Don't forget that three candidates will be elected in '80.

As a way of keeping track of my ballot, I put all players into one of three categories: Pitcher, 1B/0F and 2B/SS/3B/C. Not surprisingly, Al Kaline positioned himself at the top of the 1B/0F category. Juan Marichal easily became the best pitcher on the ballot. And I say that as a friend of both Mendez and Redding as I've been voting them as the top two backloggers for a number of elections and have given "elect-me" votes to each. However, after my initial assessment, Ron Santo wasn't sitting at the top of the third category. He was easily the best third baseman, but I had Nellie Fox at 2B and Quincy Trouppe at C ahead of him. At that position, I could have Santo as low as 7th or 8th on my ballot. So go ahead gang: convince me that Santo should be in my top three. And I'm especially interested in hearing from guys who are friends of Fox and Trouppe as it's obvious that their non-supporters would have Santo ahead.

Don't forget that three candidates will be elected in '80.

Out of curiosity, why?

Schedule set back wehn the project started, designed to ensure approximately equal representation between eras (the more ML ballplayers, the more HOMers.) It got thrown out of whack when we elected more Negro leaguers than we expected, but is now increasing with expansion teams towardsabout a 3 a year level by 2006-7. This already gives a bias in favour of recent players, which is why timelining is a no-no; you'd be double counting that bias.

This already gives a bias in favour of recent players, which is why timelining is a no-no; you'd be double counting that bias.

Why does it give a bias in favor of recent players? If you treat players from all eras equally, shouldn't they be equally likely to appear in any given spot on the ballot?

BW, Theoretically, if we were robots, yes. In practice there's a first year bounce, which is why we have for decades been underrepresented from the 1890s since the HOM elected only 1 a year for about a decade in the 1910s, when the 1890s guys were first eligible. This might have been corrected in the 1940s and 1950s, but the Negro League glut meant far fewer ML players werre elected in those years than had been budgeted for. That's why players like Jennings, Griffith and Sisler (knock-on effect) were elected so late; it's also why Beckley, Duffy, Childs, Waddell and Van Haltren are still high up the ballot but haven't yet been elected.

In an ideal world, candidates would be elected within 20 years of their eligibility, so timelining wouldn't arise, but the back-loaded HOM election schedule caused blockages which can only be remedied by electeing them decades later, when slots open up.

I'm a little nervous about putting Cash above Marichal, am I out on a limb here? Cash's unadjusted numbers were depressed by the 60s run environment; Marichal's W/L is great but that run support was...perhaps outrageous is too strong a word. Interested to see what the consensus comes up with on this one.

Kaline #1, Santo #2, Cash #10, all PHoM.
Marichal #12.
Cepeda #31, McAuliffe #40.

1) Kaline--My mom would disinherit me if I didn’t put him #1.
2) Santo--No doubt the HoF will elect Gil Hodges before him, but we’ll get it right here.
3) Fox--The man had 2663 hits (#61 all time) and was a great fielder. If you’re going to take one of the second basemen he should be the one. PHoM in 1970.
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 before Mathews. PHoM in 1960.
7) 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.
8) Schoendienst--PHoM in 1968. Compare to Julian Javier, his hitting was way above replacement.
9) Bob Johnson--A very underrated player. Usually I'm a WS guy but this time I think Warp has it right. PHoM in 1970.
10) Norm Cash--Wow, the 60s run environment justifies quite an adjustment. I didn’t expect him to be this high. I'm sure Mom will be thrilled.
11) 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. WS Gold Glove in 1917. Top 10 in Win Shares 1909-12, 1915. PHoM in 1926.
12) Marichal--Never would have expected to have him below Cash, but the run support did make him overrated.
13) Minoso--I gave full ML credit for two+ years. 44 Win Shares to be precise, half of the MLEs. PHoM 1972.
14) Lombardi-- A long career as a catcher with a big bat. Almost 2000 games caught including PCL. PHoM 1976.
15) Elston Howard--war, segregation, stuck behind Yogi. The peak is there and the obstacles were out of his control. PHoM 1975
16) Tommy Bridges—fixed his war credit. 10 top 10 seasons in AL ERA+. PHoM 1975.
17) Ken Boyer--PHoM 1976.
18) Rizzuto--Lots of war credit. PHoM 1977.
19) 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.
20) Frank Howard--
21) 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.
22) Keller
23) Kiner
24) Cravath— Great peak, great high minor league play. PHoM in 1928.
25) Bill Monroe—Riley’s Biographical Encylopedia likes him a lot. PHoM in 1929.

convince me that Santo should be in my top three. And I'm especially interested in hearing from guys who are friends of Fox

I'll have Santo #2 and Fox #7. Santo kills him in peak. I have Santo with the second best peak among all third basemen (though I haven't looked at Boggs or Brett yet). Santo had three, maybe four, years better than any season Fox had.

And I've seen and heard complaints about Santo's career length, but he played long enough to rack up over 300 WS and over 110 WARP, more than Fox in both instances.

Also, Santo ranks higher among third basemen than Fox does among second basemen. I don't pay much attention to it, but maybe you might.

If I was gonna PHoM another recent hitter (along with Kaline and Santo), I'd sure take a long look at Frank Howard before enshrining Norm Cash. As a peak voter, I'm inclined toward Marichal ahead of either one, but he's not a slam dunk (this year) either. Probably is eventually.

I'm a little nervous about putting Cash above Marichal, am I out on a limb here?

I don't think so. I'm not sure where I'm putting either of them, but they are close.

Chris,
For what it's worth I'm Fox's best friend, but Santo has a huge hitting advantage and was a decent 3B as far as I can tell (B- Win Shares). Oddly Santo has 106 FRAA while Fox has only 32 FRAA, but based on reputation I believe the Win Shares evaluation is more likely to be right in this instance than the WARP figures (Fox is ahead on FRAR so as always the defensive metrics are difficult to interpret). I think it's close between the two, but my guess is no one else will be putting Fox ahead of Santo. To get Fox ahead you'd need to value Fox's defense at 2nd even more highly than I do, and not think much of Santo's defense at 3rd.

Here's a list of HoMers by decade that I post every few years. The rules -- every HoMer is assigned to one decade (the "center" of his career) and to one position. After listing the HoMers for each decade, the returning candidates with at least 100 points in the last election are listed in parentheses, with those in the top ten in italics.

Not everyone likes this presentation (Paul Wendt called it "brain candy"). But it provides a simple way of checking on fairness by era.

1860s - 1 (Pearce) (SS)

1870s - 9 (Anson, Barnes, McVey, Pike, Spalding, Start, Sutton, White, Wright) (P, C-2, 1B-2, 2B, 3B, SS, CF)

1880s - 17 (Bennett, Brouthers, Caruthers, Clarkson, Connor, Ewing, Galvin, Glasscock, Gore, Hines, Keefe, Kelly, O'Rourke, Radbourn, Richardson, Stovey, Ward) (P-5, C-2, 1B-2, 2B, SS-2, LF-2, CF-2, RF)
{Candidates – C Jones, Browning, Welch}

1890s - 15 (Burkett, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Griffith, Hamilton, Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, McPhee, Nichols, Rusie, Thompson, Young) (P-4, 2B-2, SS-3, LF-3, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Beckley, Duffy, Childs, Van Haltren}

1900s - 16 (M Brown, Clarke, J Collins, Crawford, Flick, R Foster, Hill, G Johnson, Lajoie, Mathewson, McGinnity, Plank, Sheckard, Wagner, Wallace, Walsh) (P-6, 2B, 3B, SS-3, LF-2, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Waddell, Leach, Bresnahan}

1910s - 15 (Alexander, Baker, Carey, Cobb, E Collins, Groh, Jackson, W Johnson, Lloyd, Magee, Santop, Speaker, Torriente, Wheat, Williams) (P-3, C, 2B, 3B-2, SS, LF-2, CF-4, RF)
{Candidates – Méndez, Redding, Cravath, Doyle}

1920s - 16 (Beckwith, Charleston, Coveleski, Faber, W Foster, Frisch, Goslin, Heilmann, Hornsby, Mackey, Rixey, Rogan, Ruth, Sisler, Vance, Wilson) (P-6, C, 1B, 2B-2, 3B-2, LF, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Sewell, Moore, Roush, Grimes, Oms}

1930s - 29 (Averill, Bell, R Brown, Cochrane, Cronin, Dickey, Dihigo, Ferrell, Foxx, Gehrig, Gehringer, Gibson, Greenberg, Grove, Hartnett, Herman, Hubbell, Lyons, Medwick, Ott, Paige, Ruffing, Simmons, Stearnes, Suttles, Terry, Vaughan, Waner, Wells) (P-8, C-4, 1B-5, 2B-2, SS-3, LF-2, CF-3, RF-2)
{Candidates – B Johnson}

1940s – 16 (Appling, Boudreau, W Brown, DiMaggio, Doerr, Feller, Gordon, Hack, Irvin, Leonard, Mize, Musial, Newhouser, Reese, Slaughter, Williams) (P-2, 1B-2, 2B-2, 3B, SS-3, LF-2, CF-3, RF)
{Candidates – Walters, Trouppe, Keller, Elliott}.

