughter on his ballot was excellent, really clarifying the shape and quality of Oms’s career.
5. Red Ruffing. (6) The last 1930s candidate whom I strongly support for election. Lands just between Eppa Rixey and Burleigh Grimes among the “innings-eater” pitching candidates. No great peak, but he had a lot of very good years for the Yankees. His hitting makes the difference between on-ballot and buried deep in the backlog.
6. Biz Mackey (7). A solid candidate and I hope an eventual HoMer. A stronger candidate than Schang or Bresnahan because of his defensive value (supported by both his reputation and his 1928 statistics), but overall he’s not in the class of Harnett, Dickey, or Cochrane. This placement includes credit for 1932 – I assume that if he had been in the majors, he would not have skipped a season to tour in Japan. I think the gaps in Mackey’s record and the likelihood that his statistics in the mid-1930s understate his value make it appropriate to rank him on the high side of what his current numbers show.
7. Burleigh Grimes (8). My willingness to support National League stars from the teens and twenties is separating me from the consensus a bit, I think, with Grimes, Rixey, Roush, and Cravath representing that era on my ballot. Consideration of his batting value makes me agree with those who don’t see a whole lot of difference between him and Rixey, but that difference now amounts to 5 ballot spots.
8. Willard Brown (9). Probably the #4 slugger in the Negro Leagues in the late 1930s and 1940s, behind Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Monte Irvin. More raw power than Leonard and Irvin, I think (though less, apparently, than the mysterious Luke Easter), but his lack of plate discipline places him behind the more complete hitters. The plate-discipline issues make him very hard to rate.
9. Joe Gordon (10) I think I’ve been underrating infielders a bit. An eventual HoMer, in my view, a bit better than Doerr, who should also be an eventual HoMer.
10.Bobo Newsom (11). My system likes Newsom a lot. He had a truly outstanding peak in the late 1930s, which is obscured by the fact that he was pitching for bad teams with bad defenses in hitters’ parks in a high-offense era. Under those circumstances, his 329 IP for the Browns in 1938 is just mind-boggling. His career losing record isn’t anything to celebrate, but I think he brought more value to his teams than did Bucky Walters. A lot like Burleigh Grimes. Both were innings-eaters, with very strong peaks, who also had some bad seasons. I have the following order for late 1930s-to-1950 pitchers: Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, Ray Brown, Hal Newhouser, Bobo Newsom, Bill Byrd, Bucky Walters, Hilton Smith, Leon Day, Dutch Leonard, Dizzy Trout. The first four are obvious Homers, with Newsom, Byrd, and Walters on the border.
11. Edd Roush (12). Great ballplayer, but lots of time out of the lineup keeps him from being higher.
12. Gavvy Cravath. (13) Extraordinary hitter, but weak fielding keeps him from being higher. WARP’s coolness towards him drops him slightly this time as I try to take a more balanced look at outfield candidates.
13. George Sisler (14). Truly outstanding peak, but outside of that seven-year run he was not generally an above-average player.
14. Jose Mendez. (15) A player most deserving of a fresh analysis and renewed attention. New data from Brent and Gary A gives us a window into CWL league quality during Mendez’s prime: this may help or hurt his case. I hope I’ll have time to study this in the next few “years” in relation to that data.
15. Dick Redding. (16) One of the great pitchers from the underrepresented late teens and early twenties. His peak falls right in the center of an underrepresented period.

The 1966 Experimental Five

16. Ralph Kiner. (17) He’s above my all-time in-out line but not on my ballot yet. Just ahead of Doerr both among 1940s stars and in my all-time list.
17. Bob Lemon (18). A candidate about whom I would urge the electorate to exercise a bit of caution. Because he’s the first 1950s pitcher to become eligible, we don’t have a good sense yet of how 1950s pitchers stack up against pitchers from other eras or position players from their own eras, so it’s easy for him to be either over- or under-rated. I think it’s clear that underrating isn’t likely to have been a problem here, but I’m not convinced that he hasn’t been overrated. I now have him behind Spahn, Roberts, Ford, Wynn, and Pierce among 1950s pitchers, but ahead of Newcombe.
18. Bobby Doerr (18). Brilliant fielder; I’m liking him more now that I see he really was one of the top players of the 1940s.
19. Buzz Arlett. (20) With pitching credit, he had a truly outstanding career.
20. Rube Waddell (21). Folks who have been discussing Joss in relation to Koufax and Dean on the relative ERA+ and IP scales should be considering Waddell in that conversation as well. Without commenting yet on Koufax, Waddell seems well ahead of Joss and Dean.


Consensus top-10 returning players not on my ballot:

Joe Medwick. See #24 below
Cool Papa Bell. See #25 below
George Van Haltren. See #21 below
Jake Beckley. See #49 below

1966 Off-Off Ballot

21. George Van Haltren (22). Right on the all-time in/out line for me. If we get deep into the backlog in the next decade, he’ll get back onto my ballot. Why is there so much distance between him and similar player Enos Slaughter? Slaughter has a bit more peak value and places higher relative to his contemporaries. I have Slaughter as about the 10th best player of the 1940s, while VH is about the 15th best player of the 1890s. That makes Slaughter a clear HoMer in the context of his time, while VH is on the borderline for his.
22. Tommy Leach (23). Ditto.
23. Bucky Walters. (24) His peak is overrated by some, but he was an outstanding pitcher during his prime. Wouldn’t object to his eventual election.
24. Joe Medwick. (25). Still unenthusiastic about his candidacy. He isn’t obviously unqualified, but his main distinguishing feature is his peak according to win shares, and I think it’s overrated. I’d take Oms, Brown, Roush, Cravath, Arlett, Van Haltren, and Leach first. Sadly, many of those more deserving players may never be elected. Time will tell.
25. Cool Papa Bell (26). Reconsideration of 1933-1936 MLEs moves him past Poles and Maranville. Note to self: Bell really needs a new study now that a lot more MxL data is available.
26. Bill Byrd (27). Strongly resembles Burleigh Grimes and Carl Mays, I believe. A little better than Mays but not as good as Grimes, Like them, Byrd was a good hitter; he often played in the outfield when he wasn’t pitching. Like Grimes, he was a spitball/junkball pitcher.
27. Rabbit Maranville. (28) His defensive value and his career length deserve respect.
28. Mickey Welch. (29) Moved him up a bit in the backlog this year as I realized he’d slipped below several players whose contextual value was less than Smiling Mickey’s. May still have him 5-8 spots too low, but for now that distinction isn’t significant. In ten years, I’ll have to think more carefully about him vs. Walters and Waddell.
29. Don Newcombe. (n/e) Hard to evaluate, hard to place. As a peak candidate, his peak ranks a little bit below those of Lemon and Walters. His career value is about the same, so he’s in the mix, but not yet near my ballot. I hope he won’t get lost in the shuffle. Is he slightly worse than Byrd and Welch and slightly better than Matlock? No idea, really, but I’ll start him there for now.
30. Leroy Matlock (30). A very fine pitcher, possibly in the top 10 NeL pitchers all time, with a truly outstanding peak 1933-37, but not quite enough career value to reach my ballot. I think it’s very likely that he was notably better than Hilton Smith. He was apparently quiet and effective like Hilton, but he didn’t have the right teammates and he died just as interest in the Negro Leagues was reviving, so he didn’t get consideration for the HoF. I don’t think he makes the HoM, though peak voters ought to give him a long look, but he’s deserving of being better known than he was. I need to re-do his MLEs for 1937 in light of fuller information about his play in Santo Domingo.
31. Larry Doyle (31). Dropped significantly in 1956 reevalution of remaining candidates from the 1910s
32. Spotswood Poles (32). Another top NeL candidate from the teens who could use another look, though additional perspective offered by Brent’s CWL data doesn’t help his case.
33. Bob Elliott. (33) Although I’ve advocated for him, I find he’s still a long way from my ballot. The slope of the rankings is close to flat once one passes 25, so a small change in my view of Elliott could jump him up a long way. He’s just a little bit behind the Hack/Boudreau/Gordon/Doerr group of 1940s infielders. WARP underrates third basemen vs. second basemen, I think, which is too bad for Elliott, since WARP likes him better than WS relative to Stan Hack. But I can’t see a metric that justifies placing him higher right now.
34. Carl Mays. (34) Wes Ferrell lite.
35. Urban Shocker. (35) Someday I’ll take up his cause. Another very well-rounded ballplayer.
36. Bus Clarkson . (36) Perhaps the best player to get no support from the experts in _Cool Papas and Double Duties_. My ranking system using Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs places Clarkson virtually even with Bobby Doerr, but I think the good doctor’s MLEs are a little bit higher than what my own would be, so until I’ve a chance to run my own numbers for Clarkson, I’m going to place him conservatively at the rear of the borderline infielder group for the 1940s: Gordon, Doerr, Elliott, and Clarkson. These four are all very close in value, but when they are shuffled in with 70 years worth of borderline candidates, they end up separated by 25 slots top-to-bottom.
37. Bob Johnson (37). Career value is better than Medwick’s, I think, but even WARP1 agrees that his peak and prime trail that of his similar contemporaries Medwick and Averill. I don’t think he’s a HoMer, but he’s close.
38. Hugh Duffy. (38) Another guy whom I think of as “just off-ballot” who is now nearly down to 40 in the rankings. Youch!
39. Jimmy Ryan (39) Nice peak, but in a weak league, and for much of his long career his numbers are not distinguished.
40. Roger Bresnahan (40) The first of the reserve catcher trio. He, Schang, and Trouppe were all very similar in value: if I change my mind about comparing catchers to players at other positions, they are poised to rise.
41. Wally Schang (41)
42. Quincy Trouppe (42).

43-47. Cupid Childs, George Scales, Dobie Moore, Charlie Keller, Charley Jones
48-52. Ben Taylor, Jake Beckley, Dom Dimaggio, Joe Sewell, Dick Lundy
53-57. Mel Harder, Waite Hoyt, Herman Long, Wilbur Cooper, Johnny Pesky
58-62. Lave Cross, Tom York, Kiki Cuyler, Harry Hooper, Mickey Vernon
63-67. Bobby Veach, Fielder Jones, Dolf Luque, John McGraw, Ed Williamson
68-72. Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Bond, Vern Stephens, Jim McCormick, George J. Burns
73-77. Jack Fournier, Bruce Petway, Bill Monroe, Dizzy Dean, Babe Adams
78-82. Mike Tiernan, Pete Browning, Sam Rice, Dave Bancroft, Frank Chance
83-89. Leon Day, Tony Mullane, Hilton Smith, Ed Konetchy, Addie Joss, Nip Winters, Wally Berger

1966 Ballot Adendum:

I just glanced at the 1965 results and noticed that Dobie Moore slipped past Jake Beckley into 12th place last year, putting him amon the top 10 returning candidates not on my ballot, and thus calling for comment:

45. Dobie Moore. Undoubtedly he had an excellent peak, but not quite high enough in my view to make up for his short career, i.e. he does not have the Hughie Jennings argument of being the best player in baseball during his five year peak, or even the best player who was not Babe Ruth or Rogers Hornsby. If there were better evidence that he was a great player in the late teens with the Wreckers, I'd view his candidacy differently, but what evidence we have suggests to me that he really blossomed after entering the Negro Leagues. When weighing his peak, I am also conscious that the level of competition in the first few years after the Negro Leagues were organized was a bit lower than it would later become. For all these reasons, he remains well off my ballot. I hope to revisit his MLEs sometime in the New Year, and that could change my ranking of him.

"Best major league right fielder for 1939. Best major league left fielder for 1939"

that's a neat trick.

"Best major league right fielder for 1939. Best major league left fielder for 1939"

that's a neat trick.

Oops! I'll correct that. Thanks!

There's not a word here that doesn't apply doubly to Pete Hill, Chris.

>45. Dobie Moore. Undoubtedly he had an excellent peak, but not quite high enough in my view to make up for his short career, i.e. he does not have the Hughie Jennings argument of being the best player in baseball during his five year peak, or even the best player who was not Babe Ruth or Rogers Hornsby. If there were better evidence that he was a great player in the late teens with the Wreckers, I'd view his candidacy differently, but what evidence we have suggests to me that he really blossomed after entering the Negro Leagues. When weighing his peak, I am also conscious that the level of competition in the first few years after the Negro Leagues were organized was a bit lower than it would later become. For all these reasons, he remains well off my ballot

There's not a word here that doesn't apply doubly to Pete Hill, Chris.

Hill had a short career, Marc?

There's not a word here that doesn't apply doubly to Pete Hill, Chris.

With all due respect, nothing that I've said about Dobie Moore's case has any application to Pete Hill's case. Their careers are not at all alike, except that both were excellent ballplayers. To begin with, Pete Hill had a 25-year career in black baseball, so there's no way that his career could be called short. Second, the evidence that we have (both anecdotal and documentary, though admittedly slender on both counts) suggests that Hill was probably the best position player in black baseball in the first decade of the twentieth century, between the primes of Grant Johnson and John Henry Lloyd. His prime was as long or longer than Dobie Moore's entire career, and then he played for another twelve years. I doubt that he should get MLE credit for his entire 25-year career, but I think a twenty-year MLE career is likely. I don't think he has a case for being the best player in baseball during his prime, but because he has an extended prime and a long career, he doesn't have to have such a case, as I see it, to be a solid HoMer. His case is like Enos Slaughter's, except that I think his prime was stronger that Slaughter's.

If I were confident that Moore had been an all-star calibre player with the Wreckers, earning 23+ WS a season from 1917 on, he wouldn't need the Hughie Jennings case to make my ballot, either, because he'd have an 8-year, excellent prime, which would be enough for an infielder. But, as I interpret his record, his case rests almost entirely on a 5-year peak, and my system doesn't see that peak as quite high enough to get him into serious contention for a ballot spot.

Joe,

I give Keller credit for what amounts to 1.75 years. I think his truncated year (I forget which one it was exactly) woudl ahve been better had he been in baseball the entire time. Still, even giving him .75 for that year, it is a year with more than 25 win shares.

Also, I think the "if he had a few more years' comment and the "missed some peak seasons" comment were seperate. In other words he missed a few peak seasons to the war AND if on top of that he had put together few 20 WS seasons at the end of his peak he would be an easy #2 for me. I have him at #7.

You're right Hill had a nice long career. All of the following re. Dobie Moore applied to Pete:

>Undoubtedly he had an excellent peak, but not quite high enough in my view ... i.e. he does not have the Hughie Jennings argument of being the best player in baseball during his five year peak, or even the best player who was not (Ty Cobb or Tris Speaker). If there were better evidence that he was a great player ..., I'd view his candidacy differently,... the level of competition ... was a bit lower than it would later become. For all these reasons, he remains well off my ballot

I think the competition argument in particular represents a double standard that Hill and others skated on.

Hill was pretty clearly the best player in black baseball between Johnson and Lloyd. Just as by demographic reasoning I'm extremely reluctant to enshrine any more NEL players from 1938-47, so I'd be very reluctant not to enshrine the guy who was clearly #1 for a decade, even though competition was weak. Frank Grant benefited from the same rerasoning; it's not that black baseball was great in his time, but he was clearly the best in it. Once you're down to the 4th or 5th best player, competition level arguments become crucial, but not for #1.

They faced the same competition, and at his peak Dobie Moore was a better player than Pete Hill by a long shot. Every bit as good a hitter and an outstanding SS. And not to mention that his peak in fact came a half-generation later against better competition. IOW Dobie Moore was the #1 player of his time, short, long, or in between as that time may have been.

Hill was already well past his peak by that stage. Lloyd was probably better than Moore and played the same position.

Well, Lloyd was older too by half a generation, his peak had come at the same time as Hill's against that weaker, unorganized competiton before the real NeL. Lloyd has some great seasons in the '20s, to be sure, but he was basically 38-44 so it is not surprising that he was a bit up and down compared to the '10s. Moore was a career .365 hitter all in the '20s. Lloyd did not hit .365 in the organized NeLs, and never hit with Moore's power much less after age 38. If Moore was not the #1 player of the '20s it would be because of Oscar, I think.

So I retract the comment that Moore was the #1 NeL player of the '20s.

But Hill better than Lloyd in the '10s is even more of a stretch.

But I never put much stock in who was #1 in a given niche anway, too much interpolation.

I use Win Shares, career first, bonus for peak, and try to balance out the positions a little.

1)TED WILLIAMS – Best pilot in the HOM – non-Seattle group.
2)JOE MEDWICK – 300+ wins shares, big peak. Fully qualified
3)EDD ROUSH –314 win shares, I am pretty sure these are the best 3, good career value, strong peaks. After that I can see the arguments both for and against all the players on my ballot.
4)TOMMY LEACH – 300+ wins shares, big peak.
5) COOL PAPA BELL – FYI Rankings of Best Negro League Players, 1999 By SABR Negro Leagues committee – since someone asked this was open to any SABR member, but it was primarily the Negro Leagues committee that voted. I was the sole person that voted for Dobie Moore, as a write in candidate. I’d argue that this poll is more important than the Courier Poll, but certainly not perfect. I mean you the heck would leave Oscar Charleston off the ballot when you can name 20 people?
[block]Rk Player Votes %
1 Paige, Satchel 85 100.0%
1 Leonard, Buck 85 100.0%
3 Bell, Cool Papa 84 98.8%
[/block]

6)GEORGE VAN HALTREN – Too many win shares to ignore.
7) RALPH KINER – his peak doesn’t move him ahead of the other Ofers that have 60 to 80 more career win shares.
8) BOBBY DOERR – lacks outstanding peak.
9)CARL MAYS – I value his big seasons enough to slot him ahead of Rixey and Ruffing.
10) JOE GORDON 5 times in top 10 of MVP voting, in the all-star game every year from 1939 to 1949 except his two war seasons.
11)PIE TRAYNOR – Slightly ahead of Elliot and Rosen. Bumping him up over some pitchers as I tweak my system.
12)ROGER BRESNAHAN – best catcher not in, Roger and Schang are both ahead of Mackey IMO. Also moves up above a couple of pitchers due to system tweak.
13)BOB LEMON –
14)RED RUFFING – About the same as Rixey, however I think his weak peak is more the norm for his era than Rixey.
15)EPPA RIXEY
16)WALLY BERGER – Massive peak, I debate he and Duffy as my bottom centerfielder on the ballot every year it seems.
17)DIZZY DEAN – This guy I think is closer to definitely in, than definitely out.
18) LARRY DOYLE – I see all the arguments for Doyle, if his fielding wasn’t so in question, I think he’d be in.
19)BOB ELLIOT – Slightly behind Traynor, slightly ahead of Rosen. Fun guy in a sim league.
20)GEORGE SISLER – Good combo of peak and career value.

