I have posted five new player threads for this election. After the HOF election ends, I'll post a few more. I don't want to post all of them now because they would push too many threads out of the Hot Topics section.

OCF - I read your comment regarding Reuschel so I ran him a little early . . . it's December of 1992 in our world right now (pre-1993 election) and he retired after 1991, so there's no harm done.

Reuschel does very well.

I get Reuschel barely ahead of Bunning, but behind Koufax and Walsh, which makes me think David has set his replacement level too low (most do that, IMO). He has Koufax way too low IMO.

But Reuschel was a very good pitcher - I get him at a 115 DRA+, his defensive support was pretty bad, and he spent his entire career in the NL (though much of it was in the expansion years).

His 1977 season was truly outstanding, just a smidge (8.7) below Bunning's 1966 (8.9). He was better than Carlton (7.7) and Niekro (7.2) that year, and he probably should have edged Seaver (8.4) and Sutter (8.4) for the Cy Young Award that year (they gave it to Carlton), but he finished 3rd.

1984, while he was recovering from his 1982 injury (still) was his only bad year in any significant time (92.3 IP).

A 115 DRA+, with 3745.3 translated IP is a very impressive career. His 1985 season was great in terms of rate (159 DRA+) even though it only worked out to 204.3 tIP.

He did pitch poorly in the post-season (2-3, 5.85 ERA, 7 starts) for whatever that's worth.

But overall I think he's an underappreciated gem. He was good from the minute he came into the league until the minute he left, and he lasted a pretty long time.

Outside of 1977, the peak is nothing special, but neither was Billy Pierce's. Overall I find him very similar to Pierce, but with about an extra season and a half of career value. I think I'll rank him pretty highly when the time comes.

BTW OCF, I have the greatest 19th century season as John Clarkson 1889 (I don't see how it's debatable, to be honest), I don't have Galvin's 1884 close. The league was very watered down that season.

Rusie's 1893-94 and Young's 1895 are the only seasons I have close to Clarkson 1889, but they aren't really that close.

I technically get Koufax's 1966 as a better pitching season than Carlton's 1972, but Carlton's hitting advantage makes it a better season overall.

But neither are better than Johnson's 1913, IMO, just to be clear . . .

BTW, as a comparison point, I get Reuschel's 1977 being basically equivalent to Guidry's 1978. 2.65 DRA, 262.3 tIP for one, 2.66/259.7 for the other.

The differences are basically championship quality defense vs. average defense (.20 advantage for Guidry), AL vs. NL (DH bumped up IP, AL was weaker league), and Wrigley Field vs. Yankee Stadium. Reuschel's run environment was 4.92, Guidry's 4.07. Rueschel's league was .03 worse than average (expansion year, but in the other league), Guidry's .12 (year after expansion, weaker league).

Reuschel gave up 23 more runs in 22 fewer innings, but that was entirely due to context. Pretty amazing.

Rose and Garvey on the same ballot. Heck, we can even throw ReggieBar and Crazy Lefty in there. What a great Christmas present! Oh, what fallen 70's icon should we vote for? I'm putting OJ on my ballot.

(In 1985, did anyone think that Reggie! would be more admired than Pete Rose, Steve Garvey and Steve Carlton combined by 2006?)

Yes, and Reggie! is not a fallen 70's icon. If anything, like Ted Williams, his image has been improved since his playing days.

Joe - I think a large fraction of your disagreement with David Gassko has to with the details of year-to-year league quality adjustiments. He's also got a list of the pitchers with the best defensive support (in order, Nichols, Keefe, Radbourn, Spalding, G. Bradley, M. Welch, Clarkson, Palmer, W. White, S. King) and the pitchers with the worst defensive support (in order, Bill Stearns, Galvin, W. Mercer, Wiedman, J. Coleman, K. Carsey, C. Patten, J. Whitney, Garver, Passeau). I think he's getting most of that from DER. Anyway, here is Gassko's list of the best 19th century years - the number is what Gassko calls pWAR:

1. Galvin, 1884, 18.9
2. Radbourn, 1884, 15.3
3. Buffinton, 1884, 14.3
4. Clarkson, 1889, 14.0
5. Keefe, 1883, 14.0
6. Hecker, 1884, 13.7
7. King, 1888, 13.2
8. Spalding, 1875, 12.7
9. Bond, 1879, 12.5
10. Devlin, 1877, 12.2

Hmm... way too many 1884's there. And no 1890's at all - what about Rusie '94?

And here's his 20th century list, with the note that he does explicitly timeline:

1. Carlton, 1972, 13.9
2. Johnson, 1913, 13.8
3. Clemens, 1997, 12.7
4. Alexander, 1920, 12.7
5. Mathewson, 1908, 12.7
6. Johnson, 1912, 12.5
7. Gibson, 1968, 12.5
8. Gooden, 1985, 12.3
9. Wood, 1971, 12.1
10. Martinez, 2000, 11.7

(No adjustment for season length, of course - how should one extrapolate Maddux, 1994?)

Now we are starting to see who really gets punished by the (imo) ridiculous boycott.

On my ballot, it is Carlton who gets squeezed out, when he would clearly be ahead of Grich. Overall, it'll be him or Niekro who get punished by the Rose boycott.

Prelim:

PHoM: Jackson, Niekro, Carlton

1. Pete Rose
2. Reggie Jackson
3. Phil Niekro
4. Steve Carlton
5. Jacke Beckley
6. Tony Perez
7. Nellie Fox
8. George Van Haltren
9. Rusty Staub
10. Edd Roush
11. Jimmy Wynn
12. Tommy Leach
13. Mickey Welch
14. Quincy Trouppe
15. Lou Brock

16-20. Duffy, Cash, Cepeda, R.Smith, Johnson
21-25. Cedeno, Redding, Ryan, Willis, Browning
26-30. Singleton, Bonds, Rice, Streeter, Grimes

Reggie gets bumped out of the top 3 on my ballot.

Is the AL really weaker during this period since it has 9 hitters for pitchers to throw against instead of 8? Is there any way that lopsided talent could make it harder tp pitchin the NL if there is one fewer 'real' hitter? I guess I just think that for pitcher's one should adjust for the overall quality of the hitting. Does it really make a difference if the NL had better pitchers and fielders?

I'm sure not gonna lose any sleep over a guy getting elected in 1994 versus 1993. We're gonna end up with exactly the same guys enshrined. It's not like Bobby Grich wouldn't have made it soon enough either. I dont' see "punished" as descriptive of what's happening.

200 WS just isn't the qualification it was; there are at least 6-7 above that level this year who are nowhere near even the bottom of the consideration set.

I dont' see "punished" as descriptive of what's happening.

Carlton is getting "punished" like Collins or Lloyd were in '34. That is, he's not. Anybody looking at the election recap will understand exactly what happened to him in '93 and will understand if he's not a first-year honoree, just as they will know why Rose got knocked off in '92 (BTW, I expect Neikro to be the odd-man-out, not Carlton).

200 WS just isn't the qualification it was; there are at least 6-7 above that level this year who are nowhere near even the bottom of the consideration set.

I agree, karlmagnus. It's been that way for a while. But making player threads for many of them still makes sense, IMO, so we can give everyone somewhere near our "line" for induction a reasonable analysis of their credentials. Davey Lopes comes to mind as someone who could use it, since he was age 27 when he made his debut.

200 WS just isn't the qualification it was; there are at least 6-7 above that level this year who are nowhere near even the bottom of the consideration set.

I agree. Back in the day, a man earned his 200 win shares by walking to the ballpark uphill in the snow, then fielded his position with a meathook and carrying an onion (that was the style at the time) while avoiding the clutches of a saber-tooth tiger (or SABR-tooth for this audience?) while the strains of "We love you, Tessie" were sung by a barbershop quartet in the background.

Now we are starting to see who really gets punished by the (imo) ridiculous boycott.

BTW, Rusty, that sounds fairly petulant. I respected your right not to boycott Rose. I wish you could do the same for us that did boycott him.

I agree. Back in the day, a man earned his 200 win shares by walking to the ballpark uphill in the snow, then fielded his position with a meathook and carrying an onion (that was the style at the time) while avoiding the clutches of a saber-tooth tiger (or SABR-tooth for this audience?) while the strains of "We love you, Tessie" were sung by a barbershop quartet in the background.

lol :-)

Sorry, it is clear that my point was not clear, so to speak. :)


The point I am making is that IF making Rose wait a year is punishment, then making Carlton (or whoever) wait a year because of Rose's boycott is also punishment.


It is not the choice to boycott that I disagree with (well, I do disagree with it, but I understand it), it is the one year wait in our rules. I believe that a one year delay is pointless. We should allow boycotts or not allow boycotts, not both. I understand John's argument that it stops him from being a first ballot HoMer...but that also means that it matters that one of this year's guys is also no longer going to be a first ballot HoMer.