1950s – 14 (Ashburn, Banks, Berra, Campanella, Doby, Ford, Lemon, Mantle, Mathews, Roberts, Robinson, Snider, Spahn, Wynn) (P-5, C-2, 2B, 3B, SS, CF-4)
{Candidates – Miñoso, Kiner, Fox, Pierce}

1960s – 6 (Bunning, Clemente, Drysdale, Koufax, Mays, Wilhelm) (P-4, CF, RF)
{Candidates – Boyer}

>1930s - 29

Oops.

29 players and not a single third baseman.

29 players and not a single third baseman.

No real candidates either (well MLB candidates I should say).

The top 3B of the 30s by almost any measure are Clift, Hack, Martin & Rolfe. (with a nod to Traynor & Lindstrom carrying over from the previous decade).

We've already inducted Hack (assigned to the 40s here) and Jud Wilson (NeL) carries over from the previous decade.

We could dip into the borderline group of 40s 3B's but we probably have enough 30s guys as it is.

<strike>40s 3B's</strike>30s 3b's

Traynor is looking a little better the more I look - 3B really didn't hit much in his era - significantly worse than 2B today.

AVG NL 2B during Marcus Giles' career - .467 OWP
AVG AL 2B during Alfonso Soriano's career - .450 OWP

AVG NL 3B during Pie Traynor's career - .440 OWP

I don't think that having more electees now presents a problem. There should be more HOMers from the modern era because there are more players playing professional baseball at the highest level. It's that easy.

The 1930s is the modern era? My father's modern era, maybe.

Prelim

PHoM: Kaline, Santo, Cash (good year for new guys in the PHoM!)

1. Al Kaline
2. Jake Beckley
3. Mickey Welch
4. Ron Santo
5. George Van Haltren
6. Norm Cash
7. Nellie Fox
8. Hugh Duffy
9. Orlando Cepeda
10. Dobie Moore
11. Quincy Trouppe
12. Edd Roush
13. Tommy Leach
14. Sam Rice
15. Minnie Minoso

16-20. F.Howard, Sewell, Boyer, Ryan, Childs
21-25. Mullane, White, Johnson, Elliott, Redding
26-30. Doyle, Kiner, Streeter, Pierce, Strong

Traynor is looking a little better the more I look - 3B really didn't hit much in his era - significantly worse than 2B today.

Traynor has gone from overrated to underrated now.

F. Howard 143/180-73-72-54-51-48-46-38-27-14-5 (11 years ? 100 in 100+ games)
Norm Cash138/198-48-47-41-40-35-34-33-28-27-27-26-24-21 (14 years, all above 120)
O. Cepeda 133/166-66-58-48-35-34-33-32-30-30-26-16-9-7 (14 years)

Compared to Cash and Cepeda, Frank Howard has gone to underrated really quick.

I see that Rusty has Howard at #16 but still, Cash 6 and Howard 16? Yes, Cash has those 3 extra years and the 198. Howard has everything else, basically--ok, years 2 through 8, but that's a lot. If you're picking one or the other for your all-star team, with Cash you get the 198 and then you get his 9th through 14th years. You get a real prime with Frank.

I also see that Rusty is more of a career voter (Sam Rice, GVH, etc.) and 14 is more than 11, but I dunno, those much superior years 2 through 8 are just too much for me to ignore.

I was watching the St. Louis Cardinals last night as they were playing the Cleveland Indians in an inter-league game. Since the Redbirds don't face Cleveland all that often, the fan poll asked the fans in St. Louis "who was the greatest Cleveland Indian of all time?" I missed the poll question when it was first aired but I caught the results later in the game. The winner by a significant margin was "Ralph Kiner."

My oar in the water:

1. Al Kaline - easy
2. Ron Santo - easier
3. Jose Mendez
4. Juan Marichal - I ranked Drysdale below Mendez when we elected him, and I will be consistent with Marichal.
5. Charley Jones
6. Wally Schang
7. Billy Pierce
8. Norm Cash - We're judging on fine lines here; Cash's offense, defense, and career length are slightly better than Boog Powell's, which puts Cash here and buries Powell (when he becomes eligible) in the backlog.
9. Quincy Trouppe
10. Ken Boyer
11. Jake Beckley
12. Joe Sewell
13. Nellie Fox
14. Dick Redding
15. Orlando Cepeda - peak-a-licious career shape gets him onto the ballot.-

16-20: Minoso, Maranville, E. Howard, Doyle, F. Howard.

the fan poll asked the fans in St. Louis "who was the greatest Cleveland Indian of all time?" ... The winner by a significant margin was "Ralph Kiner."

Not Mike Fishlin? Or Wayne Garland?

Or Ernie Camacho????

Bringing this to the new discussion thread, after reading today's posts in last year's discussion thread.

Negro Leaguers elected to the HoM and the Coop

The HoM has inducted 25 NeL stars (ordered here by election year). A * signifies a first-year electee. A + signifies a second-year electee. The Coop has now elected 30 NeL stars. The first column is year of HOF election.

---- Grant Johnson 1925 (not in HOF)
2006 Frank Grant 1926
2006 Pete Hill 1927*
2006 Luis Santop 1932*
1981 Rube Foster 1932
1977 Pop Lloyd 1935+
1999 Joe Williams 1936
2006 Cristobal Torriente 1937
1998 Joe Rogan 1940*
1976 Oscar Charleston 1943*
1996 Willie Foster 1945
2000 Turkey Stearnes 1946*
2006 Jud Wilson 1948+
1977 Martin Dihigo 1950*
1972 Josh Gibson 1952*
1997 Willie Wells 1954+
1972 Buck Leonard 1955*
2006 Ray Brown 1955*
2006 Mule Suttles 1956
---- John Beckwith 1957 (not in HOF)
1971 Satchel Paige 1959*
1973 Monte Irvin 1963+
1974 Cool Papa Bell 1973
2006 Biz Mackey 1975
2006 Willard Brown 1976

Seven others have been elected to the HOF, but not the HoM

1975 Judy Johnson
1987 Ray Dandridge
1995 Leon Day
2001 Hilton Smith
2006 Jose Mendez
2006 Ben Taylor
2006 Andy Cooper

The Coop is unlikely to elect any more NeL players in the next twenty years, so they will probably still have 30 NeL players in 2026. If we want to mirror the Coop in NeLer representation, we would elect maybe 2-3 more by the time we reach 2007. This seems exactly what we are on track to do.

1980 is the first year I remember following as a kid. First year of baseball cards, too.

Why exactly are the 1890's considered so gosh darned underrepresented? It looks to me like there is simply one era overrepresented. You can throw out 5 of those guys and put in Bob Johnson instead if you'd like.

1980 prelim ballot
1) Al Kaline
2) Ron Santo - Santo has a better rate but played 600 fewer games than Kaline
3) Bob Johnson
4) Norm Cash - I honestly didn't expect to see him this high but the spreadsheet likes him. WARP likes his defense at 1B.
5) Billy Pierce
6) Orlando Cepeda
7) Ken Boyer - I'd love to have Boyer ahead of Cepeda but Orlando could hit a little
8) Ralph Kiner
9) Bob Elliott
10) Juan Marichal - should wait until after Gibson at least
11) Charlie Keller
12) Tommy Bridges - 1940's are mainly short pitching. He was way better than Walters.
13) Dutch Leonard
14) Jake Beckley - electing Beckley would pretty much wrap up the 19th century as far as I'm concerned. We're not short 2B and it wasn't as important then so Childs sit in limbo. We're definitely not short CF so Van Haltren, Duffy and Browning can wait. Sisler got in, so should Beckley.
15) Quincy Trouppe - No catcher in the 1940s and he was a really good one.
16-20) Trucks, Sewell, Minoso, Bartell, F Howard
21-25) D Moore, Mendez, Klein, Waddell, Cravath
26-30) Quinn, Leach, Shocker, H Smith, Roush

Dick Redding 41, Hugh Duffy 76, Nellie Fox 70

Geez, how did it get to be 1980? Seems like just yesterday it was 1940.

I mentioned this on the 1979 thread, but thought I'd better move it here. We're starting to get candidates who were able to extend their careers by DHing -- Kaline, Santo, Cepeda, Frank Howard. How, if at all, should this factor into comparisons with players of other eras?

I mentioned this on the 1979 thread, but thought I'd better move it here. We're starting to get candidates who were able to extend their careers by DHing -- Kaline, Santo, Cepeda, Frank Howard.

Say what? If his career was extended at all by the DH, it was for a whopping 47 games.

Geez, how did it get to be 1980?

And the We-are-fam-i-lee Pirates just beat Earl Weaver's Orioles in the World Series. The Pirates had a team OPS+ of 106 (despite playing Rennie Stennett at 2B) and a team ERA+ of 114; the Orioles had a team OPS+ of 107 and a team ERA+ of 123. Every single pitcher on the Orioles roster had an ERA+ above 100. Actually, never mind my crack about Stennett (and Tim Foli) - Phil Garner was a essentially a starter without a position, and he was a terrific hitter.

In one of the strangest MVP votes, Willie Stargell (who only played 126 games as a first baseman whose OPS+ wasn't higher than his full-time corner outfield teammate, Dave Parker) wound up tied in the voting with Keith Hernandez. This is one of the strongest cases ever of one player (Stargell) being voted an MVP based on "intangibles" such as leadership, while another player (Parker) is downrated because of perceived defects in his character.

