It appears most people here would like the discussion threads to be posted a little earlier than they have been, so here's '90 for you. The player threads will be posted the day before the end of the election before the next election like always (i.e. the '90 player threads will be posted Nov. 12).

Joe, Jim, and whoever is left from ´89. Although the question of how Otis ranks with the CF backlog is a good one.

And, I agree with this early posting of discussion threads.

Overall, it looks like another togh year for the backlog.

302 86.5 1970 Ken Singleton-RF
286 82.6 1969 Amos Otis-CF

A couple of ex-Mets who will not wear blue and orange on their plaques, if elected. The Staub (incoming) trade was always very popular with Met fans, but I don't know that it was such a good deal.

'Twas a bit of a sad day I remember when it was announced that Jim Palmer and Joe Morgan were both voted into the Hall of Fame in their first year eligible. THAT part was OK; the mystifying part was that while Palmer was almost unanimous, Morgan was significantly lower. How a writer could justify having Jim "without my defense behind me I was Bert Blyelven" Palmer on his ballot and Joe "the best secondbasemen since 1930" Morgan off of it is beyond me.

'Twas a bit of a sad day I remember when it was announced that Jim Palmer and Joe Morgan were both voted into the Hall of Fame in their first year eligible. THAT part was OK; the mystifying part was that while Palmer was almost unanimous, Morgan was significantly lower. How a writer could justify having Jim "without my defense behind me I was Bert Blyelven" Palmer on his ballot and Joe "the best secondbasemen since 1930" Morgan off of it is beyond me.

Good compromise.

ERA+s, must pitch 154/162 IP, and at least 100 ERA+ that year

TOP CONTENDERS, entering 1988
GayPerry 168 44 40 30 25 24 23 23 22 22 21 17 16 16 11 07
FJenkins 143 33 27 27 26 24 23 20 19 19 19 11 04 02 02
JiPalmer 169 56 52 49 43 34 30 30 29 25 00
DRedding
BWalters 168 52 46 40 27 23 07
LuiTiant 184 69 32 28 25 20 19 05 02 02 00
BuGrimes 153 44 38 36 31 23 08 08 08 03
Jim-Kaat 131 30 28 26 25 14 11 08 08 05 05 05 02
CaHunter 141 40 34 14 12 07 03

GayPerry top 10 in IP: 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 10
FJenkins top 10 in IP: 1 2 2 2 3 5 5 5 10
JiPalmer top 10 in IP: 1 1 1 1 2 8 9
DRedding top 10 in IP:
BWalters top 10 in IP: 1 1 1 4 6 6 8 8
BuGrimes top 10 in IP: 1 1 1 3 3 4 7 9 9 9
LuiTiant top 10 in IP: 6 7 8
Jim-Kaat top 10 in IP: 1 2 4 4 4 10
CaHunter top 10 in IP: 1 2 4 5 6 10

Tiant's 169 ERA+ was in 179 IP and Palmer's 152 was in 181 IP. I think the rest of the stellar ones listed all were in the top 10. Walters' 146 and 140 ERA+s came in 1944-45.

Palmer vs Perry would have been intriguing - Palmer wins out thru the top 10, Perry follows with 4 to 6 other useful years.
But it's not that simple: Perry has an amazing 10 top 4 finishes in IP, to 5 for Palmer (although 4 of those were No. 1). That one would require further parsing, but I doubt Perry will still be around in 1990.

If one knocks out Palmer's 151 in a head-to-head comparison with Walters, I think I still like Palmer even if I'm a peak guy.

Vs Redding, well, your mileage may vary.

Palmer matches up quite nicely with Jenkins, perhaps his main vote-getting rival for 1990.

Does anyone like Jenkins more than Palmer, granting that both are future HOMers?

P.S. - keep the Orioles defense stuff coming; I don't often make a big deal of such stuff, but in the extreme cases it's noteworthy.

1989

1. Bench
2. Yaz
3. Perry

1990

1. Morgan
2. Palmer
3. Dobie Moore
4. Fergie

How 'bout '91? More to talk about.

Does anyone like Jenkins more than Palmer, granting that both are future HOMers?

In raw terms, the RA+ equivalent record approach points toward Palmer, both peak and career. The potential equalizer is defensive support - can someone give an idea how big an effect that might be, in runs saved or scoring envoronment?

I agree, OCF. Palmer was better than Jenkins.

Of course, when you factor in the O's' defense, Palmer might actually be in a tie with Jenkins.

BP's numbers show Palmer's defense shaving an avg of 0.26 off his ERA in his prime 10 yrs, 1969-78.

That seems reasonable; .26 r/g is 42 runs per year if extneded to all Orioles pitchers. I can see Belanger, Brooks, Blair, Adair/Grich et al being worth that. Win Shares likely has it lower, but I don't have the data to look that up.

Jenkins shows no large move one way or the other.

I prefer Jenkins to Palmer, but it's close.

In raw terms, the RA+ equivalent record approach points toward Palmer, both peak and career. The potential equalizer is defensive support - can someone give an idea how big an effect that might be, in runs saved or scoring envoronment?

Remember that old defensive adjustment thing I did years back? I looked at how many fielding win shares a team had, divided by a team's total IP, and multiplied by a pitchers' IP to determine how many FWS happened behind a pitcher. Then I figured how many FWS would happen behind a pitcher if he had normal fielding support (and for that I figured total FWS in each league for each year, and divided the league's total by cumulative league IP).

Well, by that approach Jim Palmer had the best career fielding support of any liveball pitcher. No exception. He was in the top ten of all-time with a bunch of pitchter's box guys and a smattering of deadballers.

If you think it's at all close between Jenkins and Palmer without accounting for defensive support, then rank Jenkins above Palmer.

Also, Palmer had much better hitting support - RSI about 107 while Jenkins had (and I do remember this) an RSI of 99.91.

Jim Palmer received more help from his teammates than any pitcher since WWII.

It is close but not that close.

On Win Shares, it's Fergie 323-312 which means nothing, it's the pattern. Fergie does have that 37 while Palmer's best is 31. Then Palmer takes the next 8 years before Fergie closes it out with 7 more years of ?15 to Palmer's 3 years ? 15. I like they guy (not just Palmer over Fergie but really any such case) who is better by 3 WS/year for years 2-9 over the guy tacks on years 13-16 at 12-13-14 WS.

On ERA+, it's Palmer by 125-115, and even with Fergie's big 37 WS season, Palmer leads 168-142 at their very best, and also leads every year through year 12.

Granted Fergie's got those 4500 IP but Palmer is closer than you'd think at almost 4000. Fergie threw 300 IP 5 times plus a couple of 289s. Not bad. But Palmer has 4 300s, 2 times at 296 and a 282. Fergie's top 7 years add up to about 2150. Palmer's top 7 are about 2175 and his 8th best is 274. Fergie's next best are 271 and 270. Fergie threw 490 IP after age 38, Palmer threw 18. That's basically the difference right there. It just doesn't negate that ERA+ advantage.

Besides, as a peak voter, I would have wanted Palmer to throw "the big game" for me over Fergie.

By WARP1, top 10 seasons, career

Jenkins 12.8, 10.7, 10.4, 9.2, 9.0, 8.3, 7.8, 6.2, 6.1, 6.0 -- 126.0
Palmer 11.7, 10.0, 9.9, 9.6, 9.5, 8.6, 8.4, 6.9, 6.6, 6.0 -- 106.8

If you trust WARP, there's no question that Jenkins tops Palmer in both peak and career.

The evidence that ERA+ is strongly skewed because of Palmer's extraordinary defensive support is strong.

It's not a big deal, as we are going to elect both Jenkins and Palmer easily, but I think that Palmer has historically been overrated and Jenkins underrated, and early discussion here suggests that some voters are going to continue that trend.

Besides, as a peak voter, I would have wanted Palmer to throw "the big game" for me over Fergie.

Are you implicating Jockey Boy in some sort of game-fixing scandal?

OK, the really interesting topic to me in this election is Ken Singleton. Singleton is perhaps the best stealth candidate we've had in years, even stealthier than the soon-to-be elected Jimmy Wynn. WS absolutely adores this guy, and by my current interval-based system, he's about #24 all time in RF, having just this season been passed by Manny Ramirez. He's in the same strata as Cravath, Carey/Ashburn, and Medwick/Burns among the OF positions, half of whom we've elected. That's the downside.