(Of course none of this works if you think Grich would have gone in before any of this year's big 3, but I don't think that would have happened.)

I have Rose #13 on my 1993 ballot (same place as '92, with 2 off and 3 on above him). Follow me and he'll be the one pushed back to '94! 118 OPS+ doesn't do it, especially as there are several other small negatives.

preliminary look at the new guys:

1. Rose
2. Carlton- closer to Seaver than to Niekro imo
3. Jackson
4. Niekro

off-ballot:
Steve Garvey- currently 5th among first basemen, behind Cepeda, Beckley, Taylor and Perez and ahead of Hodges which means he most likely won't make my ballot any time soon
Ron Cey- also 5th but among third basemen; a real borderline case for me, he's ahead of all of the players that I think are obviously out, but he still trails several deserving players like Traynor, Leach and Elliott

I understand John's argument that it stops him from being a first ballot HoMer...but that also means that it matters that one of this year's guys is also no longer going to be a first ballot HoMer.

Well, whoever doesn't make it in '93 will go to the head of the class in '94 (Sutton, Simmons, Cruz, and Nettles are below the top four for this election, IMO), so that candidate's % of all possible points will be much higher (which probably wont happen for Rose, since the competition is tough this "year.")

I'll be honest and say that I kinda wished Rose had gone in in '92. I was hoping that The Hustler would sneak past Grich just barely enough with a low percentage of all possible points (relative to what he should have received) so I wouldn't have to vote for him.

"Is the AL really weaker during this period since it has 9 hitters for pitchers to throw against instead of 8? Is there any way that lopsided talent could make it harder tp pitchin the NL if there is one fewer 'real' hitter? I guess I just think that for pitcher's one should adjust for the overall quality of the hitting. Does it really make a difference if the NL had better pitchers and fielders?"

Mark it is when you use normalized stats. It took me awhile to get my head around this, but I think I've got it now.

First, since we are comparing pitchers to 'league average', it doesn't matter if there's a DH . . . if the DH causes more runs to be scored, then the baseline for all AL pitchers moves up. So the DH in and of itself, does nothing in terms of difficulty of league when comparing AL to NL.

The next thing is innings - in the AL it becomes easier (less valuable, more common, whatever) to throw as many innings because now you don't have to PH for the pitcher down 3-2 in the 7th inning. So AL pitcher's innings go up - you have to adjust for this if you are comparing across leagues. This isn't as big of an issue now, because most pitchers are out by the 7th inning anyway, in the AL or the NL. It was an issue in the 1970s and 1980s.

But it's very clear the NL was superior to the AL - for one the AL expanded and the NL didn't in 1977. This didn't 'wash out' entirely until about 1984.

But even before that, it's obvious the NL was the better league - BPro has done a lot of work comparing players across leagues and those numbers show the NL pitching to be superior (they break it out separately for pitching and hitting). The NL won every All-Star Game from 1972-82 (although WS games during that time are only 35-33 NL).

Now looking at the EQA numbers going from adjusted for season to adjusted for all-time - you see a definite bump in the AL starting in 1973, for hitters.

Take Reggie. In 1972, his EQA is .314, but when you adjust it for all-time, it gets knocked down to .308. That is very typical of the 1969-72 expansion period.

But in 1973, it goes the other way, from .326 to .332. So BPro is definitely adjusting for the DH.

Taking an NL guy from those years, Willie McCovey, you see that he goes from .269 to only .268. From 1969-71 he's only losing .002 to .004 on the 'all-time' adjustment. In 1973 this holds, he drops from .337-.334. The league is still somewhat below average because of the expansion by 20% just a few years earlier that hasn't washed out yet. But it's obvious that raw EQA does not adjust for the DH, while adjusted for all-time does - unless you think AL offense took a quantum leap forward in 1973 for some other reason.

The pitching adjustments show the same thing, the NL being better, but to a larger extent, and again they've already taken the DH into account.

I could be misinterpreting or missing something, if you see something I don't, I'd definitely be interested to hear it.

Prelim placement:

1. Carlton
2. Niekro
3. Jackson
4. ****
5. Welch
6. Jones
7. Keller
8. Troupe
9. Browning
10. Duffy
11. Walters
12. Leach
13. Cravath
14. Willis
15. Burns

Garvey - tied with Beckley among first basemen, about 35th - so not on the ballot
Cey - 25th-30th all time at third - so not on ballot
Lopes - 25th-30th all time at second - so not on ballot
Porter - 25th all time at catcher - so not quite on ballot

Joe,

Maybe I am just having trouble getting my head arond this as well, but...

Why does it matter what the level of pitching is? Seaver only competed against Carlton when one of the two was hitting, no? Shouldn't offense be the only factor here (defense as well but that effects the pitcher in the opposite way). If the offensive level of a league goes up because the DH is instituted I would think that it would then be harder to pitch in that league than it was before. This doesn't mean that the pitchers in the NL were worse, just that any adjustment that is giving credit to NL pitchers for being in a tougher league seems misplaced.

And wouldn't the DH cut back innings somewhat since there is now an extra hitter who has to be dealt with? Did average innings by starters fall after the DH was instituted?

CG's did jump in the AL between 1973-1976 while in the NL they actually dipped a bit. Things are complicated by the 1977 expansion but it looks like the AL's lead over the NL in CG's holds for quite a while after that.

And wouldn't the DH cut back innings somewhat since there is now an extra hitter who has to be dealt with? Did average innings by starters fall after the DH was instituted?

The average innings increased because managers no longer had to pull their starting pitcher for a PH when trailing even if the pitcher was doing well, but after a few years AL managers began to realize that strategically it was often better to replace a tired starter with a fresh reliever AND get a platoon advantage more often in the middle of innings as having the DH allowed them to actually carry MORE relievers and less PH/utility guys.

An unbelievable top 4 to play with this week. I could make a reasonable argument for any ordering, but I'm going to go with my gut and give the day to the pitchers.

1)Steve Carlton (PHOM)
2)Phil Niekro (PHOM)
3)Pete Rose (PHOM)
4)Reggie Jackson (PHOM)
5)Hugh Duffy (PHOM)
6)Ben Taylor (PHOM)
7)Gavvy Cravath (PHOM)
8)Lefty Gomez(PHOM)
9)Edd Roush (PHOM)
10)Nellie Fox (PHOM)
11)Quincy Trouppe (PHOM)
((11a)Bobby Grich))
12)Tommy Bridges (PHOM)
13)Vern Stephens (PHOM)
((13a)Bill Freehan))
((13b)Biz Mackey ))
14)Bobby Veach
((14a)Willie Stargell ))
15)Orlando Cepeda
((15a)Ken Boyer))

The next group
16)Al Oliver
17)Wally Berger
18)Dizzy Dean
((18a)Juan Marichal))
19)Bus Clarkson
20)Ernie Lombardi
21)Roger Bresnahan
22)Al Rosen
23)Mickey Welch
((23a)Jim Bunning))
((23b)Billy Pierce))
24)Sparky Lyle
25)Dick Redding (PHOM)
26)Chuck Klein
27)Tony Oliva
28)Charley Jones
29)Ron Cey
30)Reggie Smith

Revised prelim

My HoF ballot showed me that I'm not valuing offense from SS/2B highly enough so I've bumped it up slightly.

1) Rose
2) Niekro
3) Carlton
4) Reggie Jackson
5) Bob Johnson
6) Luis Tiant
7) Norm Cash
8) Quincy Trouppe
9) Jake Beckley
10) Rusty Staub
11) Reggie Smith
12) Tony Perez
13) Tommy Bridges
14) Bus Clarkson
15) Virgil Trucks
16-20) Cravath, Wynn, Ron Cey, Cepeda, Roush
21-25) Keller, Leonard, Bancroft, Elliott, Evers
26-30) Quinn, Easter, Redding, Willis, Shocker
31-35) Koosman, Frank Howard, Bobby Bonds, Hilton Smith, Lazzeri
36-40) Oms, Trout, Ben Taylor, Singleton, Boog Powell

Preliminary Ballot:

The top 4 are pretty close together, all have at least 300 WS, which is the ceiling of my production category, all played 20 seasons, which gets my max points for career length, and all have enough ink to get top points for league dominance. None have a great peak or a great glove, though, so then things get tricky. Carlton has the best peak (barely) and so he goes to #1.