21-30Rizzuto, Rosen, Schang, Lazzeri, H. Wilson, Duffy, Stephens, Moore, Lombardi, Sewell.

Disclosures – Mackey – I see him behind Bresnahan and Schang and Lombardi, Newcomb just outside my top 30, Griffith – about 60th

And isn't it odd that the three Marks/Marcs in the project are all guys who like a good peak?

It is interesting. Of course, my name's not really Mark (long story), but it's been my BTF pseudonym for long enough now that it might as well be.

My #1 and #13 were elected. In 1966, Ted Williams is no-brainer unanimous, while a back-logger grabs the other spot. The class of 1967 is the weakest since 1938, so look for a backlog bonanza. Ashburn is the class of 1968, with Schoendienst and Yost also appearing.

1) Ted Williams – Maybe not as good as Caruthers, but the best on this ballot.;-P

2) Clark Griffith (2,2,2) – The #4 pitcher of his era, behind three first-balloters, but far ahead of #5. Like Leach et al, he doesn’t have that one big Wow! that gets voters excited. Career only seems short due to missing two years after contraction; peak only seems low because the contracted league is harder to dominate. Good hitter, too. A workhorse in his prime, averaging 332 IP from 1895-99 in seasons that were 15% shorter than today. Highest Complete Game Percentage 1893-1903, minimum 185 GS:
1—94.1% K. Nichols
2—93.4% C. Young
3—93.3% C. Griffith
4—92.4% A. Rusie

3) George Van Haltren (3,3,4) – I’ve been among his five best friends for 30 elections. As the ballot thins out he climbs up again, passing Beckley, Bell and Sisler in recent years. Now in his 58th year eligible. The 1932 election may have been his last, best shot at induction. Pennants Added study shows him well. He excelled in the contraction years 1892-1900, a period lagging in HoM representation; he had high SB totals (usually 35-40 in his prime years), which I believe was more important pre-1920; he was a mainly a centerfielder (~71.7% of his non-pitching games vs. ~47.6% for Ryan), Ryan (and Duffy) actually played more corner outfield. Players with most stolen bases 1891-1900:
1—660 B. Hamilton
2—443 G. Van Haltren

4) Eppa Rixey (4,4,5) – Liking him more, but not quite up to Faber’s level. Looks like the GVH of pitchers. Only Grimes had more wins during the 1920s. Most IP, 1921-28:
1—2262 B. Grimes
2—2192 E. Rixey
Lowest ERA, 1921-28, minimum 1200 IP:
1—3.00 D. Vance
2—3.03 D. Luque
3—3.12 E. Rixey

5) Red Ruffing (5,6,7) – Equal to Rixey in terms of longevity, falls a bit short on peak and workhorse considerations. Lyons went in without much struggle; Ruffing is close to him as well. I like guys who play; Pitchers with 300 complete games, 1916-2005:

382 W. Spahn
356 T. Lyons
335 R. Ruffing
314 B. Grimes
305 R. Roberts
303 G. Perry
300 L. Grove

6) Bob Lemon (15,15,ne) – Essentially a Wes Ferrell clone. I like guys who play and, after Roberts, he was the biggest workhorse of his time. Pitchers with .500 OPS 1948-56, minimum 500 PA (career OPS+ in parentheses):

1—.701 (82) B. Lemon
2—.698 (85) D. Newcombe
3—.668 (77) T. Byrne
4—.652 (76) M. McDermott
5—.586 (52) N. Garver
6—.558 (54) E. Wynn
7—.543 (58) J. Sain
8—.514 (39) M. Dickson
9—.512 (43) W. Spahn

Pitchers averaging 240 IP per season 1948-53:

1—1721/286.8 B. Lemon
2—1719/286.4 W. Spahn
3—1669/278.2 R. Roberts
4—1469/244.8 M. Dickson
5—1442/240.4 L. Jansen

7) Tommy Leach (6,7,8) – Still in danger of Lost Cause status, but held his ground last election. I think it’s what Bill James once said, that all-around players get overlooked, while specialists get overrated; voters like that one area of dominance. I’m now dunning him a bit more for league quality, as others have apparently done. Modern comp to, but just a bit behind, Craig Biggio, he could beat you in many ways. Longevity, defense and speed, more important in that era, rate him above Groh. Versatility is a plus; it should not be assumed that any typical thirdbaseman of the era could have successfully handled CF. Had a better peak than Bobby Wallace, but his career was a couple years shorter and he had just a little less defensive value. Among OFers with 750 games 1905-14, he is 2nd in PO/G (behind Speaker) and 2nd in FA (behind Clarke). I like guys who play; longevity is a hallmark of quality. Of the players with the most games played, 1891-1923, 13 of the top 14 are HoMers:
1—2792 H. Wagner
2—2517 S. Crawford
3—2480 N. Lajoie
4—2450 T. Cobb
5—2443 B. Dahlen
6—2383 B. Wallace
7—2307 E. Collins
8—2242 F. Clarke
9—2232 G. Davis
10—2182 T. Speaker
11—2156 T. Leach
12—2123 W. Keeler
13—2122 J. Sheckard
14—2087 S. Magee

8) George Sisler (7,8,9) – The problem I have with Terry’s election is that nearly every system or ranking I see has Sisler slightly higher. This may eventually take care of itself, but not for several decades. In the mean time, Terry looks like an accident of ballot timing. I think George is still among the top 230 players in history, which is HoMer territory. This is probably not the case for Beckley. OPS+ is only half the story: excellent runner (4 SB crowns), great rep as a fielder, great peak, long career (+9000 PA). Does WARP penalize him for the high quality of firstbasemen in his era? Firstbasemen with 2500+ hits through 1980:

1—3418 C. Anson
2—2930 J. Beckley
3—2812 G. Sisler
4—2721 L. Gehrig
5—2646 J. Foxx

9) Biz Mackey (8,9,10) – I’ve long been a friend of catchers and he’s the best available. I like the long career. Defense apparently as good as any catcher; if Schalk could hit, he’d have been Biz.

10) Edd Roush (9,10,11) – The dude could mash, while playing a stellar centerfield. Trying to avoid Lost Cause status, he suffered his worst support in seven years. What’s the shelf-life of a Shiny New Toy? About 15-16 years? Pennants Added likes him a lot. Players with OPS of .850+, 1917-25, minimum 3800 PA:
1—1.193 B. Ruth
2—1.037 R. Hornsby
3—.975 T. Speaker
4—.961 T. Cobb
5—.931 H. Heilmann
6—.918 G. Sisler
7—.865 Z. Wheat
8—.864 E. Roush

11) Joe Medwick (10,11,12) – Good peak/career combo. I supported Goose, why not Ducky? An all-star ten times. Three times top 5 NL MVP voting. This is around my HoM cutoff line. Players with more than 550 extra base hits 1933-42:

1—729 J. Medwick
2—707 J. Foxx
3—631 B. Johnson
4—628 H. Greenberg
5—605 M. Ott
6—556 H. Trosky

12) Jimmy Ryan (11,12,13) – The Ryan express slipped off the tracks a bit, he still has not finished higher than 40th since 1951. From zero ballots in 1957, he now has about five friends. To those 15 voters who had GVH in their top twelve last ballot, how do you justify snubbing Ryan? The landmark decision in the jimd 1957 Ballot Affair affirmed the unconstitutionality of abandoning lost causes. Players averaging more than 45 extra-base hits per season 1888-98:
1—549 E. Delahanty
2—507 J. Ryan
3—502 J. Beckley
4—497 S. Thompson

13) Cool Papa Bell (12,13,14) – I supported Carey and I’m one of Leach’s best friends. Bell seems to be in the same mold: defense and speed are +++, hitting was solidly above average in a long prime. Could move up.

14) Roger Bresnahan (14,14,15) – Versatility should be a bonus, not a demerit. How many other catchers could have been pulled out from behind the plate to be an all-star in centerfield? Could move higher, but I really like guys who play. Played half his teams’ games in only 11 seasons, averaging 71% of team games in those years. Still, his offensive production towers over other catchers of his era, so he deserves a vote. Defense only C+. Catchers with highest OPS+, 1876-1930 (minimum 3500 PA):
1—130 B. Ewing
2—126 R. Bresnahan
3—118 C. Bennett

15) Bobby Doerr – Back on my ballot after four years off. Consensus of ratings consulted puts him ahead of Gordon Doerr over Childs; similar peaks and hitting, but Doerr was a much better glove and had a longer prime.

Off Ballot

16) Jake Beckley – Lurking just off-ballot since his last appearance in 1940.

17) Wally Schang – There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between him and Bresnahan. He’s still on the radar since his last appearance on my ballot, in 1945.

18) Dobie Moore – If there is one overlooked Negro leaguer that still haunts me it’s him. Well, maybe Oms, also.

19) Burleigh Grimes – Last appeared on my ballot in 1945.

20) Cupid Childs – I’ve voted for him three times: 1914, 1915 and 1942. The backlog added since then still has not played itself out.

1966

1. Ted Williams (-)-- He’s good.

2. Pete Browning (3)--If he played in the PCL in the 00s or the Negro Leagues in the 30s, would he be a HOMer by now? Same as with Suttles and Beckwith, the league translations inordinately underrate his peak. Besides, it isn’t like the AA wasn’t a major league. I’d love to see our fabulous translators take another look at the AA. Ralph Kiner has 242 career win shares. According to the last Pennants Added numbers, Browning has 310. Just how big is your AA discount? (1927)

3. Charley Jones (4)--Jones, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Browning look pretty interchangeable to me. (1929)

4. Cupid Childs (5)--Where has the love for Cupid gone? (1938)

5. Tommy Leach (6)--May be the most underrated candidate out there. (1942)

6. Clark Griffith (7)--About as close to Coveleski as can be. The most balanced pitcher on the ballot in terms of peak and career, probably why no one talks about him anymore. (1942)

7. Larry Doyle (8)--Another underrated infielder. Sisler-esque peak , according to win shares.(1945)

8. George Sisler (9)--Good peak, good career value, underrepresented position.(1958)

9. Cool Papa Bell (10)--Lots of career value, and the translations likely underrate his peak.(1960)

10. Eppa Rixey (11)--Griffith’s got a big edge in peak, and his career value doesn’t make up the difference. It does give him the edge over the short/career/high peak pitchers though.(1960)

11. Hugh Duffy (12)--High peak, medium length career, the best of a large group of borderline OF candidates.(1964)

12. George Van Haltren (13)--Almost a HOMer not too long ago, will make it eventually.

13. Carl Mays (14)--Big peak, but a bit more career value than Ferrell.

14. Biz Mackey (15)--Catchers are a tough group with Mackey, Trouppe and Bresnahan. Mackey’s got the big career length advantage.

15. Willard Brown (16)--Big career advantage over Sewell.

16. Joe Sewell (17)--Overrated, underrated. Tomato, potato. The gap between him and #8 Doyle is tiny, despite the 9 ballot spots.

17. Edd Roush (18)--I’ve always prefered him to Averill or Medwick.

18. Alejandro Oms (19)--Very comparable to Roush. Why hadn’t anyone heard of him?

19. Quincy Trouppe (20)--Him too. Good peak, career a little short compared to Mackey, but Bresnahan’s is even shorter.

20. Red Ruffing (21)--Another borderline pitcher.

21. Vern Stephens (22)
22. Bob Lemon (23)
23. Roger Bresnahan (24)
24. Joe Medwick (25)
25. Bob Elliott (26)
26. Ed Williamson (27)
27. Jose Mendez (28)
28. Bobby Doerr (29)
29. Dave Bancroft (30)
30. Ralph Kiner (31)

>I mean you the heck would leave Oscar Charleston off the ballot when you can name 20 people?
[block]Rk Player Votes %
1 Paige, Satchel 85 100.0%
1 Leonard, Buck 85 100.0%
3 Bell, Cool Papa 84 98.8%

Exactly. If there were 85 votes cast, how many folks are on the NeL committee? And I'll ask again, do they know more about these guys than we do?

1.Williams There goes the 2nd best hitter in the MFL
2.Medwick PHoM 1956. Compared with pool of HoM hitters who appeared in 20th century ML, scores above the WS median for best 10 consecutive seasons.
3.Mackey PHoM 1958. The only unanimous pick of the Cool Papa’s survey of experts.
4.Griffith 4th best pitcher of 90’s belongs in, PHoM 1913. 1890’s still underrepresented.
5.Duffy PHoM in 1912. 1890’s underrepresented, Duffy’s 8 best seasons, best 10 consecutive seasons and WS per 162 would put him at the median when compared with current HoMers. Van Haltren doesn’t fare well in this comparison.
6.Kiner Ignore the überstats and pay homage to seven consecutive HR titles.
7.Waddell PHoM 1926 and returned to my ballot for the first time since 1939 in 1964. IMO, Koufax is a no-brainer. When comparing all the eligible high peak pitchers on this ballot to Sandy’s overpowering dominance from 1961-1966, Rube’s performance from 1902-1908 comes closest.
8.Brown, Willard Strong mle’s.
9.Leach PHoM 1926. Favorite teddy bear.
10.Bell Like Mackey, we are underrating this guy.
11.Cravath Would be in my PHoM had the mle’s been available back in the early 30’s.
12.Rixey More career value than any other pitcher in his era not named Johnson or Alexander. PHoM 1939.
13.Browning PHoM 1906 and returned to my ballot in 1960 for the first time since 1933.
14.Walters Preferring his peak to Ruffing’s career.
15.Ruffing
16.Lemon
17.Keller 2nd look moves him close to making my ballot.
18.Bresnahan SABR Dead ball era committee has him #1. PHoM 1928
19.Roush PHoM 1942. Arnold Hano, in his 1955 “A Day In The Bleachers”, called Willie Mays “the finest player employed by the National League since Eddie Roush.” He may have overlooked a few.
20.Cooper Doesn’t look like the HoM will have any pitchers wearing a Pirates cap either. Was it hometown bias that put him in PHoM in 1942?

21-25 - C. Mays, G. Burns, Oms, Chance, Arlett

And I'll ask again, do they know more about these guys than we do?

With respect, I'd say that isn't the question to ask. Obviously some of them do and some of them don't -- but that goes to the weight you give the survey. There are lots of Top 100 lists that are referred to and given some weight, this is just one of them. That said, it is not a particularily ringing endorsement that a bunch of experts thought Bell was one of the top 20 NeLers. But that is what we are deciding right now, since 20+ NeLers are laready in the HoM. I'm glad that Bell looks like he'll certainly make it -- just so I won't have to explain to anyone why we didn't think he was good enough. I'm hoping our most controversial omission will be Koufax, but I'm not holding out hope.

Who is our most controversial omission so far, among non-contenders? Chance?

(1) Williams (new)--I seem to be more forgiving of short careers and more receptive to position and defense arguments in building my All-Time list. Therefore, Williams ranks behind Ruth, Wagner, Bonds, Gibson, Johnson, Mays, and Mantle in that order. Only eighth best All-Time? What a piker.

(2) Moore (1st)--He's got George Sisler's offense and Cal Ripken's defense. One of the fifty best 7-year runs in baseball history.

(3) Ruffing (6th)--His peak/prime run is better than I remembered and he should get some credit for putting up similar numbers to Rixey in a later and more difficult era.

(4) Rixey (3rd)--I had always thought of him as a live ball era pitcher, but his career is more of a stradler, starting at the same time as Pete Alexander and only slightly later than Walter Johnson. His career numbers are slightly less special when you shift his peer group, though still goo enough (particularly with war credit) to make the HoM with room to spare.

(5) Van Haltren (4th)--Still convinced.

(6) Oms (7th)--Subjective and objective record both put him in the Paul Waner, Sam Crawford class. though with a shorter career.

(7) Lemon (8th)-- Fits with the guys we've elected.

(8) Trouppe (9th)--The best find of this project; a guy who timed his caeer worse than anyone else, but kept plugging away, putting up seasons that were of All-Star major league calibre in weird, out-of-the-way places across this hemisphere.

(9) Duffy (10th)--Very similar in value to Medwick; ranks 7 spots higher b/c/ like Jennings his skills uniquely meshed with the era in which he was playing.

(10) Roush (11th)--Van Haltren with durability problems.

(11) Sisler (12th)--As a peak/prime voter, Sisler will eventually get into my HoM though his prime is just barely above my automatic qualification line.

(12) Gordon (15th)--The more I look, the more I like. He had offensive value like Roush, Van Haltren, Elliot, Ryan, Beckley, et al. and played 2B, very well for awhile. His career is short, though not particulary short if you give appropriate war credit. If there were not serious questions about the level of his post-war defense, I'd have him in the top 5 or 6.

(13) Childs (14th)--Very similar to Gordon. A little less defensive value, a few more peak seasons, a slightly longer career in comparison to contemporaries.

(14) Beckley (13th)--I'm not overwhelmed, but I am convinced that he is eventually deserving of election. Hard for me to see why his fans like him better than GVH however.

(15) Jose Mendez (unranked/about 25th)--Very hard to figure out the quantity of his career, though I now have a good sense of the quality. My projections divide his career into two parts--a prime of about 2000-2200 IP with an ERA+ of around 130 and shoulder seasons of about 1000 IP with an ERA+ of about 100. Calling it 3100 IP with an ERA+ of 120 and an excellent bat makes him a dead ringer for Bob Lemon, though Lemon ranks ahead b/c/ the IP were more valuable in 1950 than in 1915.

