PHoM 1994 – Schmidt, E. Howard, Rizzuto

1. Schmidt On my visit to Citizens Bank Park, I clogged an artery on a Schmitter only to learn later that it wasn’t named after Mike Schmidt.
2. Keller PHoM 1967. I am honored to be Charlie’s best friend. 1989 re-evaluation moves him ahead of Duffy in my backlog. Now giving him 20 WS for 1938, 32 WS for 1944 and 1945. We are shortchanging the WWII generation.
3. Dean PHoM 1976. And Dizzy’s best friend too. 1975 reevaluation of great pitching peaks put him on my ballot for the first time.
4. Roush PHoM 1942. Better than Ashburn
5. Walters PHoM 1968. Nice peak.
6. Duffy PHoM 1912. I’ve been looking at how players on the ballot compare with the median level of already enshrined HoMers using WS. Duffy would be in the top half using 5 consecutive seasons, 10 consecutive seasons and 8 best seasons.
7. Wynn, J PHoM 1986. NHBA #10 CF.
8. Fox, N PHoM 1987.If Maz could hit like Nellie, the 1960 WS hero would have been elected by now.
9. Bando PHoM 1994. Close to Boyer, James has him ahead. NHBA #11.
10. Howard, E PHoM 1995. NHBA #15
11. Rizzuto PHoM 1995. 1993 reevaluation moved him up. Another player deserving more WWII credit.
12. Singleton How much better would the HoM be than the HOF if the worst player in our hall was Ken Singleton?
13. Bresnahan PHoM 1928. SABR Dead ball era committee has him #1. No major league catchers between Ewing and Hartnett is not being fair to all eras.
14. Cooper, W PHoM 1942. Returns to my ballot in 1995 after 44 year hiatus.
15. Howard, F I’ll take Hondo’s peak over Bobby Bonds
16. Bonds, Bo … Barry’s dad was pretty good.
17. Leach PHoM 1926.
18. Munson NHBA #14
19. Cravath PHoM 1967. mle credit where credit is due.
20. Burns, G. Came close to making PHoM during the 1929-1932 trough. Probably should have. His 10-consective year peak is above the HoM median.
21. Willis, V PHoM 1941.
22. Browning PHoM 1912.
23. Berger
24. Perez
25. Evans, Da I thought he would be on my ballot, not enough peak.
26. Staub
27. Newcombe Giving more war and mle credit (1993)
28. Cepeda
29. Tiant
30. Cash, N
31. Mays, C
32. Doyle PHoM 1930.
33. Chance, F PHoM 1921.
34. Jones, C – I have voted for him (4) times – 1898 thru 1901. When I dropped him in ’02, he received only 2 votes. Ed Williamson was on 18 ballots; Arlie Latham drew more support with 3 votes. My 1898 ballot comment – “9. Jones. Two-year hold out probably costs him a couple places”. Nobody was giving credit for not playing back then, as we hadn’t tackled issues like war and mil credit yet. If as many voters had treated his hold out years like he was an all-star back then as are doing so now, he may have been elected by 1920. His 1988 top-10 finish pushed me to re-evaluate for 1989 and give him holdout credit. A reconstructed PHoM based on if I thought then like I think now, would have put him in my PHoM during the trough years of 1929-32 if not 1921.
35. Grimes
36. Ryan
37. Van Haltren Do 3 years of slightly below average pitching really merit Van Haltren this much more support than Jimmy Ryan?
38. Redding Fared well in the Cool Papa’s survey, as did Spots Poles and Dobie Moore.
39. Elliott
40. Brock not enough peak to be higher
41. Pinson
42. Smith, Reg less peak and less career than Brock
43. Rosen If Moore, why not Rosen? If a great 5 consecutive season peak were the only measure we considered, Rosen would have been elected in 1964.
44. Sutter I like him better than Fingers.
45. Arlett
46. Traynor
47. Nettles
48. Cicotte Better character and a couple more good years made possible by better character would have made him a HoFer if not a HoMer.
49. Gomez More peak than Tiant.
50. Bell
51. Murcer

Not close to ballot – Beckley, Concepcion, Fingers (53), Trouppe

Mark Shirk,
It looks like Al Rosen is "on your ballot" at number 16 and you have two number 16s.

Thanks for pointing that out Paul!

Since he is at #16, it shouldn't effect the vote counters tabulations. However, to clear things up Rosen is actually at #21 for me, as demonstrated in my listing of #'s 16-50. I keep his name and comment on my working ballot because there is a godo chance of his return. So when I copy and pasted the entire ballot, which I usally do not do, I didn't realize that I had put him on there.

So Rosen is NOT #16, he is #21.

And Dizzy’s best friend too.

Not so fast there, buddy! I have him at #2 this election! ;)

Chris, Bonds takes a huge nose dive with his strikeouts. It's one of the things that holds Rice back on my ballot. For me a strikeout is just an absolute waste....guess it goes back to my little league days. An out by a ball put in play could at least potentially advance a runner. A strikeout didn't do anything positive at all.

sunny, as for Pesky vs. Travis, you'll note that I do have Pesky close behind Travis. The spots starting with Jim Rice to Bresnahan are super incredibly close and easily interchangeable. I could invert that list of players and be content with my ballot. Maybe I'm too harsh on Rizzuto. Maybe I am under ranking him b/c he's always been overrated IMO. I promise to take another look at Rizzuto on the next ballot. Maybe I can justify moving him up, although I can't imagine he'd ever actually crack my ballot. And maybe I am doing the exact opposite with Travis, and I'll try to look at this with a more open mind on the next ballot as it will not affect this one. If Travis were to drop off my ballot, Veach would move up.

Adam Schafer, a strikeout keeps you out of a double play...I presume you're familiar with the extremely accurate eXtrapolated Runs estimator, which puts the value of a fielded out at -.09 runs and that of a K at -.098 runs. Not much of a difference.

I have a ballot! :-)

Since I still haven't figured out how to deal with the off-ballot guys, I'll just post the 15 guys + the necessary disclosures. So, here it is.

1) MIKE SCHMIDT: And the rest are...

2) QUINCY TROUPPE: Looks like the Simmons comparision did him well, and it looks like this is the year. As a supporter, I like the recent tone of discussion in his thread ;-)

3) GAVVY CRAVATH: Dude could hit.

4) BUS CLARKSON: Check out his thread. Well over 300 MLEed Win Shares, and an OPS+ around 120 from a SS/3B. The better part of his career, including his SS peak, took place before the Negro League scene got outta whack (although he was still well traveled). He was one of the reasons I decided to establish my new offense system, and under it he truly shines. I am discounting his 1940 a bit.

5) ALEJANDRO OMS: CF offense not as valuable as I once thought. Still, mucho Win Shares.

6) TONY LAZZERI: 2B offense was starting to go well down during his career, according to my estimations.

7) DAVID CONCEPCIÓN: All-Time defense, average-ish bat, in a time when his peers couldn't hit a lick. No psychic bouns necessary ;-)

8) JIMMY WYNN: Time spent at the corners brings him down a bit. Still, looks pretty electable.

9) JAKE BECKLEY: Pass.

10) LUIS TIANT: Best pitcher remaining, as the 70's glut goes increasingly behind us. ERA+ underrates him.

11) TONY PEREZ: Spent some good prime seasons during his 3B time, giving him extra value. I'm downgrading his WARP defense there a bit.

12) BOB JOHNSON

13) CHARLEY JONES: Different eras, same position, very similar score. Indian Bob has a bit more career, Baby has a bit more peak-prime.

14) TOBY HARRAH: The biggest surprise on my system. He is deservedly dinged for his defense, but with his bat, even pretending to be a shortstop made a player valuable. He's the player I thought Jim Fregosi was.

15) ROLLIE FINGERS: No credit for the handlebars.

DISCLOSURES:

Charlie Keller: I kept going over how much war credit to give him, and this is a big factor in his case (I´ll take a better look at it for next "year"). Nice peak, but not too much higher than Jones', and not enough to compensate the lack of career. Still, close enough to the ballot that I may vote him for the upcoming backlog years.

Nellie Fox: I guess I'll never get it... Admittedly, he looks better under my new system, but he's in the Bancroft/Aparicio area, well below Concepción.

Pete Browning: When you think about it, he's equivalent to a poor-fielding corner outfielder with a 140ish OPS+. We´ll have to dig deep into the backlog for him to enter one of my ballots.

Edd Roush: Early centerfielders took a beating with the system switch. He went from the fringes of my ballot, to the mid-deep backlog.

NOOBS:

DARRELL EVANS: One of the big reasons why I changed my system, which caused a downgrade for third basemen of his time. The difference in offense between him and the Cey/Nettles/Bell group is because he "padded" his offense with his 1B/DH years. Pretty uberstats aside, to me he looks more like a mid-backlog guy, as opposed to someone who might enter the HOM queue.

BUDDY BELL and JIM RICE: They enter the deep backlog. Comparables might be Nettles and Frank Howard, respectively.

TOMMY JOHN: Another of the long career, peakless crew. Somewhere in the middle between Don Sutton (who I wasn't the biggest fan of) and Jim Kaat. I believe he should get extra credit for the surgery in Hall of Fame voting, but this isn't the Hall of Fame.