1. Steve Carlton--Lefty's no Tom Seaver, but he's good enough to head up this group.

2. Phil Niekro
3. Reggie Jackson--Mr. October's goose egg in the fielding category puts Niekro ahead of him.

4. Pete Rose--Rose had the lowest peak value of the four, so he goes here.

5. Burleigh Grimes
6. Orlando Cepeda
7. Jake Beckley
8. Charley Jones
9. Dick Redding
10. Edd Roush
11. Quincy Trouppe--order unchanged from '92

12. Steve Garvey--This year's surprise. Garvey is very similar to Cepeda, who my system really likes.
13. Pete Browning
14. Alejandro Oms
15. Nellie Fox

Next 5: Perez, Fingers, Reggie Smith, Foster, Kaat

Other newcomers:
23. Cecil Cooper--ahead of Mickey Vernon, very surprising
57. Ron Cey--ahead of Bob Elliott and Sal Bando
NR. Hal McRae--below the Dizzy Dean line

If the offensive level of a league goes up because the DH is instituted I would think that it would then be harder to pitch in that league than it was before.

Depends on what you mean by "harder".

Physically? Yes. Not getting to pitch to a batter that was substantially sub-replacement every 9 batters adds a little bit more stress.

Statistically? No. All AL pitchers were impacted in a similar way. Their actual ERAs went up, but this does not affect normalized stats such as ERA+ or the uberstats. 20% better than average was still 20% better than average.

What Joe is referring to is the measured difference between "average" in the two leagues. The NL had an edge in aggregate pitching talent before the DH was instituted, and that continued afterwards. An average NL pitcher would tend to perform somewhat above average in the AL after being traded, and an average AL pitcher would tend to perform somewhat below NL average after being traded.

This did not hold true for hitters though. The AL became a more difficult league to distinguish oneself as a hitter, due to the DH. All of those pitcher PA's, and deep bench PH PA's by the utility fielders, were replaced by PAs by replacement level bats. These were not .230 EQA hitters at the MLB batting replacement level, but approx .260 EQA hitters at the hitting replacement level for corner OF's and 1b-men. So the offensive center moved up in the AL. Another way to look at it was the run context increased, but it was not accompanied by a general increase in individual performances. Players in the AL hit just like they did before the DH, but that same level of offense was arguably not as valuable, as reflected in Win Shares.

This affected the measured difference between "average" in the two leagues. The NL had also had an edge in aggregate batting talent before the DH was instituted. An average NL batter would tend to perform somewhat above average in the AL after being traded, and an average AL batter would tend to perform somewhat below NL average after being traded. This flip-flopped after the DH was instituted because of the substitution of average PA's for pitcher PA's in the AL. It was now more difficult to be an average hitter in the AL due to the PA's by the DH's.

This DH effect does not impact OPS+ from baseball-reference.com because they remove pitcher PA's from the league averages for these calculations; it does impact OPS+ from Total Baseball and EQA from Baseball Prospectus. For other sources, read the fine print.

Mr. October's goose egg in the fielding category puts Niekro ahead of him.

Reggie played a bit in CF when he was in Oakland. Was he a bad fielder in his twenties?

This DH effect does not impact OPS+ from baseball-reference.com because they remove pitcher PA's from the league averages for these calculations

On second thought, this isn't true. If the average DH hits above league average, then the DH is raising the league average by some amount, which makes it more difficult to hit for an outstanding OPS+ in a DH league.

Was he a bad fielder in his twenties?

He was something like Strawberry (though Straw was much better, IMO) in that they were both good fielders, but they would make misplays that you had to shake your head over when you considered their athleticism and talent.

DL - if you are rethinking your stance on MIF offense, where do you place Vern Stephens?

jwinfrey - Steve Carlton didn't have a great peak??? Did you forget to input 1972 and 1980 into your spreadsheet?

Trivia:

At least 41 HOMers were active (min. 10 G) every year from 1924-37, peaking at 47 HOMers playing in 1926. We have 43 to 47 HOMers each year from 1925-33 (except 42 in 1930).

The high in the 1950s so far is 33 HOMers in 1956.

1960s totals so far - 31/32/33/35/33/31/31/29/27/26

The late 1960s still are electing a few first-time eligibles, and thus are about to gain on the early 1960s.

1926 HOMers (part-timers with asterisk):
NL (12) - Wheat, Alexander, Carey, Groh*, Rixey, Hornsby, Frisch, Vance, Hartnett, Terry, Waner, Ott*
AL (20) - Cobb, ECollins, WJohnson, Speaker, Faber, Ruth, Sisler, Heilmann, Covaleski, Goslin, Sewell, Gehrig, Simmons, Lyons, Cochrane, Grove, Foxx*, Ruffing, Gehringer, Cronin*
NeL (15) - Lloyd, SJWilliams, Torriente, Charleston, Rogan, Beckwith, Mackey, Moore*, JWilson, CPBell, Stearnes, BFoster, Suttles, Wells, Dihigo

1956 HOMers (part-timers with asterisk):
NL (19) - Reese, Musial, Spahn, JRobinson, Snider, Campanella, Ashburn, Roberts, Irvin, Mays, Mathews, Wilhelm, Banks, Aaron, Koufax*, Clemente, Boyer, Drysdale*, FRobinson
AL (14) - Feller*, TWilliams, Wynn, Lemon, Doby, Berra, Pierce, Ford, Mantle, Minoso, Kaline, Slaughter, Bunning*, Killebrew*, BRobinson*

oops, forgot to add Seaver, so 1960s are: 1960s totals so far - 31/32/33/35/33/31/31/30/28/27

Vern Stephens moved up. I don't have the spreadsheet on this computer but he moved from way off ballot to moderately off ballot. I still like Bancroft best among the backlog infielders. I may still be too low but I haven't had time to ripple the change through my all-time rankings before I iterate.

Had Midterms, Finals and a boatload of other stuff, but I'm back to vote.

Quick, off-the-cuff Top 15

Pete Rose
Reggie Jackson
Phil Niekro
Steve Carlton
Charlie Keller

Rollie Fingers
Quincy Trouppe
Alejandro Oms
Luis Tiant
Ken Singleton

Jimmy Wynn
Edd Roush
Tommy Leach
Dick Redding
Hugh Duffy

Eric:

Thanks for the interesting post on Lopes in #8. Who knows why we like the players we like when we are playing in little league, but Lopes was my favorite. I played 2b, hit leadoff, and tried to emulate his batting stance. I was a little too young to attempt the mustache. :)

Preliminary placement of the top 4:

1) Rose
2) Carlton
3) Niekro
4) Reggie

By now, I'm pretty sure Mr. October will be #4, and I will have Carlton over Niekro. The two pitcher are really close to each other, though, so Rose will probably be either above them or below them.

Maybe it's me. I saw Reggie Jackson. And of course, I'm a bit of a peak voter. And I saw Reggie Jackson play. But it's not like I'm an A's or Yankees fan, and in fact I was never much of a Reggie fan. I was more of a Thurman Munson fan. Thurman was the guy who stirred the drink, if you're talkin' about winning games on the field. If you're talking getting your name in the headlines, well, yeah, Reggie stirred that drink.

But, seriously, I saw Reggie play. Every bit as good as Yaz, maybe better. Not a long, sure. He'll be #1 on my ballot. Yes, it's very very close between him and Pete. And, wow, is Niekro ever a better candidate than I thought. And everybody knows about Lefty. There was only one 1972, but for a peak voter, that was one hell of a year.

Great great class, especially with Pete slipping back. It would be a killer group with Grich (1. Reggie, 2. Carlton, 3. Niekro, 4. Grich). But as it is, it's 1. Reggie, 2. Pete, 3. Lefty, 4. Knucksie. I saw Reggie play. Larger than life. No mere rich man's Jim Rice. Awesome. The Mark McGwire of his day, for whatever that's worth (I'll have McGwire #2 on my 2007 HoF ballot, behind Ripken but ahead of Gwynn. I like seeing the ball disappear over the fence.) I am pretty sure Reggie will be elected, and #4 on this ballot is no disgrace--not for any of these 4 guys, and all of them will get their share of #4s--it's just that so far I'm seeing Reggie getting more than his share. You underestimate the player. In the early '70s it was Rodney and Reggie--Reggie and Rodney--in the AL. #1 or maybe #2 in the AL for a whole decade is where I see him. Carlton and Niekro weren't even the #2 pitcher in the NL.

My top 4:

Rose, Reggie, Carlton, Niekro. Reggie is closer to Rose than I thought he would be. It'll be too bad for whomever goes unelected for another year, as they are all four top quartile players. It'll be interesting to see how many people other than these four crack the top 4 of any ballot. karlmagnus' 13th placing of Rose may make the difference again this year.

71 1957 Chuck Connors-1B/Actor

I always thought he was a damn good actor. Even in cheesy horror movies from the Seventies, he was still fun to watch.

I just re-read an article by Tom Ruane in the 2004 Baseball Research Journal. In it he identified the players who hit the best and worst with runners in scoring position bewteen 1960 and 2004. One of the guys on the "worst" list was Reggie Smith. In a little over 1800 ABs, Reggie had an OPS of about 120 pts lower than his non-RISP OPS. Use that info for what it's worth.