My newer keltner-based system has him substantially higher. He scores 42 of 90 possible points, which, good for 14th among the MLB players (with Dihigo the only likely NgL player ahead of him, unless Oms counts as a RF). He ranks higher than the newly inducted Willie Stargell. Among retired or nearly retired players as of 1990, he's ahead of Bonds, Keeler, Heilmann, Goslin, Cravath, and Clemente. He's about tied with Kaline. He's just behind Parker, and a bit behind Kelly and Flick.

Singlton's got two three-year stretches as the best player in the AL, several three-year stretches as the best RF in his league, lots of All-Star-type years, a bunch of MVP-type years. And for those who like to adjust for the DH, he spent his most productive stretch in a DH league. For those who like OPS, he could be underrated thanks to drawing lots of walks.

Super stealthy. I think there's great arguments for his induction, and that his case will need a long, close look. With a backlog election not looming until 1991 at least, we've got time on him. What's anyone else think?

I haven't worked Singleton's numbers through my system yet, but I've long had him flagged as someone to watch for. But to get one thing clear - are we talking about much in the way of defensive value? Or was he a RF because he was a bat and had to play somewhere?

With a backlog election not looming until 1991 at least, we've got time on him.

No, we don't really have time. Even though he won't be elected immediately, his fate will be 90% decided by his ordinal placement within the new backlog in his first year of eligibility. We need to get him right the very first time we vote for him.

To get back to Jenkins and Palmer:

My RA+ equivalent record for Jenkins is 287-213, which is 240 Eq. FWP. I have a simplistic "big years" score: single-season FWP above 15, summed over a career. On that, Jenkins scores a 44, which is quite good; it's consistent with some of the 3000 IP guys we've elected. (Comparisons: Hunter 31, J.R. Richard 6, Tiant 35, G. Perry 52, Kaat 13.)

Palmer, on straight RA+ equivalent record is 268-171 (261 Eq. FWP) with an astonishingly high "big years" score of 82. One factor that comes into play: Palmer had a very high number of IP per decision (9.40), so my system credits him with plenty of decisions.

Now, what to do about defensive support? I took my cue from TomH's post #13: .26 runs per game for the years 1969-1978. So I went into my spreadsheet and lowered the league average runs by .26 for those 10 years, leaving it alone in the other years. That's blunt instrument of an approach, of course. The defensive support waxed and waned in various years and didn't suddenly cut off outside the decade. And a flat deduction is a little too much, given that Baltimore was mostly a pitchers park. But it's a first approximation.

Done that way, Palmer's equivalent record now becomes 260-179 (235 Eq. FWP), with a "big years" score of 57.

It's crude, and not to be trusted too far - but it suggests that Palmer and Jenkins were quite similar in career value. At this point, I'd still give the nod to Palmer for peak - but I'd feel justified placing them in consecutive positions on my ballot.

Before everybody runs off the get their encyclopedia it should be said that WS doesn't just love Singleton unless it just loves Jack Clark and Dale Murphy and Fred Lynn and Cesar Cedeno and Tony Perez and Dave Parker and Rusty Staub and Jim Rice, too. And with so many, I'd say it's closer to like.

Career/Top 10 Years

Singleton 302/36-33-32-28-28-27-24-18-17-16
J. Clark 316/33-31-30-26-24-23-22-21-20-17
Murphy 294/33-33-32-31-29-28-22-15-14-13
Lynn 280/34-33-27-22-22-21-19-16-16-15
Cedeno 296/33-30-30-27-26-23-20-17-17-13
Perez 349/33-32-31-25-25-23-23-20-19-18
Parker 327/37-33-31-29-26-23-20-17-17-15
Staub 358/32-30-28-28-27-26-23-20-17-17
Rice 282/36-28-28-26-24-21-20-17-17-16

Not to mention:

Dewey 347/31-29-27-25-24-23-21-21-21-17
Hernandez 311/33-29-29-28-27-24-24-23-21-20

And that's just among the OF and 1B, then add:

Da. Evans 363/31-28-28-28-27-26-23-22-21-20

Even Toby Harrah compares favorably, I mean, not to say he was better than Singleton, but that he is competitive and, hey, he played a lot of SS.

And these are all just the borderliners. Singleton is a lot more of a borderliner rather than belonging with Morgan, Schmidt, Brett, Fisk, Carter and Grich.

I agree, Marc. Using WS in my system, Singleton is definitely on the borderline, but not a certain HoMer in my pre-analysis. I don't see him going in before Reggie Smith, for example, and Reggie didn't have everyone eating his dust in '88.

WS is overrating modern outfielders. Don't see why Singleton isn't a step behind the Keller/Klein/Bob Johnson trio, none of whom we've elected.

Reggie Smith vs Singleton is the first comp that came to mind.

How do you mean, karl? Yes, we ned to deduct 5% for the longer schedule. Anything else? If anything, WS underrates the guys in the DH league.

WS is overrating modern outfielders.

Well, you keep overrating WS' overrating modern outfielders. :-)

If anything, it's our interpretation of the numbers that is wrong. Besides, James didn't blindly go by his own WS career numbers, since he realized there were certain things that it couldn't address (which can also be said for "time-tested" measures such as BA and RBI - I defy anyone to find a stat that doesn't have some type of limitation). If he had gone by the career WS numbers, his top-100 would have consisted mostly of 19th century pitchers and outfielders. But he didn't.

The thing with Singleton and WS is this: dominance. WS sees him dominating his position and for a spell dominating his league. He's a peak/prime guy, versus Dewey's prime/career mixture. And he's got it all over Smith's peak.

I agree he's borderline and not in the upper echelon of HOM-type players, but look at the list above that Sunny supplied: Singleton's got the best top-three years on the docket. His top-five is second to Murphy and probably as good as Parker's, with the Cavaet that Murphy played a lot of CF, and that Murphy and Parkere were in the non-DH league (for those who adjust for the DH). I like impact, WS suggests that Singleton has it and in decent proportion to his career.

If Sunny had included Smith's numbers, it would be obvious that Smith's peak is not nearly as nifty as Singleton's. I don't know that Singleton is an "in" but I think his case is very, very compelling.

Singleton's got the best top-three years on the docket

He's tied with Parker if I am reading correctly.

Singleton's name is often thrown out as one of the guys ahead of Jim Rice in Jim-Rice-for-HOF debates. Looking at the list above, it doesn't look good for the Jim Rice candidacy.

I guess my point was that even if Singleton is the best of the options listed in #21, it's still a borderline list. And if it's peak you like, he's no better than Parker, or Murphy depending on how many years you want to go and, yes, he played RF versus a couple CFers on the list, and his career total pales next to Perez and Staub and the Evans boys. Hernandez is close until years 8-10 when he is clearly better. Nobody beats him every which way but loose, but there's a bunch of guys who are right there.

BTW I should have included Amos Otis on the list, career total very close to Murphy and Cedeno, ahead of Lynn, though he doesn't have the peak. The best fielder of the 3 by a wide margin.

Hard to find a better OF than Lynn, Rice and Dewey, eh?

And he's got it all over Smith's peak.

But Reggie has the better prime and career.

I'll be surprised if Singleton cracks the top-ten within the next decade.

Hard to find a better OF than Lynn, Rice and Dewey, eh?

At their peak, they're comparable to DiMaggio, Keller, and Henrich.

Here's a couple more views of the cluster of corners we're about to be consumed by....

These same guys as above adjusted for the 1981 strike year. I've grouped them by the type of candidate they are and TENTATIVELY ranked them within each group. I probalby should have included Jose Cruz, sorry:


Now by comparison, how does the Keltner-based system see them?


Now the Keltner system doesn't yet incorporate War credit, QofP for AA, NgL MLEs, nor special circumstances like minor league indenture. So what you see is how the guys stack up against one another at the sked-adjusted-MLB level only. However, since we're comparing guys of roughly the same era, it's not too big a problem.