1995 ballot from this highly career voter (with a fairly low replacement level):

1. Mike Schmidt - best 3B ever and around 20th greatest player all-time
2. Jake Beckley - luv the career, though peakless
3. George Van Haltren - deserving star of the underrepresented 1890s
4. Graig Nettles - I am surprised by his lack of support (a smidge ahead of DaEvans)
5. Darrell Evans - underrated big time, but only a good defensive third baseman
6. Bob Johnson - solid hitter, solid career (w/minor lg credit)
7. Bobby Bonds - good combo of peak and career (where's the luv?)
8. Nellie Fox - very good second baseman for a long time
9. Tony Perez - good career though he was only an adequate 3B defensively
10. Rusty Staub - good peak + good career (similar to Perez)
11. Tommy Bridges - luv the strikeouts & win pct with minor league and wwii credit
12. Bob Elliott - mired with woeful Pirates and Braves
13. Jimmy Wynn - tremendously underrated player
14. Charlie Keller - slowly inching his way up my ballot
15. Edd Roush - underrated, very good centerfielder
----------
16-20 CJones, RSmith, CKlein, RMaranville, HWilson

Not voting for Trouppe (around 100th), Browning (around 100th) and Fingers (around 50th).

1995 Ballot:

1. Mike Schmidt – # 16 player on my all-time list (through 1995). # 1 third baseman of all time. (PHoM 1995)

2. Phil Rizzuto – Excellent defense; above average hitter at his position; key contributor to many pennants. (PHoM 1967)

3. Darrell Evans – I liked the discussion of his defense, and no, I didn’t accept the WS or WARP defense estimates. Nevertheless, with 9 seasons at 3B with at least 110 OPS+ and 500 PA (adjusting for strikes) plus seasons of 150, 138, and 135 OPS+ at 1B, he’s got the necessary prime. (PHoM 1995)

4. Ken Singleton – (PHoM 1991)
5. Hugh Duffy – (PHoM 1931)
6. Alejandro Oms – (PHoM 1967)
7. Jimmy Wynn – (PHoM 1985)
8. Bobby Bonds – (PHoM 1987)
A cluster of outfielders who didn’t have super-high peaks or super-long careers, but each of them put up many seasons at the all-star level.

9. Quincy Trouppe – First time on my ballot. Since I first evaluated him, I've come up with better methods for dealing with catchers who split their time at other positions (e.g., Torre). I decided I'd better go back and apply those methods to Trouppe, and they gave his rating a boost. (PHoM 1995)

10. Tony Pérez – He had a lot of empty seasons on either side, but from 1967-78 he was right up there. (PHoM 1994)

11. Sal Bando – 9 seasons with at least 107 OPS+ and 600 PA. (PHoM 1987)

12. Bucky Walters – Over 7 seasons (1936, 39-42, 44-45) he averaged 18-13, 2.0 wins above team, 270 IP, 123 DERA+, 72 OPS+. MVP for 1939. (PHoM 1958)

13. Dizzy Dean – Over 6 seasons (1932-37) he averaged 22-13, 3.6 wins above team, 288 IP, 129 DERA+, 182 SO, 67 BB. (PHoM 1958)

14. Gavy Cravath – Among the pure hitters, he has the strongest credentials. (PHoM 1976)

15. Elston Howard – An outstanding peak from 1961-64 and a bit of extra credit for delays in integration. (PHoM 1977)

Near misses:

16–20. Welch (PHoM 1966), Redding (PHoM 1976), Fox (PHoM 1979), Grimes (PHoM 1940), Bresnahan
21–25. Keller, F Howard, Leach (PHoM 1932), Newcombe, R Smith
26–30. Cepeda, Brock, Van Haltren, Nettles, Arlett

Other consensus top 10:

Charlie Keller – # 21.

Nellie Fox – # 18.

Pete Browning – As a hitter, he’s in the same class as Gavy Cravath, Frank Howard, and Buzz Arlett, except that the Gladiator was finished at age 32. Which makes Hack Wilson a better comp.

Edd Roush – He had only 5 seasons in which he played 90 percent of his team’s games. In a field this tight, that's enough to knock him out of the running.

Rollie Fingers – I see him as part of a cluster of fine relievers who don’t quite rise to my ballot cutoff.

Other new arrivals:

Jim Rice - # 64. As others have noted, he’s both overrated and underrated. It’s clear that he’s not the best—or even one of the ten or twenty best—candidates left out of Cooperstown. On the other hand, if he’s elected to the HoF it won’t be a travesty. If the HoM were 35% larger, he’d probably be on my ballot.

Buddy Bell - # 77. Better than I thought, but the top 100 is getting really crowded.

Tommy John – I didn’t care for Sutton, so you can guess that John doesn’t get my support.

1. Mike Schmidt-Duh.

2. Charlie Keller-Hopefully, this is the last vote I cast for Keller

3. Dizzy Dean- All-time great pitching peak. Bumped him up this year to put the two best remaining backlog peaksters in the spots they deserved. The 1930's NL was a historic low for great SP.

4. David Concepción-A great turf SS, at a time when it was a brutal position.

5. John McGraw-Astonishing peak, Dan R's STDEV work brings out how extraordinary McGraw was.

6. Reggie Smith-Dan's work convinces me of his merit. Not as peaky as I'd like, but clearly more valuble than any player that follows (and maybe even some before...)

7. Ron Cey
8. Graig Nettles- Two underrated 70's 3B's. Better than Boyer, fer sure.

9. Jimmy Wynn-Gets docked for his non-consecutive peak. However, his 3 great years were pretty freakin awesome, and he played in the low stdev 70's.

10. Dave Bancroft-Dan sold me. Better than the established baseline for SS in the HOM.

11. Darrell Evans-Thought he would be higher, but enough legitimate concerns about his defense have been raised that I can't place him above players who I'm confident are HoM worthy (Bancroft).

12. Quincy Trouppe-On the edge. How much can we assume?

13. Rollie Fingers- I'm inclined to believe that if the baseball world valued a player highly, then the default assumption should be that the player was very valuble until it can be conclusively shown that he's not. IMO, the case against Fingers hasn't reached that level of persuasion.

14. Edd Roush- The $ added system has him slightly below the in/out line, but I like the peak and the all-around play.

15. Pete Browning- Would be the worst HoM outfielder in everything but hitting. But he was probably that good a hitter. League quality dings him, drunkeness dings him.
------------------
Disclosures:
Fox- Sucked.

PHOM - Schmidt, Evans, Sutton

1. Mike Schmidt - #1 third baseman, top 25 all time.

2. Tony Perez - Long career (23rd in games, 34th in total bases, 62nd in runs created) and a nice peak split between third and first.

3. Darrell Evans - Virtually equal to Perez in my system. Gave Perez the edge due to better peak.

4. Bucky Walters - Great peak and good career value, 3000+ IP 115 ERA+.

5. Quincy Trouppe - Very good hitting catcher who had a long career.

6. Rusty Staub - Very long career (11th all time in games, 30th all time in ABs) with a decent peak. 59th in career total bases, 72nd in career XBH, 36th in career times on base.

7. Dizzy Trout - Nice peak. '44 was fantastic, he was robbed of MVP by teammate Newhouser.

8. Jimmy Wynn - Very good hitter and peak while playing a decent center field.

9. Jimmy Ryan - Good hitting center fielder, long career

10. Bob Johnson - Outstanding hitter, never below a 125 OPS+ in his major league career.

11. Nellie Fox - Great defender, average hitter. Long career, 82nd in career times on base.

12. Jake Beckley - Good hitter, played forever. 86th in career XBH.

13. Gavvy Cravath - Superb hitter, not much of a defender. Gets a couple of minor league seasons added to his major league totals. 4th on the all time home run list when he retired.

14. Graig Nettles - Excellent defender, good hitter over a long career. Brooks Robinson-lite.

15. Buddy Bell - Very similar to Nettles. Both decent hitters and great defenders with long careers.

16. Ken Singleton
17. Bobby Bonds
18. Ceasar Cedeno
19. Vada Pinson
20. Tommy John
21. Norm Cash
22. Hugh Duffy
23. Edd Roush
24. Tommy Leach
25. Bob Elliott
26. Ron Cey
27. Dave Concepcion
28. Harry Hooper
29. Luis Tiant
30. George Van Haltren
31. Alejandro Oms
32. Buzz Arlett
33. Orlando Cepeda
34. Gil Hodges
35. Burleigh Grimes
36. Reggie Smith
37. Jose Cruz
38. Willie Davis
39. Fielder Jones
40. Dick Redding
41. Pie Traynor
42. Jim Kaat
43. George Foster
44. Pete Browning
45. Wally Berger

Keller - Great peak, but not enough career value.

Fingers - I'm not sure about him, I'd like for a relief pitcher to have more than a couple of dominant seasons.

Truncated ballot this time.

Schmidt and Evans take two of my three PHOM spots.

For more info see ballot from 1994.

I weight prime highest, then peak, then career and per year. Also give lots of credit for NeL, MiL, WWs, etc.

1. Mike Schmidt (PHOM 1995): Best third baseman ever

2. Mickey Welch (PHOM 1901): The weight of the evidence.

3. Charley Jones (PHOM 1906): Top 10 position player from 1876 to 1885.

4. Charlie Keller (PHOM 1957): MVP level play for 6 straight years with 1.66 years of War credit. Only DiMaggio, Williams, and Musial were better in the 1940s

5. Quincy Troupe (PHOM 1960): A great hitting catcher whose nomadic career has done wonders to hide his value.

6. Pete Browning (PHOM 1921): Hitter. Ranks at the top of a group of 5 center fielders between 13th and 17th all-time. Doby, Hill, and Brown are in the HoM, Duffy is not.

7. Hugh Duffy (PHOM 1919): A key member of the best team of the 1890s.

8. Bucky Walters (PHOM 1958): Best peak available (tied with Dean) among eligible white pitchers.

9. Tommy Leach (PHOM 1966): Great defense. Good hitting at two key defensive positions.
Best in league at 3rd: 1902, 1903, 1904. Best in majors: 1902.
Top 3 in league in outfield: 1907, 1913, 1914. 4th by one WS in 1909.