When do we start the election for '93?

Hopefully 8th not 15th; do we really need ANOTHER week of pure discussion of these guys, who will have been on the board for a month by then.

We're going to handle it like last year, so it will be the 15th. No, we really don't need more discussion for '93, but we will have the '94 thread up and running on Monday for discussion for that upcoming election. Besides, I need the break between elections. :-)

>One of the guys on the "worst" list was Reggie Smith

And just to clarify, tomH, you do mean Reggie Smith? Because we have been discussing the other Reggie, I wanted to be sure.

Yes, R Smith, not the candy bar guy.
It's a small thing, but when you are begging to get past OFers Bonds and Wynn and Oms to make my ballot, bumping him 5 to 8 places spells eternal limbo for Reggie.

Rose, Carlton, Jackson, Niekro all obvious inductees. Too bad for Niekro, I’d love to put him #1 most years.

Cey #12, Porter #52, Burleson #100. Garvey, Lopes, Smalley not in top 100 but good careers. Madlock, Cooper, and DeCinces memorable too. How the !@#$ did Matthews collect 257 Win Shares?

Obviously I like power-hitting third basemen, probably it's all those years as a Mets fan. At least I learned how painful it is to have a replacement level third baseman, we had a lot of those.

1) Rose--I’m not a boycotter in general, though he makes my skin crawl. As a player he’s got both career and peak. He’s a hitter who played a lot at premium defensive positions.
2) Carlton
3) Jackson
4) Niekro
5) Bob Johnson-- WinShares says C fielder, warp thinks he’s considerably better than that. Very high assist totals from LF. Played CF for a terrible 1938 A’s team, also a little bit of 2B and 3B. On the whole I think the record indicates that he was actually a good defensive player. I also suspect that his WinShares suffer from playing on some horrible teams. May have struggled trying to get a break, tough to grab playing time on the great A’s teams earlier in his career. Never did anything but mash despite late ML start at age 27. 1934-1942 is a HoM worth prime in my view. PHoM in 1970.
6) Fox--The man had 2663 hits (#61 all time) and was a great fielder. A 94 OPS+ is strong for a grade A second baseman, compare Mazeroski at 84. 1957 and 1959 are great peak seasons (11.8 and 9.8 warp3). 1951-1960 is a high sustained prime. PHoM in 1970.
7) Rizzuto--The man lost his age 25, 26, and 27 seasons to the war, right after a very good season in 1942. One of the best fielding shortstops of all time. A 93 career OPS+ is strong for a grade A shortstop, not weak. Great peak season in 1950 (11.4 warp3). PHoM 1977.
8) KellerThere’s no doubt he was one of the great hitters when healthy, 152 career OPS+ is #28 all time. An MVP type season every year from 1940-46 when not at war. That’s enough prime for me, even without longevity. PHoM 1985.
9) PerezInteresting, most people like his career, but wait a minute…he was playing third base from 1967-1971…there’s a peak there.
10) Stephens-- PHoM in 1961. Looks underrated to me. Best years by Warp3 10.2, 10.1, 8.9, 8.5, 8.0, 7.8. Another player short on career length, but I like the prime.
11) Bobby Bonds--PHoM 1986. 1969 -75, 77 are all very good to MVP candidate seasons. Career 130 OPS+ plus good speed, a good enough fielder to play some CF. Is only lacking longevity.
12) Cey
13) Elliott--PHoM in 1960. The hitting for a 3B in his era is outstanding. Best years by warp3: 10.9, 9.4, 9.2, 8.7, 7.7, 7.3, 7.0. Strong prime trumps an early decline in my view.
14) Jimmy Wynn--PHoM 1987. In 1965 had a MVP type season completely obscured by the Astrodome and era. Best years were not consecutive but impressive: 11.0, 10.3, 9.8, 9.5, 9.0, 8.1, 7.4 by warp3.
15) Munson--PHoM 1991. I like Munson more than Freehan because of the peak. 1970, 73 and 75-77 were big seasons for a catcher.
16) FingersERA+ not impressive, but by other measures better.
17) TrouppePHoM 1988.
18) Dick Redding--PHoM 1985.

In the spirit of the new regime (new schedule, the clamor for prelims), here is my prelim. I usually post a top 30 on the ballot thread, here it is the full consideration set which has now (just this year) jumped from 100 to 125. Sorry. Major renovations this year, mostly to keep peak value in the mix at an "appropriate" level (i.e. what I consider appropriate), but other considerations also entered in.

1993 (elect 3)

Rose boycott over.

1. Reggie Jackson (new, PHoM 1993)—no, Reggie is somewhat underestimated due to a) boastful personality which many people resented, b) low batting average and c) the career-long bashing he took for a and b.

2. Steve Carlton (new, PHoM 1993)—great peak pitcher. Among ‘70s-centered careers, only Seaver is in the neighborhood. (On career, of course, there are others, but for peak, no.)

3. Pete Rose (x [boycott], PHoM 1993)—his peak is somewhat underestimated, occasionally by me, but this is one hell of a class here, whether you’re a peak or career guy. If I were more career-oriented, yes, Pete would probably have to be #1.

4. Phil Niekro (new)—well, yes, I’m peak-oriented but I don’t ignore careers and Niekro’s career beats the rest of the peaks. Another player that I’ve underestimated previous to now (IOW, he was no Don Sutton).

5. Pete Browning (7-7-7, PHoM 1961)—with AA discount. Not a short career by standards of the time.

6. Edd Roush (6-10-5, PHoM 1976)—nice peak of 38*-33-30 (*short WWI season adjusted to 154), very well-rounded skills.

7. Nellie Fox (4-4-9, PHoM 1971)—one of the most valuable <100 OPS+ players ever; yes, clearly better than Bancroft, Rizzuto et al

8. Charlie Keller (9-8-11, PHoM 1985)—“So, are you a peak voter or not?” “Yes, I am” “So, why the hell aren’t you supporting Charlie Keller?” “Well, I am, now, finally”

9. Rollie Fingers (3-3-new, PHoM 1991)—there’s no uber-stat that says Fingers is ballot-worthy, but I go back to Chris Cobb’s old test—who do you want in the HoM? And on that simple basis, subjective as it is, I want the #3 reliever of all-time in our knowledge base through 1991.

10. Addie Joss (6-6-8, PHoM 1967)—best ERA+ available with a real career’s worth of IP.

11. Dizzy Dean (23-23-26)—moves up, I had emphasized ERA+ a little too much, everything else points to Diz as a great one.

12. Elston Howard (15-15-22)—moves up due to catcher shortage/bonus, plus the fact that his opportunities were incredibly constrained by integration era “stuff,” Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel etc., a Jackie Robinson type of talent.

13. Tommy Bond (12-12-20, PHoM 1929)—great peak, had to bring him back.

14. Ed Williamson (11-13-17, PHoM 1924)—the more I look at the other candidates, the more flaws I see; the more I look at Ed, the more complete of a resume he has.

15. Orlando Cepeda (13-9-12, PHoM 1987)—pretty interchangeable with F. Howard, Cravath and (now) Tony Perez.

Drops Out

16. Larry Doyle (5-5-6, PHoM 1975)—same OPS+ as Edd Roush, but drops.
17. Reggie Smith (10-11-14, PHoM 1988)—still underrated, but drops.
21. Gavvy Cravath (14-14-15)—in that Cepeda, Howard, Perez group, and drops.

Close—i.e. right around in/out line, as I think we will elect another dozen backloggers before we’re done

18. Tony Perez (new)—slots right into the Cepeda, Cravath, F. Howard group whose value is mostly hitting, though Doggie obviously has the most defensive value of the four.

19. Thurman Munson (26-26-38)—continues moving up, comparable to Elston Howard in many ways.

20. Don Newcombe (22-21-18)—lost more opportunity (to military, integration-era “stuff”) than just about anybody. Like Diz, his ERA+ is the only thing that is not stellar.