I would be another few years before I would read my first Baseball Abstract and I'm not sure I knew that batters walks could vary so widely or even where to find them (or OBP). But I do recall noticing and commenting on the fact that Hernandez was scoring more runs than he was driving in. In retrospect, I think Hernandez's ideal batting lineup position would have been #2, not that anyone would ever have done that.

The actual MVP voting:

Stargell 216
Hernandez 216
Dave Winfield 155 (great year, lousy team)
Larry Parrish 128
Ray Knight 82
Joe Niekro 75
Bruce Sutter 69
Kent Tekulve 64
Dave Concepcion 63
Dave Parker 56
Dave Kingman 53
George Foster 34
Mike Schmidt 32
Steve Garvey 30
Omar Moreno 23
Pete Rose 23

Lots of things to comment on in there. Don Baylor ran away with the AL MVP (it's the RBI) but Ken Singleton (winning team) finished second. Singleton is one of those not-yet-eligible players for whom I have no clear idea of what we'll do.

BTW, Wasn't Santo one of the first 5-10 guys? I seem to recall that he refused a trade somewhere on the west coast. Angels maybe? Anyway, he ended up on the Sox as that was the only team he agreed to be traded to.

That worked out well.

I lived part of the time in Chicago, and rode the bus and the el on the South Side. I heard stuff from the kids sitting the back that I would recognize in hindsight as what would become rap, and I saw a lot of Pirates caps and other Pirates merchandise. It was a distinctive looking hat, it had that black and gold color scheme - and the team it represented had one of the most heavily African-American (and Afro-Latino) images in the sport.

Yes, Miserlou, Angels is correct - and of course it became known as the "Santo clause."

I remember thinking at the time that Brett and Lynn were the best players in the AL, ahead of Baylor and, well, honestly, Singleton wasn't even in the equation.

In the NL Hernandez was the clear and obvious MVP. Stargell was one of the worst picks ever, worse than the Hawk, worse than Juan Gone, ok, not worse than Gibson.

it became known as the "Santo clause."

Ho! Ho! Ho!

1980 Prelim Ballot

1. Ron Santo
2. Al Kaline
3. Charlie Keller
4. Juan Marichal
5. Jose Mendez

6. Dobie Moore
7. Quincy Trouppe
8. Dick Redding
9. Billy Pierce
10. Ken Boyer

11. Bob Johnson
12. Rube Waddell
13. Bucky Walters
14. Norm Cash
15. Dizzy Dean or Ralph Kiner (flip a freakin' coin!)

Can someone tell me if there are any important things to know about John McGraw's peak years?

That was a strong NL from 1897-1900, right? But a weak AL in 1901, IIRC.

Was a onbase-heavy OPS more or less valuble compared to the modern (eg: post 1920) game?

McGraw's kind of OBP-heavy production has always been tremendously valuable - when he was in the lineup. The issue that has kept McGraw out of our hall for all of these years is playing time. You mention 1901: note that McGraw only played 73 games, with about 300 PA.

McGraw's kind of OBP-heavy production has always been tremendously valuable - when he was in the lineup. The issue that has kept McGraw out of our hall for all of these years is playing time. You mention 1901: note that McGraw only played 73 games, with about 300 PA.

Very true. On the other hand, his positional value was extraordinary. Just looking over his record, it seems clear to me that McGraw was (when playing) probably the best 3B not only of his era, but for decades.

I should note, however, that the time McGraw missed in 1897 potentially cost Baltimore that pennant.

McGraw was 459 runs above his position, in only 4,939 PA's. If he had played more, he would be an 'inner circle' guy.

28. DL from MN Posted: June 27, 2006 at 07:30 PM (#2078088)
Why exactly are the 1890's considered so gosh darned underrepresented? It looks to me like there is simply one era overrepresented. You can throw out 5 of those guys and put in Bob Johnson instead if you'd like.

1980 prelim ballot
1) Al Kaline
2) Ron Santo - Santo has a better rate but played 600 fewer games than Kaline
3) Bob Johnson
4) Norm Cash - I honestly didn't expect to see him this high but the spreadsheet likes him. WARP likes his defense at 1B.
5) Billy Pierce
6) Orlando Cepeda
7) Ken Boyer - I'd love to have Boyer ahead of Cepeda but Orlando could hit a little
8) Ralph Kiner
9) Bob Elliott
10) Juan Marichal - should wait until after Gibson at least

I'd like to dispute that last statement, DL. I think that's exactly the kind of wrong-headed thinking that has occasionally messed up the Hall of Fame. That's the "I'm not going to vote for Hank Aaron, even though he's clearly deserving, because Babe Ruth wasn't elected unanimously either" kind of thinking. That's the "I'm not going to vote for Gary Carter, despite the fact that he's deserving, because I think he should wait a few years so that Carlton Fisk can go in first" kind of thinking. If Juan Marichal goes in this year, it isn't because he's a better pitcher than Bob Gibson. It's because he retired first. Roberto Clemente went in ahead of Willie Mays. Does that make Clemente a better player than Mays? I don't think there's anyone here who would say so.

The only question for this ballot is "who is the most deserving of induction this year?" If you think Ralph Kiner and Bob Elliott are more deserving than Juan Marichal, then I have no objection to your ranking. But if you're ranking Marichal this low because of who's coming onto the ballot next year, then I think you're making a serious error.

10) Juan Marichal - should wait until after Gibson at least

I was taking this to mean that DL thinks Marichal WILL end up going in after Gibson, not that he thinks he SHOULD go in after Gibson. But perhaps I was wrong; it's certainly unclear. DL, can you say which you meant?

(Just to add my take on Chris's point: if DL did mean what Chris thought he meant, that's strategic voting of a kind, and thus unconstitutional, no?)

(Just to add my take on Chris's point: if DL did mean what Chris thought he meant, that's strategic voting of a kind, and thus unconstitutional, no?)

Unequivocally yes, Mark.

It's because he retired first. Roberto Clemente went in ahead of Willie Mays. Does that make Clemente a better player than Mays? I don't think there's anyone here who would say so.

I agree with one caveat. Seems to me that Cooperstown inducted Catfish Hunter largely because he retired so young and before his superior contemporaries who would effectively "raise the bar" for future inductees due to their large number and collective greatness.

I see both Marichal & Gibson as over my bar for induction and no "raising of the bar" issues coming so there's no point in waiting. On the contrary, I think there is a big shortage of candidates coming up startin I think this bar raising is a rare effect anyways.

I was stating that Marichal isn't as good as Gibson. It hasn't effected his ranking on my ballot though, I rely pretty much on the spreadsheet and only occasionally move people up and down with small bonuses. Nobody gets any bonuses (postseason credit, positional or era underrepresentation) their first year on my ballot just to be conservative with the ranking. I don't think that's unconstitutional.

Thanks for responding, DL. There are other voters who will have Marichal ranked lower than 10th (Jim Sp put him 12th and Rusty Priske didn't even list him in his top thirty). I was only questioning the reason cited and not necessarily the placement.

Could someone repost a full career projection (AB-PA-OPS+-WS) for Gavy Cravath either here or in his discussion thread? All of the projections I saw covered just the minor-league years; that is, they weren't combined with his major-league stats to make one statline.

I haven't been able to place him in my new rankings because of this. He'd probably be on my ballot, though (a carrot for you friends of Cravath)!

1980 prelim.

Marichal is the last of the '60s pitchers who has a shot of election, and compares favorably with those that we've elected.

Santo is not as impressive by rate stats as his sabermetric reputation might lead one to suppose.

1. Al Kaline
2. Wally Schang
3. Juan Marichal
4. Joe Sewell
5. Orlando Cepeda
6. Norm Cash
7. Jose Mendez
8. Charlie Keller
9. Frank Howard
10. Ron Santo
11. Tommy Bridges
12. Lefty Gomez
13. Gil Hodges
14. Wally Berger
15. Nellie Fox

Marichal is the last of the '60s pitchers who has a shot of election

Bob Gibson says hi. :-)

Bob Gibson says hi. :-)

D'oh! Of course he'll be on my ballot when eligible. What I find remarkable is the sharp cutoff between the 60s pitchers who have been, or (I assume) will be, elected quickly, and the rest of the 60s pitchers.

Preliminary Ballot for 1980

I will be on vacation and out of contact for the next 11 days, due back on Monday, July 10th. If I don't post a final ballot then, then this can serve as a backup.


1) R. SANTO --
2) J. MARICHAL --
3) A. KALINE -- As I mentioned on an earlier thread, Santo's peak and prime outweighs Kaline's longevity in my system. Rate stats have very little effect in my system, so Kaline's susceptibility to injury hurts him. Marichal and Kaline are in a virtual tie, so I went with the pitcher.

4) J. SEWELL
5) F. JONES
6) C. CHILDS
7) K. BOYER
8) M. MINOSO
9) R. MARANVILLE
10) G. VAN HALTREN
11) F. DUNLAP
12) B. VEACH
13) B. WALTERS
14) D. MOORE
15) E. HOWARD

16) N. CASH -- Ranks ahead of Cepeda, but just misses the ballot.