In general, it's safe to assume that even with those adjustments, most of them are moving downward, not upward: the distance would be probably two-three slots at 1B, RF, LF, but several more spots at CF since the NgL players tended to be better in CF than on the corners. Singleton, Bonds, Parker, Hernandez, Dl. Evans, Perez are the leaders in the clubhouse by this particular way of looking at things. I think these two ways of looking are in the main agreeing with one another in terms of sifting through this large pack of candidates and selecting mostly the same guys. They don't agree as a matter of degree, however, Keltner seeing Parker and Singleton as rather better than the other system, and Keltner strongly preferring Perez to the other career guys, probably thanks to his time at 3B.

Anyway, it's another look at things on the corners.

Chris Cobb Posted: October 31, 2006 at 09:30 PM (#2229343)

By WARP1, top 10 seasons, career

Jenkins 12.8, 10.7, 10.4, 9.2, 9.0, 8.3, 7.8, 6.2, 6.1, 6.0 -- 126.0
Palmer 11.7, 10.0, 9.9, 9.6, 9.5, 8.6, 8.4, 6.9, 6.6, 6.0 -- 106.8

If you trust WARP, there's no question that Jenkins tops Palmer in both peak and career.

I realize the totals at right are for career, but I thought it was interesting that Palmers top 10 actually totals more than Jenkins top 10, 87.2 to 86.5

I think they were pretty much equal through the meat of their careers, but Jenkins had more value late in his career, a better decline phase essentially.

Those are interesting charts. At Battersbox, we've had some discussion of Staub vs. Dwight Evans. I'm in the Dewey camp. Not all Win Shares are created equal; there has to be some accounting for replacement value. Once that is done, Dewey comes out a little ahead. Similarly, treating both Staub and Evans as right-fielders exclusively for Keltner purposes understates Dewey's advantage. Staub played a much greater proportion of his games at first base and as a DH than Dewey.

Singleton's name is often thrown out as one of the guys ahead of Jim Rice in Jim-Rice-for-HOF debates. Looking at the list above, it doesn't look good for the Jim Rice candidacy.

Yep. As far as I'm concerned, anyway. To be honest, I'd rather have Sam Rice (for career, anyway), and I haven't been voting for Sam.

Not all Win Shares are created equal; there has to be some accounting for replacement value.

My first cut at answering this question is this: If a team won all of its games, how would the Win Shares be divided by position?

In a 162-game schedule, a team that wins all of its games would have 486 Win Shares to divide. Assuming the default distribution of WS, the team would have 233.28 WS to divide among its hitters, 170.59 to divide among its pitchers, and 82.13 to divide among its fielders: 23.82 to the outfielders (of which 1/2 would go to the CF, 1/4 to each of the corner OFs, typically), 15.60 to the catchers, 4.93 to the first basemen, 13.14 to the 2Bs, 9.86 to the 3Bs, 14.78 to the SS (if I remember the intrinsic weights correctly). You could, in principle, apportion the hitting WS among the hitters on the basis of PAs, the pitching WS among the pitchers on the basis of IP, and the fielding WS among the fielders on the basis of innings played at the position, and use that to set an expectation for the amount of WS a player at a particular position *could* get given his playing time, if his team always won.

I actually did this for the '84 Tigers, on one of the other discussion threads. In thinking about the results of that, two problems are readily apparent:

1. You have to use leveraged IP rather than raw IP for pitchers, because the WS emphasis on saves will lead to relievers overachieving and starters underachieving.

2. Players at key defensive positions will almost always achieve a lower percentage of their expected WS than players at less important defensive positions, because their defensive contribution will be expected to be larger but their offensive contribution will be expected to be the same - e.g. a 1B with 650 PA and a SS with 650 PA will be expected to make the same "offensive" contribution, by this metric. So you need to develop a "intrinsic value" for offensive contribution, as well as defensive contribution, for each position.

I like the concept of developing expected WS for a player along these lines, but I don't know that it's going to be as simple to develop an accurate estimator as it was conceptually. It's got to be easier than trying to estimate Loss Shares accurately, though.

-- MWE

Regarding Singleton's fielding value: close to none, I'd say. He was quite slow, and I don't remember him having a particularly good arm.

Win shares and WARP both see Singleton as a bit below average for a corner outfielder.

He gets a C letter grade from win shares, and WARP has him -17 FRAA for his career.

He'd probably score a little bit lower by both measures if he hadn't been converted to a full-time DH for his last 3 seasons. But the metrics don't see him as a major defensive liability.

I think that Singleton is a better canddiate than Frank Howard, I like his peak slightly more and his prime as well. Howard ranks in teh laste 20's for me, it is possible that Singlton will be around #25. Can't see him as better than Cravath or Oms or even GVH, but he is an intriguing candidate. He may have made my ballot had he become eligible a half century ago when the backlog wasn't quite as stacked.

Hard to find a better OF than Lynn, Rice and Dewey, eh?

How about Delahanty, Hamilton, Thompson?

How about Delahanty, Hamilton, Thompson?

That might be the best at their peak...even better than DiMaggio, Keller, and Henrich.

Better than Azocar, Kelly, and Barfield?

Better than Azocar, Kelly, and Barfield?

Now you're just being plain ridiculous, Eric. Of course not!

Cobb, Crawford, Veach

Lynn, Rice, Dewey
Delahanty, Hamilton, Thompson
Cobb, Crawford, Veach

Just in HOM votes terms:

Delahanty and Hamilton were both easy first-ballot HOM selections. Thompson was also elected to the HOM, although his election was controversial and came many years later.

Cobb, facing the most intense first-ballot competition any candidate has ever faced, was clearly #1 on that ballot; Crawford was first eligible in an elect-one year opposite Honus Wagner, and was easily elected the next year; Veach hasn't been elected but even now is still alive in the deep backlog, appearing on more than one.

Lynn, Rice, Dewey? Which one of them is Delahanty/Hamilton/Cobb/Crawford? The answer is none of them; they're all Thompson/Veach.

Cobb, Crawford, Veach

The problem with this trio is they didn't play together that long.
Crawford was fading as Veach was getting established.
There was no season where all 3 were above 8 WARP1 at the same time.

DiMaggio, Keller, and Henrich

Same issues. 1915 vs 1941 would be a great debate.

Delahanty, Hamilton, Thompson

In 1893, WARP1 has all 3 as the BEST at their position for that season. (That is hard to top. ;-) Win Shares prefers Duffy in CF that year, due to Pythagorean (Bos +8, Phi -3) and other considerations (differences in park effect calculations, CF fielding, etc.)

1895 was almost as good (WARP prefers Griffin over Hamilton in CF; WS prefers Burkett over Delahanty in LF). In 1892 and 1894, all 3 were clearly top-25 players. It's a great 4 year run. (They played together in 1891 also, but young Delahanty had not yet attained stardom).

Hey, Payton/Agbayani/Timo Perez (and Derek Bell) made it to a World Series!

Hey, Payton/Agbayani/Timo Perez (and Derek Bell) made it to a World Series!

Delahanty, Hamilton, Thompson

In their 4 unparalleled seasons of offensive excellence together,
their team posted an average OPS+ of 123, 120, 121, 125, (122 overall for 4 years),
and the Phillies finished 4th, 4th, 4th, and 3rd in a 12 team league.

Who said that batting was half the game? ;-)

the Phillies finished 4th, 4th, 4th, and 3rd in a 12 team league.

Sadly for Phillies fans, the members of these outfields apparently lacked heart, grit, or a that winning look in their eyes.

Funny thing is that if they finished 4/4/4/3 from 2000-03 or something they probably would have made the playoffs 2 or 3 times (since the best 4 teams in the league don't always make the playoffs now) and they'd all be considered clutch, especially if they got hot for a month like the Cardinals did this year . . .

Pete Browning - "a pennant may be a pennant, but Browning never sniffed one. As a rookie he played on a 2nd place team 13 games out, once he played for a 3rd place team 7 games out, and that was as close as he ever got."
A lot of the teams he played on were very bad.

Does this mean anything? Would it be normal for a HOM player to never win a pennant?
I count 11 HOFers on this list (throwing out Lopez and Huggins)

Most Games Played with no World Series Appearance

A couple of those guys - Carew, Sandberg - played on division winners, a couple might have made it without holes in there career for the war, Nap Lajoie might have made it in 1908 if the Tigers played out their schedule.