21. Cravath
22. Phil Rizzuto (17-17-13)
(22a. Ken Boyer [22b-22-29])
23. Dick Lundy (28-27-19)
24. Chuck Klein (24-24-40)
25. Bucky Walters (20-19-25)
26. Dick Redding (25-25-21, PHoM 1971)

HoVG

27. Frank Howard (19-18-16)
28. Eddie Cicotte (29-28-24)
(28a. Jim Bunning [37a-36a-34a])
(28b. Joe Sewell [21a-20a-19a]—no Bobby Doerr)
29. Tommy Leach (48-47-54)
30. Charley Jones (16-16-10, PHoM 1921)
(30a. Willie Keeler [22a-21a-22a])

31. Norm Cash (21-20-30)
32. Cesar Cedeno (27-new)—very likely to get underrated
(32a. Ezra Sutton [35a-34a-49a])
33. Vern Stephens (31-30-33)
34. Jim McCormick (35-34-51)
35. Mickey Welch (41-40-66)
36. Roger Bresnahan (38-37-34)
37. Al Rosen (40-39-37)
38. Dave Bancroft (30-29-28)
39. Hack Wilson (34-33-47)
40. Wally Berger (47-46-50)

41. Luis Aparicio (64-64-97)
42. Hugh Duffy (36-35-43)
43. Hilton Smith (42-41-36)
44. Marvin Williams (43-42-32)
45. Pie Traynor (46-45-45)
46. Lefty Gomez (61-62-52)
47. Bobby Estalella (33-32-31)
48. Jake Beckley (55-55-39)
49. Sal Bando (60-61-53)
50. Tony Oliva (32-31-55)

51. Bobby Bonds (45-44-41)
52. Jim Wynn (37-36-23)
53. Alejandro Oms (39-38-35)
54. Quincy Trouppe (52-52-44)
(54a. Jimmy Sheckard [51a-51a-58a])
(54b. Wes Ferrell [58a-59a-39a])
55. Rocky Colavito (53-53-49)
56. Vic Willis (44-43-27)
57. Lou Brock (49-49-63)
58. Fred Dunlap (56-56-61)
59. Tony Mullane (65-65-77)
60. Luke Easter (54-54-46)
(60a. Early Wynn [48a-48a-52a)

61. Bob Elliott (58-58-59)
62. John Clapp (50-50-84)
63. Bill Monroe (51-51-42)
64. Bob Johnson (57-57-57)
65. George Van Haltren (59-60-58)
(65a. Joe Kelley [61a-61a-62a])
(65b. Biz Mackey [61b-61b-61b])
66. Bus Clarkson (62-62-48)
67. Joe Tinker (73-73-73)
68. Johnny Evers (74-74-74)
69. Frank Chance (75-75-75)
70. Burleigh Grimes (67-67-79)

71. Rusty Staub (63-66-new)
72. Ken Singleton (69-71-56)
73. Gene Tenace (71-77-68)
74. Mike Tiernan (68-68-64)
75. Ben Taylor (70-70-62)
76. Johnny Pesky (83-85-87)
(76a. Cool Papa Bell [85a-85a-68a])
(76b. Billy Pierce (62a-62a-43a)
77. John McGraw (88-88-65)
78. George Burns (66-69-85)
79. Kiki Cuyler (72-72-91)
80. Bobby Veach (79-79-92)

81. Vada Pinson (76-76-80)
82. Ron Cey (new)
83. Bert Campaneris (77-83-67)
84. Dolf Luque (87-87-73)
85. Luis Tiant (80-80-60)
86. Rabbit Maranville (81-81-83)
87. Al Oliver (78-78-new)
(87a. Pete Hill [78a-78a-87a])
88. Jim Fregosi (85-94-86)
89. Ernie Lombardi (86-86-95)
90. Jimmy Ryan (91-91-88)

91. George Scales (92-92-69)
92. Carl Mays (89-89-94)
93. Tommy Bridges (90-90-78)
94. Amos Otis (82-82-71)
95. Mickey Vernon (84-84-96)
96. Urban Shocker (93-93-70)
97. Artie Wilson (98-99-90)
98. Jim Kaat (99-100-81)
99. Silvio Garcia (94-95-89)
100. Andy Cooper (95-96-82)

Honorable Mention, representing the borderline of the HoVG even

Pancho Coimbre (96-97-72)
Gil Hodges (97-98-98)
Bill Byrd (100-HM-93)
Steve Garvey (new)
Toby Harrah (HM-new)
Silver King (HM-HM-HM)
Jim Whitney (HM-HM-HM)
Denny Lyons (HM-HM-HM)
Tony Lazzeri (HM-HM-HM)
Red Schoendienst (HM-HM-HM)
Sol White (HM-HM-HM)
Wilbur Cooper (HM-HM-HM)
Jake Fournier (HM-HM-HM)
Spot Poles (HM-HM-HM)
Dave Orr
Sparky Lyle
Ellis Kinder
Wally Schang
Bobby Murcer
Lon Warneke
Virgil Trucks
Catfish Hunter
Mickey Lolich

A pre-prelim:

1. Carlton
2. Niekro
3. Jackson
4. Rose
5-15. Backlog (see previous ballots).

Cey slots in behind Elliott and Bando, which means while he may be top-30, he won't be top-15.

I'm actually a little inconsistent on the peak/career scale - I lean a little peakier for position players (hence Jackson over Rose) and more career-ish for pitchers (hence the very high ratings for Carlton and Niekro.)

I guess you and I cancel out, OCF. I go a little more peak/prime on pitchers than bats, owing to the desire to win a World Series and the increased importance of ace pitchers in the playoffs.

I totally overhauled my system, finally. I'm now 100% over to the Keltner-based system, no more interval-based system. Negro Leaguers aren't yet in my system, but I'm doing the leg work to get them in. It'll be a long process because I'm trying to hone some of the information I've used in the past to create better projections for Mexico and other places (like getting super rudimentary PFs for MxL teams.) But that's very much in the distance at this juncture.

Since I've started over, resulting in possible changes to my ballot, I've decided a prelim would be a very smart idea. Feedback is always appreciated.

1993 Prelim
Rank : Name : Un(mentally)adjusted Rank at Position : Keltner Points*
(*Points for pitchers aren't exactly the same as for hitters, so I'm guesstimating them; also to even off the pitcher and hitter rankings, I just divide pitchers rankings by three.)

1. Reggie Jackson (t-4th) 66pts: About as good a case as Paul Waner, though the value is much differently accumulated.

2. Phil Niekro (t~4th) 67 pts
3. Steve Carlton (t~4th) 67 pts
The difference between Knucksie and Lefty? Not much. They are nearly the same guy. Niekro had one more year where he was a top CYA finisher, but Carlton has other markers on his favor, esp his 1972 year for the ages. My system says take Phil's career value, and I'm OK with that. Anyone ever seen a lefty knuckleballer?

4. Pete Rose (~5.5th combined) 60 pts: Great career, with goodly amounts of peak too. Because he switched positions so often he misses out on a wee bit of credit from my system for positional dominance, but it wouldn't be enough to push him over the hurlers.

5. Quincy Trouppe (high, around Ted Simmons) ?? pts: Trouppe’s the best catcher available. We’re beginning to find more consensus on this guy, and I hope he’s inducted before 2007. His case seems pretty damned solid to me, and while he’s missing documentation of several years at the beginning of his career, we know that
a) he was playing
b) he was good

So what’s the issue? How’s it different than, say war credit? Not too much different. See my comments in the New Eligibles thread (around #865) for more details.

6. Edd Roush (t10th) 43 pts: He and Duffy score the same in this system, and they are right in the middle of the HOM-level pack of CFs. This rating only includes holdout credit tangentially as a tie-breaker between Edd and Hugh.

7. Hugh Duffy (t10th) 43 pts: Lots of All-Star and MVP type seasons, a good run as his league's best position player, plenty of adjusted career value. He'd be a solid selection.

8. Wilbur Cooper (10th) ~45 pts: Dominant NL portsider of the late 1910s-early 1920s. This guy was in the (retroactive) Cy Young chase every single year for a good long while in the late teens and early 1920s, battling Old Pete, Hippo, and Dolf for several years. I like pitchers who show dominance for a good stretch, and he’s one.

9. Larry Doyle (11th) 39 pts: Dominant 2B of the NL of the 1910s, good peak/prime, and an argument for having been the best player in the NL for a brief time.

10. Tommy Leach (11th combo CF and 3B) 38 pts: Pick your poison. As a CF, he’s not got enough peak to get on the ballot. But as a 3B, he’s a fabulous career candidate with enough at the top end to be among the top dozen 3Bs. Splitting it down the middle, he’s a 3B/CF hybrid with outstanding seasons at both positions, a nice, long career, and enough peak/prime to emerge as a downballot candidate.

11. Ken Singleton (12th) 42 pts: He’s the best player in the AL of the very late 1970s, and a good long while best RF in the AL. And while he might not have much defensive value, he’s doing a great job of walking and hitting with power, lots of SEC. Plenty of All-Star and MVP type seasons. I’m becoming more comfortable with the conclusions of my Keltner-based system, and this vote is reflective of that.

12. Sal Bando (11th) 35 pts: There’s evidence on all sides here. Some evidence suggests that Bando is obviously inferior to Boyer and maybe to Elliott. Some of that evidence, however, is based in WARP, and given some of the discussion going on lately about it, I’m really down on it as a useful information source, and we already know it has issues with replacement for fielding that may or may not skew its findings. And anyway, is FRAA bulletproof either? I don’t know. Of course other evidence doesn’t include the DH factor.