(16) Medwick (17th)
(17) Doerr (18th)
(18) Elliott (19th)
(19) Sewell (16th)--Drops every time I remember that he was the best SS in the majors only b/c/ the two best SS of his era were born with too much skin pigment.
(20) Bob Johnson (nr/21st)--Medwick without the peak.


Dropping off: Keller (20th)-- I mistakenly gave him 3 years of war credit; when that gets reduced to 1.5, he slides from 19th to about 30th (it doesn't cost him more because most of his value is in his prime/peak, not in his career totals).

Newcombe might have put up a career like Ferrell or Lemon if given a full chance, but the career he put up is somewhere around 50th even with proper credit for non-ML seasons and wars. He's the pitching version of Luke Easter, in that he could really use a do-over.

Griffith, Mackey, and Bell are all in my top 40, but the former didn't show quite enough durability and the latter two didn't hit quite enough.

Daryn, I certainly wouldn't elect anybody based on how we'll be perceived by "the others." Just for the record I don't give the SABR survey any weight whatsoever. I mean, it is secondary data of unknown quality. We have lots of primary data here, so I just can't see somebody else's opinion as data.

This was all in response to the discussion of player #5 in post #48 which seems to treat this particular poll as something more than "another poll" or another data point, though Mike also asks the question of exactly how at least 2 people left Oscar Charleston out of their list of the top 20. He also notes that he voted for Dobie Moore as a write-in. Who exactly was on their pre-prepared list and who wasn't? If Dobie got 1 vote from 85 voters, well, that is as bad as Oscar only getting 83.

It may be unfair if this was a vote by the NeL Committee, I don't know, but I've voted in some SABR polls and I just don't see them in the aggregate as nearly as knowledgeable as this group is in the aggregate.

Who is our most controversial omission so far, among non-contenders?

The answer to this would probably be one of the weaker BBWAA selections. At this point, our lack of support for Traynor would probably most confound "them". Kiner and Dean would also be puzzling to them. Sisler's 30-year odyssey would also tend to discredit our methods in their eyes.

I think Dean and Sisler would be real eyebrow raisers.

On the other side, Sheckard? (I don't think Chance would be nearly as controversial as Dean and Sisler, but then when the saw Sheckard, that would raise the question.) I wouldn't worry about the 19th century, even "them" know that they don't know anything about the 19th century.

Williams and Cool Papa in my PHoM this year.

McDougald #50, Newcombe #69, Dark #78.

1)Williams--#2 all-time after Ruth, with war credit.
2)Gordon--Fixed my war credit, he and Doerr moved up. PHoM in 1958.
3)Doerr-- PHoM in 1958.
4)Sewell--109 OPS+, reasonably long career, good shortstop (A- Win Shares). Yes, I am allowing for his switch to 3B at the end of his career. PHoM in 1939.
5)Stephens-- PHoM in 1961. Looks underrated to me.
6)Elliott--I like him better than Hack. Second greatest 3B to date, after Baker. PHoM in 1960.
7)Medwick-- PHoM in 1960.
8)Schang--His rate stats would put him in the HoM, but a look at each individual year isn’t impressive. Still, a hitting catcher with his career length isn’t common...Bill James rates him a C+ fielder in Win Shares, but says he was a good catcher in the NHBA. PHoM in 1938.
9)Mackey--#2 on my 1949 prelim, but more data on his hitting has dropped him to here. PHoM in 1964.
10)Cool Papa Bell--If Max Carey is in, Cool Papa should be too. PHoM in 1966.
11)Bob Johnson--A very underrated player. Usually I'm a WS guy but this time I think Warp has it right.
12)Doyle— His hitting is legitimately outstanding, he played 2nd base, and a C+ defender by Win Shares. 126 career OPS+, compare to contemporary George Cutshaw, who was a regular 2B for 11 years with an OPS+ of 86. #19 all time in innings at 2B. Regularly in the 2B defensive Win Shares leaders, WS Gold Glove in 1917. Top 10 in Win Shares 1909-12, 1915. PHoM in 1926.
13)Rizzuto--Lots of war credit.
14)Beckley— Behind the big 3, much better than other dead-ball 1B. Win Shares best fielder at 1B in 1893, 1895, 1899, and 1900. Add in 2930 hits, with power and walks. No peak but a lot of consistent production, we’re not talking about Ed Kranepool here. PHoM in 1913.
15)Rixey—Early Wynn will be the next pitcher with more IP, his W/L percentage isn’t high because he didn’t get a lot of support. ERA+ is very good at 115 for such a long career. PHoM in 1939.
16)Waddell—Waddell has a run of 7 years (1902-1908) in which he was blowing people away, in three of those years with an ERA+ over 165. A seven year peak for a pitcher is much more rare than a seven year peak for a hitter, I give the short peak pitchers a lot more credit than the short peak hitters. PHoM in 1916.
17)Tommy Bridges—fixed his war credit
18)Lombardi-- A long career as a catcher with a big bat. I see 15 obvious catching electees: Gibson, Bench, Fisk, Carter, Hartnett, Dickey, Piazza, Berra, Simmons, Ewing, Cochrane, Campanella, Parrish, Rodriguez, Santop. I’m an advocate for what I see as the next tier: Freehan, Munson, and Porter will get strong consideration on my ballot too. You can’t have a baseball team without a catcher. Almost 2000 games caught including PCL.
19)Keller
20)Kiner

Ruffing#21.
Bob Lemon #55, ERA+ not very impressive, and played for good teams.
Griffith In my PHoM since 1912 but off the ballot at #30.
Van Haltren--#74, good player, part of the old OF glut with Ryan and Duffy.
Sisler--#81, I don’t see his case being very strong. His peak was not long enough to merit election, though he certainly was a great hitter for a few years.
Moore--#33, I didn’t vote for Jennings either.

At least we will elect Sisler eventually. Dean it is, then. Until Koufax, Puckett, maybe Eckersley.

Took a fresh look at 2nd tier Negro League candidates this week. This week it's pitchers. Next week I'll work on the hitters.

PHOM
Ted Williams
Willard Brown

1966 Ballot
1.Ted Williams – Was one of the best in anything he did. Great ballplayer, fighter pilot, fisherman Elected PHOM in 1966.
2.Charley Jones – Truly great hitter who missed 2 years in his prime. Elected PHOM in 1921.
3.Pete Browning – Great hitter. Elected PHOM in 1925
4.Dobie Moore – Impressive peak. Giving him more credit for army years. 10+ year prime at important position. Elected PHOM in 1939.
5.Biz Mackey – Took another look at Mackey and realized that we’re underrating him. Yes, he wasn’t as great a hitter as we thought. Yes, he has a kind of Sisleresque career shape. However, he has a ton of career value, very good prime value and was an A+ defensive catcher. That adds up to a HOMer to me. Elected PHOM in 1956.
6.Jose Mendez – Looking at the Negro League pitchers thread shows I may be underrating him. Jumps over Averill. Elected PHOM in 1942.
7.Vic Willis – Very good pitcher. I like him better than Waddell. Elected PHOM in 1945.
8.Ed Williamson – He’s back. I was talked into the idea that I overestimated him in the past, but decided I was right the first time. Elected PHOM in 1958
9.Cupid Childs – Good hitter. Elected PHOM in 1960.
10.Burleigh Grimes – Higher peak than Rixey. Elected PHOM in 1961
11.Willard Brown – Big jump up for Brown. I tend to start conservatively w/ Negro league players and other players who need MLE credit. I guess I just need time to digest the information. Elected PHOM in 1966.
12.Ralph Kiner – These high peak, short career players are the hardest for me to evaluate. Incredible peak and enough prime value to make my ballot
13.Dick Redding – Very good career with lots of innings..
14.Hugh Duffy – 82% of career is above-average. Great defense
15.Bucky Walters – Peak pitchers get a big boost in reevaluation.
16.Bill Monroe – Very good second baseman, but I can’t seem to rate him over Childs. Becoming more and more convinced about him.
17.Roger Bresnahan – Underrated by me previously. Very good catcher.
18.George Sisler – Too many good candidates to make my ballot. Definitely think WS underrates him.
19.Dizzy Dean – Moves up due to big years bonus.
20.Joe Medwick – I think WS has him right. I was overrating him in previous years though.

New Candidates
Don Newcombe Outside my top 50

Required Disclosures
Ruffing and Rixey Great career, but not enough peak
Griffith Never does well in my system. Overachiever. I always think I'm missing something with him.
Lemon Was the shiny new toy last year. Drop a few places. Just misses my ballot.
Bell Ultimate career candidate. Better than Carey. More value in NeLe than he would have had in ML, but I believe in evaluating his value to his teams, not in some fantasy world. Just misses my ballot.

Off the ballot
21-25 Mays, Bell, Lemon, Oms, Roush
26-30 Matlock, W. Cooper, Johnson, Waddell, McGraw
31-35 Cravath, H. Smith, Winters, Rosen, Leach
36-40 Ruffing, Keller, Gordon, Elliott, Doyle
41-45 A. Cooper, Stephens, Bond, Schang, Rizzuto
46-50 Poles, Tiernan, Pesky, Doerr, F. Jones

1966 Ballot
busy week, saving the taxpayer millions of dollar$ ...

Review of Hanrahan’s value system: career value with a fairly high replacement level (slightly below average). Something like WARP3 minus 2.5 wins per full year, or WS minus 11 per year adjusted for league quality, or OPS+ over 95 adjusted for defense and timeline and speed. No real credit for “peak”. Some subjective estimating of ability across time and place.

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

1-Ted Williams {new}
Grossly underrated by those who cherry-pick a few failures, combine them with failures of teammates and some bad luck, and call him a choker. Overrated by pure Statmeisters who ought to admit there is SOMETHING to be said for basic things like paying attention while you are playing left field and not potentially de-inspiring your teammates. Arguably IS the greatest hitter who ever lived.
2-Clark Griffith (1) [8]
Brought many victories to otherwise mediocre teams. More than any other player in our backlog. Seems like I bring this up every 2 weeks….
3-Joe Sewell (2) [20]
A many-tooled fine player lost in the shuffle of those who favor career-only or peak-only. Great RCAP, AND very good defense. Y’all gonna dis Alan Trammell?
4-George Van Haltren (5) [9]
Hit. Ran. Played D. Pitched. Long career. Played in under-represented 1890s.
5-Red Ruffing (7) [4]
Eppa Rixey, plus he could hit. Nice World Series stats.
6-Bob Lemon (6) [5]
I’m with the consensus here. Smidgen of WWII credit added.
7-Bucky Walters (8) [25]
Faced strong opponents, pitched real well and hit well too, played in strong league. His perceived peak in ‘39-‘40 is aided by the Red’s gold glove defense.
8-John McGraw (9) [39]
The prime of Hughie Jennings. Outstanding RCAP. HoM is short of 3Bmen and 1890s infielders. Brilliant tactician.
9-Cool Papa Bell (10) [10]
The basestealing of Vince Coleman with the CF ability and career length of a Willie Mays. Even with an average bat, he’s probably a HoMer. Our MLEs may understate Bell’s real value.
10-Joe Gordon (11) [24]
Nudges out Doerr; I might feel differently if Doerr had helped his team over the top in many close pennant races they lost.
11-Eppa Rixey (12) [7]
115 ERA+ in massive amount of innings, in a weaker league. Would we elect a guy with a 110ish ERA+ and no stick?
12-Biz Mackey (13) [6]
Schang looks just as good. But Mackey’s fine rep and career length puts him here.
13-Willard Brown (14) [16]
Close comp to Averill, who I assess as one of our weakest HoMers to date.
14-Frank Chance (15) [47]
Peerless leader. Managing may have Cost him playing time. A key cog on some dominant teams, and played well in many World Series. Probably more valuable defensively than most systems credit him for.
15-Jake Beckley (off) [12]
Welcome back, Jake!

---------------------
16 through 25 would be: Sisler, Childs, Medwick, Kiner, Monroe, Rizzuto, Doerr, Bresnahan, Traynor, Moore

Others near the ballot:
Larry Doyle ….excellent hitter for a 2Bman
Indian Bob Johnson …better career hitter than C Klein, P Browning, or H Wilson
Wally Schang …bonus credit for catching lots of thieves in W.S. play
Ernie Lombardi …a little speed would have made him a HoMer
Tommy Leach ...Pie Traynor clone almost
Rube Waddell ...Great ERAs & KOs, but many UER and not at the top of his era.
Dizzy Dean ...Great pitcher for a while. Not as good as Ferrell.
Jose Mendez …Dean clone.
Mickey Welch ...Rixey clone almost.
Gavy Cravath … might belong also, but it’s real hard to tell
Alejandro Oms … another fine NegL Ofer
Pete Browning … almost Ralph Kiner

Regarding the SABR Negro Leagues poll:
And I'll ask again, do they know more about these guys than we do?


The answer I think is, they know different things than we do, they care about different things than we do. I doubt many (if any) of the voters in that poll could do what Chris Cobb and Dr. Chaleeko do with the MLEs. And I doubt that the the majority would care what the MLEs are.

However, that is the group that gathered most of the raw stats we use. That is the group that gave us the biographical data on the players we use. They are the ones that made it posssible for Bullet Rogan to be inducted.

But because that group as whole is more worried about having nice grave markers for those players than they are about how there stats from Santruce in 1948 equate to major league wins to assume our little group knows "more" than they do is silly. We just value different things.

One other point, while I love Cobb and Doc's translated stats, to place them above the oral history told by the contemporaries of these players is just a decision one has to make. Papa Bell being the perfect case in point. If he was a terror on the bases, and covered the outfield like Willie Mays, those things are hard to measure - even in MLB in 2006.

1966 Ballot (Gadfly)

Just a quick ballot, for comments look at 1965.

1) Ted Williams

By my system, the distance between Williams (1) and Cravath (2) is greater than the distance between Cravath and Medwick (25), and Cravath was a monster player, a true A+ Hall of Famer.

2) Gavy Cravath
3) Willard Brown
4) Luke Easter
5) Dick Redding
6) Cool Papa Bell
7) Alejandro Oms
8) Biz Mackey
9) Charley Jones
10) George Van Haltren
11) Rube Waddell
12) Hugh Duffy
13) Jose Mendez
14) Quincy Trouppe
15) Ben Taylor
16) Edd Roush
17) Charlie Keller
18) Joe Gordon
19) Chet Brewer
20) Red Ruffing
21) Clark Griffith
22) Tommy Leach
23) Roger Bresnahan
24) Bill Wright
25) Joe Medwick

Don Newcombe was the best of the rest, a solid C Hall of Famer which put him in the mid-30s.

1 (-)Ted Williams--Still seems too good to be true, all these years later.

2 (1)Ernie Lombardi--17 seasons, 125 OPS+, 8 times in the top 10 in slugging pct. Best hitter on the pennant winning teams of Cincy. He's not Dickey-good, but he's up there.

3 (2)Bob Lemon--Like Ferrell, only better.

4 (5)Bucky Walters--Clearly peak heavy, as he didn't even reach 200 wins. Best player in baseball in 1939/1940? Hitting matters…

5 (7)Johnny Pesky--He was one of the best players in the league when he left for the war, and he was one of the best players in the league when he came back…I don't think it's that big of a stretch to put Pesky up here.

6 (4)Red Ruffing--For pure pitching, he might be my pick as the best available.

7 (10)Chuck Klein--Less career than Ducky, more peak.

8 (6)Dizzy Trout--Dominance peaked in '44, which is not as good as if it had peaked 5 years earlier or later. Nonetheless, how do you not count the best players of the war era?

9 (12)Vern Stephens--He had been tied pretty closely to Kiner on previous ballots, but the comparions to all-time greats jumbles that usually. He's probably dropping in next year's ballot.

10 (11)Dizzy Dean--Basically, he's Hughie Jennings as a pitcher. I'm giving pitchers some extra weight on the ballot these days, so that gets us to 4th for now. I think he has to rank above Waddell, who I'm a big fan of.

11 (13)Rube Waddell--I'm very surprised he was never elected.

12 (8)Bobby Doerr--Presents a relatively clean comparison to Boudreau: Lower OPS+, weaker glove, less important position. Do 1000 extra plate appearance make up for that? Not in this case.

13 (15)Burleigh Grimes--I like the peak/career combo, and he keeps popping back up as a name to include towards the bottom of the ballot.

14 (9)Joe Medwick--He had the talent, but I'm not sure he played long enough to ever get in to the HoM

15 (-)George Sisler--On the ballot for the first time since 1957.

16 Johnny Sain
17 Duke Farrell
18 Al Rosen
19 Ralph Kiner
20 Eddie Cicotte

Top 10 omissions: Mackey and Bell I don't think measure up to the white contemporaries who are getting my ballot support; Rixey lacks the requisite peak to ever hit the ballot; Van Haltren and Griffith are buried in positional gluts...not enough to separate them, in my mind.

1966 ballot. One of the legends goes in this year, whose the other person?

1. Ted Williams (-). A .400 hitter – don’t see any of those anymore.

2. Joe Medwick (1). Better player than a person.

3. Clark Griffith (2). Based on Chris J’s run support index material Griffith’s adjusted W/L is 233-150. That seems pretty good.

4. Dick Redding (3). CANNONBALL!!! Pitched in multiple leagues, each time having success. He’s the NeL pitcher I think we’re missing.

5. Jimmy Ryan (4). Started playing during two league system (AA, NL), ended during two league system (AL, NL).

6. Bobby Doerr (5). Middle IF who is slightly above many others in the running for HOM. Billy Herman minus a little.

7. Bob Johnson (6). His peak might not be as high as others but at the same time for 13 years he has the highest floor of anyone. By floor I mean what can we reasonably expect from him in terms of performance. During those 13 years you knew exactly what you got with Bob Johnson – nothing less, rarely more. I guess my system rewards consistency as well as greatness. WARP numbers like him, WS not so much. Over his career his teams underperformed Pythag W-L by 15 games so he loses some there.