17) D. DEAN
18) R. KINER
19) J. MENDEZ
20) J. BECKLEY

What I find remarkable is the sharp cutoff between the 60s pitchers who have been, or (I assume) will be, elected quickly, and the rest of the 60s pitchers.

Would you call Luis Tiant a 60's pitcher? He was a 23 year old rookie in 1964, and had his single best year in 1968, although he also pitched through the 70's and retired in '82. At nearly 3500 innings of ERA+ 114, he looks like neither a slam dunk nor easily dismissed. (And that thing he did with his hands in the stretch - the umps let him get away with it, but it can't really be legal, can it?)

What about all those flamethrowing strikeout artists? What happened to them?

Jim Maloney was done after his age 29 season - the record sure looks like an arm injury that he didn't recover from. 1850 IP, top three years in the ERA+ 130-150 range: not a candidate.

Sam McDowell had more of a career because he was in the majors as a teenager (bonus baby?). He too was toast at 30, but made it to 2492 IP (ERA+ 112) -- and 2453 strikeouts.

Bob Veale? Basically a 7-year career, 1900 IP, ERA+ 113.

Tom Seaver is only two years younger than Sam McDowell, and was firmly established as star before the 60's were over. Of course, a 20-year career will slop over several decades, and most poeple would associate him with the '70's.

Phil Niekro is only a year and half younger than Juan Marichal and three years older than Sam McDowell - but then he's Phil Niekro and that's different.

Gaylord Perry is about the same age as Niekro. He got started in the middle of the 60's and pitched forever. He spend a considerable amount of time as Marichal's teammate.

Gary Nolan, 1967: 19 years old. 226.2 IP. 206 strikeouts and a 206/62 K/BB ratio. ERA+ 145. Let me tell you, there was a lot of excitement surrounding Nolan. I remember him twice losing 1-0 games to Gibson in '68 in incredibly snappy games.

In the long run you get yet another reason to temper one's excitement about teenage pitchers. A decent career, but not one of our candidates, and retired by the time he was 30.

What I find remarkable is the sharp cutoff between the 60s pitchers who have been, or (I assume) will be, elected quickly, and the rest of the 60s pitchers.
To pile on, in addition to Gibson, Tommy John and Jim Kaat had quite a bit of 1960's success also, plus the whole Seaver, Gibson, Carlton, Palmer, Jenkins, Perry, Niekro, Ryan, Sutton, Tiant gang all had varying degrees of 1960's seasons..

Jim Kaat isn't eligible until 1989 because of his second career as a LOOGY (or is it third?).

Dean Chance flamed out.

Denny McLain flamed out (flaked out?)

Larry Jackson's career some-votes-worthy, but I don't think he has a chance.

Camilio Pasqual spent his 'minor league years' racking up dreadful numbers in WAS (53-57) was pretty darn good for a several years but then was hurt by age 31.

Gary Peters was a very old ROY (why didn't they call him up sooner?) and then got hurt five years later.

Ellsworth couldn't follow up his great year.

Jim Perry spend the mid-sixties as a high-quality swingman (starred as a starter in 1960 & 1970) -- ended up not racking up much value because of that.

Jim Palmer spent much of the late 60s on the DL.

As has been mentioned before. We'll be seeing (and inducting) many guys who were starting in 1967 and on. Seaver, Jenkins, GPerry, Carlton, PNiekro, Sutton...

Top Pitchers 1960-69 (Courtesy of Lee Sinins)

RSAA - Gibson/Marichal/Koufax/Bunning/Wilhelm/Drysdale/Ford/Chance/Maloney/Jackson
Neut_W - Marichal/Gibson/Drysdale/Bunning/Jackson/Kaat/Koufax/Chance/Pappas/Osteen
IP - Drysdale/Bunning/Marichal/Gibson/Jackson/Kaat/Ellsworth/Osteen/Pappas/Chance
Wins - Marichal/Gibson/Drysdale/Bunning/Kaat/Jackson/Koufax/Maloney/Pappas/Pascual
K's - Gibson/Bunning/Koufax/Drysdale/Marichal/McDowell/Maloney/Kaat/Veale/Pascual
Shutouts - Marichal/Gibson/Drysdale/Koufax/Bunning/Chance/Jackson/Maloney/Pappas/McLain/Pascual

Took my so long to write #58 that I missed KJOK's post.

The name that keeps popping up when I look at 60s pitchers is Larry Jackson. Did we miss him? He's definitely *below* Billy Pierce in my opinion, but he's off the radar completely (no votes).

1980 preliminary ballot

1. Al Kaline: now this is sustained excellence. Later in his career he was a defensive
liability, but that doesn't make him not an HOMer.
2. Jake Beckley
3. Bob Johnson
4. Minnie Minoso
5. Norm Cash: a tough call in some ways; he sat against some lefties, and there is the
corked-bat thing, but I don't think that could be any more influential than today's thin
handles, which are regarded as just fine. An above-average hitter for his whle career,
which lasted a long time and has a fine, if slightly unspectacular peak. He's somewhat like
Minoso, but with that one incredible year. He's definitely a top-15 for me.
6. Charley Jones
7. Ralph Kiner
8. George Van Haltren
9. Ernie Lombardi
10. Jimmy Ryan
11. Dutch Leonard
12. Frank Howard
13. Quiny Trouppe
14. Ron Santo: a nice, and fairly sustained peak at a weak position, while seemingly a good
defender also. The weight I put on career-length might hurt him a little, but he gets some
benefit of the doubt from me due to the circumstances, both the obvious medical one and the
controversy brought about by his exercising of the 10/5 right. And he lost it so fast that
it might have just been a bad season; he'd had one before. He's a top-15 without much
trouble.
15. Tommy Bridges

***

16. Orlando Cepeda: what to do with him? His peak years are obviously really good, but he
was in his league's top 10 in OPS+ "only" seven times, and he was a part-timer by age 33.
The good part of his career is good enough that he has to break into my top fifteen
eventually.
17. Juan Marichal: it's a nice peak, but not for all that long, and somewhat inconsistant.
Still, he had a pretty long career for a sixties pitcher. I agree with several posters in
his thread; he's an HOMer, but a fairly "average" one, and for me at least, I'm not sure
when.
18. Rube Waddell
19. Gavy Cravath
20. Sam Rice
21. Burleigh Grimes
22. Wally Schang
23. Bucky Walters
24. Bob Elliott

Other

Dick McAuliffe: has a peak that I like, at a weak position for his era. But he lost his
power too soon, and everything too shortly after, for me to vote for him.

Re: post #60: I remember that there was some discussion of Larry Jackson when he first became eligible. I think he even had his own thread.

I want to say that McGraw's lack of playing time in season really hurts him with me. He and Chance were guys who if they played more full seasons they would be in my PHOM's. However, their pack of in season durability has hurt their teams chances at pennants (though both players played on successful teams) and I think they should be downgraded for that.

I am a peak voter but instead of looking at rate stats, which I don't relaly like too much, I look at end of season stats and calculate peak that way instead of saying, well Frank Chance has an 155 OPS+ in his three best eyars or whatever. When he isn't playing he must be replaced by a player that you can't guarantee will be better than replacement level. And if the replacement was a good player, I don't think the injured player deserves creadit for that.

Prelim

1. Al Kaline
2. Ron Santo
3. Ken Boyer
4. Joe Sewell
5. Jimmy Ryan
6. Bob Johnson
7. Nellie Fox
8. Jake Beckley
9. George Van Haltren
10. Minnie Minoso
11. Gavy Cravath
12. Norm Cash
13. Hugh Duffy
14. Juan Marichal
15. Jose Mendez

Okay, I am probably opening a giant can of worms here but...

With a few of these guys having careers extended by DH, I figured that maybe we should cover this. Not whether or not a DH should be allowed into the HOM, I have no problem with that so long as his value as a hitter is so strong as to overcome a lack of defense. My problem is how to rate a DH defensively.

Here is what I mean

Let's say you have a really realy bad Shortstop that is under 'replacement level' for the position, let's call him Derek Jeter (though I am not sure that Jeter was ever this bad). In WARP, he rates as say, a -0.3 defensively. Then let's take a DH like David Ortiz, he would rate as a 0. Therefore, WARP comes to the conclusion that David Ortiz gave him team more defensive value than Derek Jeter. This is preposterous, Jeter fielded groundball, he caught pop flies, turned DP's, etc. while Ortiz sat on the bench and ate Hot Dogs while drinking clutch juice. And it isn't even like Jeter was a 1b or LFer, he was a SS. it is almsot like we should rate the two players as hitters and then dock Ortiz for not fielding or give Jeter (and all fielders) extra runs for playing the field. In real life Jeter has had seasons down in the single digits, do you actually think that Jeter was only worth say, 8 runsmore defensively than a DH? I guess all of this is to say that DH's deserve some level of sub-replacement level fielding. We should keep this in mind when we have strong DH seasons or when we are considering Edgar, Molitor, Baines, Baylor, etc.

Win Shares doesn't have this problem, maybe the best thing about using zero win level instead of replacement level. And for all other measure we use (RCAP, OPS+, maybe even FR or in the future ZR and UZR, etc.) we don't combine fielding and hitting this way.