10. Gavy Cravath (PHOM 1979): Credit for 1909, 1910, 1911. All-Star 5 times by STATS and Win Shares. A top 10 player in either league from 1909-1911 while with Minneapolis.

11. Vic Willis (PHOM 1942): 4 times one of the top 2 pitchers in the National League. Best in NL in 1899 and 1901, 2nd in 1902 and 1906.

12. Jimmy Wynn (PHOM 1984): 4 times a top 6 player in the stronger NL, 4 times top 7 in majors. Best centerfielder eligible from Mays until ... ?

13. George Burns (PHOM 1938): Best leadoff hitter of the 1910s NL. Top 10 in NL in 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920.

14. Roush (PHOM 1940): 3 MVP type years, excellent defense. Top 10 in NL in 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1926.

15. Darrell Evans (PHOM 1995): Very good power, good walks. A top 20 all time third baseman I believe. I think he was a very good fielding third baseman while in Atlanta, but the team focused on the errors and not the double plays.

16. Alejandro Ohms (PHOM 1964)

17. Rollie Fingers: I’m still not sure about him. Without him, the A’s don’t win at least one World Series. He was very durable for a very long time. He didn’t have the peak of a Gossage or a Hiller or a Sutter. Could move up or down in near future.

18. Frank Chance (PHOM 1985)

19: Cooper, Wilbur (PHOM 1985)

20: Burleigh Grimes (PHOM 1961)

21. Don Newcombe:

22. Roger Bresnahan (PHOM 1987)

23. Larry Doyle (PHOM 1987)

24. Jack Fournier: Noticed that I forgotten about him when he is given appropriate credit for 1917, 1918, and 1919. Remember he did have a 142 OPS+ for his career.

25. Frank Howard

26. Luke Easter

27. Herman Long

28. Dick Redding (PHOM 1975)

29. Al Rosen

30. Ken Singleton

31. Graig Nettles

32. Orlando Cepeda

33. Vern Stephens

34. Elston Howard

35. Dave Concepcion

36. Sal Bando

37. Dizzy Dean

38. Wally Berger.

39. John McGraw

40. Buddy Bell: Not as good as Nettles, quite.

41. Norm Cash

42. Nellie Fox He certainly stood out over the other second basemen of his era. Too bad it wasn't that difficult.
Top 10 in league in 1952, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960 (11th in 1951, 1953): .
Rank in league/majors: 10th t/24th t, 8th t/14th t, 5th/14th t, 3rd/6th, 10th t/17th t, 1st t/5th t, 9th t/22nd t,
Best 2b in league in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960. In majors in 1955, 1957, 1959, 1960 t.


43. Wally Schang

44. Bob Elliott

45. Jim Rice: There is little difference between Singleton at 30, Rice here, and Bonds and Staub at 63. Everyone is very tight at this point in the game.

46. Jack Stivetts

47. George Van Haltren (PHOM 1939

48. Mike Tiernan

49. Luis Tiant

50. Sal Maglie

51. Carl Mays2nd

52. Monroe, Bill

53. George Scales

54. Hippo Vaughn

55. Thurman Munson

56. Gene Tenace:

57. Lon Warneke

58. Bus Clarkson

59. Urban Shocker

60. Fielder Jones

61. Denny Lyons:

62. Ed Williamson:

63: Bobby Bonds and Rusty Staub

Tommy John at the edge of top 100. There were many great, long-lasting pitchers from his era with bigger peaks and primes.

Dan R - I understand what you are saying and maybe I'm just looking at this totally wrong. However fact of the matter is Bonds DID strikeout a LOT, on the other hand Oliva in his worst year grounded into 21 double plays while striking out only 44 times, which right there generates 86 outs. Except in partial seasons, Bonds created more outs from strike outs alone than Oliva did with strike outs and double plays combined. That means a lot less chance of Bonds advancing any runners and a complete waste of a lot of at bats.

OK, Adam, but there is an empirically calculable value attributable to a fielded out versus a strikeout: .08 runs. If Bonds had Oliva's strikeout rate over his career but the same batting average, he would have created 83.1 more runs. However, if Bonds had had Oliva's double-play rate instead of his own, he would have hit into 31 more double plays than he did over his career, each of which cost a team .53 runs, reducing Oliva's advantage by 16.4 runs. So you would be justified to increase Oliva's career BRAR, or decrease Bonds's career BRAR, by 66.7 runs for the purposes of comparison. Just using BP's numbers for convenience's sake, Oliva had 513 BRAR, so adding 66.7 to that brings him to 580, still a bit short of Bonds's 616. Then you factor in that Bonds had 104 more FRAR (mainly because Bonds played some center field, and Oliva spent three years as a full-time DH), and Bonds' career advantage over Oliva becomes pretty imposing.

Bonds DID strikeout a LOT, on the other hand Oliva in his worst year grounded into 21 double plays while striking out only 44 times, which right there generates 86 outs. Except in partial seasons, Bonds created more outs from strike outs alone than Oliva did with strike outs and double plays combined. That means a lot less chance of Bonds advancing any runners and a complete waste of a lot of at bats.

In XR, Ks are -.098 runs; GIDPs are -.37 runs.

In Bonds' most hacktastic season, he struck out 189 times, GIDPed 6.

In Oliva's most GIDPy season, 44 and 21 as you mentioned.



Those are negative runs, of course, I'm just lazy. So this appears valid. But we can't not count the other non-productive outs they make, right?



Still looks like Oliva's our man. But we're not accounting for opportunity. Bonds "created" these non-runs in 745 PAs. Oliva in 518. In Bonds's PAs, Oliva would have created -51.2 runs. So it's pretty close. Bonds may be a little more efficient K's and all because he just makes fewer outs per his opportunities. That strikes me as the crux of the matter.

However, if Bonds had had Oliva's double-play rate instead of his own, he would have hit into 31 more double plays than he did over his career, each of which cost a team


according to retrosheet
Bonds had 105 GiDP
Oliva had 140
Bonds had 2764 at bats with men on base, out of 7043 at bats
Oliva had 2863 at bats with men on base, out of 6301 at bats
Bonds had a double play .0379 times out of 2764 at bats with runners on base
Oliva had a double play .0488 times out of 2863 at bats with runners on base
Giving Bond the same ratio as Oliva he would have 135.1 only 30 higher instead of 31

and thats with out pointing out
Oliva had 1572 at bats with runners in scoring position out of 2863 at bats with men on base while
Bonds had 1607 at bats with runners in scoring position 2764 at bats with men on base
which most likley shows that Oliva proboly had a higher percentage of at bats with runners on where there was a force out

the other issue is whether Oliva's handedness is skewing the results too. Bonds righty, Oliva lefty may be an important difference.

Oliva had 1572 at bats with runners in scoring position out of 2863 at bats with men on base while
Bonds had 1607 at bats with runners in scoring position 2764 at bats with men on base
which most likley shows that Oliva proboly had a higher percentage of at bats with runners on where there was a force out

espeshialy since Bond usialy batted leadoff where either the pitcher or Hal Lanier (usaly the 8th batter) proceded him so the number 7 hitter was probly the one who was in scoring position with neither of the other 2 on

1995 Ballot:

1. Mike Schmidt - Easiest #1 we've seen in quite a while.
2. Pete Browning - I'm convinced he was the 1880's Dick Allen. He belongs.
3. Hugh Duffy - I like Browning better after looking closer, but his glove pushes him above Keller.
4. Charlie Keller - Poor man's Kiner. Close with war credit, but Kiner's huge peak was real.
5. Darrell Evans - He confuses me. How much value was accrued in the 1B/DH years? In the end, I treat him similarly to Joe Torre, and Evans' defense gets him this high.
6. Thurman Munson - I'm sold that he was very similar to Freehan.
7. Bucky Walters - How did I miss him for so long? Underrated by the electorate.
8. Buddy Bell - He's very close to Evans in my system, just a bit better than Nettles.
9. Quincy Trouppe - Better than I had been giving him credit for, but he's not Ted Simmons, folks. I like Munson's defense better, hence the placement.
10. Graig Nettles - WARP likes him, and so do I. A poor man's Brooks Robinson.
11. Rusty Staub - A mix of peak/prime career. I like him better than Beckley, but not near as much as Duffy/Browning.
12. Alejandro Oms - I was missing a lot on him for a while. Nice player.
13. Frank Howard - Now comes the fun part. As a peak guy (even though I count career as well, I lean peak), I couldn't rationalize him so low, especially behind Beckley.
14. Norm Cash - Raw numbers better than Howard, but Cash was platooned.
15. Chuck Klein - Similar to Howard, but how much of it was the Baker Bowl?

16-20: Tommy John, Rollie Fingers, Tony Perez, Elston Howard, Jake Beckley

Disclosures:

Fox does not have enough (any?) bat value.
Wynn is in the 20's, I'm not sold yet.
Roush played in a weak league, missed a lot of time and doesn't really suit my fancy. He's in the 30's.
Fingers is #17. I don't think we need to elect any relievers between Wilhelm and Gossage. Fingers was not dominant enough.
Tommy John is 16. I like him a lot, he's close to Sutton in my rankings.
Jim Rice is in the 40's with Edd Roush. He's pretty overrated by Bostonians and the common fan. Most of what I have to say about him has been said by the astute electorate in his thread.

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

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

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

1) Mike Schmidt-3B/1B (n/e): Greatest third baseman of all-time. 'nuff said. Best ML third baseman for 1974, 1976, 1977, (close in 1979), 1981. 1982, 1983 and (close in 1984), Best NL third baseman for 1979, 1980, 1984, 1986 and 1987.

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

3) Charlie Keller-LF (4): Thanks to James Newburg and others, I'm totally sold on "King Kong" now. Best ML right fielder for 1940. Best ML left fielder for 1943.