I’m afraid he’s between the two voting factions. He doesn’t have the peak but was effective longer that the high peak, short career players. He doesn’t have the career but was at a higher production level than the low peak, long career players. Either way, he stacks up nicely compared to the other LFs hanging around.

Indian Bob got a late start, played on bad teams in ballparks that favored pitchers, and got left out of post-war ML baseball while he was still doing well at age 39. 10 years of top 10 performances in OPS+, 102.2 WARP1 for 13 years with no padding on the front or back end.

I guess they were right. While others shot to stardom, collected an MVP, and faded from sight, along rolled Bob Johnson, punching the time clock with excellence far from the spotlight. Forgotten while playing, lost in history…

8. Bob Lemon (7). With him I bow to the mighty Wins category – 8 out of 9 years top 3 in the American League. Egads!

9. Red Ruffing (9). Wonderful hitter for someone doing it as a sidelight to some good pitching. Rixey plus a little bit sorta guy.

10. Tommy Leach (12). Two positions make him hard to rate. Fielded well at both, hit with enough authority to be considered valuable.

11. Biz Mackey (13). His defensive reputation probably takes him above some of the translated MLEs that were produced. Not the elite of a Gibson but was a NeL all-time type so I’m inclined to give him the boost. The #2 guy in the NeL catching ranks in what is described as probably that league’s strongest position.

12. Hugh Duffy (11). Constant little tweaks to my system lead to players bubbling up toward the end of the ballot. Duffy has showed up occasionally before so I’m not upset to see him mentioned again.

13. Rube Waddell (14). They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Hard thrower, dominated strikeout categories wherever he went. Rube was the traveling circus coming to town – people came to see him pitch.

14. Cool Papa Bell (15). Speed game particularly suited for the Negro Leagues. Maybe not the immortal we wanted him to be but still a darn fine centerfielder.

15. George Van Haltren (20). What an interesting career. Started off pitching, then excellent hitter during the 1890s, into the early 1900s where he played at the end in the PCL.

Extra 5 for experimental 20 man ballot:

16. Frank Chance (16). The rate stats are very impressive. His problem is on the amount of time played. All folks down this way on the ballot have flaws so the playing time issue is lessened at least for a ballot mention.

17. Edd Roush (17). Star of the 1910s. Another CF which doesn’t seem to hurt in my rankings.

18. Dobie Moore (18). Probably the SS from the 20’s if I had to choose one. Jennings type of candidate if the stories are correct.

19. Eppa Rixey (19). Lost a little time to war but still a fine career candidate.

20. Spotswood Poles (21). NeL OF from way back. These guys are always a bit on the murky side when ranking but I have no reservations with a #20 spot given to him.

21-25: Childs, Mullane, Easter, Browning, Byrd
26-30: Kiner, Berger, F Jones, Mendez, Bridges
31-35: Sewell, Cicotte, Lundy, Keller, McGraw
36-40: Sisler, Willard Brown, Trout, Veach, Gordon
41-45: D. Leonard, Beckley, Shocker, Gomez, Ben Taylor
46-50: Trouppe, Willis, Mays,Bob Elliott, Vern Stephens

Top Returnees: Beckley (#42) and Sisler (#35) – one peak, one career but neither have the goods for the ballot. I’ll have to reexamine these guys to make sure there aren’t some items I’m missing from their resume.

New guys: Newcombe might get added inspection when more time comes into my schedule. Might be as high as the 40s right now but I don’t see as ballot worthy. The rest of the people – some interesting stories but not exceptional players.

Not too much change in the slate this year. It's snowing like heck and they're going to kick us out in a half hour, so i'll be brief.

1. Ted Williams: 2nd best left fielder ever.
2. Jose Mendez: Peaktasticness supported by Gary A’s wonderful research.
3. Leroy Matlock: Maybe I’m overrating him, or maybe I’m the only one who knows his inner light? I don’t know, and I’m not sure yet how to figure out how to know.
4. Bucky Walters: Yes, the march of the mid-length, high peak pitchers is one man shorter with Wes on the wall now, but this movement is very much alive.
5. Quincy Trouppe: I’m sorry to say this but unless the Hall of Fame committee knows something we don’t, they totally missed the boat on QT. Best available catcher.
6. Bob Lemon: Thank god Lemon came along to take Ferrell’s place in the queue of mid-length, high-peak pitchers.
7. Charley Jones: Best unenshrined outfielder who doesn’t have a nickname synonymous with a Bambi character.
8. Roger Bresnahan: Second best catcher out there. Good peak, wish he’d played more in the latter half of his career.
9. Hugh Duffy: Great flycatcher, splendid batter with power and average and speed and enough walks to make me happy. The Larry Doby of his era? In terms of value, yes.
10. Cupid Childs: High-OBP, high-octane second basemen, best at his position for almost a decade. He’s overdue.
11. Joe Medwick: Third best left fielder on the ballot (he chuckled).
12. Dobie Moore: Absolutely great SS, probably has ten, maybe more years of service including the Wreckers. This guys is for real.
13. Willard Brown: If he woulda just walked a little bit more---ten more times a year even!---he’d be in like flint already.
14. Biz Mackey: Golden glove, pewter bat. It’s OK, the whole package is what we reward.
15. Wilbur Cooper: Makes it back on board my ballot for the first time since, like, the Hoover administration. Another mid-length, high output pitcher who made a pretty good transition to the lively ball all told.

16. Red Ruffing
17. Eppa Rixey
18. George Sisler
19. Pete Browning
20. Ed Williamson

New guys
Al Dark: I don’t see the light.
Don Newcombe: He is a HOMer, probably. Makes my top-60 SP, which is about where the line will end up being if we elect 30% pitchers. My assessment includes MiL and NgL credit for 1946-1949, though none for the war.

Notables:
I still don’t like Clark Griffith.
I still don’t like CP Bell, though he’s closer than Griffith. I wish I had a better handle on this guy.

1.Ted Williams
2.Alejandro Oms

Doby is a fair comp for Oms. They were the same type of players, with about 140 OPS+ and excellent CF defense in their primes. Both had long strings of 25+WS (nine for Oms, eight for Doby), and they had reasonably similar career WS (312 for Doby w/ NeL credit; Oms projected at 340). Doby had a higher peak, Oms had a better career. If you had Doby high on your ballot, take another look at Alejandro.

3.Eppa Rixey
4.Jake Beckley
5.Wally Schang

Rixey’s 4494 IP is 27th all time; Ferguson Jenkins, Eddie Plank, and Jack Powell are all within ten innings. I think Jenkins and Plank are good comps.

Beckley posted a 152 OPS+ in 1890, at the age of 22, in the Players League. He posted a 144 OPS+ fourteen years later, at the age of 36. If you drop two seasons where he hit for league average, then Beckley had thirteen seasons in between where his average OPS+ was 130 while playing good defense at first base. That is a long, productive prime.

This is a pretty high ranking for Schang, but he had nine seasons with an OPS+ of 121 or higher, which is impressive for a catcher. Career .393 OBP in a .349 era.

6.Rube Waddell
7.Jose Mendez
8.Dobie Moore

I know Waddell allowed an inordinate amount of unearned runs, that his RSI index isn’t impressive, and that he was very unreliable. But his top four ERA+ seasons are 179, 179, 165, and 153, and he was striking out between seven and eight guys per nine as he was posting those. Arguably better than Feller at his peak.

There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence in favor of Mendez: he was a terrific player in a very good Cuban league, also played on the dominant Negro League team of the early 1920s, had a long career, could hit, had some great playoff moments, played in an era which is underrepresented by pitchers, and was possibly the best pitcher to come out of Cuba.

It’s become pretty clear to me that Moore is the best shortstop available. Not quite the peak of Jennings, but a better career when you factor in his playing days in the army. I should have had him on the ballot three decades ago.

9.Cool Papa Bell
10. Tommy Leach
11. Joe Gordon

Bell’s projected OBP is not as high as I would like. OTOH, his projections also give him nearly 3700 hits and God-only-knows how many stolen bases, which means he created a crapload of runs over his career. We presume with his speed that he also prevented a lot of runs with his glove. His contemporaries pretty unanimously thought that he was one of the best players in the game. That’s a lot of weight to counter his OBP. I wonder if he shouldn’t be even higher on my ballot.

Leach actually has more career WS than any major-league position player on the ballot except for Van Haltren and Teddy Ballgame, and Van Haltren’s numbers are distorted by his pitching stint. Looking back over the years, I’m surprised by how many times I’ve been able to write that. Good hitting, great defense at *two* key positions.

Gordon had some very good years with the bat and glove. While I do not project a peak for him during WWII, I agree with those who think he may have missed a couple of great seasons.

12.Bob Lemon
13. Ned Williamson
14.Bobby Doerr
15.Biz Mackey

Lemon and Doerr are similar to Ferrell and Gordon; their peaks are not as high, so they land a little below those two. Williamson is still the best pure third baseman available over seventy years after he retired. His main challenger for that spot is Bob Elliott, but Williamson has a better peak and considerably more defensive value. Mackey fits well into this group: long career, outstanding defense, could hit some.

16.George Sisler
17.Roger Bresnahan
18.Ralph Kiner
19.Clark Griffith
20.Gavvy Cravath

Mackey had a better career and peak than Bresnahan, so I’ve placed Biz just ahead, even though Roger had a longer prime. Still, I’m becoming more convinced that Bresnahan belongs in the Hall.

Sisler, Kiner, and Cravath have similar resumes: huge peak seasons with short careers that just keep them just off the ballot for now. Kiner’s seasons of 184, 184, and 173 OPS+ really impress me, but not enough to vote for him yet. Griffith was a mainstay on my ballot for years, but in my re-evaluation I decided he doesn’t have the peak or the career of the pitchers in front of him.

21.Joe Medwick

Medwick will not be a horrible pick for the Hall, but he doesn’t have the peak of the guys in front of him, or the kind of career that I like.

22-25: Cupid Childs, Dick Redding, Bob Elliott, Larry Doyle,
26-30: Edd Roush, Pete Browning, Mike Tiernan, Bob Johnson, Vic Willis
31-35: George Van Haltren, Burleigh Grimes, Red Ruffing, Willard Brown, Ernie Lombardi

I think Rixey is significantly better than Ruffing: he pitched for more innings on worse teams with a better ERA+, and that does not take account the time he missed for WWI. Was the jump in Ruffing’s effectiveness from Boston to New York due at least in part to a better defense?

I am rethinking Van Haltren, now that Reese has been on my ballot; he’s another did-many-things-well type of player. Still, Oms was a better hitter and fielder; Van Haltren was a better pitcher, but 700 innings with a 96 ERA+ just doesn’t impress me much.

1966 Ballot

1. Williams, Ted

2. Mackey, Biz –My quantitative methods put him about where the anecdotal evidence would have him, despite skepticism from the electorate. Awfully good hitting catcher.

3. Medwick, Joe – Medwick has one of the largest disparities between the WS evaluation and WARP evaluation that I’ve seen. His WS peaks and totals make him a solid B+ measured against all HoFers, but his WARP peaks and totals make him a C- measured against other HoFers. For example, he’s got 25.5 WS per 162 games, which is All Star-average season. He’s got a 7.1 WARP3 per 162 games, which is good, but not particularly special when measured against the top echelon. I looked generally at the WARP defensive scores again, and I distrust them more than ever. I’m giving more weight to the WS system in this case.

4. Oms, Alejandro – His closest comps appear to be Manush, Sisler and Wheat. All are already in my PHoM and he played a more important defensive position than Sisler.

5. Duffy, Hugh – A very good outfielder who hit approximately 40% better than the rest of the league. Good grey ink and a consistent run producer.

6. Brown, Willard – Tough to evaluate, with all of the alternative leagues he played in. I’ve got him around 335 Win Shares, with SimScores close to Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Goose Goslin and Andre Dawson. I’d like him better without those SimScores.

7. Sisler, George – Has poor defensive scores and WARP doesn’t like him much. Also doesn’t have the typical HoM RBI and runs scored numbers (even though I realize those stats are dependent on others). Strong adjusted counting stats, and fares quite well in WS. Obviously could hit.

8. Jones, Charley – With all the extra credit given for minor league seasons, military service, etc., I finally broke down and gave Jones conservative credit for blacklisted seasons. He has been on my ballot every year even without the extra credit.

9. Waddell, Rube – RSI sheds some light on why his win totals aren’t what they could be.

10. Browning, Pete – After much teeth-gnashing, I increased the applicable AA discount, but he proved in the PL that he was no fluke. I don’t understand the arguments about his defense, since defensive outfielders really contribute little to the overall picture. Has been in my PHoM for most of the life of this project.

11. Wilson, Artie – An outstanding shortstop who outhit his competition by about 20% has to be on the ballot. I don’t see any real distinctions among Clarkson, Sewell and Gordon, at least in terms of how to rank them.

12. Clarkson, Bus –I don’t know where to put him. I’ve looked at all the miscellaneous league data to the point I’m actually mad at him for playing in so many leagues. If he was born in 1915, it is easier for me to swallow that he couldn’t get out of the minors from ’50-’56. But if he was only 32 in 1950 (normally the back end of a peak), I’ve got some problems with presuming a HoM career when he couldn’t even make a major league roster at age 32.

13. Lemon, Bob – Not a lot different than Wes Ferrell, but Ferrell does a little better in my adjusted WARP and WS, as well as in Linear Weights, taking into account run support. The rankings from #5 down are very tight, so even the slight difference puts him four spots lower than Ferrell.

14. Sewell, Joe –He’s a nudge ahead of Joe Gordon.

15. Gordon, Joe – A few spots ahead of Doerr (#21), but that’s a meaningless distinction.


16. Ryan, Jimmy
17. Griffith, Clark
18. Dean, Dizzy
19. Welch, Mickey
20. Long, Herman

Required Disclosure(s):

Ruffing, Red – He’s somewhere around #55 on my ballot. I can’t believe he has climbed to #4 in the actual elections. Guess those unadjusted raw numbers are gonna get him in. Everything he did was extremely dependent on the fact he played for the great Yankee teams: compare his stats in Boston and NY. He got a small boost from the defense, a big boost from run support (see RSI) and a big boost from those .91 Yankee park factors. A solid but unspectacular pitcher on the right team in the right park at the right time.

Rixey, Eppa – No question in my mind he is better than Ruffing. However, he never really had flashes of brilliance, and for me that is a pre-requisite to the HoM.

Van Haltren, George – He’s #32 in my system.

Kelly's Giant 3-Part Ballot.

1966 Ballot

PHOM Inductees: Ted Williams and Tommy Leach. Leach gets in as I continue my reevaluation of infielders.

1. Ted Williams – PHOM 1966 – In my system, he is the fourth best position player behind Ruth, Wagner, and Cobb.

2. Mickey Welch – PHOM 1901 - The weight of the evidence. Over 300 wins. Everyone pitched a lot in the 19th century... well only Galvin and Keefe had more innings pitched.
Compared to his compatriots, he had poor offensive support: Caruthers 111, Clarkson 109, Keefe 107, Radbourn 107, Welch 103, and Galvin 102.
Record against other HoMers: 62 – 38. The others are all around .500 or worse.

3. Charley Jones – PHOM 1906 - I give 2+ seasons credit for being blackballed. The credit is given based on the surrounding 6 years. I have him roughly 6th in peak and 1st in prime. Among position players, by win shares, he ranks tied for 4th in 1878, 2nd in 1879, 6th in 1883, 1st in 1884, 3rd in 1885. Now add in 2 missing years in 1881 and 1882. Also, career OPS+ of 149 is tied for 5th among eligibles behind Williams, Browning, Keller, and Cravath.

4. Pete Browning – PHOM 1921 - Adjusting for season length, he roughly has the second best peak and prime. Adjusting for season length, 7 years over 20 win shares, 6 over 25, and 5 over 30. Has the best OPS+ among eligibles by 10 points, 162 to Keller’s 152. An All-Star by STATS 8 times and win shares 5 times. Among position players, he is 1st in 1882 in AA, 4th in 1883, 5th in 1884, 1st in 1885, 2nd in 1887, 5th in 1890 Players League.

5. Charlie Keller – PHOM 1957 - WWII credit for one season and one partial at his established level.
Tied with Pete Browning for second in peak score. Fourth in adjusted prime – Jones, Browning, Duffy.
4 seasons with 30 win shares + 2 adjusted for WWII time. Only Ralph Kiner has 4 seasons over 30 among eligibles.
Only Pete Browning has a higher career OPS+ than Keller’s 152.
Was an on-base machine, with the 4th highest OBP among eligibles behind McGraw, Childs, and Roy Thomas.
Also, hit with tremendous power. His .518 SLG is behind only Kiner, Wilson, Klein, Bi Herman, K Williams, and Berger.
Among position players he finished as follows: 1939 – 22 win shares – 14th in AL in rookie year. 1940 – 24 win shares – 9th in AL. 1941 – 32 win shares – 4th in AL. 1942 – 34 win shares – 2nd in AL. 1943 – 36 win shares – 2nd in AL. 1946 – 31 win shares – 4th in AL.

6. Hugh Duffy – PHOM 1918 - Adjusted for season length, only Browning and Keller have a better peak, and only Browing and Charley Jones have a better prime. 7 years with at least 25 win shares. No other eligible has that. 8 years adjusting for season length which is 2nd only to GVH.
5th in Black Ink behind Cravath, Klein, Medwick, and Kiner. His Grey Ink is top 10.
5 times a win shares All-Star. An A+ outfielder for his career who played less than 50% of his games in center.
He was 2nd in 1890 PL with 26 win shares. 1891 AA 3rd with 28. 1892 NL 5th with 29. 1893 NL 1st with 28 (tied). 1894 NL 1st with 33. 1895 NL 11th with 23. 1897 8th with 25. 1898 13th with 25.