But there’s very strong evidence in Bando’s favor compared to those other guys. Namely that he, unlike they, was at some point arguably the best player in his league (early 70s), and that he dominated his position for a long period of time. Now we often reflect on the fact that the AL before and somewhat during Bando was a wasteland for 3B, but that misses the point that

a) the same is true for Brooks, who easily won election with a weaker peak/prime
b) the same would be true for other pet 3B candidates like Pie Traynor
c) the same is true for Elliott whose main competition was the very good but not durable Whitey
Kurowski, the good not great P.H. Jones, the WW2 portion of Stan Hack’s career, and a sliver of Eddie Mathews
d) there’s room for all of them.

Now, I’ll grant, I’m a WS voter. Boyer and Bando look very similar, but WS sees what I see: more dominance at the peak end for Bando. So that’s where my vote is going.

13. Bucky Walters (12th) ~41 pts: You know the story---I like pitcher peaks, and he's got one, even when dampened for the war.

14. Pete Browning (12th) 38 pts: Fabulous hitter. True he benefited from weak competition in the early AA, but also true that he hit great in the PL and early 90s NL. I’m comfortable that he was a sufficiently good enough hitter to have a ballot spot near the other CFs, and even after adjusting his stats to reflect QoP, this system likes him a lot. A little less than before, but a lot nonetheless.

15. Charley Jones (?) 28 pts: I figured with all kinds of adjustments and stuff that Charley would bound up my rankings. He didn't. He's just below the "in" line. But the missed time is likely disruptive enough to Jones's evaluation in my system that it is creating a ranking that is simply too low. That's why we draw up ballots because there is subjective stuff that's important to comparing players to one another. I believe he's a HOMer, but I can't go off all half-cocked and stick him at number 6 when my system has him well off the ballot. Othwerise, why have a system? This placement is designed to support him but to give me more time to think about how much support he merits in the crowded LF backlog, viz how badly the system is being fooled by the missing time.

16. Herman Long (12th) 36 pts: Here's the shocker, and it kind of makes me wonder about this system. But then every system has guys you wonder about. Still, Keltner has some good reasons to like him:
-His career includes a three-year stretch as the best position player in his league
-He had four three-year stretches as the best player in his league at his position
-His adjusted career value is a little low, but better than some HOMers at his position.
-He had five All-Star level years (per WS) and three top-five (or equiv) MVP finishes
-He played at a pretty good level after his prime.

It's not one thing, it's many things. Vern Stephens has some of those markers, but not as many as Long. Dave Bancroft has some of those markers, but not all, Rabbit has some markers, but not all. Long has them all. And Long isn't at the bottom of the list either. My system is seeing Glasscock, Jennings, Sewell, Wallace, and Boudreau below him, so he's part of the group, not its rearguard.

I must be missing something, or the system is.


In case anyone wants to know...Beckley scores 23 in this system, which places him 23rd at 1B. That's better than under the old system where he wound up around 40th. Overall, he's in the Billboard 1993 HOM Hot 100, but he's in the area occupied by Joey Lawrence, not by Janet, Mariah, and Whitney. (http://www.cylist.com/List/400300056/)

Since everyone else is doing it, and it seems like a good precedent, especially now that we have all this extra time...

1993 prelim:

1. Reggie Jackson (pHOM 1993). Among the first megastars of the game I was aware of when he was playing—one of my earliest baseball memories is watching the 3-HR WS game in '77 (on TV). I thought I knew all about him, but I was floored by his consistency--just year after year of solidly above average offensive production. I think that's what elevates him above the other three here. Of course, I've flipped him and Carlton about five times now, so this could still change before the actual ballot.

2. Steve Carlton (1993). I remember him as far more dominant--or consistently dominant, anyway--than he was; there are quite a few clunker years in there. I'd always thought of him as the NL's second-best pitcher after Seaver in his period (and the best once Seaver started to decline), which certainly does not seem to have been the case. And some of that is due to the chronic underrating of Niekro. And yet, I still put Carlton ahead--why? Well, after all is said and done, Niekro and Carlton, as many have pointed out, look awfully similar. My tiebreaker will always be peak when that happens, and I think Carlton's is a notch better.

3. Phil Niekro (1993). Clearly he was underrated because he didn't "challenge" hitters--no Cy Youngs is just absurd--but even I had no idea by how much. He's got an excellent peak, and his innings-eating capacity made him uniquely valuable to his teams. Much more of a no-brainer HOFer than I ever realized. Perhaps a very slight demerit for the passed balls/unearned runs quotient, but right now I'm not thinking it's enough to get Rose by him.

4. Pete Rose (1992). He, too, had a better peak than I'd realized--what's with all these supposed career candidates with strong peaks lately? A great player, all else aside, and an easy choice. I just like the other three guys a bit better at present....

5. Dizzy Dean (1967). Sure, it’s a really short peak (which is why he’s not even higher), but he was inarguably dominant during it. It’s just long enough for me.

6. Charlie Keller (1973). First the ultimate peakster pitcher, then the ultimate peakster hitter. With even fairly conservative war credit, he’s very close to Kiner.

7. Ed Williamson (1931). Another lost cause, but still the best of the backlog 3Bs, for my taste.

[7a. Bobby Grich. Still next in line for my pHOM.]

8. Eddie Cicotte (1972). Clear enough dominance for long enough, in my book. (I am fully counting his 1919 and 1920 stats.) Demoted slightly--I felt I was wrong to have him about Williamson and Grich.

9. Vic Willis (1961). Not the most dominant pitcher of his era, perhaps, but he was in the mix—and his peak is still excellent.

10. Elston Howard (1976). The various extenuating circumstances of his career can’t hide the great (if short) peak.

11. Al Rosen (1968). Another very short peak, but five great years, especially at this position, are enough for me.

12. Pete Browning (1979). An offensive force, if not as much of one as the insane AA numbers make it appear. His non-AA years prove that he wasn’t just a soft-league fluke.

13. Quincy Trouppe (1967). Another player for whom the record is lost in the haze of the leagues he played in, but he appears to me to have been among the worthy catchers we've seen.

14. Gavvy Cravath (1985). Every time I reevaluate outfielders, he does a little better. Now I can’t believe he hasn’t been here all along.

15. Luis Tiant (1991). No, he wasn't Carlton/Niekro/Perry/Jenkins--too inconsistent, not good enough long enough--but he packed enough brilliance into several years to get my vote.

When does the voting begin?

Eric C -
In your Keltner-based system, which measures are you using? I ask because of Hugh Duffy, who
a) does real well in Win Shares, and
b) has some great stats artifically inflated by both the time period (LOTS of runs!) and also his park; the Beaneaters home field in the early to mid-1890s was ALWAYS a good place for hitters.

So, when you say Duffy had lots of All-Star and MVP type seasons... well, using OPS+, Duffy finished in the top 10 only TWICE in his whole career. Even his 1894, which truly was a great year, he STILL didn't lead the league (Bill Joyce, puting up similar ##s in a neutral park, was a squeak better per AB) so it's not as dominant as it first appears. He only had two seasons with an EqA of over .300 (and that is unadajusted; using the league-strength-adjusted WARP2, he only had one!).

Hugh Duffy looks to me like Fred Lynn. Maybe a little faster, a little less power, a few less injuries, similar peak of a few very fine seasons. I understand those who use Win Shares voting for him, particularly those peak/prime voters, but for the rest of us.....

Yes, that's correct, Tom, Win Shares, with 1891 adjusted downward for QoP. WS is park adjusted, so that aspect seems like it shouldn't be an issue, but maybe there's some issue with Duffy's parks that aren't captured in its park adjustment?

I'm not a blind WS follower, but on the other hand, I am. I know there's issues, I make adjustments here and there, and I try to be aware of things. Mostly, though, I'm with the devil I know, a) hoping that the battery of questions I'm asking is enough to make some distortions wash out b) allowing my rankings to have some subjectivity, and among similar candidates I sliding guys up and down if I feel uncertain that WS is leading me to a defensible conclusion.

158. DL from MN Posted: January 09, 2007 at 09:56 AM (#2276761)
When does the voting begin?

According to the revised schedule thread, it looks like voting begins on Monday the 15th and closes on Monday the 22nd.

I would guess WS captures park effects as god as any other system. Duffy's high WS totals seem to come from a larg ereward for his team over-performing in terms of runs scored (versus component hits) and overall wins (from runs scored / runs allowed). A form of clutch performance bonus if you will. Given that the Beaneaters won a bunch of pennants in this era, some of which they might not have given a few breaks, I can see where extra credit can be given. In hindsight, I wonder if Kid Nichols (their ace) was even better than I thought - did he maybe pitch to the score and rack up more Wins (leading to pennants) than his ERA suggest?