4) Charley Jones-LF/CF (5): He was playing a more difficult position than the one that it evolved into. I gave him a little more credit for his (unfairly) blacklisted years. Best major league leftfielder for 1877, 1879 and 1884. Best AA centerfielder for 1883. Best AA leftfielder for 1885 (close to being the best in the majors).

5) Bucky Walters-P (6): The guy had a nice peak, fairly long career, and could hit. Best ML pitcher of 1939 (extremely close in 1940). Best NL pitcher of 1940 and 1944.

6) Mickey Welch-P (7): Yeah, pitching was different back then, but he still distinguished himself regardless. Best major league pitcher for 1885.

7) Pete Browning-CF/LF (8): Gotta love the peak! Best major league second baseman for 1882. Best major league leftfielder for 1883 (close in 1890). Best AA centerfielder for 1885. Best major league centerfielder for 1887.

8) Vic Willis-P (9): Willis pitched a ton of innings at an above-average rate for a long enough time for his era. Best major league pitcher for 1899. Best NL pitcher for 1901.

9) Jimmy Wynn-CF/RF/DH (10): Glad to see that he's getting support now. Best player at his primary position for his era.Best ML center fielder for 1967, 1968, and 1969. Best right fielder for 1972 and 1974.

10) Hugh Duffy-CF/LF/RF (11): "Only" the third best centerfielder of the '90s, but that position was very strong for that decade. Best major league right fielder for 1890 and 1891. Best major league centerfielder for 1892, 1893 and 1894.

11) Gavvy Cravath-RF (12): I'm finally buying the arguments for him. I'm giving him MLE credit for 1908-11. Possibly would have been the best ML right fielder for 1910. Best NL right fielder for 1913 and 1914. Best ML right fielder for 1915, 1916, and 1917.

12) Alejandro Oms-CF (13): Thanks to Chris' work, another gem has been uncovered. He should gather more and more support over the next few "years."

13) Darrell Evans-3B/1B/DH (n/e): If he had been a full-time third baseman, he would be #2 behind Schmidt, but those 1B/DH years hurt him a little. Best NL third baseman for 1973, (close in 1978). Best NL first baseman for 1983.

14) Bob Elliott-3B/RF (14): He could hit, field, and didn't have a short career. Best ML third baseman for 1943, 1944, 1947, 1948, and close in 1950.Best NL third baseman for 1949 and 1950.

15) Burleigh Grimes-P (n/e): Pitched for a long time behind crappy teams and defenses. Not a bad peak, too Best NL pitcher for 1921 and 1929.

Fox, Trouppe, Roush and Fingers all exist in my top-35, but they just fall short.

And Dizzy’s best friend too.

Not so fast there, buddy! I have him at #2 this election! ;)

Mark, you are obviously under rating Keller.

Mark, you are obviously under rating Keller.

Well, only slightly. I have him third. Our ballots do start to diverge a bit more after that point, though.

I posted this in the discussion thread as well, and that's probably a better place to talk about it, but I didn't want folks to miss it:

I mentioned after the, um, confusion over the 1991 elections that it might be more fun to have an IRC chat going while we're waiting for the announcement in contested years. Nobody said anything then, but is there any interest? (The cool thing is that I'd be working too late to make an 8 PM announcement - it's a sign, I tell ya!)

Holy cats, I’m running out of time. This year just flew by.

<u>1995 Ballot</u>
1) Michael Jack Schmidt
Arguably the best third baseman of all time. (In any other year, Evans and Bell might look a lot more impressive.) 13th on Ken Shouler Top 100. 16th on SABR Top 100. 16th on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 21st on Bill James Top 100. 28th on Sporting News Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100. And considering that Maury Allen could not see any reason why Mike might belong on his list of the best players, I don’t think I’ll be noting his rankings any further. (Sorry, Burleigh.)
2) Burleigh Arland Grimes – “Ol’ Stubblebeard”
A successful pitcher with both a dead ball and a live one. Frequently one of the best pitchers in the league, and often the best pitcher on his team. Many comparisons to Early Wynn, whom we did elect, and most similar to Red Faber, whom we also elected. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
3) Jacob Nelson Fox – “Nellie”
A uniquely successful second baseman for his era, with our without a chunk of tobacco in his cheek. Six Top 10 WS appearances and very good Standards and Monitor scores.
4) Roland Glen Fingers – “Rollie”
Interestingly, watching Rich Gossage’s unnecessarily-long march to Cooperstown has helped me assess my placement of relief pitchers. I think the weirdness of the position has led this electorate to underrate him, and not entirely unfairly. But Fingers is one of the best at his position, outdistances guys like Sutter, Lyle, and McGraw. Also, DanG calls him “the Grimes of RP’s”, which seems almost calculated to get my attention. 76th on SABR Top 100. 82nd on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 97th on Sporting News Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
5) Atanasio Perez Rigal – “Tony”
6) Orlando Manuel Cepeda Pennes – “Baby Bull”
A similar pair. Tony has the edge in Win Shares. Cha Cha shows a greater impact compared to his team and his league. Tony has higher career and higher prime numbers, so right now he gets the one-point advantage. Perez is 74th on Ken Shouler Top 100.
7) Darrell Wayne Evans
Rusty Staub’s presence on my ballot should tell you how much I value career numbers. I’m kind of lowballing him because of his low prime, as well as fear of the Shiny New Toy. But I could see moving him up on future ballots, if the opportunity presented itself.
8) Carl William Mays
I have long considered Mays to be underrated, with better seasons and more milestones than more beloved candidates, like Luis Tiant and Billy Pierce. I think another review of pitchers may be in order, but I still believe that the pitchers of this era get short shrift.
9) Louis Clark Brock
Reaffirming my status as a career voter. He does well in Black and Gray Ink (owing, no doubt, to his prowess on the basepaths), and his prime WS and Top 10 WS seasons are notable. He’s hanging in there. 42nd on Ken Shouler Top 100. 58th on Sporting News Top 100. 73rd on SABR Top 100. 77th on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
10) Richard Redding – “Cannonball Dick”
Definitely the best remaining Negro League pitcher. That in and of itself may not merit his election. Hanging in there thanks to my support for Mays, who has a strikingly similar arc.
11) Daniel Joseph “Rusty” Staub – “Le Grand Orange”
I‘m moving him up, because his career numbers actually stand out more than I realized. 358 WS is nothing to sneeze at, but his 5-year prime of 145 WS is also a standout. Imagine if he’d spent his career with one great team. 96th on SABR Top 100. 97th on Ken Shouler Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.
12) Edd J Roush
I took a fresh look at center fielders this time around, and I’m not overwhelmingly in favor of any of them. I knocked Hugh Duffy down several spots because of my concerns about his one great season. Roush has more consistency, so he hangs in there.
13) Edgar Charles Rice – “Sam”
An impressive career considering his late start. Not much in the way of peak, but considering how few Win Shares the Senators had to divvy up, he did pretty well.
14) Quincy Thomas Trouppe
Back on the ballot after being off for several years. An unusually varied career, but particularly successful behind the plate. Benefits from clearing out the backlog. Skips over Wynn owing to the glut of centerfielders.
15) James Sherman Wynn – “The Toy Cannon”
Fine career numbers, and I’m always surprised by his prime. Neck and neck with Duffy, but Jimmy isn’t so reliant on a single season. The 6 Top 10 WS finishes and solid career numbers carry a lot of weight with me, and he compares favorably with Roush. I will always be troubled by the fact that he was not especially acclaimed in his day.

<u>Other Top 10 Finishers</u>
Charles Ernest Keller
An enormous peak and the obvious need for war credit are in his favor. But I’m honestly not convinced that his peaks were as strong as those of guys like Kiner and Klein, who each just barely made it onto the bottom of my ballot. Like Dobie Moore, whose election I did not endorse, a career unfairly abbreviated.
Louis Rogers Browning – “Pete”
A little like Rube Waddell as a slugger. Definitely better than I expected, and I think there’s a very strong case to be made that he’s might be better than Wynn. His position and era are well-represented, and I’m not entirely convinced that he’s outstanding enough to move up. So many frickin’ center fielders.

1995 Ballot

1. Schmidt, Mike – Easy.

2. Browning, Pete – He proved in the PL that he was no fluke. I don’t understand the arguments about his defense, since defense in the outfield really contributes little to the overall picture. Has been in my PHoM for most of the life of this project.

3. Jones, Charley – With all the extra credit given for minor league seasons, military service, etc., I finally broke down and gave Jones conservative credit for blacklisted seasons. He has been on my ballot every year even without the extra credit, and the extra credit didn’t change his ranking much.

4. Sutter, Bruce – Hard to separate from Fingers, but I give him the edge because he was an innovator with the split-fingered fastball. He also had a higher peak, and his success was more attributable to great stuff.

5. Oms, Alejandro – His closest comps appear to be Manush, Sisler and Wheat. All are already in the HoM and Oms played a more important defensive position than Sisler.

6. Fingers, Rollie – One of the few relief pitchers from this era that arguably deserves a spot in the HoM. One of the first consistently good relievers used as a true closer. His numbers indicate, however, that he got away with less than great stuff during some seasons.

7. Duffy, Hugh – A very good outfielder who hit approximately 40% better than the rest of the league. Duffy’s grey ink dips when you park adjust, but he still fares well overall. Not as good offensively as Billy Williams, but not as far behind as I would have thought. Given his position in the outfield, I rank him higher than Billy Williams.

8. Wilson, Artie – A fine defensive shortstop who outhit the average batter by about 20% has to be on the ballot.

9. Dean, Dizzy -- Hard to get this high a ballot position with only five or so seasons, but Dean is the exception.

10. McGraw, John -- Has always lingered near the bottom of the ballot because of that OBP, good defense, and his position occupying a more difficult slot on the defensive spectrum during his era.