7. Bucky Walters – PHOM 1958 - Best National League pitcher between Hubbell and Roberts/Spahn. This ranking is after I reduce his WWII efforts.
3 times best pitcher in NL. And he dominated those leagues: Best pitcher in 1939 by 12 win shares, 38 to 26. Best pitcher in 1940 by 4 win shares, 32 to 28. Best pitcher in 1944 by 8 win shares, 32 to 24. He missed by 1 win share in 1941 of leading the league 4 times.
Only Feller, Dean, Waddell, and Willis have a better peak. Has 10th highest prime. Only Dean has more Black Ink.
Faced tougher average opponents then any real candidate. Only Nap Rucker, Thorton Lee, and Eddie Smith faced tougher.

8. Quincy Troupe – PHOM 1960 - Long career catcher at a very high level. An All-star 23 different times. The productive phase of his career lasted longer then Mackey’s. 7 times with over 20 win shares is nothing to sneeze at from a catcher. I do not give credit for the year spent boxing, but I do for the War. The huge number of walks is a big plus for me.

9. Alejandro Ohms – PHOM 1964 - Big plus for my system is the 8 years of at least 25 win shares. While he doesn’t have the big peak that I like, his prime his fantastic.
2nd highest career batting average in Cuban leagues behind Torriente, .352 to .345. He is 19 points ahead of John Henry Lloyd and 25 points ahead of Willie Wells. Those three were easily elected to the HoM. What about Ohms?
Other highlights: 3 batting and 3 doubles titles.
Career ranks: 5th in runs, 10th in doubles, 8th in triples, 2nd in avg.
In US play, hit roughly .330 for his career.
From post 31 of the Ohms thread, in the 1920s, only Jud Wilson hit for a better average or slugging average. Only Wilson and Charleston hit for more isolated power.
Ohms played against other HoMers and performed as well as they.
I encourage everyone to review his thread.

Dr C - did you get my e-mail?

10. Cupid Childs - PHOM 1932 - Gets a slight boost because I am ensuring I have every position represented. Childs was the best second basemen of the 1890s by a wide margin. He was better than HoMer Bid McPhee most every year of the decade. Middle infielders did not last long in the 1890s. Childs did. A walking machine. A key member of the great 1890s Clevelend teams.
1890: best among the majors with 31. Even if you reduce his season by 25%, he is the 2nd best in all the majors. McPhee has 21.
1891: second in majors with 21, 2 behind Crooks in the AA. If you reduce 1890, you need to reduce 1891, and I would say Childs is the best in the majors. McPhee has 19.
1892: 3rd best position player in the majors. Best second baseman. 5 win shares more than McPhee.
1893: 8th best position player in the majors with 24. Best second baseman. 3 more win shares than McPhee.
1894: 20 win shares. Tied for best in majors. 3 more than McPhee.
1895: 18 win shares. Best in majors. 2 more than McPhee.
1896: 7th best position player. 27 win shares. Best in majors. 10 more than McPhee.

11. Bob Lemon – PHOM 1965 - 7 20 win seasons, 7 years with 20+ win shares, 7 times a win shares All-Star. The seven times a win shares All-Star may not have great meaning, but it is unique. The last pitcher with 7 or more win shares All-Stars was Lefty Grove and the next with 7 or more are Robin Roberts and Warren Spahn. Grove did do it 12 times and Spahn 13 so I am NOT saying they are comparable.
Lemon has 4 seasons of 25+ win shares. Only Willis (5), and Griffith (5) have more among eligibles. Many others have 4 also though.
He was a very good pitcher who didn't get hurt. 9 top tens in IP. 9 top tens in wins. 6 top tens in winning percentage. 6 top tens in ERA. 5 top tens in ERA+.

12. Vic Willis – PHOM 1942 - Only Ruffing and Rixey have a higher career win share total. He is tied with Waddell for best non-consecutive peak. He has the highest prime of any eligible pitcher. He ranks lower than other pitchers because I have a higher standard for earlier pitchers than post deadballers.
First in NL twice (1899, 1901).
Top 10 pitcher in 1902, 1903, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909

13. Jose Mendez: Big beneficiary of rereading his thread. Fantastic peak/prime. And did really well against top-of-the-line white teams. REREAD HIS THREAD.

14. Tommy Leach - PHOM 1966 - I know Leach split time in centerfield along with third, but I see him as the most qualified 3rd baseman by far. 7 Gold Gloves by win shares. 5 times a win shares All-Star. Instrumental in the Pittsburgh defenses of the first 15 years of the 20th century.

15. Dobie Moore - Similar to Hughie Jennings, who was consistently at the fringes of my ballot. No infielder has such a great peak. I give 3 years credit for Army play. An all-star every year he was healthy.
Please review the information on his thread.

16. Luke Easter – I give various bits of credit for WWII, NeL play, Industrial League play, and barnstorming. He was a fearsome power hitter who played forever and hit forever. Julio Franco’s role model.

17. Burleigh Grimes – PHOM 1961 - Not just a slop pitcher. 7 top 10s in K/9. 10 top 10s in IP with 3 firsts. 11 top 10s in wins with 2 firsts.
6 years as win shares All-Star, 7 years with 20 win shares, 4 over 25, 2 over 30. 5 times a STATS all-star.
I like him better than Rixey among 1920s pitchers.
3 year peak of 92 win shares is in the top 10 among eligibles, career total of 286 is 4th among eligibles, 7 year prime of 181 is 5th behind 4 pitchers whose primes were in better pitching times.

18. George Burns – PHOM 1938 - Like his balance. 4 top 5s in extra-base hits and 6 top 10s. Also, led league in walks 5 times, 2 other top 5s, 2 more top 10s. 8 top 10s in runs created. 3 times best outfielder in league, 1 time second, 2 times 3rd best OF in NL. 8 straight years among top 10 position players in NL including 1 first and 4 times in top 3. And he did this as a lead off hitter.

19. Willard Brown - Dropping from my previous estimation because I reconsidered his dominance of the NAL in light of his competition and the lack of walks. I had to balance the lack of walks with the small base upon which those are based. His power is certainly impressive. Does he remind anyone else of Jeff Francoeur? Maybe Soriano is a valid comp? I am just trying better understand him.


20. Frank Chance: Benefits from my reconsideration. 6 year run as best first baseman in baseball. His Cubs were the winning-est team of all time based on anything from 1 year to 8 years (or more). It wasn’t just Brown and Sheckard. Great at getting on base. I think people forget he had a OPS+ of 135 while still being in the top 70 in career stolen bases. Among the top 80 in career stolen bases, Chance rnaks 13th in career OPS+ behind (alphabetically) Bonds, Burkett, Cobb, E Collins, Delahanty, Hamilton, Lajoie, Magee, Speaker, Stovey, Tiernan, Wagner and tied with McGraw.
<b>

21. <u>Wilbur Cooper</u> - Similar to Grimes, just 700 fewer innings and better defensive support. Had 9 years of 20 win shares. This is unique. The number of pitchers with 9 or more such seasons since he retired are Grove, Spahn, Clemens, Seaver, Maddux, Palmer, Niekro, and Blyleven. But he only had 1 year over 30. A 4 time STATS all-star, 6 times win shares all-star. 12th in non-consecutive 3 yr peak. 8th in consecutive 3-yr peak. 6th in 7yr prime. 7 top 10s in ERA+, 8 top 10s in wins, 8 top 10s in IP.

Other guys: Medwick, Ruffing, Mackey, Rixey, Griffith, Van Haltren, Bell.

<u>Medwick</u>: 22nd on my list. I am very concerned by the dropoff of Medwick’s production, first after 1938, then after 1941. I am concerned that he got to stay and compete against War-diluted talent. I am concerned that he built up his big counting and average numbers in a great hitting park. Does anyone have home-road splits for his Cardinal years other than HRs? I am concerned that he has only 3 years over 24 win shares.

<u>Ruffing</u>: 24th on the list. The next pitcher on the list. Big years were not big enough. Did not perform well against the better teams when on the Yankees. Performed worse than the non-Ruffing Yankees pitchers against first/second/third place teams. That doesn’t sound like a HoMer to me.

<u>Mackey</u>: 25th on list. Peak and prime was not as high as I thought it would be. Poor second half of his career.

<u>Rixey</u>: Around 45th – 50th. Cooper and Rixey and Vance and Coveleski and Johnson and Alexander were all better in the teens and twenties. Lack of big years hurts him. Luque and Donohue faced the tougher pitchers on the Reds. I have severe doubts about giving war credit if the following story is true. I can’t find the source, but Rixey joined the war effort in a fit of pique after the Phillies traded Alexander to the Cubs after the 1917 season. If you leave for war because you are angry with management, rather than patriotism or draft, I am not sure about giving any credit. I still do, but it is under exam.

<u>Griffith</u>: About 35th. Did not have the big years that his contemporaries did. Maybe that is why he had a longer career, but he definitely lacks the big years of Young, Nichols, Rusie, or McGinnity.

<u>George Van Haltren</u>: About 30th. PHOM 1939: Lots of year with 25 win shares once you adjust for schedule length. Unfortunately, the 1890s were the best decade for outfielders to put up big numbers and there were too many others who put up bigger numbers for him to make the ballot.

<u>Cool Papa Bell</u>: About 33rd. He suffers from the same difficulties as Beckley, except he was quite a bit better. Long career, but no peak and a low prime.

<u>Newcombe</u>: give credit for Korea and racism, but the peak is not high enough and the career is not long enough.

<u>McDougald</u>: A very unique player. The fourth most important part to Casey’s genius with the Yankees.

Bill James quotes me in the new THT book

I noticed that next to that fine article from a couple of guys about some Hall or something, Chris. :-D

Vacation this week. I'll be in Las Vegas until Wednesday, wish me luck! Not sure how often I'll be able to check in . . .

1. Ted Williams LF (n/e) - Probably would have broke Babe Ruth's HR record if it weren't for the wars. He was still capable of playing when he retired, and if he were close, he almost assuredly would have went after it.

2. Red Ruffing SP (2) - Not much of a peak, but with war credit he is 3rd among pitchers we've seen in translated IP, meaning he pitched forever. With war credit I have him as one of just 5 pitchers we've seen with 300 translated wins (he hit 300 exactly with my war credit).

3. Eppa Rixey SP (3) - Like Ruffing, a Nolan Ryan / Don Sutton / Phil Niekro HoMer. Very similar Ruffing. Low peak for pitchers on this list, but so much career value.

4. Jake Beckley 1B (4) - A smidge below Rafael Palmeiro, they were basically the same player, though Palmeiro was a little bit better with the stick, 1B was much tougher in Beckley's day.

5. Gavy Cravath RF (6) - Too much to ignore. Either he was a freak of nature, or there's a lot missing. I vote for the latter. Check out his thread for deeper discussion of the specifics, including a great analysis from Gadfly. He's the kind of guy we were hoping to catch when we started this project.

6. Luke Easter 1B (7) - I realize there is a lot of projecting going on here, but I think this is fair, as those ahead of him could reasonably be ranked ahead of Easter even with the extensive projections. I see him as extremely similar to Cravath, and he really did mash from 1937-54.

7. Ralph Kiner LF (8) - Was Harmon Killebrew a Hall of Famer through 1968? Reggie through 1978? How about Albert Belle? All are comparable to Kiner, the Albert Belle of the late 1940s and early 1950s. I'm not normally a peak guy, but his peak is astronomical. I'm not convinced his D was as bad as some say either. His defensive WS numbers aren't terrible.

8. Charley Jones LF (9) - The Albert Belle/Ralph Kiner of the early NL - can you tell I like this type of player?

9. Bob Lemon SP (10) - Impressive peak - note, Prospectus recalibrated their numbers again, so if you are comparing Lemon to old numbers you've input into a spreadsheet or something, you need to update everyone else's numbers too. The new numbers are making all pitchers look worse from what I've observed.

10. Bucky Walters SP (11) - I was underrating him. I took a look at his RSI page - back when it existed, and he pitched against amazingly tough competition, and pitched well against it. He was a great hitter (for a pitcher) too, which further understates his record. His record is similar to Ferrell's (201-157 vs. 190-131), longer career though not quite the quality - on the surface. Ferrell was a better hitter, but he doesn't get nearly the edge that he does over other pitchers. And when you throw in a MOWP of .526 vs. .497, it makes a close call. I have him a hair behind Lemon right now.

11. Phil Rizzuto SS (12) - War credit has him right about 300 WS and 95 WARP, great defensive SS and hurt by his park enormously.

12. Clark Griffith SP (13) - What exactly is it that separates McGinnity or Three-Finger Brown from Griffith?

13. Joe Medwick LF (14) - Looking at Kiner made me realize I had Medwick too low.

14. George Van Haltren CF (15) - He could rank anywhere from 1 to 30, very tough to evaluate.

15. Virgil Trucks SP (16) - Hidden gem here, I didn't even notice it until I threw his numbers in my spreadsheet. I give him two full years of war credit for 1944-45, at an average of his 1942-43-46 level (after adjusting 1943 down a smidge for the war). He had some peak (I have him between Ruffing and Plank on my 'peak' score, would have won the 1953 AL Cy Young if it existed) and there's a lot of career value here. I overrated him just a little last time, Lemon and Walters have significantly higher peak with similar career value.

Honorable mention:

16. Tommy Leach 3B/CF (17) - It is so easy to underrate the guys that do everything well and nothing spectacularly.
17. Vern Stephens SS (18) - I love shortstop that can hit like outfielders and play above average defense, call me crazy :-) Clearly better than Doerr IMO.
18. Dutch Leonard SP (19) - Pretty underrated when you look at his W-L record. Prospectus loves him, and Win Shares likes him a lot. A ton of career value and the 4th most saves of any pitcher in my consideration set. Bumping him further this week.
19. Dobie Moore SS (20) - Great peak, short career, even with military team credit. But I've been convinced that he played enough (the level of play was never in quesiton) that I should move him way up compared with where I had him. This is similar to where I've put Hughie Jennings in the past.
20. Bill Monroe 2B (21) - Been on my ballot forever, haven't been convinced that this is a mistake.
21. Ernie Lombardi C (22) - I was convinced that his OPS+ overstates his offense due to the DPs, and his lack of peak somewhat dilutes the impact. However, I was looking over the DMB all-time disk, and they gave him a fair range rating (not poor), and also a very good arm. Are the reports of his awful defense greatly exagerrated? Are 1500 games at C and a 125 career OPS+ more common than I realize? I'm still a big fan.
22. Biz Mackey C (23) - After further review he appears to be closer to Schang/Bresnahan than Cochrane on the catcher spectrum.
23. Cool Papa Bell CF (24) - Awful lot of career value there. Bill James had him in his top 100 all-time. Which of us is missing the boat?
24. Jimmy Ryan OF (25) - Getting bumped again - could easily be as high as Van Haltren, why did he fade so much?
25. Joe Gordon 2B (26) - Clearly above the rest of the 2B pack.
26. Bobby Doerr 2B (27) - Too close to call w/Gordon right now.
27. Wally Schang C (28) - If he'd only played a little more in the years he did play.
28. George Sisler 1B (29) - I think he is somewhat overrated by the consensus. His peak was great, but has been overstated.
29. Bob Elliott 3B (30) - Not very far behind Hack, who I would place between Monroe and Medwick. I cannot see how one could rank Childs or Doyle ahead of Elliott (2B pre-1920 being equivalent to 3B post 1935).
30. Dizzy Trout SP (31) - Great pitcher from 1943-46. Moves up more with my pitcher re-evaluation.
31. Tommy Bridges SP (32) - Unspectacular peak, but a lot of career value. He'd slipped off my radar too.
32. Quincy Trouppe C (33) - Good player, a smidge below Mackey and Schang.
33. Joe Sewell SS/3B (34) - Very glad he wasn't rushed in. Good, but not great, peak isn't enough to overcome his short career.
34. Urban Shocker SP (35) - He was one heckuva pitcher. Never had a bad year, ultra consistent with a nice peak.
35. Burleigh Grimes SP (36) - Like Walters, faced pretty steep competition (.520 RSI), so his 256-226 RSI and 107 ERA+ understates his record somewhat.
36. Roger Bresnahan C/CF (37) - Great OBP and gets a career value boost for being a catcher.
37. Bob Johnson LF (38) - I could have him too low. I need to be careful about purging guys that aren't close to my top 15, but well ahead of others, he was one of those that was lost in the shuffle somehow. One powerful hitter.
38. Dom DiMaggio CF (39) - With war credit he has enough career value and a solid peak. As was mentioned in his thread, a poor man's Richie Ashburn.
39. Ed Williamson 3B (40) - Still on the board after 60+ years.
40. Johnny Pesky SS/3B (41) - Basically the same player as Sewell but not as good defensively.
41. Willard Brown LF (42) - Tough to peg after considering his incredibly low walk rates.
42. Dick Redding SP (43) - Can't see him as better than Grimes, but he's back on the board.
43. Rube Waddell SP (44) - Another one that I shouldn't have dropped.
44. Walker Cooper C (45) - Great hitter for a catcher, just a smidge below Bresnahan and Schang.
45. Mike Griffin CF (46) - Great defensive player, could hit too. Keeping his memory alive . . .
46. Hugh Duffy OF (47) - Has to be behind Jimmy Ryan.
47. Edd Roush CF (48) - Weak league hurts him.
48. Ben Taylor 1B (49) - Not that far off Beckley, shows how tight the ballot is.
49. Pie Traynor 3B (50) - Back on the board. I think we are all seriously underrating 3B defense from the mid-30s back. Could move significantly higher once I get a better handle on this.
50. Mel Harder SP (51) - Forgotten everywhere but Cleveland it seems like, but he was a really good pitcher. With Grove hurt, he was arguably (Hubbell?) the best pitcher in baseball from 1933-35.
51. Billy Nash 3B (--) - Similar to Traynor, forgot about him on the 3B re-evaluation.
52. Vic Willis SP (52) - I think I should have him higher, but I can't place him ahead of any of these guys.
53. Bobo Newsom SP (53) - Similar to Leonard, kind of flies under the radar, but had a good career while he was bouncing all over the place, not much in terms of peak.
54. Dick Lundy SS (54) - Back on the radar, not as good as Sewell IMO.
55. Don Newcombe SP (n/e) - Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see anyway possible to rank him ahead of Mel Harder. I think this is probably too high.
56. Bobby Avila 2B (55) - Gives him some credit for pre-major league play. Had a couple of really big years in the early 1950s.
57. Alvin Dark SS (n/e) - Shortstops that can hit league are a valuable commodity.
58. John McGraw 3B (56) - More in-season durability would have significantly raised his ranking.
59. Alejandro Oms OF (57) - Convince me if you think this is too low, I'm listening.
60. George Scales SS (58) - I'll side with those who say he was similar to, but not as good as Sewell or Moore. Is it wrong to have him behind Lundy?
61. Lave Cross 3B (59) - Also caught some. See Traynor for the reason he's back on the board. More re-evaluation to follow in the coming weeks.
62. Mickey Vernon 1B (60) - Good player, long valuable career, not nearly the hitter Beckley or Taylor were.
63. Pete Browning CF (61) - He's on the board again. I just don't think the AA was all that good when Browning dominated it, he was a good player, but his stats need serious deflation.
63. Cupid Childs 2B (62) - Good hitter, but 2B was a hitter's position in his time.
64. Larry Gardner 3B (63) - I see him as a tad behind Traynor, about equal to Childs after bumping for 3B D in his era.
65. Larry Doyle 2B (63) - Ditto
66. Tommy Henrich RF (64) - Don't forget to give him 3 years of war credit. I think Moises Alou is a very good comp.
67. Charlie Keller LF (65) - My God, could he hit! But his career makes Kiner's look long.