I suspect that the Beaneaters' overperformance has more to do with Frank Selee's skill at optimizing strategies in an era when such strategy was in its infancy than with the cluth performance of individual players. But that's not a position that can be substantiated without much more detailed evidence from the games of the 1890s than we have.

the Beaneaters' overperformance

I examined this a couple of years ago. (BP's stats have changed somewhat since then.)
From 1892 to 1899 (8 years), BP had Boston NL outperforming their stats by 65 wins.
This is an astounding amount (about 8 extra wins per year) and won them four pennants.

Prelim:

1) PETE ROSE: I was somewhat hoping for his election last "year". His offensive output would make him a good choice as a pure first baseman, and a no-brainer pretty much everywhere else he played. The combination lands him here.

2) STEVE CARLTON

3) REGGIE JACKSON: A better version of Cravath

4) PHIL NIEKRO: Moving to RA+ killed his comparision with Carlton, and I think he'll end up drawing the short straw. No shame in being #4 in this group

5) QUINCY TROUPPE

6) ALE OMS

7) GAVVY CRAVATH

8) JIMMY RYAN

9) JIMMY WYNN

10) RON CEY: I see him as Boyer, with a bit less glove

11) TONY LAZZERI

12) BOB JOHNSON

13) LUIS TIANT: Gains a bit of ground in the switch to RA+

14) CHARLEY JONES

15) ROLLIE FINGERS

Prelim (PHOM Niekro, Carlton, Grich)

1. Rose - I take a backseat in disliking him personally to no one, but his combo of prime/career is enough to (barely) top even this extremely strong upper ballot
2. Niekro - Wins career and prime against Carlton, loses peak, thus edges him out. None of the 3 are a blowout, so he just barely edges Lefty.
3. Carlton - See Niekro. If I was a consecutive peak man, it wouldn't be close. Carlton's 3 best years are pretty widely separated. Was the definition of inconsistent. But man, that one year carries a lot of weight when tacked onto a lot of career value.
4. Jackson - I like him, sure, but I don't feel the love. I called Rose somewhat peakless last ballot, but he kills Reggie in peak, primarily because Reggie had no in-season durability, and little defensive value. Only 6 seasons with 150 or more games, this is not conducive to a great peak, and when you start getting below 140, as he often does, it kills your prime, too. He should obviously go in, but I see him as clearly behind the other 3 names on this ballot, and he takes a back seat to Grich on my PHOM ballot, too.

5. Dunlap
6. Elliot
7. Johnson
8. Rizzuto
9. Trouppe
10. Maranville
11. Walters
12. Redding
13. Shocker
14. Grimes
15. Bancroft

28. Cey - His career "fits" my system (in terms of how many good years he had) about as well as he can, so this may overrate him. Nonetheless, not as good as Perez, but his 7 year prime really was nice. If he had more, he'd be tough.
32. Porter - Shame there's been more talk about Garvey than him; Porter was a really good player, with one hell of a top season, especially for a catcher. A hair behind Munson, which is sadly for him enough for about 15 slots on my ballot, but should certainly not be forgotten; one of the better catchers in our backlog.

NR. Garvey - To be fair to him, he's close to making my (107 person) consideration set, but he was off the back. No peak, not even a great prime. Anyone voting for him for HOM should have their head examined.

4) PHIL NIEKRO: Moving to RA+ killed his comparision with Carlton

It did? I use RA+, and I do have Carlton ahead of Niekro - but the difference is pretty much just 1972, and I have them close enough that that I wouldn't use the word "killed."

10) RON CEY: I see him as Boyer, with a bit less glove</10>

<i>Perez not on ballot

How does Cey rank ahead of Tony Perez? I'm with Michael Bass on this one.

By WARP1, which _loves_ Cey, here are Cey and Perez's 10-year primes, strike-adj.

Perez 85.1
Cey 85.0

For career, Perez 113.3, Cey 97.7

Cey's peak is a little bit higher (6 seasons over 8.5 WARP1 to Perez's 5), but their primes are darn near equal, and Perez had more value after his prime was over.

Moving to RA+ killed his comparision with Carlton

My calculation of RA+ had Carlton at 114 and Niekro at 112. Niekro only allowed 59 more unearned runs, but in almost 200 more innings. I do have Carlton ahead, but it's close.

Niekro's own defenses were so bad that they basically offset his extra unearned runs . . . I'm with OCF - I use RA+ and still have them very close . . .

Quick note to those of you that use DERA from BPro - the numbers changed in the last two months or so . . . I've been going back through my 7000 row spreadsheet and updating all night, I've got about 4000 rows done so far, and the update happened after I finished row 6000 or so.

If anyone knows of a way that I can have it pull this data whenever BPro changes their numbers, as opposed to manually entering it, I'd be much obliged . . . right now I import the player's BPro page to the spreadsheet, then copy and paste the DERA stuff to the correct work sheet, rinse and repeat about 500 times . . .

The changes are not insignificant, so you might want to look at it if that's what you are using as a proxy for quality of team defense. For one, Bridges, Newcombe, Bucky Walters and Trucks are borderline guys that look a little better with the changes.

I appreciate the note on this, Joe - any time someone sees notable changes in WARP, and in particular changes to viable candidates, please let us know.

Anybody here want a thread set up for Garry Matthews or Doug DeCinces? I don't see a case for them at all, but one of you might.

Niekro: Yeah, on second thought, "killed the comparison" was too strong. What I meant to say is, it opened a margin between him and Carlton, big enough for Reggie to sneak in between the two of them. Of course, that is preliminary, and I'm open to reviewing those placings.

Cey/Perez: I like Cey's offense compared to his position better. And, since we're using WARP, I don't buy it's assessment of Perez's 3B defense (if I did, he would be on my ballot).

Cey/Perez: I like Cey's offense compared to his position better. And, since we're using WARP, I don't buy it's assessment of Perez's 3B defense (if I did, he would be on my ballot).

Do you buy its assessment of Cey's?

Win shares has Cey as a little bit above average defensive player for his career (B- letter grade, 3.58 ws/1000 defensive innings vs. 3.27 ws/1000 average, comes out to 5 fws above average for his career)

WARP sees him as very good defensively (53 FRAA for his career).

What is your take on Cey's defense?

For the record, WS has both Cey and Perez as B- at 3B, more or less agreeing with WARP on Perez, and a little less happy with Cey than WARP.

After looking at both their threads, and the stuff here, I probably will downgrade Cey a bit for my final ballot. I still think he was a significantly better fielder than Perez, though.

My 1st preliminary ballot in a while appears below, albeit with little in the way of comments.

As to Joe's question about updating a spreadsheet when the BP player cards change, I don't know enough about programming to actually do it, but my software engineer brother tells me that you can use Perl to do that. My impression is the programming effort on the front end is significant, but in the end it saves a ton of time compared to copying and pasting.

1993 Ballot
1 Pete Rose
2 Phil Niekro--peak is surprisingly close to Carlton and the career edge goes to Knucksie.
3 Steve Carlton
4 Reggie Jackson--I give him an insignificant amount of bonus credit for holding out on Baltimore in '76, though my sentiments as an O's fan make me want to penalize him.
5 Tony Perez
6 Rusty Staub
7 Bucky Walters
8 Ben Taylor
9 Bob Johnson
10 Dick Redding
11 Bobby Bonds
12 Quincy Trouppe
13 Ken Singleton
14 George Van Haltren
15 Luis Tiant
16 Bill Monroe
17 Jimmy Ryan
18 Gavy Cravath
19 Dizzy Trout
20 Charlie Keller
21 Charley Jones
22 Sam Rice
23 Nellie Fox
24 Jake Beckley
25 Tommy Leach
26 Rabbit Maranville
27 Norm Cash
28 Jim Kaat
29 Reggie Smith
30 Buzz Arlett
31 Jim Wynn
32 Burleigh Grimes
33 Jack Quinn
34 Edd Roush
35 Bob Elliott
36 Harry Hooper
37 Ron Cey
38 Vada Pinson
39 Phil Rizzuto
40 Alejandro Oms
41 Hugh Duffy
42 Cesar Cedeno
43 Orlando Cepeda
44 Bus Clarkson
45 Lou Brock
46 Vern Stephens
47 George Foster
48 Dom DiMaggio
49 Spotswood Poles
50 Gil Hodges
--------------
101 Steve Garvey
128 Darrell Porter
146 Pete Browning
150 Cecil Cooper
152 Davey Lopes

Thanks Thane . . . I'll see if I can find anyone who knows perl to help!

BTW, have you looked at Urban Shocker? With war credit for 1918 I actually like him a little better than Bucky Walters, who I also have fairly high. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

BTW, Jack Quinn at 33, nice! Maybe he'll get some more votes.

I really like him a ton more than Kaat, who I don't have in the top 30 among eligible pitchers, they only look similar on the surface . . .