11. Roush, Edd -- 300+ WS; 100+ WARP1; normalized .322/.368/.444; good grey ink; and an above average defender in the outfield.

12. Cuyler, Kiki – Talk about under the radar. Take another look at Kiki. Most of his comps are HoMers. I’ve got him around.316/.380/.463 even after normalizing away some of those high league run scoring years.

13. Keller, Charlie -- Another solid year and he’s in the middle of the ballot. I certainly don’t doubt his abilities. He's much better than Wynn, even with the shortened career.

14. Fox, Nellie – Pretty much tied with Boyer in my system.

15. Long, Herman – 300+ season-length adjusted Win Shares; WARP1 over 100, even before any season-length adjustments.

Required Disclosure(s):

Trouppe, Quincy – Not ballot worthy based on the things we know.

Wynn, Jimmy – Barely in my consideration set. Can’t give him much credit for being a centerfielder because he probably shouldn’t have been there. He seems like a candidate only for extreme peak voters, and even then it seems a stretch to consider him as a truly great player.

Darrell Evans: Despite all his walks, he only finished in the top ten in on-base percentage three times and his career on-base of .361 is less than that of Elliott (.375) and Traynor (.362) both of whom I have ahead at their position.

Yes! What did Evans do really well? He took bases on balls. He did not consistently get hits, or extra base hits. He did not consistently drive in runs, or score them. He might have been a decent defender at 3b.

The uberstats show you can be a very valuable player to your team if your only significant skill is walking; but you cannot walk into the Hall without anything more to commend you, especially when almost 1/2 of your career was spent at DH and 1b.

(BTW, the handle just means I don't like discussing what is and isn't a sport. It's the Lounge's fault.)

I have to say, it's appropriate that we're electing the best 3Bman ever in the year when I looked at how many guys at that position have to be considered and started swearing audibly. I was also surprised to realize when I looked at who my top 15 PHoM candidates were and realized only one (Griffith) was pre-1920 - but 5 1/2 of my PHoM-not-HoM guys are. I guess for the really old guys I've made my final decision one way or the other.

Schmidt, Reggie Smith and Darrell Evans make my PHoM this year.

1. Mike Schmidt (new) I think if you polled serious baseball fans to find a consensus all-time team, you'd get more agreement on Schmidt than at any position but 1B and SS.

C - Bench, Berra, Gibson, maybe Piazza
2B - Morgan, Collins, Hornsby
LF - Williams, Bonds
CF - Mays, Cobb, maybe Charleston
RF - Ruth vs. Aaron (there is a contingent that discounts anything pre-1947)
RHP - Walter Johnson vs. Clemens
LHP - Grove, Randy Johnson (Koufaxian peak with more career)
RP - Rivera, Gossage, Wilhelm

At 1B, even if people wanted to discount Lou for playing in a white-only era, who are you going to pick instead? Bagwell? Eddie Murray? OTOH, if Pujols can keep this up for another 5-6 years...

SS, at one point we thought A-Rod might challenge Wagner, but now we're not even sure if people will think of him as a SS. Although then maybe that puts him against Schmidt...ah, never mind.

2. Jimmy Wynn (3) I was a bit surprised to see I alone was his Best Friend. But I'm OK with it. He was a heck of a hitter for a CFer, and had some truly outstanding seasons. His fielding wasn't the best, although WARP finds him more acceptable than WS in that department. Made my PHoM in 1985.

3. Quincy Trouppe (4) I don’t quite credit him with all the At-Bats that the MLEs do - they're basically equivalent to Ted Simmons, and I don't think he was that good - but a 22-year career of mostly catching goes a long way, and all the evidence says that he was very good. A better hitter than Mackey, and had a more substantial career. Catcher defense is important, but not enough to make up for everything else. Made my PHoM in 1961.

4. Bill Monroe (6) NOT surprised to see I was his Best Friend. A good player at an important defensive position, with a great reputation for his fielding. People like to promote the 1890s as underrepresented, but that doesn't mean the 00s and 10s are overrepresented. Anybody who wants to vote for Marvin Williams should look at Monroe as well. And honestly, outside of having the statistics, I don’t know of any particular advantage Nellie Fox has over him. Made my PHoM in 1939.

5. George Van Haltren (7) A very good player for a long time, even if he was never truly great. I can't see how people can have Beckley ahead of him when you compare them season-by-season. Made my PHoM in 1972.

6. Dick Redding (8) After reading Chris's interpretation of the HoF numbers, it does appear I need to pull him back a bit. Seems to have a pretty good peak, and also has somewhat of a career argument. I still tend to think he’s close enough to Mendez that they both should be in or out. Made my PHoM in 1973.

7. Gavvy Cravath (9) With the basic 07, 09-11 additions, this is where I have him. A better peak than Johnson, but less consistent. WARP isn't as fond of him as WS, but he compares well to Kiner & Keller. Made my PHoM in 1987.

8. Bob Johnson (11) I'm impressed by his consistency, he was an above-average player every year for 13 seasons. The more I look at him compared to the other corner OF candidates, the more impressed I am. Made my PHoM in 1992.

9. Tommy Leach (10) Dropped from the top of may ballot because I had to admit that Robinson was a better 3B candidate, and I wasn’t all that crazy about his argument either. I may have been overrating 3Bmen in general. Excellent fielder at important positions, OK hitter. One of the most complete players on the ballot. Made my PHoM in 1940.

10. Jake Beckley. (12) I still think his typical season was pretty weak for a HoM candidate, but he has a ton of career value, and was more consistent than Cash and especially Cepeda. Made my PHoM in 1987.

11. Reggie Smith (14) For now, I think he’s the best of the 70’s OF glut. Very similar to Medwick/Johnson, but the lack of a peak holds him back. Win Shares really likes him. Not sure how I feel about those clutch numbers. WARP definitely has him with less fielding value than Wynn. Makes my PHoM this year.

12. Darrell Evans (new) I do accept that he wasn't a great fielder, but even if he got moved off of 3B in 1976, he got moved back on shortly afterwards. Has a lot of career value and enough of a peak to keep him ahead of the other 70s 3B candidates. His 1B/DH years aren't nothing either, some of them he was putting up 138-150 OPS+, which has value even at that position. Makes my PHoM this year.

13. Bus Clarkson (13) Parallels Elliot’s career, but with war credit he comes out ahead, and he presumably had more defensive value. Still a high ranking for a relatively unknown player IMO. I really need to decide whether I’m going to accept the MLEs and put him in my PHoM, or don’t do so and drop him down. Also looks a lot like Ron Cey, with possibly more defensive value.

(13A Biz Mackey, 13B Clark Griffith, )

14. Edd Roush (15) I can surprise myself sometimes. I am still leery about giving out holdout credit, but even with the missed time, he does have a pretty good peak by WS. He’s pretty similar to Wynn, and I like Wynn a lot. WARP isn't crazy about his defense, though. Made my PHoM in 1992.

15. Charlie Keller (18) I see him as distinctly better than Kiner. If Keller had been the biggest star on the Pirates and Kiner was the second banana on the Yankees, King Kong would probably be in the HoF. (Especially because DiMaggio et.al. wouldn’t have put up with Ralph’s pursuit of fame.)

16. Phil Rizzuto (19) He does come out as comparable to Sewell in total value, but it’s very defense-heavy, and even if it’s unfair, I’m less certain about that.
17. Tony Perez (20) Maybe the HOF got this one right. Moves ahead of Cash because I hadn't realized how much of an advantage he had in in-season durability.
18. Nellie Fox (21) Not quite up to the standard of Doerr/Gordon/Childs, and the HoM is not notably short on 2Bmen.
19. Ron Cey (17) Better than I expected, extremely consistent. Clearly looks ahead of Bando and Nettles to me - better hitter than Nettles, better fielder than Bando, better peak than both of them. He's wasn't any worse than Evans, but didn't last as long. Major worry is overcrowding of 3B in this era.
20. Luis Tiant (22) After the deluge of 1970s-era pitchers, he’ll have to be reevaluated, but he could move up. Caught up on my pitcher evaluation system, and he didn't do so hot.
21. Alejandro Oms (23) A reasonable candidate, but doesn’t stand out for me in any particular manner.
22. Bobby Bonds (25) On further review, I was a bit too bullish on him when he first showed up, but he is quite good.
23. Norm Cash (16) A lot of good years, but I really think he's the Beckley of the 60s, with a shorter career (although that's not really much of a criticism). Drops because I hadn't accounted for his lack of PAs most years.
24. Bob Elliott (33) Moves up partly for era balance, but he also comes out in the same group as the 70s 3B candidates.
(24A Cool Papa Bell, 24B Max Carey, 24C Rube Foster)
25. Vern Stephens (29) Close to Rizzuto, but with the wartime discount and the sudden dropoff after 1950, not quite there.
26. Elston Howard (26) I wasn't giving him enough credit, and still might not be.
27. Bucky Walters (28) I guess I am sort of light on pitchers, but for now I can’t put him any higher due to wartime.
(27A Ralph Kiner, 27B Sam Thompson, 27C Richie Ashburn)
28. Ben Taylor (33) Another solid candidate who might have been overlooked.
29. Rusty Staub (27) A career candidate with some peak value, but also picked up WS by just hanging around. Definitely behind Perez.
30. Charley Jones (30) Even with the missed time credit, there's just not quite enough to make the ballot.