1966 ballot:

1. Ted Williams - I wish he had walked less
2. Jake Beckley - best of the rest
3. George Van Haltren - crept up my ballot over time
4. Red Ruffing - great pitcher with Yanks
5. Bobby Doerr - ted's teammate
6. Joe Gordon - together with doerr again
7. Ralph Kiner - cannot believe he isn't faring better here
8. Bob Johnson - see eloquent descriptions above
9. Willard Brown - negro leaguer few have heard of
10. Tommy Bridges - with pcl and wwii credit
11. Bob Elliott - very good third baseman
12. Joe Medwick - very good hitter for awhile
13. Eppa Rixey - with wwi credit
14. Cupid Childs - great 1890s second baseman
15. George Sisler - hope we do ultimately elect him (as predicted above)
-----
16. Clark Griffith - did a lot for mediocre teams
17. Dobie Moore - a great negro league player for awhile
18. Joe Sewell - making a comeback
19. Cool Papa Bell - rep would put him much higher
20. Edd Roush - one of my favorites for telling McGraw to go to hell

Not voting for group top ten: Bob Lemon (he's close to my ballot) and Biz Mackey (he's not).

1966 Ballot:

This year Ted Williams and Mickey Welch enter my PHoM. My PHoM now includes 31 percent pitchers, in contrast to the 26 percent in the consensus HoM. I believe that the consensus HoM is now excessively slanted toward offense. Defense is just as important as offense to success in baseball, so I think we should be striving for an HoM that better balances offense and defense.

1. Ted Williams – joins his peers in the pantheon—Ruth, Wagner, Gibson, and Cobb. MVP for 1946 and 49, was among the top five in MVP voting 9 times. (PHoM 1966)

2. Bob Lemon – Over 9 seasons (1948-56) he averaged 21-12, 1.1 wins above team, 272 IP, 111 DERA+, 88 OPS+. (PHoM 1964)

3. José de la Caridad Méndez – Over his first 7 Cuban League seasons (1908-14) he went 62-17, 16.3 wins above team. Gary A’s latest numbers include detailed statistics for 24 games Méndez pitched against major league competition during 1908-13; they are largely consistent with Chris’s earlier MLEs and confirm Méndez’s status as an outstanding pitcher. (PHoM 1938)

4. Clark Griffith – Over 8 seasons (1894-1901) he averaged 22-13, 5.5 wins above team, 304 IP, 124 DERA+. (PHoM 1960)

5. Hugh Duffy – 8 seasons with 25+ WS, with a high of 39 (adjusting to 154 gm schedule); A+ defensive outfielder. (PHoM 1931)

6. Mickey Welch – Over 7 seasons (1880, 84-85, 87-90) he averaged 30-17, 4.3 wins above team, 437 IP, 116 DERA+. I’ve been back and forth on Welch, who was once high on my ballot, then dropped off, and now has returned. How much of his success was his own work, and how much defensive support? During the 1880s how much weight should be given to 300 wins or a 44-11 season? I’ve finally concluded that his HoM case in context is essentially similar to that of the other pitchers listed in my top 10, centered on a pitching peak/prime of 6 to 9 seasons as one of the top pitchers in baseball. (PHoM 1966)

7. Bucky Walters – Over 7 seasons (1936, 39-42, 44-45) he averaged 18-13, 2.0 wins above team, 270 IP, 122 DERA+, 72 OPS+. MVP for 1939. (PHoM 1958)

8. Ducky Medwick – 7 seasons with 24+ WS, with a high of 40, places him just behind Duffy in my rankings. His 2.79 fielding WS / 1000 innings is outstanding for a pure corner outfielder. MVP for 1937. (PHoM 1958)

9. Dizzy Dean – Over 6 seasons (1932-37) he averaged 22-13, 3.6 wins above team, 288 IP, 128 DERA+, 182 SO, 67 BB. MVP for 1934, runner up in 1935 and ‘36. (PHoM 1958)

10. Alejandro Oms – According to the MLEs, 8 seasons with 25+ WS.

11. Burleigh Grimes – Over 8 seasons (1918, 20-21, 23-24, 27-29) he averaged 21-12, 4.0 wins above team, 292 IP, 115 DERA+, and 67 OPS+. (PHoM 1940)

12. Willard Brown – “A slugger who was exceptionally fast in the field, a good base runner, and an excellent gloveman with a great arm.” —James A. Riley.

13. Red Ruffing – Over 8 seasons (1925, 28, 32, 35-39) he averaged 17-12, 0.4 wins above team, 249 IP, 119 DERA+, 88 OPS+.

14. Phil Rizzuto – Another illustration of the offense/defense imbalance in the HoM—why can’t a great defensive shortstop (who could also hit a little) garner more support on the basis of his glove? Among HoM eligible players with at least 10K innings at shortstop, the Scooter ranks third in fielding WS / 1000 innings with 7.14. MVP for 1950, runner up for 1949; age 25-27 seasons spent in military service.

15. Charlie Keller – Four seasons with 31+ WS. OPS+ above 140 every season from 1939-47.

Test ballot:

16. Biz Mackey
17. Roger Bresnahan
18. Cool Papa Bell
19. Dick Redding
20. Tommie Leach (PHoM 1932)

21-25: Arlett, Cravath, Gordon, Matlock, Willis

Off ballot:

35. Eppa Rixey – Having lots of seasons as a very good pitcher does not transform him into a great pitcher.

46. George Van Haltren – A very good player, but I don’t see that he was better than (for example) George Burns, Spottswood Poles, Wally Berger, Fielder Jones, or Bobby Veach.

Other new arrivals:

I’ve placed Don Newcombe at # 47. He was similar to Wes Ferrell, and I was one of Wes’s best friends, but I don’t see quite enough to lift Newk above the other pitchers I’ve ranked 26-50, such as Mel Harder, Urban Shocker, Nip Winters, Carl Mays, George Uhle, Bobo Newsom, Lefty Gomez, and Dolf Luque.

Gil McDougald doesn’t make my top 100, but he’s another good example of how playing for a good team—especially the Yankees—can kill a player’s HoM chances. If he’d come up with a team like the Senators or Athletics, he might have spent his entire career at shortstop. He very well might have added a season or two to the front and back ends of his career (I don’t know anything about his minor league record, but with an OPS+ of 142 in his rookie season at the age of 23, I assume he must have been ready earlier). And anywhere other than Yankee Stadium he would have hit 20 home runs a year in his prime. With perhaps 1800 games as a good fielding shortstop with an OPS+ of 110-115, he may not have been a shoo-in for the HoM, but he definitely would have received serious scrutiny. However, as Bill James wrote, “Gil McDougald wasn’t born to be a star. He was born to be a Yankee.”

1966 ballot.

1. TED WILLIAMS



2. Wally Schang Tremendous career value in his long career, many seasons with > 120 OPS+ as a C. An OBP-heavy OPS, ranking 2nd all time among C in career OBP. Low in-season catcher usage during this era taken into account.

3. Joe Sewell 87.4 WARP3 in 1903 games is arguably a HoM-worthy career, while the number of seasons among the top N players in league is evidence of a HoM-worthy peak. As with Schang, the answer to AL vs. NL league strength in the 1910s-1920s has a big effect on his all-time standing. And, like Schang, would help fill in the 1920s gap. :-)

4. Red Ruffing We haven't seen anybody quite like him; a tad below Eddie Plank and a tad above Rixey IMO is the best description. A lower peak than any other pitcher I've voted for so strongly, but his great career length for his era more than makes up for it. More career WS as a Yankee than any other pitcher.

5. Joe Gordon With all the discussion about WWII credit, how much difference will it make between anybody getting elected or not? Comparisons with the performance of similar players by age suggests that he may have missed out on some great seasons. The downside is that Gordon + war credit may look too much like Sewell for some.

6. Bobby Doerr A great 2B; another player who edges up because of war credit.

7. Charlie Keller Won't make the HoM because injuries curtailed his career, but his prime looks like the real deal to me, as a perennial (non-Ted Williams) all star and MVP-level player. Had his best seasons in the worst-possible time to be a post-1920 slugger and lost nearly two seasons at his probable peak.

8. Joe Medwick Played like an inner-circle HoMer for 3 years, but like a non-HoMer the rest of his career, averaging out to a borderline HoM candidate. Looking better and better as time goes on.

9. Cool Papa Bell Long career, low peak, perhaps like Sam Rice with the bat, but with outstanding speed.

10. Jose Mendez Evidence of a HoM worthy peak; Gomez is perhaps a reasonable comparison.

11. Tommy Bridges 126 ERA+ in 2826 IP in the 1930-1943 AL.

12. Biz Mackey One of the greatest NeL catchers. Looked at Trouppe again, but still have more confidence in Mackey as a bona fide candidate. As Radcliffe and Petway are also still in the NeL C glut, looking forward to comprehensive NeL statistical data to do a better job of sorting everybody out.

13. Ernie Lombardi Helped by reevaluation of league factors. Even with WWII deduction, of the best hitting C ever.

14. Dutch Leonard (Emil) In the tradition of pitchers such as Waite Hoyt, he makes my ballot as a long-career good pitcher with some very good years and a little relief credit.

15. Bob Elliott Another NLer helped by reevaluation of league factors. The kind of player my system likes: an IF with a good and consistent prime.

16-20, in order: Lefty Gomez, Ralph Kiner, Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Vernon, Eppa Rixey.

Griffith and Van Haltren have made my ballot in the past, but have been overtaken by more recent candidates.

Bob Lemon was very good. With a slight league discount, his career ERA+/ IP,
in context, in a range where most comparable pitchers are not HoMers.

I have Sisler lowest among the returning top-10. While I sympathize with his case, I have to go by what he accomplished, and his prime wasn't quite dominant and long enough for me.

1966 Ballot:
1) Ted Williams
With war credit for WWII and Korea he comes out as the second highest-ranked player of all time (surprising, I know), not far behind Ruth.

2) Red Ruffing
His peak is middle of the pack, but he racks up some nice career value (103.3 WARP3, 992 PRAR, 322 Win Shares). It doesn’t hurt that he helped himself at the plate with an 81 OPS+.

3) Bucky Walters
89.6 WARP3, 251 WS. An excellent, underrated pitcher. Similar numbers to Ferrell, but with slightly less peak and more career.

4) Ben Taylor
Riley writes: “considered the best first baseman in black baseball prior to the arrival of Buck Leonard.” Even if he was only the third best 1B of the Negro Leagues, he deserves to join the HoM.

5) Dick Redding
2nd best Black pitcher of the Deadball Era.

6) Jose Mendez
Possibly better than Redding.

7) Dizzy Trout
87.4 WARP3, 228 WS, Top 5 PRAA/PRAR: 152/447. Here’s a guy where it seems like the war discount you use will greatly affect his placement. I’m ok with the BP discounts, so he comes out high on my ballot.

8) Dutch Leonard
91.9 WARP3, 233 WS. This guy racked up a surprising amount of career value. 956 all-time PRAR ranks second only to Ruffing.

9) Bob Lemon
Yet another pitcher cracks my top 10. Slightly better peak and career numbers than Ferrell, and, like Wes, Lemon could hit, too.

10) Joe Medwick
He’s got the best 3-year (109) and 5-consecutive year (157) WS numbers of any eligible hitter (except Williams, of course). WARP seems to think his peak is more in the middle of the pack—44.3 in top 5 non-consecutive years.

11) George Van Haltren
Clearly HoM-worthy by Win Shares, borderline at best by WARP3…I’ve got him somewhere in-between.

12) Bobby Doerr
He’s at the top of the middle infielder heap. In the reverse of the GVH case, Win Shares don’t favor him as much as WARP3.

13) Cool Papa Bell
May not have been as great as all the stories made him out to be, but he was still an amazing talent. The longevity factor keeps him on the ballot.

14) Willard Brown
As much as his lack of walks seem to confound analysis of his career, he put up some impressive numbers and is worthy of a ballot spot.

15) Eppa Rixey
Loads of career value keep him near the ballot…he’s on one year, off the next.

16) Bobo Newsom
Low peak and a meager OPS+, but some decent career value nonetheless. 81.9 WARP3, 237 WS, 939 PRAR.

17) Fielder Jones
Doesn’t have the >130 OPS+ to get noticed like Averill and Johnson, but WARP and WS seem to agree that he’s in their league. 44.3 top 5 WARP3, 135 top 5 WS.

18) Dizzy Dean
493 in Top 5 PRAR is only 2 behind Hubbell. Not much beyond the peak, sort of the anti-Rixey.

19) Pete Browning

20) Spotswood Poles
------------------------------------------
The Rest of the Top 50

21) Alejandro Oms
22) Joe Gordon
23) Bill Monroe
24) Rube Waddell
25) Lon Warneke
26) Jimmy Ryan
27) Sal Maglie
28) Charlie Keller
29) Virgil Trucks
30) Dick Lundy
31) Leon Day
32) Dave Barnhill
33) Tommy Bridges
34) Urban Shocker
35) Ralph Kiner
36) Clark Griffith—He’s not *that* far off my ballot, the backlog just keeps getting deaper
37) Mel Harder
38) Paul Derringer
39) John Donaldson—2nd best NeL lefty ever(?)
40) Dominic DiMaggio
41) Ed Ciccotte
42) Dobie Moore
43) Tommy Leach
44) Jack Quinn
45) Ray Dandridge
46) Vic Willis
47) Murray Dickson
48) Harry Hooper
49) Jim McCormick
50) Bob Johnson

Remaining Consensus Top 10
58) George Sisler—The good part of his career didn’t last long enough for me to rank him higher.
60) Biz Mackey—Highest ranked catcher on my list. I’m just not impressed enough by his batting to get him much closer to the ballot.

Newcomers
51) Don Newcombe

1966 ballot:

1. Ted Williams: There’s really no need for extra credit, you know, but a “favorite-toy”-type projection for the 3 missing and 2 mostly missing years would give him 673 career homers. A brock2 (modified to 154-g schedules) for those years gives him 689. Pretty decent.

2. Red Ruffing: I’ve been wondering for several years if he’ll be doomed by the bad seasons, the unremarkable ERA+, and having his best years with good-to-great teams. Obviously not doomed, but it’s touch and go. Career stats aren’t everything, but even with the bad years he accumulated 322 WS, 113.3 WARP1. A pennant is a pennant? He was an ace, co-ace, or valuable contributor for 9 pennant winners. (eligible 1953, PHOM 1956)

3. Cool Papa Bell: Hitting, incredible speed, great defense, long career. Similar to, but better than, Carey. By Bill James’s rankings, the 7th best centerfielder so far (including Stearnes in cf, James has him in lf). SWW believes that Negro Leaguers would be astonished by Bell not being in our HOM. I wonder if the HOF Negro League committee will be similarly astonished. (eligible 1948, PHOM 1957)

4. Bob Lemon: He doesn’t have the eye-popping seasons that peak voters like, but there aren’t a lot of pitchers who could match his 9 consecutive seasons of sustained excellence. He’s at the top of my “moderate” career-length pitchers (~2500-3000IP) and is more of a workhorse in context than Mays or Ferrell, his 2 closest comps. (eligible 1964, PHOM 1964)

5. George Sisler: If the career had a more normal shape, Sisler would likely be in already. The sharp break in performance may have killed his chances. The HOF got this one right; he’s been in since ’39. (eligible 1936, PHOM 1938)

6. Burleigh Grimes: 270 wins, .560 W%, Retro-Cy, 5 STATS AS, 9 all-star quality seasons. (eligible 1940, PHOM 1942)

7. Biz Mackey: If even the low win shares estimates are anywhere near accurate, this is one of the all-time best catchers. #1 HOF-caliber career (among non-HOFers) on Riley’s list in the new ESPN encyclopedia. (eligible 1949, PHOM 1958)

8. Dick Redding: Long career flame-thrower, top 5 Negro League pitcher. (eligible 1937)

9. Eppa Rixey: Long career, solid performer, innings-eater. (eligible 1939)

10. Joe Sewell: Ten all-star caliber seasons in a 14-year career, A- defender, very good offense for a middle infielder. (eligible 1939, PHOM 1939)

11. Bobby Doerr: Like Sewell, 10 all-star caliber seasons in 14 years. Sewell is more frequently at the top according to STATS, 8-4. (eligible 1957)

12. Carl Mays: Good peak candidate, career edge over Ferrell, pretty good hitter. (eligible 1935)

13. Joe Medwick: Ducky Wucky, The Gladiator & Indian Bob are all very close. There are many people who are very close in this neighborhood. (eligible 1954)

14. Roger Bresnahan: Great player whose versatility illustrates his quality. (eligible 1921, PHOM 1929)

15. Dick Lundy: #3 HOF-caliber career according to Riley after Mackey & Pete Hill. Recently we’ve elected 3 Negro-Leaguer big bats with marginal defensive qualifications: Wilson, Suttles, Beckwith. Players with more balanced resumes have meanwhile had support ranging from solid (Mackey), to moderate (Bell), to minimal (Lundy), to non-existent (Judy Johnson). (eligible 1943)

the experimental 16-20:

16. Clark Griffith (eligible 1912, PHOM 1945)
17. Lefty Gomez (eligible 1948)
18. Rube Waddell (eligible 1916)
19. Ralph Kiner (eligible 1961)
20. Bob Johnson (eligible 1951)

Required comments:
George Van Haltren: I wasn’t that crazy about him in the ‘20s, and the field of candidates is much better and deeper now. Very solid performer, but no suggestion of greatness.
Clark Griffith: #16, made my PHOM in ’45, now wanders on and off the official ballot as the crowd thins or thickens.