Anyway, does this mean something about the player? Or does it just mean the teams around him stunk?

Yeah, the Phillies from 2001-2006 may be one of the greatest 'what ifs' ever. They missed the playoffs on the last weekend in '01, '03, '05, and '06 and were also close in '04. If they get in one of those years, there is no reason they can't win the World Series. Hell, in '03, if they split with the Marlins in september they may have faced the Aaron Boone led Yankees. Intead, incompetent management (trade Abreu while you are still in the hunt?, buy 37 relief pitchers every July?, David Bell to a long term deal?) may very well have put a damper on that and the team is seen around philly as a joke, even though they keep winning. Anyways, I digress...

Anyway, does this mean something about the player? Or does it just mean the teams around him stunk?

As I have posted here countless times before, if Babe Ruth had played with teams similar to the '62 Mets for the entirety of his career, he would never have had made an appearance in the postseason. But would anybody look at him as the cause? To me, that's beyond silly. Yet, I know someone would point a finger at the Bambino while ignoring the other 24 players on his teams.

John, you just recapped Ralph Kiner's time under Branch Rickey.

Here's my early look at where the newcomers will fit on my ballot:

1. Joe Morgan--Morgan's longer career and better peak give him the edge over Palmer for me.
2. Jim Palmer--Racked up a ton of Black and Gray Ink, clearly a top pitcher of his era.

off-ballot:

23. Amos Otis--Between Norm Cash and Tony Oliva. A.O.'s career length and good defense serve him well in my system.
50. Ken Singleton--Between Bobby Murcer and Roy White. The lowest-ranked 300-WS player on my list.

I looked at Rick Monday, Greg Luzinski, and Bob Watson. All were certainly very good players, but none merits HoM consideration.

John, you just recapped Ralph Kiner's time under Branch Rickey.

Well, as great as Kiner was, I wouldn't say he's really comparable to Ruth. :-) With that said, I get your point and agree with it (though he did play with two good teams in '48 and '55).

1. Joe Morgan--Morgan's longer career and better peak give him the edge over Palmer for me.

Morgan should be an easy unanimous choice, IMO. Unfortuantely, his batting average will probably be enough to leave him out of the top spot on one ballot.

John - Rickey did use Ruth as his comparison.

John - Rickey did use Ruth as his comparison.

He did? Wow.

Early look: Morgan an easy #1. Palmer and Jenkins are easy 2/3 choices, I'll take Palmer by a nose at #2. Singleton close at #19. Otis needs a peak and lands well off ballot. Rick Monday, Greg Luzinski, and Bob Watson aren't close.

But if Babe Ruth had been on the 2000 Mariners and the 2001 Rangers, would the media have said that the he wasn't good because the M's won 116 without him?

And by the way, the CS to end the 1926 WS has got to be one of the all-time choke moves....

From Clearing the Bases, by Allen Barra:

In 1952, while trying to convince Pittsburgh Pirates owner John Galbraith to sell Ralph Kiner and then use the money to develop and buy new players, Branch Rickey composed the following free verse:


Babe Ruth could run. Our man cannot.
Ruth could throw. Our man cannot.
Ruth could steal a base. Our man cannot.
Ruth was a good fielder. Our man is not.
Ruth could hit with power to all fields. Our man cannot.
Ruth never requested a diminutive field to fit him. Our man does.

-- MWE

Quick look ahead (assuming Bench, Yaz, Perry)

1) Joe Morgan
2) Ferguson Jenkins
3) Jim Palmer
33) Ken Singleton
120-something Amos Otis

Cepeda makes it back on ballot at 15

My placements are very similar to DL's for what it is worth. Palmer and Jenkins are very clsoe once you take the defenses behind Palmer into account. Singleton will be in the 30's and Otis's lack of a peak will not land him in m consideration set.

Of course i will have Keller above Jenkins.

But if Babe Ruth had been on the 2000 Mariners and the 2001 Rangers, would the media have said that the he wasn't good because the M's won 116 without him?

If they needed a new bogeyman, of course they would have. Then Ruth would have thrown each and every one of them out of the window. :-)

And by the way, the CS to end the 1926 WS has got to be one of the all-time choke moves....

I don't know if I would characterize it as a choke than just plain stupidity, Eric. Max Carey he wasn't.

Babe Ruth could run. Our man cannot.
Ruth could throw. Our man cannot.
Ruth could steal a base. Our man cannot.
Ruth was a good fielder. Our man is not.
Ruth could hit with power to all fields. Our man cannot.
Ruth never requested a diminutive field to fit him. Our man does.

Okay, I remember that now. Thanks for refreshing my memory, Mike!

Quick look ahead (assuming Bench, Yaz, Perry)

1) Joe Morgan
2) Ferguson Jenkins
3) Jim Palmer
33) Ken Singleton
120-something Amos Otis

That's very close to what I have:

1) Joe Morgan
2) Jim Palmer
3) Ferguson Jenkins
35) Ken Singleton
Otis outside top 100.

Good to know. I usually sanity check against Chris Cobb, FWIW. He appears to have a more detailed methodology that produces similar results to my less complicated calculations.

The one thing that's going to make me at least take a careful look at Otis (and I haven't looked yet): although looking backwards through our HoM elections, we have plenty of CF, if we look forward, we may not be seeing all that many good CF candidates in the future. And was Otis a "real" CF? For five years, he played CF while Willie Wilson played LF. You'd have to be a "real" CF for a team to do that.

Disclaimer #1: on cannot always presume that a team makes purely rational decisions about which player plays which position; considerations of seniority and player psychology often intrude.

Disclaimer #2: while checking on that, I saw that Otis has some in-season durability issues. In fact, Wilson logged plenty of time in CF even when Otis was the "regular" there.

Disclaimer #3: I haven't run any numbers to see where Otis ranks in my system. It may not turn out any differently for me than it did for CC or DL.

Where the top newbies end up on my prelim:

1) Morgan. In top 20 all-time.

( Schang)
3) Palmer
4) Jenkins

12) Singleton. Like most candidates who surprise me in my system, he had a huge number of walks.

90 or so) Otis

Not quite ;-)

1. Morgan
2. Palmer
3. Dobie Moore
4. Jenkins

11. Keller
13. Cepeda

56. Singleton
71. Otis--Amos Otis was a fabulous defender, and he was the veteran presence when Brett and Wilson were babies

The Pirates did eventually trade Kiner, in 1953, for a bunch of players who didn't do much for Pittsburgh directly. However, one of the players they got in that deal, Preston Ward, was later traded for catcher Hank Foiles, who in turn was a piece of a trade for Hal Smith, whose three-run HR in Game 7 of the 1960 WS put the Pirates ahead 9-7, setting the stage for Mazeroski's later walkoff game-winner.

-- MWE

The Pirates did eventually trade Kiner, in 1953, for a bunch of players who didn't do much for Pittsburgh directly. However, one of the players they got in that deal, Preston Ward, was later traded for catcher Hank Foiles, who in turn was a piece of a trade for Hal Smith, whose three-run HR in Game 7 of the 1960 WS put the Pirates ahead 9-7, setting the stage for Mazeroski's later walkoff game-winner.