> can use Perl to do that

I've used Perl. It will work fine as long as they don't change the order of the information or the formatting. Perl will grab the nth item in a list very well but it needs stable ordering and formatting or at least a key to help it out (the table header at the top). For crunching text, Perl really can't be beat. However, if you can get the database, you're always better off than crunching text.

Joe, there's a book out there called Baseball Hacks that I think has specific instructions about how to write in PERL (including how to get an editor and compiler IIRC) to retrieve stuff from an online source. I've got the book, but I've not yet taken the time to actually do anything with it.

However, if you can get the database, you're always better off than crunching text.

Without a doubt, the way to go, if possible.

[Perl] will work fine as long as they don't change the order of the information

The layout of the BP pages has been pretty stable (at least since they dropped BRARP), knock on wood. I've written some nawk scripts (nawk is sort of a spiritual ancestor of perl for the text crunching, though no-where near as powerful; I've also dabbled some in perl but I'm much more familiar with nawk) to extract what I want out of the BP pages.

about how to write in PERL to retrieve stuff from an online source

The big problem I've run into is that, being an old f@rt, I lack the net-hacking skills necessary to automatically download the BP pages. Manually saving each page is tedious and why I never bother to update old stuff with the newer versions of WARP.

I'll have to look into that book.

Didn't know where elese to post this so here goes

I know I mentioned in an earlier thread that I'd found Ball Four & Ball Five at the thrift store for $0.50. I had a chance to open it up today and I noticed it was signed by Bouton. I don't know how to tell whether it is a 1st ed but it isn't obviously _not_ a 1st ed (it says 'First printed in 1981'). If this is a signed 1st ed, what is the approx $ value? Powell's Books appears to have one for $20.

RE: Ball 4&5
DL - Check closed E-Bay auctions, that is the best source I think.

Whew, this thread opened up on DECEMBER 10.
Is it time to VOTE yet?

Just a note to say that Roy Smalley had a damn nice run, a short one to be sure, but...

1978 (age 25)--19-77-.273/.362/.433/122
1979--24-95-.271/.353/.441/110
1980--12-63-.278/359/.405/103
1981--7-22-.263/375/.443/128 (56 games)
1982--20-67-.255/.345/.413/109
1983--18-62-.275/.357/.452127

In Win Shares that's 22-24-19-9*-19-20
*adj to 162 game season (82 games)

His career total of 181 is 2 more than Larry Bowa, 4 less than Bill Russell, 4 more than Marty Marion
His 3 year peak of 66 is 13 more than Bowa, 7 more than Marion, 4 more than Mark Belanger, 1 less than Glenn Wright and Roger Peckinpaugh
His 5 year consecutive peak of 96 is 4 more than Luis Aparicio, 3 less than Ray Chapman, 1 less than Gary Templeton

He played 1069 games at SS at a B level, plus 188 at 3B, 58 at 2B, 34 at 1B, he caught 1 game and there were 272 at DH. 3/4 of his appearances in his final 3 year stint with the Twins (1985-86-87) were at DH with OPS+ 102-108-98 in more than 100 games each year (143 one year) at ages 32-33-34.

WS has him at #55 all-time (and this of course was back in 2001). Not an unfair rating, but how is he 11 slots behind Bowa with his 12.9 WS/162 to Smalley's 17.7, and Smalley is better on career, 3 years and 5 years. And Bowa was a C glove. But of course it would appear that Bowa is over-rated, rather than Roy under. Smalley comes right between Eddie Joost and Rick Burleson. I saw Burleson play and he was a fine SS, but (no disrespect to my Red Sox fan-friends) many would probably pick Burleson (like Bowa) as a slam-dunk better player than Smalley. I'd have to say that that would have to be reflect some kind of bias or other. Unless I'm wrong and Smalley is in fact remembered as being a Burleson-caliber player, though they had different strengths.

Burleson OPS+ 87 (peak season 111)/A+ glove/1346 games (1192 at SS)
Smalley OPS+ 103 (127)/B glove/1653 games (1069)
Bowa OPS+ 71 (94)/C glove/2247 (2222)
Belanger OPS+ 68 (101)/A+/2016 (1942)
Russell OPS+ 83 (99)/B-/2181 (1746)
Joost OPS+ 99 (138)/B-/1574 (1299)
Marion OPS+ 81 (102)/A+/1572 (1547)
Templeton OPS+ 87 (113)/B-/2079 (1964)
Peckinpaugh OPS+ 87 (122)/A/2012 (1982)

Granting that's a fair number of games at SS, but how is it that Bowa is the one who got some HoF votes along the way? Belanger would seem to have been a substantially better player than Bowa though I'd say that Marty Marion probably has enough games, and appears to have been just slightly better (though he played through the weak WWII years, so maybe not).

But as for Smalley, Eddie Joost is a pretty good comp.

Just in the interest of sort out the low/borderline HoVG SSs, including somewhat under-rated but admittedly pretty short career Roy Smalley.

I still say Bowa is the worst long career player in the history of the major leagues . . .

1993 prelim.

1. Pete Rose
2. Reggie Jackson
3. Phil Niekro- Won more than 200 games after his 35th birthday.
4. Steve Carlton
5. Wally Schang
6. Charlie Keller
7. Nellie Fox
8. Rusty Staub
9. Norm Cash
10. Orlando Cepeda
11. Elston Howard
12. Reggie Smith
13. Ken Singleton
14. Mickey Vernon
15. Gene Tenace

Other than #2-#4, no other newcomers in serious contention.

I think the notion that Bowa is the worst long career player in the history of the major leagues .... is plain nutty.

He was an average hitter for a shortstop.
He was a slightly below avg fielder. Yes, his range was limited, but they guy had SO few errors; he made about 8-10 fewer per full year in the 1970s than the typical MLB SS.

You want a better nomination? How about Ski "OPS of 100 below the typical second basemen" Melillo or Doc "empty average" Cramer?

If we're restricting it to players with as long of careers as Bowa, Bill Buckner should probably be in the discussion. Yeah, he had a pretty good strike-shortened season in 1981, and a couple other above-average years, but a 99 OPS+ for a 1B/LF over 10000 PAs is just awful.

Not much substance to Dick (Ducky) Schofield's 19 year career.

Interesting topic. Here are the worst at each position in RCAP using Lee Sinin's SBE. With requirement 8000 PA(lowered to 6000 PA for C's because only a handful of catchers had 8000 PA)

C-Luke Sewell -154
1B-Charlie Grimm -212
2B-Kid Gleason -112
SS-Tommy Corcoran -310
3B-Gary Gaetti -144
LF-Joe Carter -72
CF-Doc Cramer -322
RF-Patsy Donovan -128

I don't know how to check, but P would likely be Dean Chance (if the career is long enough).

Bill Buckner could be honorable DH at -187 (he was the second worst 1B and he was the guy who needed the defensive replacement! :-))

Take away the career length requirement and you get:

Pos Player RCAP PA
C B Bergen -205 3228
1B C Comiskey -335 6039
2B S Melillo -278 5536
SS T Corcoran -310 9378
3B Au Rodriguez -255 7078
LF D Harley -198 3244
CF D Cramer -322 9932
RF L Finney -257 5032

With honorary DH duties going to Jim McAleer at -313 RCAP in 4414 PA.

EEP... used quote instead of code. Duh...

Anyhow, with season length adjustments, Comiskey probably wins here.

I can't believe that Gary Gaetti was that bad! I also thought that he was a decent, but not good player. Did n't know he sucked that badly at the plate.

Well, WARP has Gaetti at 168 FRAA for his career, so he probably was a decent player: his defensive advantages at his position pretty much balance out his offensive disadvantages.

And because his hitting improved in the latter part of his career as his fielding slipped, he has a flat career of being around average for a very long time. He had two very good years -- 1986 and 1988 -- when he was very good offensively and defensively, and two years when he was terrible -- 1992 and 1993, when his fielding slipped and his offense fell off the table. The rest of the time (as WARP sees it, at least) he was between 1.5 wins above average and 1.5 wins below average for 17 years -- 1982 to 1998.

With an 8,000 PA minimum, I would nominate the following as among the worst players:
Doc Cramer
Don Kessinger
Charlie Grimm
Larry Bowa
Chris Chambliss
Tony Taylor
Bill Buckner

With a 6,000 PA minimum, I would nominate the following as among the worst players:
Tim Foli
Everett Scott
Howard Shanks (who?)
Shano Collins
Alfredo Griffin
Ivy Olson
Ozzie Guillen (!)

With apologies to Ed Kranepool at 5997 PA, I assume.

1B-Charlie Grimm -212

Wow, in 1920 he was allowed to use up 581 PAs with a .562 OPS (59 OPS+)...as a first baseman. I wonder if that's some kind of record for the position.