New people:
Newcombe’s an interesting case, I’ll have to take a closer look.
Thomson: If one hit could put you in the Hall…
McDougald was a great asset to the ‘50s Yankees, playing well wherever needed, and likely had some productive years left, but the Yankees thought he was expendable and exposed him to the expansion draft. Gil retired rather than play for the new Senators.

PHOM off-ballot: Beckley (1926), Browning (1927), Welch (1929), Duffy (1940), Griffith (1945).

HOM not PHOM: Suttles, Carey, Vance, Slaughter, Beckwith, Averill, Ferrell, Kelley, Sheckard, Jennings, Pike, Pearce, Jackson

PHOM not HOM: Lemon, Welch, Grimes, Griffith, Ruffing, Bresnahan, Mackey, Beckley, Sisler, Sewell, Browning, Duffy, Bell

A coronation week for Ted Williams, but who will the second inductee be? With a backlog election next year as well, its just a matter of this week or next for the guys fighting for #2.

The Twins ran away with the pennant in the AL despite their best hitter (Killebrew) spending significant time on the DL. The four-time defending AL champion Yankees finished a distant sixth thanks to an injury to Maris, the sudden aging of Howard, Mantle & Ford and the collapse of Bouton. Plus, the Yankees will have a tougher time rebuilding thanks to the addition of an amateur draft last year.

The NL pennant race was better than most people remember. The Giants had a 3.5 game lead over the Reds and a 4.5 game lead over the Dodgers on September 15th when the boys in blue reeled off a 13 game winning streak to win the division going away. The big Howard-for-Osteen trade paid dividends as the Dodgers tailored their game for their stadium and era.

Dodgers won a close World Series thanks to a Koufax shutout in game seven.

This is the last election of the pre-expansion/154-game season era. We're all going to get good at knowing our factors of 162/154.


1966 Ballot

1. Ted Williams (ne) -- 190 OPS+ would be an excellent single season peak, for Ted its his career numbers (9700+ PA) -- which includes play after his 42 birthday.
2. Clark Griffith (1) -- The plethora of borderline live-ball pitchers is making me think we may have forgotten about Clark, who pitched well in an even livelier era. Solid numbers in an underrepresented era.
3. Larry Doyle (2) -- I think the electorate is underrating him, his support is waning. Fine second baseman for great Giants teams. Solid peak. Fielding was mediocre, but not as horrific as WARP suggests.
4. Cupid Childs (3) -- Very comparable to Doyle. OPS+ is OBP heavy. Fielding was good, but not A-level.
5. Biz Mackey (4) -- Lets not forget about Biz! Wasn't the hitter I had previously thought, but I have a soft sport for catchers. Giving him credit for his year in overseas and his rate numbers are not bad if you cut them off in the late-1930s or so. Its not fair that his older days are weighing his rates down.
6. John McGraw (5) -- 135 OPS+ is aided by the fact that its OBP heavy. In fact, his OBP is 3rd all time. Playing time issues keeping him out of the HOM so far...
7. Dick Redding (6) -- "Cannonball" had the 2nd best fastball of the 10's according to Neyer/James.
8. Ralph Kiner (9) -- Top-notch peak, career sputtered out a bit too early. Still, 149 OPS+ in 6256 PA with a healthy peak on top of that is pretty darn good. Starting him just above Cravath.
9. Gavvy Cravath (10) -- Cravath has a monster peak that is holding up against new eligibles.
10. Joe Gordon (11) -- Tossing some love out for the fine 2B for some great Yankees/Indians clubs. Short career has me worried, but a little war credit puts him on the ballot instead of Ruffing.
11. Charley Jones (12) -- Unfairly blacklisted. Appears to be a hybrid or Pike/Stovey/Thompson, guys I've ranked fairly highly. Returning to my ballot after a sizeable absence. He is not from an underrepresented era which is making me a bit apprehensive about his future on my ballots.
12. George Sisler (13) -- Peak candidate... before the injury (184 RC+) was a top-tier hitter.
13. Roger Bresnahan (14) -- Good discussion about him of late. Great five year peak at C. 126 OPS+ is OBP-heavy. Didn't appear to play full-time outside his peak though... getting a small subjective boost due to catcher shortage from his era.
14. Joe Sewell (15) -- Top SS of the 1920s. High OBP, excellent glove. Decent peak, but a peak that warrants a longer career for a slam dunk induction. Still better than most. New candidates have pushed him off of many ballots and it will be interesting to watch to what degree his support returns as we dip deeper into the backlog.
15. Bob Johnson (ne) -- High OBP slugger stuck on the post-fire-sale Connie Mack clubs. WS numbers are depressed by his teams constant underperforming of Pythag.

16-20. Medwick, Ruffing, Lemon, BElliott, Doerr
21-25. Rixey, Rosen, Chance, Lombardi, Beckley,
26-30. WBrown, Browning, Leach, Welch, DMoore,
31-35. Waddell, Newcombe, Rizzuto, VStephens, Roush

Just giving everyone here a heads-up that the election will end exactly at 8 PM EST, since we have a humdinger of a contest for the second spot.

1966 Ballot

1-Ted Williams 555 WS (Would there be any doubt?)

2-George Van Haltren 344 WS
8 of Van’s top 10 similar batters are in the other hall. I consider Van at the top of the list of the many worthy outfielders with long credentials waiting to get in the HOM.

3-Biz Mackey
It seems like Biz is not getting a fair shake from the voters. He’s one of the top three catchers in most Negro League depth charts…along with Gibson & Santop. Biz taught Campy how to play the position so he must’ve been something to watch.

4-Mickey Welch 354 WS
His win shares numbers show he was more than just the 1885 season. McCormick, Mullane and Mathews also deserve another look from the 19th Century.

5-Cool Papa Bell
It appears many HOM voters think Bell is overrated. I’m not so sure. He was the premier lead-off man of his era. Bell is considered by some to be the fastest man to ever play baseball. That has to count for something.

6-Vern Stephens 265 WS
Never gets his due. He is discounted because of the war years. I consider him the best of the four that get lumped together (Stephens, Gordon, Doerr and Rizzuto).

7-Joe Gordon 242 WS
I’m a big Gordon fan. James made a great case that Gordon & Stephens should be honored ahead of Rizzuto and Doerr. Yes…it was a short career but he made the most of his time….first as a Yank and then as an Indian.

8-Wally Schang 245 WS
Schang belongs in a special group of most overlooked ballplayers…Schang, Dahlen, B. Mathews, Start, Pike, Barnes, B. Johnson, etc. He played for several flag winners. Schang had great plate discipline. At the age of 39 he led the AL in HBP.

9-Red Ruffing 322 WS
Several 20-win seasons in the 30s is impressive.

10-Pete Browning 225 WS
Pete does have a down side…but is getting a raw deal due to his prime being in the AA. He was a key player relied on by his teammates for most of his career. Grey Ink looks favorable. The Players League year removes the AA discount as an obstacle for me.

11-Bobby Doerr 281 WS
Gordon was better…but he still was one of the best. A glue for the great 40’s Red Sox teams.

12-Joe Medwick 312 WS
I decided there had to be room for the last NL triple crown winner in my top 15.

13-Dick Redding
James & Neyer rank Redding’s fast ball #2 from 1910 – 1919 behind Walter Johnson. Dick would be in the other hall if the annual Negro league picks started in 1995 had continued for a couple more years.

14-Bob Johnson 287 WS
A raw deal…Indian Bob will forever be hurt by playing for mostly bad teams and the overlapping eras he played in (Live Ball & War Years). A solid performer year after year…he’s deserves a good look.

15-Dick Lundy
Besides being a great hitter Lundy is considered by Negro League expert John Holway to be one of the best defensive shortstops of all-time.

16-Jake Beckley 318 WS
Like his career value. Connor, Crawford and O’Rourke and Clarke are all comps.

17-Bob Lemon 232 WS
He’s probably underrated by HOM voters. I’ll need to look at Lemon some more next time around.

18-Ralph Kiner 242 WS
Every time I see him on TV or hear him on radio I want to shoot the box. But he deserves to be in the top 20.

19-Eppa Rixey 315 WS
Rixey matches up well with Grimes & Faber. He had a long and interesting career. He is known for his time with the Reds but made it into the Series only once with the Phils early in his career.

20-Joe Sewell 277 WS
Very hard to strike out and had a tough act to follow (Chapman’s death). He made position change (to third base) late in his career and continued to still have great numbers.

6 players this year hit the dreaded “good players, not good enough” list. Newcombe comes closest to making a push for the ballot, but it would be a mild upset to see any of these players under my consideration again.

1. Ted Williams (n/a), Bost. (A) LF (’39-’60) (1966) – Channeling my inner Kornheiser: Ruth, Williams. That’s it, that’s the list.
2. Bob Lemon (2), Clev. (A) SP (’46-’58) (1964) – Peak trumps Career as a tiebreak in my system, and the slimmest of credit for the war creates a tie between Lemon and Ruffing.
3. Red Ruffing (3), N.Y. (A) SP (’25-’47) (1955) – Looks as good as Ted Lyons did.
4. Bobby Doerr (4), Bost. (A), 2B (’37-’51) (1960) – Reaches Boudreau’s career value but takes about 1700 more AB’s (War Adj. Up) to do so. Boudreau’s peak is once again the difference.
5. Bucky Walters (5), Cinc. – Phila. (N) SP (’33-’47) (1961) – Dropping Leonard for poor hitting means I have to raise Bucky. So the consensus score is screwed either way.
6. Alejandro Oms (6), Cuba (--), CF (‘21-‘37) (1965) – I’m worried about the slippery slope here of voting for a non-US based career, but he apparently had great value and did play in the NeL.
7. Willard Brown (7), KC (--), 1B (‘34-‘48) (1966) – Very closely ranked to Oms, but Alex gets a bigger boost from peak.
8. Dutch Leonard (8), Wash. (A) SP (’34-’53) – 4 great years before the war, 2 great years after the war, fairly average in between. Dizzy Trout with 500 more IP.
9. Biz Mackey (9), Hilldale (--), C / 3B (’20-’41) – He’ll make it in on my ballot someday.
10. Dizzy Trout (10), Detr. (A) SP (’39-’52) – Trout is causing me to wonder how much credit I should award to PRAA as opposed to PRAR. Looking at translated careers with a 50/50 split, Trout’s pitching value equals that of Ruffing with over 1500+ fewer IP. My peak factor helps Trout out even more. Is a 50/50 split for RAR/RAA fair or is it too much? Maybe Ruffing is elected before this issue is resolved.
11. Joe Gordon (11), N.Y. (A), SS (’38-’50) – I have Sewell being slightly better than Gordon with the glove, and Gordon with every other advantage between the two. It’s a slight advantage in most cases, and it’s not enough to rank Gordon any higher on the ballot than here.
12. Phil Rizzuto(12), N.Y. (A), SS (’41-’56) – At first look, better than Sewell, worse than Gordon.
--. Larry Doby, Clev. (A), CF (’46-’59) –
13. Murray Dickson (14), St.L – Pitt. (N) SP (’42-’59) – Best guess is this is another pitcher who is ignored by the electorate, but looks good to me.
14. Bobo Newsom (15), Wash. – Detr. – St.L (A) SP (’34-’47) – I’m actually kinda glad he made the ballot, because it was quite an ordeal to combine his stats during the 8 years he was traded; all that work didn’t go for naught. Like Leonard, his peak was before the war and he had a reprieve in ’46-’47, but he couldn’t capitalize on the lesser competition in ’42,’43,’45. Looking good for the P-Hall, he’ll never make it in the real thing because we won’t be able to decide on a cap.
15. Joe Sewell (--), Clev. (A), SS / 3B (’20-’33) (1939) – The great defense of Sewell trumps the modest offense advantage of Hack.


Joe Medwick – Drops out this year.
George Van Haltren (1926) – A staple of my ballots for the first 30+ years I was involved in this project, I have him in the upper 1/3 of a mess of 1B-OF types. Good to see him back in the top ten, I think he’ll at least have to wait till the consistent Elect 3 years to have another chance. However, in the P-Hall plaques stand forever.
Eppa Rixey – Doesn’t appear to be a whole lot different than a dozen other pitchers who have been summarily reject by the voters (Harder, Passeau, Shocker, Warneke, Grimes, …).
Clark Griffith – In that vast cloud of players just off the ballot.
Cool Papa Bell – Could be on the ballot, but isn’t.

A lot of players were in last year’s top ten, but not in my top 15 this year.

1966 Ballot:

1. Ted Williams - Just amazing to think of his totals if he had not lost any years to war. Out of curiosity, did Ted play substantially in the PCL and was it enough to get credit for some of it?

2. Pete Browning - Was a heck of a hitter and did it under tremendous duress. I buy the "greatness can't take full advantage off lower competition" idea. Proved he could hold his own in the Player's League.

3. Mickey Welch - The 300 game winner. The discussion of the past couple of “years” has made me realize that Welch should be a HOMer. Is not that far behind Keefe.

4. Hugh Duffy - His credentials are that he was for a time one of the best players and he produced during the 90's. Was an outstanding defensive outfielder.

5. Rube Waddell - Was a special pitcher. I buy the run support analysis and also believe in the higher value of being a phenomenal K artist in his time and place. His career record isn't that impressive but you have to remember that there were some stretches where he was jettisoned because his managers did not know how to deal with his unique personality.

6. Dobie Moore - Fantastic peak with just enough career at shortstop.

7. George Sisler - Put up enough career with a very good to great peak that he goes above Beckley.

8. Clark Griffith - The more that I look at him the more I realize I have been underestimating his accomplishments. The fourth best pitcher of the 90's should be in.

9. Biz Mackey - Has the hitting and the career length to edge Bresnahan for top catcher in my consideration set.

10. Joe Medwick – His ‘highs’ are enough to land him in the lower part of my ballot.

11. Ralph Kiner – His peak is enough to land him on my ballot.

12. Bill Monroe - Seems to be one of the best second basemen of his time.

13. Jake Beckley - The career man. What he accomplished during his career is enough to offset the lack of peak, so to speak.

14. Cool Papa Bell – The career this man would have had is among the most unique we have encountered so far. Probable 3500+ hits and speed to burn is a lot to ignore.

15. Charley Jones – Fantastic hitter from the 19th century. Gets some credit for blacklisting from me

16. Roger Bresnahan - I believe his versatility is a major plus in his case. I can understand not giving him credit if you think his playing time at other positions was worthless but when he was an outfielder he was one of the best ones in the league. Not many players in history would be able to pull that of.

17. Frank Chance - The opposite of Beckley. Was the standard for excellence at his position but injuries did him in. Tragic that it was the "competitive" nature of his opposition that caused him part of his career and shortened his life.

18. Jose Mendez - Peak pitching candidate similar to Wadell. However, a little bit unsure on how much to credit him for his bookend years and ends up here.

19. Bob Lemon - Impressive run as on of the top pitchers in his league but see some contemporaries as better. However, he is a worthy candidate.

20. Eppa Rixey - Makes my top 20. Edges Ruffing in my pitcher rankings because of some war credit.

Not on ballot but made Top 10:

Red Ruffing – Hanging around Rixey in my rankings.

1) Ted Williams (new). Young pup that I am, I had to read John Murphy’s ballot introduction at least four times before realizing that John Wayne did not, in fact, play Al Dark in the movies. 190 OPS+ makes up for the 58% stolen base rate, and the fact that he only had three triples after turning 38.
2) George Van Haltren(1). Consolidated league. Long career. OPS+ above 120, tilting slightly in the OBP direction. Played CF. Pitched. Could steal a base. Top-ten in triples seven times. Lots of little stuff that, put together, makes a HOMer.
3) Eppa Rixey (2). Of eligible pitchers, only Mickey Welch has more innings pitched and an ERA+ over 110. And don't forget about WW1 credit - with it, he probably breaks 100 WARP1.
4) Jake Beckley (4). 125 OPS+ in 10,000 AB when adjusted to a 154-game schedule. Was mentally forgetting that he, like GVH, played in the one-league 1890s.
5) Red Ruffing (5). Based on some WARP calculations I did on eligible pitchers who retired in the last twenty or so years, Ruffing actually fell behind Bob Lemon when I weighted for prime and peak. So I may be adjusting him downwards next year, or moving Lemon up even further.
6) Quincy Trouppe (6). Have decided he’s the best available catcher. Higher estimated in-season innings than Schang, which isn’t a big thing for a career voter like myself, but it serves to separate the two.
7) Cannonball Dick Redding (8). See below.
8) Bob Lemon (9). I was highly underestimating Lemon’s prime, it seems. When I weight his 9-year prime at 45% of his overall value, he actually comes out ahead of Ruffing. As I’m not sure I agree with that, I’ve boosted him four spots for now. And Redding benefits from those re-evaluations as well, as I’ve always seen the two as quite similar.
9) Cupid Childs (10). Was best available 2B before Robinson debuted on ballot. Played in an era that was much more perilous for middle IF, and posted similar stats to Doerr, Gordon, et al.
10) Bob Elliott (11). Like Medwick/Johnson, the Hack/Elliott comparison is one more reason I hesitate to use win shares exclusively. Time spent at LF means he’s lower than Hack was on my ballot. A solid hitter, and vastly underrated.
11) Edd Roush (12). Even playing in a weak league, he posted some strong stats, and being a career voter I think I care less about whether he always played full seasons as long as the overall numbers are there.
12) Wally Schang (13). Dropped down in favor of Trouppe. Still think we’re placing too much importance on his in-season stats and not looking at the overall picture.
13) Alejandro Oms (14). OPS+ is better than GVH, though he played more corner outfield and against lesser opponents.
14) Jimmy Ryan (15). Garnered more votes than GVH, once upon a time.
15) George Sisler. (16) Always on the cusp. Had quite a career, though he’s often thought of as a prime/peak candidate.