This is sort of like saying something to the effect that my sister's husband's father's aunt dated Johnny Weismueller just before he won his gold medals. ; )

OK the full prelim...fun fact: the lowest rated player who once appeared on my ballot is #101. Also for fun, all the MLE-type adjustments are noted. That's a lot of adjusting, but absolutely necessary to even the playing field for all generations.
1990

1. Joe Morgan (new, PHoM 1990)

2. Jim Palmer (new, PHoM 1990)

3. Dobie Moore (3-1-1, PHoM 1942)—counts the Wreckers and (obviously) NeL play

4. Ferguson Jenkins (5-new, PHoM 1990)

5. Edd Roush (6-3-2, PHoM 1976)—adjust 1918-19

6. Larry Doyle (8-5-5, PHoM 1975)—adjust 1918-19

7. Pete Browning (7-4-3, PHoM 1961)--AA discount, adjust to 154 games, extra defensive credit (taken away from pitchers through 1893)

8. Addie Joss (9-6-6, PHoM 1967)

9. Nellie Fox (10-7-7, PHoM 1971)

10. Charley Jones (11-8-8, PHoM 1921)—count 2 blacklist years

11. Charlie Keller (12-9-9, PHoM 1985)—a fairly hypothetical career, 1 year MiL credit, various war credits and discounts

12. Orlando Cepeda (14-11-10, PHoM 1987)

13. Phil Rizzuto (15-12-16)—war credits

14. Reggie Smith (13-10-new, PHoM 1988)

15. Gavvy Cravath (16-13-19)--another fairly hypothetical career, but I count "everything" that's been hypothesized

(15a. Bobby Doerr [16a-13a-16a])--war discounts

Close

16. Frank Howard (17-14-15)
17. Ed Williamson (19-18-20, PHoM 1924)--adjust to 154 games, adjust 27 HR in '84 to 2Baggers, double up on defense
18. Don Newcombe (20-19-28)--a variety of adjustments for spotty integration, Korea, etc.
19. Dick Lundy (21-42-43)--NeL MLE credit
(19a. Joe Sewell [19a-16a-18a])
20. Tommy Bond (24-29-29, PHoM 1929)--adjust to 154 games but defense gets half the usual pitcher credit

21. Dick Redding (22-16-13, PHoM 1971)--NeLs
22. Elston Howard (23-17-18)--credit for NeLs and spotty integration
(22a. Willie Keeler [27a-27a-25a])--adjust to 154 games
23. Jim Wynn (25-43-44)
24. Eddie Cicotte (18-15-12)--no "death" credit
25. Bucky Walters (26-20-27)--war discounts
26. Dizzy Dean (27-21-14)
27. Vic Willis (41-42-37)--adjust to 154 games
28. Dave Bancroft (42-53-53)
29. Ken Boyer (29-29-23)
30. Norm Cash (30-30-22)

Also Pretty Good

31. Bobby Estalella (33-48-48)--an entire career, about 2/3 MLE credit, is hypothesized
32. Marvin Williams (32-26-24)--NeL credit of course
33. Vern Stephens (38-31-31)
34. Roger Bresnahan (34-51-51)
(34a. Jim Bunning [34a-29a-17a])
35. Alejandro Oms (28-28-28)--NeL credit
36. Hilton Smith (36-25-22)--NeL credit
37. Al Rosen (51-54-54)
38. Thurman Munson (55-61-69)
39. Jake Beckley (39-44-45)
(39a. Wes Ferrell [39a-34a-34a])
40. Chuck Klein (35-24-17)

41. Bobby Bonds (37-30-30)
42. Bill Monroe (41-52-52)--pretty hypothetical, pre-NeL, but a real career
43. Hugh Duffy (43-36-36)
(43a. Billy Pierce (43a-40a-41)
44. Quincy Trouppe (49-47-47)--another pretty hypothetical career with lots of non-NeL play
45. Pie Traynor (44-35-35)
46. Luke Easter (40-27-25)--ditto
47. Hack Wilson (45-33-33)
48. Bus Clarkson (46-46-46)--NeLs
49. Rocky Colavito (47-34-34)
(49a. Ezra Sutton [64a-74a-74a])--adjust to 154 games, double defensive credit (taken away from pitchers)
50. Wally Berger (50-49-49)

51. Jim McCormick (60-65-64)--adjust to 154 games but with half the usual pitcher credit going to the gloves
52. Lefty Gomez (48-37-37)
(52a. Early Wynn [48a-48a-47a)
53. Sal Bando (52-40-40)
54. Tommy Leach (57-77-77)
55. Tony Oliva (54-39-39)
56. Ken Singleton (new)
57. Bob Johnson (56-50-50)
58. George Van Haltren (62-75-75)--adjust to 154 games, double defense through 1893
(58a. Jimmy Sheckard [63a-55b-55b])
59. Bob Elliott (59-60-60)
60. Luis Tiant (58-new)

61. Fred Dunlap (61-66-65)--adjust to 154 games, double defense through 1893
(61a. Biz Mackey [63a-55a-55a])--NeL play
62. Ben Taylor (67-67-66)--NeL play
(62a. Joe Kelley [68a-68a-67a])
63. Lou Brock (53-38-38)
64. Mike Tiernan (64-56-56)
65. John McGraw (69-74-74)
66. Mickey Welch (75-72-72)--all 3 adjust to 154 games, take half credit away from pitchers through '93 and give to gloves

They Also Ran

67. Bert Campaneris (66-new)
68. Gene Tenace (85-new)
(68a. Cool Papa Bell [69a-69a-69a])--NeLs
69. George Scales (65-57-57)--NeLs plus integration era extra credit
70. Urban Shocker (68-58-58)
71. Amos Otis (new)
72. Pancho Coimbre (70-71-71)--NeL plus other stuff
73. Dolf Luque (63-55-55)--counts CuL play
73. Joe Tinker (71-59-59)
74. Johnny Evers (72-62-61)
75. Frank Chance (73-63-62)--no extra credit for poem
77. Tony Mullane (79-73-73)--AA discount, but adjust to 154, give half of usual credit to gloves
78. Tommy Bridges (74-64-63)
79. Burleigh Grimes (76-68-67)

80. Vada Pinson (77-80-80)
81. Jim Kaat (83-new)
82. Andy Cooper (78-69-68-68)--NeL
83. Rabbit Maranville (88-84-84)
84. John Clapp (93-85-85)--adjust to 154 games, double the defense
85. George Burns (94-86-86)
86. Jim Fregosi (80-79-79)
87. Johnny Pesky (92-99-99)
(87a. Pete Hill [93a-85a-85a])--pre-NeL
88. Jimmy Ryan (97-100-100)
89. Silvio Garcia (84-92-92)--NeL, MxL, etc.
90. Artie Wilson (81-81-81)--NeL

91. Kiki Cuyler (82-93-93)
92. Bobby Veach (87-91-82)
93. Bill Byrd (86-76-76)--NeL
94. Carl Mays (90-78-78)
95. Ernie Lombardi (87-83-83)
96. Mickey Vernon (96-95-95)
97. Luis Aparicio (89-70-70)
98. Gil Hodges (95-91-91)
99. Silver King (98-87-87)--adjust to 154, give half the usual credit to the gloves; ditto Whitney
100. Jim Whitney (99-90-90)

Honorable Mention

Denny Lyons (100-94-94)--adjust to 154 games
Tony Lazzeri (HM-88-88)
Red Schoendienst (HM-89-89)
Sol White (HM-96-96)--pretty hypothetical, pre-NeL
Wilbur Cooper (HM-97-97)
Jake Fournier (HM-98-98)

>his is sort of like saying something to the effect that my sister's husband's father's aunt dated Johnny Weismueller just before he won his gold medals. ; )

Well, whatever she did, it worked ;-)

Hey sunny,

Just curious but who was that #101 who was on your ballot? Cooper? Lyons? Fournier? I would have to think that it was someone who was eligible a long time ago rather than Shoendienst or Lazzeri.

And in full disclosure the lowerst ranked player who ever made my balot is somewhere in the 70's or 80's....it is, embarrassingly enough for a voter like me, Jake Beckley. I put him on my first ballot at #15 and oddly enough had Hughie Jennings (I was one of Hughie's biggest supporters for years) at #14. Then I came to my senses and Jennings rocketed up my ballot, making it to #1 a few years alter and Beckley dropped like a rock.

Outside of them Tommy Leach (who got up to something like #6 before I adjusted fo rhis time in CF) and Roy Thomas (one year at #15) are both in the 40's. I like Thomas but I have ot admit that there are plenty of other m more qulaified OF candidates. As for Leach, odd to think that he was so clsoe to election in the 1940's and now is deep backlog. I may even be underrating him.

Best player never to make my ballot? Probably Ale Oms, who has always been in my top 25 and yet has never crept onto my ballot. I have always preferred him over Willard Brown, for instance.

fun fact: the lowest rated player who once appeared on my ballot is #101

So, you gave us the first 100 names and left us hanging on the mystery person?

actually, sunnyday2 is also missing a 76.