Any thoughts?

Another problem that DH's create is that they detract offensive value from AL players in Win Shares, possibly win expectancy too. While I understand why James did this (to get a metric that is tied to actual wins, in the AL runs are less valuable because there is one extra real hitter) I am not sure we should dock players playing in the AL since it wasn't really their decision to have a DH.

In the interest of disclosure, I like the DH rule as is. It differentiates the leagues in a time period with interleague play. I think that all All-Star games should use it as well, I have no interest in seeing Tom Glavine hit in this summer's game in Pittsburgh for instance, better to see Bonds or someone. However, I was born in 1981 and so I don't have that old guy hate for the rule since it has been around since I was -7.

The DH question is interesting. Here's how I see it:

The AL and NL are both Major League Baseball, so players from both are obviously elligible for the HOM. But since 1973, they've have different rules, namely, the presence of an extra position, DH, in the AL.

That extra position is one that does not include fielding among its responsibilities, therefore a DH should be graded only according to what his responsibilities were--hitting. A player who played the field, then, has the opportunity to have extra value added to his resume for fielding, or negative value applied for poor fielding, while a hitting-only player, the DH, has to be satisfied with just his hitting value. I think that's fair, because position players have an equal chance to be hurt or harmed by their fielding value, rather than being always hurt or always helped. DHes are automatically hurt by having no fielding value, so (a) it wouldn't be fair to dock them further, and (b) to do so would be considering their fielding differently from that of the other players, while simply assigning them no fielding value would be considering it the same--each player's exact personal contribution, regardless of what it was.

However, I was born in 1981 and so I don't have that old guy hate for the rule since it has been around since I was -7.

Man, it seems like just yesterday I was -7. These negative-agers are good-for-nothing these days. Just sitting around waiting to get conceived! What ever happened to taking charge of your own life? Bah.

Would you call Luis Tiant a 60's pitcher?

For the sake of my comment above, I simply averaged the first year and the last year of the player's career and took the decade of the average as the decade for the player. A player could have substantial playing time or even the meatiest part of his career outside his decade.

Besides Tiant, Tommy John and Jim Kaat look like good candidates for backlog bait among the 70s pitchers.

Vaux,

My response to that would be that DH's aren't playing that position simply because it was picke dout of a hat or soemthing. They are DHing generally because they can't play the field. While there are obvious exceptions, especially on a day to day basis, virtually all full-time DH's are there only because they aren't worthmuch in the field and actually may be more valuable as DH's. Plus it reduces the utility that a team has. Instead of being able to rotate player sin and out of teh DH slot, a team with a guy who is DH only would have to either take him or take the 1B/LFer out of the lineup if it wasnted to rest its star 3B that day. Doesn't seem right that a bad SS, who may only be playing their for the good of the team, would be given less fielding value than a DH.

Again, this is only a problem in WARP and other systems that can have a negative value. I don't see a problem in WS which will give fielding value even for really bad play. WS, as mentioned above, has its own problems with the DH.

When he isn't playing he must be replaced by a player that you can't guarantee will be better than replacement level. And if the replacement was a good player, I don't think the injured player deserves creadit for that.

I dunno about this. It's certainly possible that a player with a great backup might be more inclined to take time off knowing that his team is in good hands. I don't think you can treat "time missed" and "quality of backup" as independent variables in all cases, especially if you can find evidence that the team encouraged the star to take his time.

Vaux, you have put your finger on one of the problems of evaluating teams with DH. This came up over the winter, because some damn silly system came up with Manny Ramirez having minus 47 fielding runs above something, and the nutter statheads said this proved he wasn't a valuable player and the Sox should trade him. Actually if you look at Manny fielding, he's quite good -- decent range, doesn't drop much, good arm, plays the Fenway wall well etc. Possibly below average, but not by much; teams don't put their ace glovemen in LF. However, if Manny were that bad, they'd still have to play him LF because they have that great lump of an Ortiz who they just extended and who can't field at all.

So if a modern AL team really had a Browning in LF, and Mo Vaughan at DH, it would not be fair to attribute all Browning's errors to Browning and give him negative value; a sensible team would trade Vaughan for a decent fielding LF and make Browning DH. The errors would be a result of inept team formation, something Browning wouldn't be able to affect.

Where I come out, I think is that truly disastrous fielders on DH teams should not be given negative value, because they could always DH. Conversely, you might think about giving a DH negative value if he was a great static lump who forced better hitters but truly disastrous fielders into the outfield.

Another problem that DH's create is that they detract offensive value from AL players in Win Shares, possibly win expectancy too. While I understand why James did this (to get a metric that is tied to actual wins, in the AL runs are less valuable because there is one extra real hitter) I am not sure we should dock players playing in the AL since it wasn't really their decision to have a DH.

Thought experiment Let's say that the 8 position players for the average national and american league teams score 640 runs a year. You add the pitcher and assorted PHs to the NL team and it's, like, 660. Now you add the DH to the AL team and it's 720. The DH is probably adding 60 or more marginal runs to the average AL team. What effect could this have on BWS---which are apportioned above marginal runs as a piece of the team's offensive pie?

Let's say that everyone contributes the same runs, 12.5% each:
1b 80
2b 80
3b 80
ss 80
rf 80
cf 80
lf 80
-----
640

Now let's add a pitcher, and everyone's at 12.1 %, except the pitcher who's at 3%.
1b 80
2b 80
3b 80
ss 80
rf 80
cf 80
lf 80
P 20
-----
660

But let's assume that the marginal runs at each position are like 20 runs, we're still at 12.5% because the pitcher gets zeroed out.
1b 60
2b 60
3b 60
ss 60
rf 60
cf 60
lf 60
P 0
-----
480

Same idea with DHs
1b 60
2b 60
3b 60
ss 60
rf 60
cf 60
lf 60
dh 60
-----
540

The net effect is a shift to 11.1% of marginal runs to each position.

In the most literal sense, yes, there's a dampening effect, but
a) It's less than two percent in our little thought experiment, and could be even smaller
b) Lineups are never truly balanced, so the people suffering at the hands of the DH are the weakest hitters in the lineup because they will have the most trouble making it over the marginal runs threshold.
c) ultimately the DH is not replacing the pitcher, it's replacing the weakest hitter in the lineup.

I'm hardly offering certain proof here, just a really reductive look at it. But I predict that among the kinds of hitters we'll be dealing with, the DH will have a negligible effect. Any reduction in batting value will will come from the worst hitters, not the best. And if 1.5% is a reasonable guesstimate, then we're talking about 6 win shares over a 400 WS career.

Ironcially, I would be more concerned with the value of pitcher batting, because any pitcher who could hit a little may be getting an annual 1-2 WS bonus over their AL counterparts. Something to keep in mind with Clemens v. Maddux or Smoltz v. Mussina or Stieb v. Valenzuala or Rijo v. Teddy Higuera.

>It's certainly possible that a player with a great backup might be more inclined to take time off knowing that his team is in good hands.

It's way too hard to know this so I think it is best not to worry about it. I would agree that it is NOT a part of a player's record how his replacement did. it is just a question of what he did--and whether he did it in 160 games or 120.

Ironcially, I would be more concerned with the value of pitcher batting, because any pitcher who could hit a little may be getting an annual 1-2 WS bonus over their AL counterparts. Something to keep in mind with Clemens v. Maddux or Smoltz v. Mussina or Stieb v. Valenzuala or Rijo v. Teddy Higuera.

As of 2001, Greg Maddux has 0.1 career bWS. Smoltz has 3.2 career bWS. Valenzuela 3.0, Rijo 0.1. Mike Hampton 5.2.

I think the Hardball Times has done work to adjust bWS so that it doesn't get zeroed out for pitchers and you can distinguish between good hitting ones and bad hitting ones, but in the Bill James original, modern pitchers usually get zeroed out.

The net effect is a shift to 11.1% of marginal runs to each position.

In the most literal sense, yes, there's a dampening effect, but
a) It's less than two percent in our little thought experiment, and could be even smaller

I didn't follow your jump from 11% to 2% (and then to 1.5%). The introduction of the DH raises the whole scoring context, it doesn't change the number of Win Shares available. A drop from 12.5 to 11.1 percent is a drop of 11%. Guys with 25 bWS a year are now getting 22.2 bWS.

Well, I'll just have to chuck that one in the can.... David you're right, and I was thinking very hastily.

Sunny and Bernie,

My point was pretty much that we should only worry about what a player did, if he is only playing 120 games in his best seasons then those seasons aren't going to be as valuable as they could be even if he has great rate stats. I would also think that if a player is not playing everyday in his best seasons because of his backup there is a really good chance that either a) he is not HOM quality anyway or b) themanager is a real moron and wouldn't keep his job for very long so that situation would change.

Doc and David,

The difference in WS probably isn't more than 2 per year for most seasons we will be looking at. But then again, as a peak voter 2 per year is a very big difference in a player's best seasons. I am just worried that we might elect say, Larry Walker instead of Albert Belle because of this phenomenon (I know that is a bad analogy but it is late). Maybe Keith Hernandez vs. Don Mattingly works better.