31. Orlando Cepeda
32. Ken Singleton
33. Dizzy Dean
(33A Hughie Jennings, 33B George Sisler)
34. Pete Browning (38) An outstanding hitter, but a truly awful fielder, and played most of his career in the weaker league. I wouldn't be upset if he got in, but I don't quite see it.
35. Sal Bando
36. Rollie Fingers (37) First, I’m not convinced he’s really ahead of all the other reliever candidates, and second, I’m not convinced that he would be worth induction even if he was.
37. Don Newcombe
38. Tony Lazzeri
39. Dave Bancroft
40. Lou Brock

At 1B, even if people wanted to discount Lou for playing in a white-only era, who are you going to pick instead? Bagwell? Eddie Murray? OTOH, if Pujols can keep this up for another 5-6 years...

How about Stan Musial? He did play more games at first base than at any other position.

I think if you polled serious baseball fans to find a consensus all-time team, you'd get more agreement on Schmidt than at any position but 1B and SS.

Some serious Japanese baseball fans may support Sadaharu Oh at 1B or Shigeo Nagashima at 3B. Maybe even Katsuya Nomura at C. Not sure how many though.

1994 ballot.

1. Mike Schmidt Of all the position players whose peak I have witnessed since starting to follow baseball in the 1980s, only Bonds and Henderson had more inner-circly careers.

2. Wally Schang Generally all-star level of play at C 1913-1920; one of better catchers for most of long career afterwards; career leader in WS among C upon retirement. Nearly at the Freehan/Torre level, when one takes into account that in-season catcher usage was lower during his time than afterwards.

3. Tommy John Career pitching candidate in the mold of Faber or E. Wynn. Kaat is also similar, but the slightly lower ranking of Kaat is enough that he doesn't make my top 15. I can see how some voters would not put Tommy John within a mile of their ballots; on the other hand, John's decent showing in the mock BBWAA election shows that some level of support exists.

4. Charlie Keller Consistent all-star to MVP level of play at corner OF 1939-1947, with a peak that looks as high and more sustained to me than Kiner's did. Believe that his peak would have been maintained during WWII and thus give war credit at this level.

5. Nellie Fox Consistently among better 2B 1951-1960; lots of padding of career stats outside these years. Has enough peak/prime to make him tolerable to some peak/prime voters, that, as well as being a 1950s IF, helps to boost his chance of eventual election. For those who don't see it, perhaps you aren't considering his "A" defense?

6. Darrell Evans A career candidate whose career doesn't define itself well, although for a while he was known as the only 400 HR man other than Kingman not in the HoF. A random mix of all-star type seasons with mediocre ones. The top 10 most similar players in my rating system are an eclectric mix that doesn't make things any clearer: Br. Robinson, Dw. Evans, Staub, Frisch, Dawson, Parker, Deacon White, M. Vernon, Bil. Williams, Willie Randolph. Ultimately his career totals are enough to make him a PHoMer.

7. Rusty Staub Looks like career >> peak to me. Will not help my consensus score, as similar players are the very very good types who don't make the HoM (or the HoF, unless they attain magic numbers like 3000 hits). Maybe I should call all the bats that crowd the bottom half of my ballot "quadruple-A HoM candidates".

8. Norm Cash Among better 1B most seasons 1960-1971, and occasional all-star level. More consistent than Cepeda, but less playing time per season.

9. Orlando Cepeda Among better 1B most of years during 1959-1967 and occasionally all-star level; career totals padded 1968-1974. Cepeda, Cash, and F. Howard are a set of near-exact contemporary "bat" candidates who played in the 1960s, a tricky era in which to judge the potential bottom-half-of-the-HoM "bats".

10. Elston Howard Multiple years of all star play at catcher; 1961-1964 "workload" also noteworthy. A peak that few catchers have attained, but very little outside the peak.

11. Reggie Smith Among better RF most years during the 1970s; respectable career totals; played CF in addition to RF. One stat that I've tabulated for fun is career Win Shares times career WS per plate appearance. It's not a perfect stat, but does correlate well with HoM selections. In this measure, Reggie Smith is the highest unelected player. That doesn't prove that he's a HoMer, but does suggest looking for reasons for his lack of support: (1) he's a 'tweener' between peak and career; (2) he missed a lot of playing time so that while his rate stats were always well above average, they don't show always lead to high season-by-season totals for those who look at things that way (3) he split defense among several positions; some may be rating him as a RF and neglecting his CF play.

12. Ken Singleton Multiple all star-type seasons 1975-1979; MVP level 1977 season. Very durable in 1972-1983 prime; not much outside this. List of similar players suggests that he will not make it to the HoM easily, if at all.

13. Mickey Vernon Did have some all-star type seasons at 1B, but basically a "career" candidate all the way. Credit for two years missed to WWII, and belief that pre-expansion 1950s baseball had some of the toughest competiton of all time. Among top contenders for "Hall of Fame chance hurt by WWII", as listed in Bill James' NBJHBA.

14. Gene Tenace Consistent, high secondary average, run producing catcher. Would
appear to be clearly below the consensus in/out line for catchers, but I rate catchers higher than most.

15. Jimmy Wynn Multiple years of all-star quality CF play. Sabermetric poster child- 0.250 BA, but played a defensive position, had a 0.400ish secondary average, and played in a pitcher's era.

Edd Roush was the 43rd greatest ML CF and 428th greatest ML player.

Fingers looks to me like a "career reliever" candidate, like Lee Smith. This type does not come out highly in my system, though I can see the argument for having more relievers than I'm likely to put in my PHoM.

I am as impressed by Bruce Petway's and Ted Radcliffe's records as I am by Trouppe's.

Considering the context of thin/weak competition, lack of durability, and career shortness, there is less than meets the eye in Browning's case. Not close to my ballot.

I have Buddy Bell as similar to Nettles. Jim Rice is around the middle of the HoVG.

41 ballots tallied up to this point. I'm still missing ballots from: Mike Webber, James Newburg, Don F, Trevor P., Andrew M, Ken Fischer, Esteban Rivera, Patrick W, Tiboreau, Max Parkinson, KJOK, the Commish, fra paolo, jwinfrey, Tom D, Craig K, rdfc, Michael Bass, Carl Goetz, NeverJustaGame and Dan Rosenheck.

Since he didn't vote in the last five elections, Vaux has been removed from the list.

Don't forget, the election ends at our new time of 11 PM EDT.

When did 8pm change to 11, and why? Some of us need to get some sleep!

BALLOT REVISION

ballot counters, please accept this revised ballot submittal, based on re-considerations of Mr. Trouppe's candidacy. Further explanation is contained in my original submission, but basically, Quincy moves in, bumping down a few guys including my prev. 15th place (Monroe), and ##s 8 and 9 swap.

1- Mike Schmidt {new}
2- Jake Beckley (3) [13]
3- John McGraw (4) [27 and movin’ up!]
4- Darrell Evans {new}
5- Bucky Walters (5) [15]
6- Frank Chance (7) [60]
7- Bob Johnson (6) [12]
8- George Van Haltren (10) [21]
9- Dick Redding (9) [11]
10- Charlie Keller (11) [6]
11- Jimmy Wynn (12) [5]
12- Quincy Trouppe (off) [4]
13- Roger Bresnahan (13) [21]
14- Louis Tiant (14) [29]
15- Rollie Fingers (15) [10]

When did 8pm change to 11, and why? Some of us need to get some sleep!

Some of us need to make money. :-)

As I posted in the Ballot Discussion thread, I have a scheduled meeting every Monday from now on at 6 to 8. Now, I could have it earlier and rush like a madman to have it done before 9:30, but I refuse to do that.

How about Stan Musial? He did play more games at first base than at any other position.

Yeah, Stan the Man Is He A Pain To Pick A Position For. It's a fair point, but if you consider him a first baseman, he's probably already in competition with Gehrig. I've never actually compared the two guys myself. Maybe everybody just feels better leaving Lou alone on top.

I have Musial at 1B. His career totals (by my personal measures of value) are higher than Lou's. But when it comes to picking an all-time team and assigning players to a given position, I give them all of the value they earned at that position (of course) and half of what they earned at other positions. By this method, Gehrig is still #1 at 1B, even though Musial is ahead of him on the non-position-specific career list. (Peak is another thing, yet.)

Actually the real point of this is to say that I consider LF, CF and RF to be specific positions, not just OF.

1995 ballot

Note: This is sort of a ballot "in transition" as I wasn't able to finish AL and pitcher WARP, but I can estimate them well enough to vote in good conscience. I should have everything up to go by next "year." Salary changes are just due to adjustments to standard deviations.

1. Mike Schmidt, $234,065,$362
Ain't nobody does it better. Rare air.

2. John McGraw, $110,427,852
Downward revision of pre-1947 standard deviations, plus the fact that I was missing his .500 OBP half of 1901 from my spreadsheet (whoops!), zooms him up to an elect-me spot. I know, I know, he couldn't stay on the field. But I'm a sucker for peak rate, and the guy rang up a .500 OBP for a five-year stretch where offensive levels were similar to the recent "steroid era" rather than 1894-type absurdity, while wreaking havoc on the basepaths and playing an extremely scarce and demanding position, sometimes very well. I have his 1899 played at almost the same rate as Honus Wagner's 1908, before taking into account standard deviations. Yes, he was too fragile and played for too little time to add tons of wins to his teams' ledgers over his career. But he played at the level of an inner circle Hall member's peak when he did, and that's good enough for me.

3. David Concepción, $102,035,859
Given the amount of virtual ink I've spilled on him, it should surprise no one at this point that I have him this high. To rehash briefly: He was a career league average hitter, often notably better in his prime, a plus basestealer, and one of the best fielders ever at the most important defensive position (ask Michael Humphreys, whose Defensive Regression Analysis confirms him as an all-time elite glove man). And he played in an era where replacement shortstops were absolutely putrid and where standard deviations were historically low (a low-scoring, integrated league, many years removed from expansion). Thus, by my criteria--exceeding the positional replacement level of your time by the greatest number of standard deviations--he laps the field. Please save your vitriol for the Concepción thread, or for the thread on my WARP system--I'm happy to argue this one forever.