16) Clark Griffith. My post-ballot pitcher rankings are often in flux, but Griffith’s always up there.
17) Biz Mackey. Methuselah behind the plate.
18) Bucky Walters. Lemon-lite (sounds like a generic soda brand!), though I’m amazed how close he compares to Dizzy Trout.
19) Hugh Duffy Part of the Ryan-Van Haltren trio, so can’t stray too far from those guys.
20) Joe Medwick. I prefer Slaughter’s long career if we’re going to talk about corner outfielders, but Medwick was no slouch in his prime.

Giving Don Newcombe the benefit of the doubt for all his race and war-related absences would get him into Bucky Walters territory in my system. My more realistic approximation is that he’s somewhere in the low 40s, around Dutch Leonard.
<b>Alvin Dark<b> is a lot like Buddy Myer, or in the parlance of our times, nowhere near my ballot.
<b>Cool Papa Bell<b> is about #30. I’d love him if he were a catcher or shortstop, but not as an outfielder.

Young pup that I am, I had to read John Murphy’s ballot introduction at least four times before realizing that John Wayne did not, in fact, play Al Dark in the movies.

To tell you the truth, I've read it more than four time sand I still don't quite get it. :-) Ted sounds like a guy who would be played by Wayne, but I couldn't find the role.

John's point is that John Wayne's film persona, that kind of ultra-manly man was what Ted Williams was like in real-life. Wayne was acting, Williams was the real deal.

Not that John Wayne played Ted Williams or Alvin Dark in a movie.

To tell you the truth, I've read it more than four time sand I still don't quite get it. :-) Ted sounds like a guy who would be played by Wayne, but I couldn't find the role.

Bob Costas once came up to Ted Williams at a party and asked him "Do you know that the character that John Wayne used to play in all of his movies was you?" (I'm paraphrasing)

Ted replied "Yeah, I know."

I thought most people here had heard that story before. It's one of my favorites. :-)

Thanks for beating me to the punch, Sean. ;-)

1966 Ballot

1. (new) Ted Williams. Pretty good hitter.

2. (1) Eppa Rixey. His top ERA+ seasons run 144 (in two shortened seasons), 143, 142, 139, 136, 129, 124, which is pretty good for a guy who also pitched almost 4500 innings. He looks even better if you give him war credit for 1918 and make an allowance for 1919, which, combined with pitching for a lot of mediocre teams and getting lousy run support, almost certainly cost him the chance to win 300 games. An easy choice over Ruffing for me.

3. (2) Dobie Moore. Terrific peak for a middle infielder. With a few years' credit for his army years, his career seems of comparable length and quality to Boudreau’s.

4. (6) Larry Doyle. Outstanding hitter (126 OPS+) for a middle infielder and the best position player on some very good Giant teams of the 00s and 10s. I favor him slightly over Childs because he played a little longer and over Gordon (and Doerr) because I think his peak seems higher—though it’s close if you factor in some type of league discount. Consistently in NL top 10 in HRs and slugging pct., and won an MVP award. 8 time STATS NL all-star. WS shows him as a C+ fielder, which seems about right to me from everything I’ve read about him.

5. (7) Joe Medwick. Rivals Ott as the best OF in all of MLB between 1935-1937, which is a significant peak-level of performance, and he has several all-star caliber seasons on either side of that. Didn’t do much past the age of 30, but still ended up with over 8000 career plate appearances.

6. (8) Clark Griffith. My favorite of the medium length career pitchers. With the possible exception of 1898, he was never the best pitcher in the league, but his peak between 1895-1901 is impressive. He had a .620 career win pct. while pitching for some pretty mediocre teams and a 3.86 DERA/121 ERA+ in 3300 career innings. His career isn’t long, but there is an argument that he should get some credit for pitching in the PCL in 1892 and 1893. Could also hit some (69 career OPS+).

7. (10) Edd Roush. There are some odd stories about him, but Roush was among the best players in the NL for a decade, which included a couple of MVP type seasons and a year in which he was arguably the best player on a team that won a World Series. I think Bill James has him ranked about right (15-CF).

8. (4) Geo. Van Haltren. I don’t think he was as good as Slaughter, but he has the same basic argument. Did everything well for a long time during a difficult era. Good peak and career numbers. Even pitched decently. Some measures (e.g. Win Shares) make him look like a clear HoM-er; other measures (e.g. 121 OPS+) make a less compelling argument.

9. (9) Cupid Childs. Excellent peak. Best 2B of the 1890s before Lajoie arrives. Given the relative brevity of his career, it is hard for me to put him above Moore, whose peak seems higher to me, or Doyle, who has about 600 more PAs.

10. (11) George Sisler. I don’t give him much credit for his post-1922 career, but he was an outstanding player for almost a decade before that. To my mind the argument for him is about the same as that as for Medwick and Roush.

11. (12) Rube Waddell. Lots of strikeouts, of course, but also Top 10 finishes in fewest hits per 9 innings for 8 years, shutouts for 9 years. Career ERA+ of 134 (with two years at 179), DERA of 3.67/3.76. Had he pitched more innings per season, I’d have him much higher—regardless of how troubled he may have been. As it was, his career was relatively short, but he did pitch almost 3,000 innings.

12. (13) Cool Papa Bell. In a world of perfect baseball knowledge, this ranking would probably be either way too low or way too high. I’m going err on the side of believing he had a long career in which he contributed many positive things (speed, fielding, lots of singles) to his teams that may not be reflected in his modest OPS+.

13. (14) Tommy Bridges. A poor hitter and not as much of a workhorse—though he did finish in the top 10 in innings 5 times—but I’ll live with that from a guy with six 140 ERA+ seasons in the 1930s and 40s American League.

14. (15) George J. Burns. In some ways I like him better than his contemporary Edd Roush. Roush may have better rate stats, but Burns rarely missed a game and averaged 25.6 Win Shares for a decade. Had 3 MVP-caliber seasons (1914, 1917, 1919.) Seems to have been about the perfect leadoff hitter for his times--could get on base, run, field, and his teams won a lot of games.

15. (16) Alejandro Oms. In my mind I have long had him grouped with Wheat and Roush. Maybe Slaughter would be a comp as well. Riley suggests his skills were similar to Waner’s, though maybe that’s too generous. Other names (Cuyler, Beckley, Simmons, Duffy) are mentioned in his thread, and Minoso comes to mind as well. Either way, he was clearly an outstanding player for a long time who seems like he should be around the mythical HoM in/out line.

Next 5
16. Joe Gordon. Another big-hitting middle IF. Seems to have a slightly better argument than Doerr, Lazzeri, or Stephens.
17. Hugh Duffy. Outstanding Win Shares.
18. Red Ruffing. Unfairly rewarded/penalized for playing for great teams?
19. Quincy Trouppe. Best of the eligible catchers?
20. Ralph Kiner. Great HR hitter.

Required disclosures:

Bob Lemon. Currently at #22 on my ballot. A very good pitcher, but I’m not convinced I should place him any higher.

Biz Mackey. I don’t see putting him ahead of Trouppe, though it’s close. He’s around #30 on my ballot.

About the most excited I ever saw my father was when he went to a convention in Kansas City. When he got home he told me about seeing Ted Williams play the Kansas City A's. I forget if there was another team there with Ted or if he took on the A's all by himself.

<i> did Ted play substantially in the PCL and was it enough to get credit for some of it? <i>
--
There was talk of bringing Ted up a year earlier (1938), apparently, but he didnt show Quite enuf in spring training (or he showed a little too much other swagger or sumthin), so they sent him to Minneapolis for the year where he destroyed pitchers for 43 home runs.

I have 41 ballots tabulated up to this point. Still missing ballots from: SWW, Devin McCullen, Tiboreau, Michael Bass, Brad G, Max Parkinson, jimd, and KJOK.

Michael had submitted a prelim, so I may use that if he doesn't post his ballot by 8 PM.

I thought most people here had heard that story before. It's one of my favorites. :-)

Thanks. A google of Ted Williams John Wayne does return many hits. Somehow I missed it. Well, part of the fun each year is catching up on all these anecdotes! :-)

Somehow I missed it. Well, part of the fun each year is catching up on all these anecdotes! :-)

If you're a Williams fan (as I am), you should pick up Ed Linn's biography on the Thumper. Really a lot of fun.

Boy, the top was easy. It was everything else that took some work. Some re-evaluation of the infield this year. That ended up causing a shake-up on the bottom half of the ballot that I’m still debating. It’s funny: you guys are fighting to expand the ballot to 20, and I could very easily endorse reducing it to 10.

<u>1966 Ballot</u>
1)Theodore Samuel Williams – “The Splendid Splinter”
Well, let’s see, if we just look at his raw numbers, without factoring in any kind of war credit...he’s one of the greatest players in the history of the game. 15 appearances in the Top 10 AL Win Shares, including 7 times as the league leader. Damn. Tip of the cap to Teddy Ballgame. 2nd on Ken Shouler Top 100. 3rd on SABR Top 100. 7th on Bill James Top 100. 7th on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 8th on Sporting News Top 100. 4th on Maury Allen Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
2)Burleigh Arland Grimes – “Ol’ Stubblebeard”
I liked Don F’s theory on the Favorite Teddy Bear. Thing is, Grimes still looks like a really great bear to me. Top 10 most similar pitchers: Red Faber, Red Ruffing, Ted Lyons, Tony Mullane, Gus Weyhing, Dennis Martinez, Eppa Rixey, Sam Jones, Vic Willis, and Tom Glavine. That’s good company. 54th on Maury Allen Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
3)James Thomas Bell – “Cool Papa”
For me, the assessment of Bell as an extremely long-serving player with Win Shares to reflect that is not necessarily a strike against him. My ballot history shows a great affinity for such players. But two factors lead me to place him all the way up here: one, the career total is too extraordinary to be ignored. Even if you discount his Win Shares by as much as 20%, he’s still got very impressive numbers. And two, assessments from his contemporaries, which are essential for a player for whom the statistics are necessarily conjectural, describe him particularly skilled on the field and especially prized as a teammate. Way back in the years Rube Foster was on the ballot, somebody commented that the Negro Leaguers would be astonished if Foster was not a member of our Hall. I tend to think the same thing about Bell. 66th on Sporting News Top 100. 74th on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 76th on Bill James Top 100. New York Times Top 100. 3rd on SABR Negro League poll. 2nd Team, Pittsburgh Courier 1952 poll.
4)Joseph Michael Medwick – “Ducky Wucky”
Still here. Dang. Medwick continues a run of candidates with huge primes and a rather sharp drop-off. The guys who keep playing just impress me a lot more than the ones who flame out completely, like a certain shortstop I’ll discuss later. Four top 10 seasons in Win Shares helps. 79th on Sporting News Top 100. 100th on SABR Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
5)George Harold Sisler – “Gorgeous George”
Another tremendous high with decent career filler. 33rd on Sporting News Top 100. 45th on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 55th on SABR Top 100. 55th on Ken Shouler Top 100. 16th on Maury Allen’s Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
6)Charles Herbert Ruffing – “Red”
I’m willing to accept the notion that he performed poorly with Boston because they used him so poorly. Factoring in the war years and his high totals in spite of it, I’m content to rank him this high. 84th on Maury Allen Top 100.
7) Raleigh Mackey – “Biz”
His numbers are not as gaudy as those of Gibson or Santop, but they are significantly greater than his Major League counterparts. 17th on SABR Negro League poll. 1st Team, Pittsburgh Courier 1952 poll.
8)Eppa Rixey – “Jephtha”
Interesting to compare him with Ruffing. Very similar, except that Rixey’s career is a little more consistent, while Ruffing has some distinct peaks. His career numbers are the kind I typically like. It’s hard to hate a pitcher with 300 WS.
9)Edd J Roush
He figures to be pretty lonely without Averill to shadow. Long career, good peaks...all the things I admire in a candidate.
10)Willard Brown
Great numbers, and you have to admire a guy who decides that he’s better off barnstorming than playing for the St. Louis Browns. I share the general concerns about the level of his competition, but not so much so to deny him a spot on the ballot. The general lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy does trouble me somewhat.
11)Hugh Duffy
A very peaky centerfielder, which is a tough sell when we have so many who are consistently great. Easier to swallow than the mess of pitchers, though.
12)Lawrence Joseph Doyle - “Laughing Larry”
A tiny edge over Doerr, thanks to black and gray ink. But they’re very close.
13)Carl William Mays
A gentler career arc than that of Ferrell or Lemon, higher highs than Willis. Frankly, I think the only reason more people vote for Lemon is the black ink. Mays is higher in career WS, peak, WS, prime WS, and they’re practically even in gray ink.
14)Thomas William Leach – “The Wee”
A tribute to my belief in Win Shares. Used to vote for him quite regularly. Some would call that timelining, but I just think stronger candidates have joined the ballot since his heyday.
15)Robert Pershing Doerr
Definitely a player I underrated, and may still be doing so. I like him better than Gordon owing to the higher career numbers.

<u>Because We’re Evidently Still Doing This 20-Man Ballot Thing</u>
16)Joseph Wheeler Sewell
I go back and forth on Joe. We’ve elected so many outstanding shortstops, and they don’t make Sewell look that great by comparison. Consistently the top shortstop in the AL for his day, with five Top 10 finishes in Win Shares. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
17)Robert Granville Lemon
That’s uncanny: I finally get to remove Wes Ferrell from my list, and I have to replace him with the spitting image. Actually, I think Lemon’s a better candidate than Ferrell. I just hate the shortness of the career. I will be curious to see how Dwight Gooden does in our voting. 59th on Maury Allen Top 100.
18)Edgar Charles Rice – “Sam”
Suffered greatly in the re-think of Jake Beckley. The career Win Shares keep him hanging on, but it has become harder to insist upon his election. If he had played for anybody but Washington, this might not have been an issue.
19)Ralph McPherran Kiner
20)Charles Herbert Klein – “Chuck”
Both Kiner and Klein contribute so much at their peak that my position as a career voter has to consider them. I’m coming to see the merit in this notion, although not so much that I’m prepared to rank them any higher than this. They definitely have more career than a Hughie Jennings.

<u>Other Top 10 Finishers</u>
Clark Calvin Griffith
In my re-evaluation, I found that Griffith had striking similarities to Dick Redding, who I have voted for in the past. Redding has a higher peak, Griffith a higher prime. Looking at both, I couldn’t justify endorsing either as pitchers who needed my immediate advocacy. They’re hanging around, though.
George Edward Martin Van Haltren
I respect the Win Shares, but there are too many guys more worthy of a vote. He’s nearly interchangeable with Jimmy Ryan, and I don’t support either one. Similar to Pete Browning, too. Only finished in the Top 10 in Win Shares in his league once.

1966 ballot: (MP HoMers in bold, this year’s inductees are Williams and Doby, coming off the heels of electing Appling and Herman from the backlog last year, which brings the gap between my hall and our shared one down to 8.)

1. Ted Williams

Ted is to Redding/Ruffing as they are to Ski Melillo. That is to say the gap between 1 and 2 is bigger than the gap between 2 and 390 or so. As I give no war credit, Ted has to be content with the 6th best player of all time through 1965 – behind Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Hornsby and Gehrig.

2. Dick Redding

One of the 6 MP HoM but not HoM pitchers in my consideration list (Waddell and Griffith have fallen off my ballot, but plaques are forever…), and I’m convinced that he had the best career of all of them.

3. Red Ruffing

Good to great for a long enough time with the Yankees to overcome how awful he was with Boston. Key member of a good number of pennant winners.

4. Pete Browning

I am now convinced that he would have been one of (if not THE) the best hitters in the ‘80s even if there was only one league. I have therefore minimized his AA penalty.

5. Bob Lemon

6. George Sisler

I’ve moved him up recently.

7. Jose Mendez

I’ve reconsidered him – he had been in the twenties before. A truly outstanding peak, and as I keep reading, he may jump to the Ferrell level.

8. Charley Jones

I’ve been giving him credit for his “lost” years due to blacklisting, and he vaults up the list.

9. Gavvy Cravath

Another adjustment. Was the best RF in the game for a good 6 year stretch, with MVP-calibre seasons thrown in. I have resisted adding too much credit for MiL performance, but I couldn’t keep him from the ballot any longer.

10. Bucky Walters

Another pitcher who could hit.

11. George Burns

I have lessened my 1910-mid 20s AL-NL penalty. Burns is helped.

12. Quincy Trouppe

He could rise as I fully evaluate their NeL achievements.

13. Eppa Rixey

14. Cupid Childs
15. John McGraw

Both helped by a change to rectify position scarcity.

16. Ned Williamson
17. Bobby Veach
18. Bill Monroe
19. Ed Konetchy
20. Joe Sewell

Previous Top 10s:

Mackey is 22 and Medwick is 36 (although I’ve voted for him before). GVH is not my kind of hitter (decent prime but not a great peak). He’s 111.

Cool Papa Bell – I alternate between thinking that I’m missing something, and thinking that he’s another Max Carey, who I have ranked as near the bottom of electees. Papa is around 45.

John- Also missing Patrick W's 16-20.

John- Also missing Patrick W's 16-20.

Good point, Evan. Thanks!