>his is sort of like saying something to the effect that my sister's husband's father's aunt dated Johnny Weismueller just before he won his gold medals. ; )

Ungowa!

rawagman, thanks, but you really need to get a life ;-)

me, too

that makes my lowest ranked player who once made my ballot #100--Lyons.

and karl will undoubtedly be pleased to know that Schnozz moves up to 94.

Not so fast on moving up Lyons and Lombardi: although you are missing a #76, you have two #73s, Dolf Luque and Joe Tinker.

Incidentally, is the Tinker, Evers, Chance consecutive ranking in that order a pure product of your system? I know you say Chance isn't getting extra credit for the poem, but . . . it is a pretty remarkable coincidence.

Gotta go get back to my non-life now . . .

while Palmer was almost unanimous, Morgan was significantly lower.

Boston Globe then-baseball reporter Nick Cafardo --still a local newspaper and radio sports personality-- wrote that Morgan's election to the Hall of Fame was encouraging because it showed that a great fielder could get in without great statistics.
(from memory, not ProQuest. I do recall clipping the article, for Palmer was the last of my boyhood favorites to go in)

By the way, Dr. (of Dentistry) Charles Steinberg, VP Public Relations for the Boston Red Sox, enthralled the local SABR chapter for 110 minutes last Saturday, holding down the 3:00-4:50 spot in our 10-4:00 program! Then he sat down to take the belated trivia quiz with everyone else. Beginning a year ago, we have a run of can't top this programs.

If you ever get a chance to hear Steinberg speak, take it. Literally, his subject was simply his career in baseball. He started, ~17 years old ~1975, doing Earl Weaver's statistics. For more than 25 years he has been with Larry Lucchino (Earl Weaver in a suit) in Baltimore, SD, Boston. He argued against the retro design and against the downtown location, but Lucchino pulled the trigger. He sees it all as thirty years blessed participation in the 50-year history of the Oriole way, which the O's abandoned in the mid-1980s. IIRC, nine of them moved from Bal to SD and fourteen moved from SD to Boston.

Paul,

Sounds great...but how did he do on the quiz????

I'm going to be leaving on a family vacation soon and won't be back 'til the end of November after our 1990 election is concluded. So could someone please post this in the 1990 ballot thread when it's opened? Thanks. Also, I'm working on the assumption that Bench, Perry and Yastrzemski will be elected.

1. Joe Morgan, 2B (n/e). Monster peak. Long prime. Great glove. Weak position. Morgan is an easy choice for number one.

2. Jim Palmer, P (n/e)
3. Fergie Jenkins, P (4). A tough call. Palmer has a better and longer peak than Jenkins. Jenkins has the longer prime. Palmer beats Jenkins on career rate stats, but Jenkins beats him out on cumulative stats. And on a personal note, I'm Canadian so I like Jenkins. But I'm also an Orioles fan so I like Palmer. I flipped a metaphorical coin and went with Palmer based on those 3 Cy Youngs but it could've just as easily gone the other way.

4. Dick Redding, P (5). PHOM- 1975. His winning percentage is .100 points better than his team's. He broke the 300 innings pitched barrier more often than Coveleski, Faber or Rixey. And if not for time missed due to military service in World War I (Redding missed the bulk of the 1918 and 1919 seasons), we'd be looking at someone with MLEs of greater than 250 wins.

5. Quincy Trouppe, C (6). PHOM-1977. A great-hitting catcher with patience and power who was able to lead his team to several pennants and a 1947 Negro League Championship. Plus, he was picked for 5 Negro League All-Star teams despite spending his best years south of the border.

6. Nellie Fox, 2B (7). PHOM- 1976. One of the major reasons why we elected Joe Sewell was his great at bats per strikeout ratio. Well, that's a pretty good reason to vote for Nellie Fox, too. He has the fourth best career mark- which may not be quite as good as Sewell- but Nellie led his league in that category more times than Joe, 12 to 9 including 11 straight from 1954 to 1964 for Fox.

7. Lou Brock, LF (8). PHOM- 1985. Among the best career candidates on the ballot, Brock used his speed to accumulate 486 doubles and 141 triples (leading the league in each category once) as well as those notorious 938 stolen bases.

8. Alejandro Oms, CF (9). PHOM- 1984. A very underrated outfielder who was among the best in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s and was still good enough to be a league-leader his native Cuban leagues through much of the '30s. Recently dropped him behind Brock; although Oms has the better peak, it's hard to extrapolate as lengthy a prime or as full a career as that of Brock.

9. Burleigh Grimes, P (10). PHOM- 1984. I don't have the personal attachment to Grimes that I do to most of the other players on the ballot. But with the second best career totals for a pitcher and the peak that Welch is missing, I find no fault with his numbers.

10. Don Newcombe, P (11). PHOM- 1987. Military credit gives Newcombe seven outstanding seasons from 1949-1953 and 1955-1956, more peak seasons than any other pitcher on the ballot. And a few seasons of Negro League/minor league credit give him enough of a career to warrant consideration

11. Luis Aparicio, SS (12). PHOM- 1987. He was a star on the basepaths and with the glove. He did what shortstops of his era were asked to do and he did it better than any of the others. He won five straight Gold Gloves from 1958-1962 and then another 4 in alternating years from 1964-1970. Plus, like Joe Sewell, he was notoriously hard to strike out, finishing in the top ten in that category for 16 straight years from 1958 to 1973 and leading the league his league twice in 1969 and 1973.

12. Hugh Duffy, CF (13). I’m a big fan of what guys actually do and Duffy’s actual numbers are very impressive. There’s a reason why he was considered one of the best players of the 1890s. He had peak years in 1890, ’91, ’94 and ’97 and was an All-Star caliber player from 1890 to ’97.

13. Ken Boyer, 3B (14). The best third baseman on the ballot and too close to Santo to be kept out of the HOM for much longer.

14. Orlando Cepeda, 1B (15). I like Cepeda as the best first baseman on the ballot. He's got the peak that a career-guy like Beckley is missing and the career that a peak-guy like Chance is missing.

15. Dobie Moore, SS (n/a). Back on my ballot after a one-year absence, Moore jumped over both Hilton Smith and Ernie Lombardi. That's indicative of my growing confidence in Moore's record as well as increasing doubts about Smith and Lombardi. I'm thinking that Moore really is the best shortstop on the ballot, which means I might even move him ahead of Aparicio before too long.

Necessary Disclosures on New Eligibles and Top 10 Returnees:
Here's the full list of returnees from 1988 though I'm sure that the new eligibles of '89 pushed a few of these guys out of the top ten.
Jimmy Wynn: Not good enough for not long enough.
Charley Jones: I don't give Jones any credit for his time on the blacklist. Even if I did, he'd still be just off-ballot in the neighborhood of Bob Johnson and Chuck Klein.
Jake Beckley: I had him 16th last time, which means he drops to 19th this time around.
Pete Browning and Edd Roush: They're both top five center fielders as far as I'm concerned, which is good enough to be in the top 35 but not good enough to make the ballot. Oms, Duffy (who are both on-ballot) and Vada Pinson (who is not) are the other three.
Ken Singleton: I'm not sure he even makes my top 100.

Gotta do this chart for my offensive system. As always: this is based on RCAA (so it includes SB and other non-OPS factors), the units aren't runs, but they're the same units I've always been using. It's been context-scaled. It's not season-length adjusted but it's not all that sensitive to playing time. And it's offense-only. The following four do not have identical defensive value; make your own adjustments for that.

I got an unfortunate column wrap out of that - a hazard when dealing with careers of this length. All right, then, I'll use just the best 20 years of each - no more!

I just worked up Singleton. He sorts into the mix with a lot of people. Compared to Reggie Smith, less career, more peak. Compared to Frank Howard, less peak, maybe more defense.

What are our established standards for electing corner outfielders? We elected Slaughter, Goslin, Wheat, Sheckard, Thompson, Stovey, and, yes, recently we elected Kiner. Singleton does look like he at least belongs in the conversation with those people - but setting the standard there has given us an awful lot of corner outfielders. I've got the nagging feeling that if we look forward rather than back, then that's too low a standard, and we've got to insist on Clemente/Kaline/Billy Williams level players. And Singelton doesn't meet that standard.