Vaux wrote:

On Norm Cash, ranked 5: An above-average hitter for his whle career,
which lasted a long time and has a fine, if slightly unspectacular peak.


On Ron Santo: The weight I put on career-length might hurt him a little, but he gets some
benefit of the doubt from me due to the circumstances, both the obvious medical one and the
controversy brought about by his exercising of the 10/5 right


It seems odd to me that you would be giving Cash credit for a long career and docking Santo for a short career when Santo actually played a full seasons' worth more games than Cash did, 154 to be exact.

If career value is important to you, both WARP and WS find that Santo has substantially more of it. He leads Cash 324 win shares to 315 win shares, 117.9 WARP1 to 102.1 WARP1.

It looks to me like you are overrating Cash somewhat and underrating Santo quite a lot.

It seems odd to me that you would be giving Cash credit for a long career and docking Santo for a short career when Santo actually played a full seasons' worth more games than Cash did, 154 to be exact.

Doesn't Santo rank higher among third basemen in games played at that position than Cash does among first basemen?

Doesn't Santo rank higher among third basemen in games played at that position than Cash does among first basemen?

As Chris said, its more than that. Santo simply played more than Cash.

Games:
Santo-2243
Cash-2089

DefensiveGames:
Santo-2201
Cash-1954

Plate Appearances
Santo-9396
Cash-7910

Yes, Santo retired young, but he started young, too. He had 3000 PA before 25, Cash had 138. Factoring in defensive spectrum durability issues only further widens the gap.

I don't really care how they rank among position. If Santo played more games than Cash, it is silly to say Santo had a short career and Cash a long one. As of 2003 (my most recent Baseball Encyclopedia) Santo was right around #100 all-time in games played. There have to be another 100 players between Santo and Cash. Santo DH'd 35 times or so in his final year, but Cash only played in the field 1954 times out of his 2089 games. He only DH'd 3 times but apparently PH'd 132 times (games).

re: the forgotten Larry Jackson, he (and Don Newcombe, another no-votes guy) are both in my top 45; which isn't very far behind my #15 in terms of quality, but there's so durn many players in the way, neither of them will ever make my ballot. If our HoM were 50% bigger, they would be in!

I don't really care how they rank among position. If Santo played more games than Cash, it is silly to say Santo had a short career and Cash a long one.

I totally agree. I was just curious about their positional placement.

Congrats to George Sisler, who ran a very long, tough gauntlet to enter the Hall of Merit!

His entry into the HoM should convince us to honor Frank Chance. Because, guys, Frank Chance had a better peak, better prime, and better career than George Sisler. Sez I.

Prime: Let me compare them using Win Shares. Fortunately, they played mostly the same position, approximately in the same era, and both had most of their value wrapped up in their prime.

Player ……..yrs ….WS each yr
Sisler.. 1915-1930 10 25 29 22 24 33 27 29 -– 11 19 11 16 15 13 8
Chance 1898-1911 .4 .7. .7 .9. 13 31 29 25 35 23 20 14 14 .5 .0 .1

Reordering best to worst gives

Sisler... 33 29 29 27 25 24 22 19 16 15 13 11 11 10 8 total 292
Chance 35 31 29 25 23 20 14 14 13 .9. .7 .7. .5 .4. .1 total 236

Seen this way, they are even through their best 5 years, and Sisler is better after that.

BUT.

Comparing players using total win shares is like comparing pitchers using Wins, or batters using RBI. Who was better, the pitcher who went 18-14 each year, or the man who went 17-9? The catcher who drove in 90 runs a year playing 140 games, or the guy who was rested 2 days every week and drove in 84? Pretty obvious that Wins and RBI and Win Shares need some adjusting for ‘replacement level’, ain’t it??

If we re-look at Win Shares and subtract out 1 WS per 10 games played, things look a LOT different. The average hitter garners about 1 WS per 8.5 games played (18 in a 154-game schedule), so subtracting 1 per 10 is relating players to “18% below average”.

“Win Shares minus Games / 10” per yr, ranked in descending order
Sisler.. 18 16 15 13 11 11 10 .4 .2 .1 .1 –2 –4 –4 –4 total 87 (101 discounting negatives)
Chance 21 19 17 13 12 .7 .6 .5 .5 .2. .2 .1 .1. –1 .. total 109

Chance is ahead after year 1, 2, 3…..forever. Peak, prime, career. Game over.

The ONLY reason we have judged Sisler to be HoM worthy and Chance to be completely and utterly neglected, IMHO, is this: reliance on yearly totals without regard to the fact that when Chance missed games, the Cubs back-up 1Bman did at least provide some value.

By this “Win Shares minus Games / 10” metric, by 1905-06, Frank Chance is clearly the 2nd best player in MLB. He was tied for 3rd in this metric among non-pitchers in 1903, 3rd in 04, about 10th in 1905, 4th in 1906. Honus Wagner leads every year, and Lajoie would be the next best candidate (finishing tied for 3, 2nd, very low, and 7th). Finishing behind Wagner is no embarrassment!

Is Win Shares incorrect? Well, one criticism of WS is that it limits the amount of team defensive credit to a maximum amount. And, the 1903-09 Cubbies might have been the best defensive dynasty in MLB history. Win Shares sees the Cubs top 3 pitchers being the first, 5th, and 7th most valuable players on their 1906 (116 win!) team. WARP, on the other hand, assesses 8 of the top 9 players to be the starting lineup, mostly because of the extra defensive credit given. If WS altered its scheme, Chance’s best year of 35 WS would be even higher.

While one criticism of WS is that it over-rewards players on good teams, this is NOT true once the team reaches the incredible success of the 06 Cubs; by Pythagoras, it takes about 30% more extra offense or more run prevention to generate an extra “win” when your team is already winning three-fourths of its games! How many more win shares (or wins) would Barry Bonds circa 2001 have added to the Cubs? Not as many as he did for the Giants, I’m sure!

As a hitter, Sisler was as good as Chance in their primes, and played more, but Chance’s prime was longer.
As fielders, Chance played 14% of his career at catcher.
We’ve honored very few 1B from Chance’s era.
Chance played very well in the post-season, and missed very little World Series time. His team won the only close race they were in, the classic 1908 pennant chase.
Sisler’s career was greatly curtailed by injury. Chance’s was shortened by not getting a full-time job that he so obviously deserved at age 21, until age 25! It also may have been curtailed by the demands of managing. And ya know, when your team flat-out runs away with a pennant, it’s OK to rest yourself once in a while. We use runs to measure wins, and wins to approximate pennant-winning capability, but at times we need to remind ourselves that pennants is the real goal.

Chance’s prime lasted 12 years, over which he played 1155 games, with an OWP of .735. Outside of that, he played decently, but not much. Sisler’s prime lasted 7 years, over which he played 966 games, with an OWP of .737. Outside of that, he played a lot, but not well.

Chance’s numbers don’t LOOK all that impressive at first glance. But we’ve been fooled into judging a book by its cover. Sez I.

If it makes you feel better I can move Chance (56th) up to off ballot position where I had Sisler rated (35th).

Good discussion of the DH. A few additional notes.

1) If Dr. Chaleeko's rough estimates are correct, the players whose value will be most affected by the DH will be hitters around or slightly below the league average. That would suggest that players at the high end of the defensive spectrum will be most affected. I need to think more about the implications of this finding.

2) If one assumes that modern pitchers normally earn 0 batting win shares and that the DH adds a ninth average hitter to a lineup of average hitters, then the other batters in the line up lose 1 bws per 100 games played. Unless it becomes clear that the proportional effect of the DH falls much more on the weaker hitters and much less on the stronger hitters, my plan for adjustments is to add 1 bws per 100 games to the totals of AL players, except for games in which they were a DH, because the DH rule is required for them to get those batting opportunities.

3) I plan to use a similar conversion for WARP1, which is to add .3 wins above replacement per 100 games for position players.

4) In the rare cases where WARP finds that a serious HoM candidate was below replacement level in the field, I will zero out his fielding value for those seasons.

5) I haven't fully thought through a plan for pitchers, but I think the simplest thing to do in WARP1 would be to zero out negative batting value for NL pitchers. Win shares is harder to adjust because the effect of hitting on a modern pitcher's value is hidden.

Frank Chance a better choice than George Sisler? No way.

Tom H, you claim that Frank Chance had a better peak, better prime and better career than Sisler. Okay, let's start by looking at five-year peaks, but let's look at some other standards of measurement besides Win Shares.

OPS:
Chance '03-07: .878, .812, .883, .849, .756, league rank: 6, 4, 4, 4, 7
Sisler '18-'22: .841, .921, 1.082, .971, 1.061, league rank: 4, 4, 2, 6, 3
Sisler has four OPS seasons better than Chance's best, plus he compared better to his contemporaries finishing 2nd and 3rd when Chance's best place was 4th

OPS+:
Chance '03-07: 154, 150, 159, 158, 131, league rank: 6, 4, 4, 4, outside of top ten
Sisler '18-'22: 157, 154, 181, 140, 170, league rank: 4, 5, 2, 6, 3
Still clearly in Sisler's favor, with the two highest totals and the two best league ranks

Runs Created:
Chance '03-'07: 83, 73, 70, 83, 52, league rank: 8, 7, outside of the top ten, 4, outside of the top ten
Sisler '18-'22: 78, 104, 179, 132, 162, league rank: 4, 5, 2, 4, 1
Again, Sisler crushes Chance, this time with his best season being more than double Chance's best season.