4. Reggie Smith, $93,755,717 + unspecified Japan credit
I've outlined my case for Smith on my WARP thread, where I argue he was equal to Stargell (a much better fielder, and played half his career at CF while Stargell had nearly half at 1B). I haven't figured out how much to boost him for his Japan play, but it's not enough to get him past Concepción.

5. Darrell Evans, $93,522,515
I pay little attention to media-consensus subjective evaluations of defense (Derek Jeter, anyone?), and although I certainly recognize FRAA and Fielding WS's flaws, Defensive Regression Analysis (which has an 80% correlation with UZR) also loves Evans' glove. If you believe, as the numbers say, that he was the best-fielding 3B in the NL from 1971-75, he's a cinch--the 1973 peak year is one of the 15 best ever for an NL third baseman, the 1974 was also a high All-Star caliber season, he had further All-Star level years in '75, '78, '80, and '83, and tacked on a ton of above-average regular seasons to pad the career. I also don't care if peak years were consecutive, as some voters seem to do.

6. Charley Jones, $93,471,511 - 1884 discount
Appears to have been a truly dominant player in the early years of the NL, particularly in 1879 which seems like one of the great single seasons of the era. I take him over Browning for playing half his career in the NL and for being a good and sometimes superb fielder. 'Zop has convinced me only to give credit for one blacklist year, which drops him below Smith. Downward revision of pre-integration standard deviations improves his standing relative to my previous ballot. His 1884 should be docked due to UA dilution, but not enough let Cey pass him.

7. Ron Cey, $89,682,011
My argument for him is on the WARP thread as well. In an era that was extremely tough to dominate and where replacement level for infielders was low, he combined All-Star hitting with notably plus defense for a decade.

8. Pete Browning, $88,997,116 - 1884 discount
There's no doubt the man could rake. But I'm not convinced by the "greatness can't take advantage of weaker competition" argument--Fred Dunlap would like a word with you, sir--and Browning clearly *did* take advantage of it just about as well as one could by racking up a .403 EqA in 1882. His short career, weaker league, and defensive misadventures--check out that .791 fielding percentage one year--drop him notably below Jones for me. Also benefits from my downward revision of standard deviations before 1947. I'm using BP's league difficulty factors to convert AA stats to NL. UA dilution discount won't drop him to #9.

9. Quincy Trouppe $86,274,297.
Less peak than I thought before accounts for the dropoff. Crediting for 5 missing years at an above-average-regular but not All-Star level.

10. Graig Nettles, $85,738,616
An unspectacular hitter at an offensive position, but one of the all-time defensive greats--his 1971 in particular is about the theoretical maximum for how much a player can contribute with the glove. The usual schtick about low stdevs and low replacement level for infielders in the 1970's, combined with a long career and great durability, get him here.

11. Charlie Keller, $83,786,487
I'm giving him war credit at a nudge below his 1942 level of performance, and neither giving him minor league credit nor penalizing him for wartime competiion in '43 and '45, which I'm assuming even out. Undoubtedly a great player, but just not for long enough.

12. Alejandro Oms, $82,593,158
With the help of a lower standard deviation estimate, his MLE's plus two years as an above-average regular in 1919-20 get him onto my ballot.

13. Dave Bancroft, $81,824,590
An all-time great fielder at shortstop, a very strong hitter for the position, and played in the lowest-stdev era of the prewar period. Takes his peer Rabbit to school.

14. Eddie Cicotte, $81,258,027
Clearly the best of the backlog pitchers in my opinion. A legitimate superstar from 1917-19 (he was hit-unlucky in 1918 compared to the two surrounding years), with a bunch of other useful seasons. He'd definitely have made my PHoM if he had kept on pitching and hadn't gotten himself, you know, banned from baseball by throwing the World Series. Kind of a late debut, not counting his cup of coffee with Detroit in 1905--is there any case for minor league credit here?

15. Norm Cash, $80,058,334
Yes, he corked his bat. Yes, it was an expansion year. Even so, his 1961 was worth a cool $21 million. He also played at an All-Star level in 1962 and 1965, and was a very consistently above average first baseman for the rest of his career.

Required disclosures

Jimmy Wynn, $79,139,499
I see him as markedly inferior to Reggie Smith, as you can see on my WARP thread--equal hitters on a rate basis, but while Smith was slightly above average in the field for his career and sometimes much more so, Wynn was a bit of a defensive liability, and he played 1.4 fewer seasons than Reggie. Just misses.

Nellie Fox
Are you kidding me? $51,106,516...Color me baffled. The guy had a grand total of one All-Star year by my count, maybe two if you include '59. I don't see him even smelling the Hall of the Very Good.

Edd Roush
$72M before the Federal League and holdout seasons, and I don't think they add enough.

Rollie Fingers
I'm extremely persuaded by the "chaining" argument that relievers are even less valuable than one would otherwise think (see http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/jonathan-papelbon-and-replacement-level/), and my PHoM will include Wilhelm, Rivera, and possibly Gossage--none other.

And just for the record--peanut butter, yes; rap, no. But they do make a nice combo

Yes, but do Strom Thurmond and Al Sharpton make a nice combo?

>Nellie Fox Are you kidding me? $51,106,516...Color me baffled. The guy had a grand total of one All-Star year by my count, maybe two if you include '59.

If you like the idea of Norm Cash at 2B.

sunnyday2, I don't quite understand your comment...I assume you're referring to position scarcity? I perhaps more than anyone else in this group am sensitive to the issue of positional replacement level, but it's just not nearly enough in Fox's case...

He was a 2B, not a SS; a league-average hitter, no better; a Gold Glove fielder but not close to an all-time defensive great at his position; a poor baserunner, at least on SB/CS; and had a short career in an AL that was very slow to integrate and therefore notably easier than the NL. By contrast, consider Concepción: a SS, not a 2B; an equivalent hitter to Fox; one of the best fielders ever; a good and sometimes great baserunner; and a long career in an integrated league, one that was much harder to dominate than Fox's. I can't see a single thing that Fox has on Concepción. Would anyone care to enlighten me?

1. sp Mike Schmidt
2. 1b Luke Easter—We know that he had a long career (records of play with top Negro League teams in late ‘30s, early ‘40s and continued to play in the minors until the early ‘60s). We know he had the potential for big play (1948 and, when healthy, ’52, ’56 and ’58). What we don’t know is how well he would have played in the first half of his career, during his twenties. Yet, as we dig deeper into the backlog I find myself more willing to elect a player with a good career who showed the potential for greatness than one with a long career of merely above average play or one with short period of definite greatness during an abbreviated career.
3. cf Alejandro Oms—The Cuban Enos Slaughter: only one season over 30 WS, but 8 over 25; considering the effects of regression, had a nice peak as well as a real good career (340 WS).
4. lf Charlie Keller—After WWII credit Keller’s peak, while not quite as high, is sufficiently stronger than Kiner’s to slip ahead. King Kong also receives credit for his last year with the Newark Bears.
5. sp Dizzy Dean—For five years he was among the greatest pitchers of all-time. Sadly, his career essentially comprises of those five years. The greatest peak among eligible pitching candidates.
6. cf Edd Roush—Missed playing time hurts, but still has a real good peak that is a bit overshadowed by WWI. Career puts him ahead of Wynn & Berger, while peak puts him ahead of Ryan & Van Haltren (Pen. Add., excluding pitching WS: Roush, .793; Ryan, .781; Van Haltren, .771).
7. rp Rollie Fingers—The definition of a borderline HoM reliever, IMO. While he did not have the peak of other relief candidates (Hiller, Marshall), he did have a couple excellent years as well as several real good ones, which is important IMO considering the nature of relieving.
8. c Quincy Trouppe—A difficult player to rank for a couple of reasons, both due to his tendency to roam around (leagues and positions). Based on the Dr. C’s, I have him around Elston Howard and Roger Bresnahan, his career longer but his peak a bit lower (another difficulty: playing time). However, considering Trouppe also spent 5 years playing undocumented high quality ball in North Dakota and Minnesota, he ends up closer to Simmons than the other two.
9. cf Jimmy Wynn—One of my favorite ballplayers from before my time, an underrated ballplayer considering era and ballpark who combined speed and patience with surprising power for his stature, I’m happy to see him rate well. A real good peak, although the Toy Cannon’s inconsistency, mixing mediocre seasons with superb, hurts him a bit.
10. sp Bucky Walters—When at his best he was not only excellent pitcher but an inning eater as well. More career value than Wes Ferrell but less peak value, especially considering the decreased competition during the war.
11. 3b Al Rosen—Flip's candidacy is similar to Dean's: five excellent seasons without much else, his career cut short by Keltner at the front end and back injuries at opposite end.
12. rf Gavy Cravath—"He played ball, and lived his life, with a minimum amount of effort and nervous energy." Cravath gets extra credit for his minor league performance, especially as the star of the Minneapolis Millers.
13. sp Leroy Matlock—Had a great peak, including 26 straight wins from ’34 to ’36. In fact, according to the MLEs, Matlock’s peak (and career) was better than Dean’s. However, the difficulties of estimating season-by-season value of Negro League pitchers leads me to place Matlock a bit below Dizzy.
14. 3b John McGraw—Two great seasons surrounded by several more excellent yet injury-riddled years while playing a physically demanding (and underrepresented) position in a physically demanding era.
15. c Elston Howard—After pre-MLB credit, a similar player to Roger Bresnahan; his peak is slightly better, career slightly shorter. Howard jumps ahead Bresnahan, however, due to the fact that he was entirely a catcher during his peak, while Bresnahan spent significant time in the outfield during his best years.