I´ve done the first, most important part on evaluating the newbies for this class. The results so far are:

Morgan: Wow. Let me say that again: Wow. On offense alone, he´s comparable to first basemen who walked into the HOM, like McCovey. Easiest number 1 I´ve had so far (and that includes Aaron).

Palmer: So far, I like him better than Perry, which means #2. However, I trust the uber-stats more when it comes to pitchers, so I´ll reserve final judgement until I have that part done.

Singleton: Yeah, he was a sneaky one. So far, he´s ahead of Chuck Klein among my RFers. Probably will be waitlisted in ´90, but that past sentence means he´ll creep into one of my later ballots.

Otis: Not so good. On offense alone, he´s at the bottom of my CF consideration set. Will rise when I add defense into the mix, but can´t see myself voting for him anytime soon.

Morgan: Wow. Let me say that again: Wow. On offense alone, he´s comparable to first basemen who walked into the HOM, like McCovey.

Easily. Take Morgan's defense away, make him a LF/1B, and I'd take him ahead of McCovey - and certainly ahead of Yastrzemski.

Palmer: So far, I like him better than Perry, which means #2.

Perry won't be on the 1990 ballot, making Palmer vs. Perry a moot point. Palmer vs. Jenkins is not moot, and brings the issue of Palmer's level of defensive support into play. I'll have Palmer #2 and Jenkins #3, but I could easily understand that some voters might reverse that order.

Otis: Not so good. On offense alone, he´s at the bottom of my CF consideration set.

Yeah, that's it. A good player, but that's just not enough bat for the HoM.

With various adjustments, WS has got Otis similar to guys like Mike Griffin, Fred Lynn, Clyde Milan, Dom DiMaggio, and Dummy Hoy. Good company but not HOM level by any stretch.

If I had mentioned any names in talking about Otis, I probably would have included both Milan and DiMaggio. I'd say above Milan, below DiMaggio.

Fun stuff. Gene Richards is on the bottom of the list. A good player. But he is in a funny way a symbol of the Padres general ineptitude in the amateur draft. Through 2006 only three players returned more than 100 WS to the Padres after being drafted (first tour of duty only):
Tony Gwynn 398
Dave Winfield 172
Gene Richards 120

Randy Jones returned 98.

As a loose proxy for draft succes, I've tracked the total WS returned (with drafting team only) for each team's top 10 draftees (not including expansion teams from 1993 onward). SD finishes 21st among the 26 teams examined. Who is behind them? Cleveland, the Cubs, Washington/Texas, Seattle, and the Mets.

OK, but how about if we divided that value by the number of years each team has been drafting? That's a little more fair due to the staggered expansions. Now SD finishes tied for 20th. Behind them remain the Mets, Indians, Rangers, and Cubs, but the Pirates and Giants fall in behind them too. Seattle, however, jumps to 12th.

So who is the best drafting team? Go ahead and take a guess, I'll wait for you...
.
.
.
.
.
OK, who guessed the Boston Red Sox? Take a moment to congratulate yourselves. Here's the list of the ten draftees who returned the most value to the Sox:
Evans 337
Boggs 301
Rice 282
Clemens 250
Fisk 182
Nomar 176
Lynn 154
Stanley 149
Vaughn 149
Greenwell 146

And as if that weren't enough...
Valentin 136
Burlson 120
Nixon 110
Lee 100
Burks 91
Barrett 90

Not bad. And the next team isn't really all that close.

Mike W., the Royals are the runner up.
Brett 432
Wilson 219
Quis 148
Appier 146
Sweeney 146
Gubicza 141
Splitorff 140
Leonard 133
Saberhagen 131
Beltran 115

Third is Milwaukee
Yount 423
Molitor 313
Gantner 163
Jenkins 128
Thomas 127
Surhoff 114
cirillo 104
Moore 101
Vaughn 100
Wegman 76

Then Mon and Toronto, then LA and OAK.

This isn't the most effective way to measure draft success, I don't think. I think your measurement depends on your definition of success (returning value to team on the field versus picking the best players) and it's absolutely debatable what the length of time should be that you measure value. Maybe only six years (the period within which a team controls a player's rights) would be better.

Anyway, but it's a general little way of looking at it, and Gene Richards reminded me to look in on it.

I often post a chart called "HOM by pct at position"

That lists HOM batters by percentage of games played at position (with a minimum of 10 pct at a position, otherwise it's not listed and not tallied).

This time, I'll list holdovers who were in the top 25 in 1989, plus Jenkins (haven't even glanced at the ballots, but he seemingly was running behind Perry).
Also, if there are fewer than 3 players listed who played mainly that position, the next one(s) outside of the top 25 are listed in parentheses (those also-rans only are listed at their main position).
Finally, extremely strong candidates entering from 1990-94 are listed in CAPS.
The numbers in parentheses next to the position are the sum of all partials, 10 pct to 100 pct, at that position, of HOMers thru 1989 (assumes Bench, Yaz, Perry).

C (11.79) - Trouppe 65, Bresnahan 71, TSIMMONS 77 (Munson 92)
1B (18.27) - ROSE 27, CAREW 47, TPEREZ 66, Beckley 100, Cepeda 81, Cash 99
2B (13.11) - MORGAN 99, ROSE 18, CAREW 50, GRICH 86, Fox 100 (Doyle 100, Monroe 90)
3B (10.44) - ROSE 18, Boyer 90, TPEREZ 29, NETTLES 96, Moore 20, Trouppe 25, Walters 10, Leach 45 (Elliott 72, McGraw 73)
SS (16.30) - Moore 80 (Rizzuto 100, Bancroft 99)
OF (51.91) - ROSE 38, RJACKSON 77, Wynn 97, CJones 99, Roush 99, Browning 84, Duffy 97, Trouppe 10, Keller 100, Cravath 100, BJohnson 95, Van Haltren 80, Cepeda 11, Bresnahan 20, Leach 51, Oms 90, BoBonds 96, Brock 100
DH (0.34) - RJACKSON 23, TSIMMONS 12
P (47.64) - SEAVER 100, PALMER 100, CARLTON 100, Jenkins 100, FINGERS 100, PNIEKRO 100, SUTTON 100, Redding 90, Walters 90, Van Haltren 15, Grimes 100, Welch 95

So of those 26 holdover players, 13 of them - or half - played more OF than anything else, while 5 were mainly Ps. Plus 3 1Bs, 2 Cs, and 1 each of 2B-3B-SS.
Of the top 11 or so returning for 1990 (assuming Jenkins plus top 10 holdovers in 1989), 5 are OFs plus one each everywhere else - P-C-1B-2B-3B-SS.

However, of the 13 newcomers listed (yes, a few are borderline), 6 are Ps, only 1 true OF, plus UT Rose. So it's possible that Ps might pass OFs by the mid to late 1990s; remember that nearly all modern Ps are "100s," while more and more OFs spend time at DH or 1B.

Tinker, Evers and Chance are not a coincidence, I just kinda liked 'em together, and I kinda liked 'em in the order of the poem. But they are very very close. I keep going back and forth on Tinker and Evers, depending on defense vs. offense. And Chance either ranks a bit ahead or a bit behind depending on the mix of peak and career, so I just split the difference. If it mattered I would probably split them up, but they are pretty close to one another.

Well, I inspired myself to go back and try using the alternative method about the draft stuff i mentioned above to see what difference it makes. I decided rather than using the entirey of a player's first stint with his drafting team that I'd only use the years he was presumably controlled by his team. Which meant that I was using 7 years for everyone whose seventh year fell post-Seitz, and MLB debut through 1976 for everyone before that. 7 years isn't perfect because some guys will have two or even three cups of coffee rather than the one cup using 7 was designed to hedge against. Nonetheless, better than nothing.

So this little table is going to tell you how many WS of value each team's top-ten draftees have produced through their seventh season with the club. However, the table is ranked by that number divided by how many drafts the team has participated in. I've only included players with more than 20 WS with their drafting team.



Note how previously Milwaukee was well up in the standings. This time near the bottom. That's the effect of having only the first seven years of Yount, Moliot, Gantner, and Thomas instead of their entire Brewers careers.