Verdict: George Sisler had the better 5-year peak.

You claim that Chance had the better prime than Sisler. I have to admit that I find this claim laughable. Chance was only an everyday player for six seasons. He was a part-time player from 1898-1902, never getting in more than half the games in any of those seasons. He played as a regular from 1903-1908, playing over 100 games every year. Then he played as a part-timer again in '09 and '10, getting into 93 and 88 games respectively. And finally, he became an occasional player, getting into only 46 games over the next four years. Chance's prime is basically the six years that he was an everyday player. Since we already looked at five-year peaks, that only gives Chance one more season in which he could possibly exceed Sisler in prime. Outside of his five-year peak, Frank Chance only picks up grey ink twice: in 1902 when he was 10th in stolen bases with 27, and in 1908 when he was third in doubles with 27. That's it. Anything else that Chance adds to his prime value is negligible.

On the other hand, George Sisler had several above-average seasons that weren't part of his five-year peak. He was already an All-Star caliber player in 1916 and 1917, when he picked up grey ink for batting average (both years, #2 in '17), obp ('17), slg ('17), OPS (4th in '17), runs ('16), hits (both years, #2 in '17), total bases (both years), doubles ('17), home runs ('16), rbi ('16), stolen bases (both years), OPS+ (both years) and runs created (both years). Basically, George Sisler had two more great seasons that were as good as pretty much anything in Frank Chance's best five. After all, Chance's best finishes in OPS+ and Runs Created were 4th, which Sisler matched by getting another 3rd and 4th in those categories in 1917. That puts Sisler ahead in prime as well as peak, considering that Sisler has seven excellent seasons to Chance's five excellent seasons plus one above average one. And that's not even counting any of Sisler's contributions after the injury which cost him the 1923 season. But that clearly wasn't Sisler's prime, so we'll leave that for the section concerning career value.

Verdict: George Sisler had the better prime.

As for career value, that again has to land clearly in Sisler's favor.
Chance makes it into the career top 100 in two categories: 25th in hit by pitch and 81st in obp. Sisler cracks the top 100 in avg (16th), hits (42nd), total bases (82nd), triples (30th), stolen bases (82nd) and runs created (72nd).

As for head-to-head career stats:
Hits: Sisler 2812, Chance 1273
Runs: Sisler 1284, Chance 797
RBI: Sisler 1175, Chance 596
Avg: Sisler .340, Chance .296
Obp: Chance .394, Sisler .379
Slg: Sisler .468, Chance .394
OPS: Sisler .847, Chance .787
OPS+: Chance 135, Sisler 124
Those aren't small margins. That's nearly 1600 more hits, nearly 500 more runs, nearly 600 more rbis (falling 17 short of doubling Chance), 40 points higher in average and 70 points higher in slugging percentage. And Chance's advantage over Sisler in obp and OPS+ has to be considered within the context of games played. You admitted that Sisler played more than Chance. The fact is that Sisler played a lot more than Chance ever did. Chance's best season for games played was 136. Sisler beat that in ten different seasons, including five with 150 or more. Sisler had 2055 games played and 9013 plate appearances to Chance's 1287 and 5099. There's no way that Chance packed more career value into nearly 800 fewer games with almost 4000 less plate appearances. Not when we've already established that Sisler beat Chance for 5-year prime. After all, Sisler beat Chance in five-year obp and OPS+.

Plus, a lot has been made about the fact that Sisler wasn't the same player after the injury that cost him the 1923 season. That's true. But that didn't stop him from still popping up once in a while amongst the league leaders, getting ink in 1924, 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1929 in avg (1), hits (4), total bases (2), triples (3), home runs (1), rbi (2), stolen bases (2) and even runs created (1). No, he wasn't the best player in the game anymore after 1922 but he was still a contributing everyday player which has to be worth more than a part-time player like Frank Chance. That certainly off-sets the fact that those later years brought down his career obp and OPS+.

Verdict: George Sisler beats Frank Chance on career value. Game, set and match.

If I were to commit myself fully to my scaled RCAA system, I would have always had Chance ahead of Sisler. In that system, here's Chance's best 7-year run: 66, 52, 66, 78, 41, 29, 24. The 78 is for 1906, which happens to correspond with a historically great team. Sisler's best 7-year run? 35, 51, 37, 44, 70, 46, 68. Yes, I'm saying that Frank Chance's 1906 was a better offensive year than George Sisler's 1920.

Now, I never have committeed fully to that system, and have also taken extra note of playing time, and as it happens, I always had Sisler ahead of Chance (and behind Beckley, and off my ballot). But KJOK's ballots, in particular, have always made sense to me if I understand him to making the committment that I won't.

I'm not planning to move Chance onto my ballot. But I'm certainly not going to make fun of TomH's post #83.

Lots here. Jschmeagol, I don't see much difference between the idea that a DH is playing that position because he can't play others and the idea that a first baseman plays there because he can't play third, or that a LF plays there because he can't catch. Players are utilized according to what they can do, so we should consider them on the basis of what they did, rather than what they didn't. Holding having been a DH against a player (and it's not that serious a problem anyway, because nobody uses WARP and such exclusively to evaluate players) seems the same to me as holding it against a player for "striking out too much," or something like that; it doesn't have a true negative effect on his contribution in the same way that an outfielder not making a play that he should have made does, which is why we hold that important. It does have less of a positive one, of course, because a DH doesn't have the possibility of defensive value.

Karlmagnus, I agree with you that a player shouldn't be penalized for the way he is used by his organization if that can really be determined. Unfortunately there are two problems with trying to follow that policy. One is that the farther back we go, the less likely we are to know why a player was sitting out games or switching positions; it could have been injuries, it could have been because the manager just didn't like him. But for the latter, we'd cut the player slack, and for the former we couldn't. Otherwise, players who would have had outstanding careers without injuries, like Pete Reiser and Dizzy Dean, would have serious arguments for the HOM.

But in this case, it seems worth considering giving Ramirez a bit of slack for the fact that not being DHed is beyond his control, I just don't know how much. You and I are the only Red Sox watchers who think they should have traded Ortiz this winter.

Well, here goes. Kaline is really remarkably similar to Clemente, at least on peak. As a card-carrying peakster, I just couldn't see my way to putting either of them ahead of Keller. Maybe I have Keller too low? Perhaps both guys will move up a few spots, but I don't see them getting past Dean, say.

1980 prelim

1. Ron Santo (enters pHOM)
2. José Méndez
3. Rube Waddell
4. Juan Marichal (enters pHOM)
5. Hugh Duffy
6. Dobie Moore
7. Cupid Childs
8. Ralph Kiner
9. Dizzy Dean
10. Vic Willis
11. Ed Williamson
12. Quincy Trouppe
13. Charlie Keller
14. Al Kaline (enters pHOM)
15. Eddie Cicotte

TomH pushes it a little far in #83. But I also rate Chance higher than Sisler.

From the heading of this thread:

116 36.4 1960 Steve Barber-P

From bbref:



Yep, that's "SEP", the Seattle Pilots. Add to his 86 innings countless hours in the whirlpool, countless assurances that his arm was all right, or would be all right, and a memorable recurring bit part in Ball Four. Barber had won 20 games once upon a time, so he was an established star, but, as Bouton reported, things were not entirely right with his arm. He would stay in the majors through 1974, mostly as a reliever.

The name that keeps popping up when I look at 60s pitchers is Larry Jackson. Did we miss him?

I did vote for Jackson once or twice. But I was the only one voting for Jackson and Curt Simmons and Bob Friend, which made me conclude that I was giving too much credit for merely "eating innings" in the 1950s. After tweaking my system, these pitchers are still in my top 40 though no longer on my ballot. Perhaps it should come as no suprise that Joe Dimino's table in the Marichal thread shows these pitchers tightly clustered.

As you all might know, I have a nagging concern that pitchers are being underrepresented in the HOM. I did a neat little exercise to see if this is true in voting behavior. Looking at the ten people (myself included) who posted a preliminary ballot, I put togetgher two lists: 1) the number of pitchers a voter included in his ballot and 2) the ballot placement of their top-ranked pitcher:

Number of Pitchers on Ballot
0 - none
1 - JimSp, Rusty Priske, Vaux
2 - jimd, AJM
3 - none
4 - Ardo, DL from MN, EricC
5 - none
6 - James Newburg, Mark Donelson

Highest Ranking Pitcher
1
2 - jimd, Mark Donelson
3 - Rusty Priske, Ardo, EricC
4 - James Newburg
5 - DL from MN

6
7 - JimSp
8
9
10

11
12
13
14 - AJM
15 - Vaux

I am amazed that half of the voters in this small sample think that no more than the top two pitchers eligible are ballot-worthy. Or that there is any voter who thinks that the best pitcher only merits a place at the tail end of the ballot. I'm not arguing here for hard-and-fast quotas for pitchers, but I really have a tough time with any voter using a rating system that gives at least 85-90 percent of their total ballot points to hitters.

Okay, let's start by looking at five-year peaks, but let's look at some other standards of measurement besides Win Shares.

OPS:
Chance '03-07: .878, .812, .883, .849, .756, league rank: 6, 4, 4, 4, 7
Sisler '18-'22: .841, .921, 1.082, .971, 1.061, league rank: 4, 4, 2, 6, 3

OPS+:
Chance '03-07: 154, 150, 159, 158, 131, league rank: 6, 4, 4, 4, outside of top ten
Sisler '18-'22: 157, 154, 181, 140, 170, league rank: 4, 5, 2, 6, 3
Still clearly in Sisler's favor, with the two highest totals and the two best league ranks

I hope we would agree that it's silly to compare OPS ranks when Sisler's league hit so much better.

As for OPS+, Offenisve Winning Percentage (OWP) is a more comprehensive and accurate gauge.
Chance '03-'08: MLB rank: 1, 4, 5, 4, 9, 27
Sisler '16-'22: MLB rank: 21, 4, 2, 4, 5, 6, 4 (all using 450 PA as the minimum)

Chance was only an everyday player for six seasons. He was a part-time player from 1898-1902

Is he to blame if the manager couldn't figure out that Chance was a great player in 00-02?? In 1902, Chance was 4th in MLB in OWP, of course in only half a season. In 1909-11, he was 18th in all of baseball, again in a part-time role. Which in my book, is better than below-average play in a fulltime role.

Did I stretch the argument a bit? Yeah, I sure did. It depends on your playing time preference and replacement level preference. I just think it's odd that Chance gets 2 ballot mentions out of 45.

But then, I suppose Jack Chesbro would find it odd that we don't mention him at all.

OPS+ and WS are my metrics of choice for position players, so i can't knock the Chance-Sisler OPS/OPS+ comparison too much. Except that the trouble with rates is they have to "per" something. And if a guy has a high rate, but "per" not very many games, then the rate doesn't carry as much weight as it would otherwise. Methinks TomH is too enamored with Chance's rates and hasn't looked at the multiplier enough. I mean, the guy had 1200 hits.

Three comments on the Chance/Sisler debate

1. TomH mentions that Chance's replacements were decent players. While this may be true I dont' see hwo this reflects on Chance at all. I don't think we should reward players for having good backups, what matters is waht they did and Chance didn't play many games.

2. 1 WS for every ten games is a littel excessive. Over the course of a full season that is either 15.4 or 16.2 WS taken off which is nowhere near replacement and very close to average. Thaink about it 16 WS is roughly 5 wins. If you want to use the example of someone playing extra games at replacement leve then you should lower that number. I think that 10 WS for a 162 games season is much closer to replacement level. That said, when you aren't playing you aren't giving your team any value and Frank Chance simply didnt' play enough games per season.

3. Career OPS+ is jsut as ridiculous as career OPS as Chance didn't have the long decline phase that Sisler did.

I do have Chance in my top 50, as I suppose a lot of people do. Sometimes there is a very fine line between getting votes and not getting votes and to give votes to Chance you have to be able to get over his lack of in-season durability.

Also,

Mark, you have Keller too low, that is your problem. ;-)

Wow, I should really edit my posts!

The ONLY reason we have judged Sisler to be HoM worthy and Chance to be completely and utterly neglected, IMHO, is this: reliance on yearly totals

I can’t speak for other voters, but Sisler’s rate stats certainly had as much impact on me as his cumulative yearly totals. A quick comparison

Number of times in the top ten:
Average: Sisler 8, Chance 4
On-Base: Sisler 5, Chance 5
Slugging: Sisler 6, Chance 3
OPS: Sisler 6, Chance 5
OPS+: Sisler 7, Chance 4

Clearly, Sisler had more going for him than accumulated totals in counting stats.

without regard to the fact that when Chance missed games, the Cubs back-up 1Bman did at least provide some value.

And that value should be credited to the Cubs back-up 1Bman, not to Chance. He didn’t play those games. He didn’t earn those WS. They belong to somebody else. (and thanks to jschmeagol for making a similar argument in #96)

As fielders, Chance played 14% of his career at catcher.

Yup, he played 186 games at catcher before the Cubs figured out what to do with him. And Phil Nevin played 108 games at catcher and Mike Sweeney played 201. But that doesn’t mean much more than that they weren’t good enough catchers to play that position permanently. I wouldn’t give Chance too much credit for coming up as a part-time catcher before making his way onto the team as a full-time first baseman.

We’ve honored very few 1B from Chance’s era.

That’s a good point. It was also a good point in Sisler’s favor. So it doesn’t exactly distinguish Chance in that regard. But your argument here isn’t with fans of Sisler, it’s with fans of Jake Beckley as to which player most deserves to be inducted from that era.

It also may have been curtailed by the demands of managing.

Frank Chance isn’t the only one who curtailed his playing time because of managerial duty. If you’re giving Frank Chance credit for that, don’t forget Ned Hanlon and John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson and Dave Bancroft and Roger Bresnahan and Hugh Duffy and…

I hope we would agree that it's silly to compare OPS ranks when Sisler's league hit so much better.

I don't see what's silly about it at all (and apparently, neither does sunnyday2). You're saying that Sisler's league hit better than Chance's. If that's the case, I can see that Sisler's advantage in straight OPS would negated by that. It was easier for Sisler to get a 1.000 OPS because of the league he played in. But that would only make the league ranks that much better. Sisler was finishing 2nd and 3rd in better-hitting leagues while Chance wasn't ever better than 4th in a weaker-hitting league. That's why I included both the raw numbers and the league ranks. Not only were Sisler's raw numbers better than Chance's, they were also better when compared to his peers.

As for OPS+, Offenisve Winning Percentage (OWP) is a more comprehensive and accurate gauge.
Chance '03-'08: MLB rank: 1, 4, 5, 4, 9, 27
Sisler '16-'22: MLB rank: 21, 4, 2, 4, 5, 6, 4 (all using 450 PA as the minimum)

Okay, then. Sisler's clearly better by that gauge. He's coming in at 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6 and 21 to Chance's 1, 4, 4, 5, 9 and 27. That's one extra year in the top five for Sisler and one extra year in the top ten. Sisler's 6th best season is clearly better than Chance's (6 to 27) and his 7th best season is as well (21 to not rated). By that measure, Chance beats Sisler on 1-year peak. And by that measure, Sisler has a longer prime as one of the elite players in the game.

FINAL PRELIMINARY BALLOT

1. Ron Santo - Peak, fielding gives him a slight edge.
2. Al Kaline - Odd player; consistently great but always injured. His career is interesting for all the seasonal milestones he didn't reach: only scored 100 runs twice, had 200 hits once, 40 doubles once, never hit 30 home runs, 100 RBI three times, never walked 100 times. Yet he still ranks in the top 50 all-time in every one of these categories.
3. Charlie Keller - Probably has the best peak of any player on the ballot. MVP-level for about a decade. If George Sisler had the same career path, would the voters have him where Keller is?
4. Juan Marichal - Overrated by the casual fan, but still a great pitcher, the best eligible. I really can't see any reason for a voter to leave Marichal off his ballot.
5. Jose Mendez - His is a peak case, but Mendez was one of the very best pitchers in the world for about five years.

6. Dobie Moore - Three easy HOMers bump him down. Best shortstop in baseball during his career.
7. Quincy Trouppe - A catcher with a reasonably long career, in-season durability, plus bat and average glove is a pretty valuable player.
8. Dick Redding - New data makes me a bit uncertain. Similar in career length and effectiveness to Pierce.
9. Billy Pierce - Quality pitcher who a) didn't really eat innings and b) played in the weaker league. Still a HOMer, though.
10. Ken Boyer - A notch below Santo: better fielder, worse hitter.

11. Bob Johnson - Wasn't flashy, but he got the job done at bat and in the field. Historically underrated.
12. Charley Jones - Masher. I think of him as a long-departed ancestor of Gary Sheffield.
13. Rube Waddell - Great pitcher who was either a) developmentally stunted or b) a little insane. Still, the ur-flamethrower who impressed with his gaudy strikeout stats.
14. Dutch Leonard - Poor man's Pierce. Never got his due as a nomadic junkballer for second-division teams. In that job description, you have to hang around as long as Niekro, Perry or John to get any sort of recognition.
15. Bucky Walters - Downgraded him too much because of the war.

16. Norm Cash
17. Gavy Cravath
18. Vern Stephens
19. Ed Williamson
20. Eddie Cicotte

21. Joe Sewell
22. Ralph Kiner
23. Dizzy Dean
24. Pete Browning
25. Bill Mazeroski - His defense really was that valuable.

I'm a peak voter but I don't consider myself to be an "extreme" peak voter. (I'm a centrist ;-). One season does not make a peak, certainly.

Some Random Second Best OPS+

F. Robinson 189
Aaron 188
Stargell 188
McCpovey 183
Kiner 182
Allen 181
Mays 176
Yaz 174
F. Howard 173
Clemente 170
Killebrew 170
Sisler 169
B. Williams 166
Cepeda 166
R. Smith 164
Kaline 163
Keller 163
Wynn 158
Klein 158
Singleton 156
Chance 156
Roush 153
Minoso 152
Berger 151
Oliva 150

Cash 148