I pulled the four most recent expansion teams out of the groupings since they have so much less team history. That said, Colorado has done a pretty nifty job of drafting talent AND getting value from it on the field, while Florida has been awful, with Charles Johnson as their most valuable drafted commodity. The 20-WS floor is part of the reason why AZ and TAM look as good as they do, it means only four or five players qualify for them.

One final way to look at this question. Some teams will have a lot of value concentrated in two or three guys and then have a lot filler behind them, while some teams have lots of guys who are better than the norm but not super-duper. So I cribbed an idea from Bill James' Win Shares book. To see how deep a team was, he multiplies each of the top 15 WS scores for the players on the roster in decending order. Best WS x 15, second best x 14, etc....

I did the same sort of thing. A team's most valuable draftee x 10, next x 9, etc.... Then I divided that by the number of drafts to get a "draft depth score" for each team. Here's what that looks like:



Oakland was so good in the early drafts that their long-term rights to the Tenace, Jackson, Bando push them well above the group. Blue is their 10th most valuable draftee (returning 114 WS in 7 years), and they are the only team with 10 guys returning 100 WS or more. In fact, they have 12 guys returning that many (Zito and Hudson come after Blue at 112, 106). The A's are only one of two teams with eight and nine draftees returning 100 WS, the other is Boston (Greenwell is 10th for Boston at 98). The A's are one of only 4 teams with 7 guys returning 100 WS. The third and fourth teams are Minnesota and Atlanta. Flip side: the Mets and Brewers are the only pre-1994 expansion clubs who haven't yet had three players return 100 WS for them during their rights-controlled years with the club. The Mets will likely pick up a third next year or the year after because David Wright currently has 69 in his brief tenure in NY. The Brewers may leave that boat too with their bumper crop of young player.

Interesting to see the Yanks move up a bit in this second listing. Their top few guys (Jeter, Mattingly, Munson) are all earning 150 WS in their rights-controlled years with the club. And that's something only the A's can match. But then it's a 60-WS drop-off to Guidry and Posada. The only team with a higher drop-off between its third and fourth best guys is Seattle, 142 for Davis to 78 for Langston. Then the Yanks have another 20-something drop-off to Pags and Stan Bahnsen and that level of player. Makes sense since they've dealt away so many draftees or surrendered picks for signing free agents.

Anyway, it's just cutting a wide swath through this kind of data, but I thought someone else might find it interesting too.

On the 1989 ballot thread, I posted an item about beckley viz being the best player on pennant-winning teams, saying that his fifth-best season (a proxy for him as a prime player) would have led a small fraction of pennant winners (5%).

There I mentioned that I'd dig into 100 game losers in light of the claim John Murphy disputed about whether Beckley would have been closer to a 100-loss team leader.

Mike W. very kindly provided me with the data to look into the WS totals for leaders of all 100-loss teams. Here's the scoop. Beckley's 22 fifth-year WS (adj to 162) would have led 80% of the 133 100-loss teams through 2004. Actually, I don't think that's a fair way to frame it. Better is to say that only 20% of 100-loss teams are led by a player with 22 or more WS. Compare to the 5% of pennant teams led by 22-WS guys like Beckley, and there's some suggestion that the claim has some basis in reality. It may or may not be hyperbolically phrased.

What is the breaking point between the probability of leading a 100-loss team and leading a pennant team? Probably around 25-26 WS. 11% of 100-loss teams were led by a guy with 25 WS or more. 10% of pennant-teams were led by a guy with 25 WS or fewer.

I'm going to expand this a little to include all teams playing .383 or lower ball between 1892 and 2006 to see if the sixty or so extra teams chance the results at all. I may not report in until next week however since i'm travelling on business this week.

Eric - The distribution of won-loss records by teams led by a player with exactly 22 WS may shed some light on the question. Is this information readily available?

The distribution of won-loss records by teams led by a player with exactly 22 WS may shed some light on the question. Is this information readily available?

120 teams up until 2004 had a hitter with a Max of 22 Win Shares. Those teams were 8713-9541 for a .477 Winning Percentage.

Their Winning Percentages ranged from .346 (2002 Brewers)to .705 (1885 Cardinals). The 1891 Cubs and 1900 Dodgers both had .600 Winning percentages in in about 136 game schedules, 1991 Twins were the best full schedule team .586.

48 of the 120 teams were .500 or better. 7 teams had 90 or more wins, only the Twins above had more than 92.

dan b,

I'll answer that question in a second. First let me report in on more comprehensive findings using the method described above. First off, Mike W. supplied the data again for all teams .383 or lower since 1892. Thanks again, Mike! Second, I realized that I hadn't pulled pitchers out of my last group, so this time I did, only position players included this time, as with the calculation I got the 5% of pennant-winner teams from. So now apples to apples.

OK, now with the extra data on all .383 teams (aka equivalent to 62-100), I've got 210 study teams. I adjusted their best position players' WS to 162, and then compared Beckley's fifth-best campaign to the aggregated results. 31% of teams who played .383 ball over a full season were led by a player with a 22 WS or more. The break even point with the rest of the data added is still around 25 WS. For an example with a better player, Mickey Mantle's fifth best season was worth 41 adj WS. 41 adjusted WS would lead no .383/100-loss teams (no one's ever led a .383 team with higher than 35 WS---Hornsby had 35 for the 1928 Braves who went .327)), but it would also lead 92% of all pennant winning teams.

So a little more reason to believe that the original assertion that Beckley was closer to a 100-loss team than a pennant winner might be true.

Okay, now dan b, to your question about distributions. 94 teams that I can find have been led by guys with 22 adj WS. 19 have finished .383 or lower. 4 have won a pennant. The total record of these teams is 6681-8105 .452, or 73-89 in a 162 schedule. If you adjust them all out to 162 games, their total record would be 6870-8358, .451.

Here's the distribution of records, adjusted to 162 games.



Breaking this into larger buckets, you get this



So a 22 WS player is leading teams that are well below average, and he's never leading a 100 win team, and he's leading only four pennant winners.

Mark S. (jsch) [not to be confused with Marc S]
Yeah, the Phillies from 2001-2006 may be one of the greatest 'what ifs' ever.

Evidently I've spent too much time following the Hall of Merit, and reading microfilm, for I'm not aware that the third millenium Phillies are a great what if. And one of my two baseball fanatical nephews is in Phillie territory --disappointed every September. But he likes going back to school now, more important.


Paul,
Sounds great...but how did he do on the quiz????

Several people did head for the exits after his (Steinberg's) talk, and he parlayed that into a tie for third behind yours truly, distant second behind frequent runaway winner Joe Benedetti. I did win honor (a first for me) by naming all five of the "four" Hall of Famers on the 1926 St Louis Cardinals. I guess you would have finished second or third, Eric. Next time is MLK Monday, Jan 15.

Hmmm... it appears I am in the minority about Palmer. I think he was quite over-rated.

Having said that, I still think he is an HoMer, but not a slam dunk and there are others not in who deserve to get in ahead of him.

He will still go in to my PHoM this year.

Prelim

PHoM: Morgan, Jenkins, Palmer

1. Joe Morgan
2. Fergie Jenkins
3. Jake Beckley
4. Edd Roush
5. George Van Haltren
6. Tommy Leach
7. Nellie Fox
8. Dobie Moore
9. Jimmy Wynn
10. Mickey Welch
11. Lou Brock
12. Quincy Trouppe
13. Norm Cash
14. Jim Palmer
15. Orlando Cepeda

16-20. Duffy, R.Smith, Rice, Singleton, Ryan
21-25. Boyer, Mullane, Willis, Johnson, Doyle
26-30. Bonds, Grimes, Streeter, Browning, McCormick

Dr C., your entire analysis falls flat on its face since you fail to correct for WS's inaccuracy in the 1890s, grossly overrating center fielders and underrating first basemen. We have now been discussing this point for nearly a "century" yet you persist in producing analyses that ignore it. Your overall point that not many pennant winners would have had Beckley as their best player is a fair one, but overstated. Your 22WS level is too low, it should be 25-26WS, at which level the point still holds largely true but less grossly so. I agree that if inducted Beckley would have had one of the lowest peaks of any HOM member; he would also have had one of the longest and most productive careers.