98 candidates receiving votes so far (Tiboreau just added Easter and Matlock to the list.) I had thought that 100 candidates was still a year of two away, but it may be in reach this year, if there are still voters out there to vote for, say, Shocker and Leonard.

ok - I'll take the bait (in two parts)
1) Schmidt can pitch too!?! Wow. I mean, I knew he was good and all.....
2) Not that I had him on my ballot - but what about Dwight Evans? Explanation for other consensus top 10 guys? etc...

Good to see that ole Leroy Matlock ain't been totally left for dead. He'd be in my pHOM for sure if I still had one.... Isn't the surety of case better than Easter's in a lot of ways?

You mean Darrell Evans? I don't think Dwight requires a comment just yet. Not that he wouldn't be above Darrell in my little world.

Yes, I was talking about Nellie Fox from the perspective of position-ness. I mean, color me baffled. 1959 a "maybe" all-star" year?

The '57 was a legitimate peak season for a HoM'er, but that's it as far as I can see...in 1959, he had a 114 OPS+ with above-average defense but not spectacular....that's a great season for a SS, but merely good for a 2B...I guess I'd call it a "low All-Star year." Anyways, tell me one way in which Fox was better than Concepción. David was a better fielder at a much harder position, and a better baserunner, in a notably more difficult and harder to dominate league. (I take back my comment about career length, they're equal on that).

OCF, did anybody vote for Jack Quinn yet? I know Joe's ballot hasn't shown up yet and that he'll be on there.

Ah, I forgot about that. Quinn wasn't on my list because he didn't get any votes last year - but that was because Joe didn't get his ballot in last year. Leonard got a vote last year from Patrick W; Shocker got votes from both Michael Bass and Max Parkinson. If you'll look at John's post #135, you'll see that the odds of 100 candidates this year look pretty good. All we need are any two of those three.

Wow, Dan R, wow. "Tell me one way in which Fox was better than Concepcion"?

Career OPS+
Nellie Fox: 94
Dave Conception: 88
That's one for Fox.

Best Five Seasons OPS+:
Nellie Fox: 129, 117, 114, 107, 105
Dave Concepcion: 116, 114, 107, 107, 106
That's two for Fox. Take Fox's 129 out of the mix and they're relatively even. But Fox did have that 129 and Concepcion didn't.

Career OPS+: Fox. Best single season: Fox. Best five years, non-consecutive: Fox slightly, but fairly close.

"David was a better fielder at a much harder position."
I'll give you the latter, SS is harder than 2B. However...

Concepcion: .971 fielding percentage at SS compared to .964 league for an advantage of .007
4.71 range factor compared to 4.30 league for an advantage of .41

Fox: .984 fielding percentage at 2B compared to .977 league for an advantage of .007- the same!
5.43 range factor compared to 4.89 league for an advantage of .54

Both players are above average defenders. Concepcion plays the harder position but Fox is slightly better than his peers. I'd still give it to Concepcion but not by as wide a margin as you seem to claim.

"a better baserunner"

If we're talking stolen bases, no question. Fox is a 50% base-stealer. He'd be better off not running. Concepcion was pretty good. 321 stolen bases to 109 times caught for 74%. But if being a good baserunner is so important to you then where are Aparicio, Campaneris and Wills?

"in a notably more difficult and harder to dominate league."

Here's my problem with that comment. In your ballot, you note that Concepcion's competition at short was "absolutely putrid" which makes him more valuable because he's that much better than the replacement player. Well, which is it? You seem to be giving Concepcion credit for both weaker competition and for harder competition.

You seem to be bending over backwards to give Concepcion every benefit of the doubt. Concepcion was a slightly better fielder and a much better baserunner, but not near as good a hitter. There's no way Concepcion is twice as valuable as Nellie Fox.

sunnyday2, you do distinguish between 2B and SS, no? According to Nate Silver's research on Freely Available Talent, a SS who hits and fields at the league average is worth 68% more than a 2B who hits and fields at the league average. The only positions where a long career, great glove (better than Fox's), and league-average offense make you a legit Hall candidate are SS and pre-1920 C. A 2B simply has to hit.

As Nate writes, "The overall positional averages [for 2B and SS] may not be that different, since the Jeters and Youngs lift the numbers, but they understate just how much easier it is to find a credible second baseman than a credible shortstop...Psychologists talk about something called g, or General Intelligence Factor, the notion that abilities in certain seemingly unrelated mental fields are positively correlated. It seems probable that there is baseball analog to this, which we might call General Athletic Ability. That is, although the specific skills and motor abilities required to field a good defensive shortstop are quite different than those required to hit a curveball, a truly elite overall athlete will be able to do both things well. I suspect that major league shortstops, as a group, have quite a bit more g than major league second basemen. You could put Miguel Tejada at second base if you wanted to, and he’d still outhit pretty much everyone at the position, but there’s no reason to since his defense is more valuable at short. You couldn’t put Jeff Kent at shortstop, however, without your pitching staff chipping in on a bounty against you."

> pre-1920 C

Bresnahan is still hanging around. Where is he on the Dan R ballot?

Chris Fluit, thanks for your response.

1. The career difference in BRAA between Fox and Concepción is 46 runs/4.6 wins, which over 10,000 plate appearances is within the margin of error. If you want to call that a meaningful advantage for Fox, go right ahead, but that kind of gap only matters in an absolute tiebreaker situation.

2. I'm not exactly sure why you'd turn to fielding percentage and range factor to measure defense when we have much more sohisticated tools at our disposal...for what it's worth, BP FRAA has Concepción as being nearly twice as good a fielder as Fox (146 career FRAA to 79). Fielding Win Shares agrees, although it doesn't have the gap as quite that large. At his best, Concepción was Ozzie (just not for nearly as long), while Fox never sniffed Mazeroski-level fielding.

3. The baserunning is a minor point, it's worth a few wins at most. It probably just cancels out Fox's minor hitting advantage.

4. I'm not "bending over backwards" at all! I think you're misinterpreting. There are two separate points here:

a. Concepción's hitting plus baserunning, compared to his *overall league average,* is equal to Fox's (eg BRAA, OPS+, EqA, etc.). Since he played in an integrated league that was extremely difficult to dominate (low standard deviation), his offensive performance is more valuable than Fox's.

b. Replacement shortstops of Concepción's time were particularly bad compared to the overall league average, when that gap is compared to the performance of replacement shortstops relative to league average in other eras.

To illustrate this, here are rough estimates of 2B performance in Fox's time and SS performance in Concepción's time, measured in wins above/below overall league average per 162 games.

Rank 1950's 2B 1970's SS
Best       3.7       3.1
2nd        1.7       1.3
3rd        0.4       0.4
4th       -0.1      -0.4
5th       -1.0      -0.6
6th       -1.7      -1.2
7th       -2.4      -1.6
8th       -3.7      -2.2
9th                 -2.8
10th                -3.3
11th                -4.1
12th                -5.0

The average of the 2B distribution is -0.4 wins per 162 games, with a standard deviation of 2.5; the average of the SS distribution is -1.4 wins per 162 games, with a standard deviation of 2.3. Now, Fox and Concepción were both generally league-average hitters (counting Concepción's baserunning), with Fox adding about 0.5 wins in the field and Concepción around 1 over the course of their primes. So a typical Fox prime season is (.5+.4)/2.5 = 0.36 standard deviations above positional average, while a typical Concepción season is (1+1.4)/2.3 = 1.04 standard deviations above positional average. Thus, compared to positional average, Concepción is actually nearly *three* times as valuable as Fox in his average prime season. In fact, when you calculate it in relation to replacement level rather than average, it comes out to just a 50% advantage on career value. My preference for peak means that Concepción does twice as well in my voting system.

Point 4-a refers to the lower standard deviation in Concepción's era, while point 4-b refers to the historically low positional average and replacement level for SS in Concepción's time. He exceeded positional replacement level by a tremendous amount, in an era when doing so was particularly hard (due to low league stdev).

I hope this is clear now.

DL from MN, he's way down in the $50-$60 million range now, but I will have a full evaluation of historical replacement level for catchers by the 1996 election, and it's very likely he'll make my ballot next year. No idea where.

Mike Schmidt (new) I think if you polled serious baseball fans to find a consensus all-time team, you'd get more agreement on Schmidt than at any position but 1B and SS.
I have Boggs, Brett(Iv'e seen many lists with him number 1), and Baker better then Schmidt

C - Bench, Berra, Gibson, maybe Piazza
you might get Dickey Cochrane and I even rember some who would go with Ewing

2B - Morgan, Collins, Hornsby
you might get a Lajoie

LF - Williams, Bonds
Musial ?

CF - Mays, Cobb, maybe Charleston
Mantle, Speaker would defintly come up

RHP - Walter Johnson vs. Clemens
I have Young and I'm not alone (I bet most careerest would go with him)

LHP - Grove, Randy Johnson (Koufaxian peak with more career)
Spahn might get the career vote

Batting rates, MLB 2Bs, 1946-1965

.259/.326/.357/.683 vs. pitcher-excluded rates of .265/.338/.401/.739. A 92 OPS+ if you will.

Batting rates, MLB SS, 1970-1985

.248/.303/.327/.629 vs. pitcher-exluded rates of .262/.329/.388/.717. An 88 OPS+ if you will. I don't know exactly how many runs 4 points of OPS+ translates into, but it can't be too, too many. And this doesn't account for the leagues' normative SBs; either. So the difference between the nautral gloveness of the positions would have to be large for Concepcion to come as far ahead of Fox (not just ahead but far ahead).

1995 Ballot:

1. Mike Schmidt – Easy number one this year. Was the first ballplayer who I can honestly say I hated to see come up to bat against my team.

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

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

4. Edd Roush – Appears to be an error of omission. With considerations for hold out credit.

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

6. Roger Bresnahan - I believe his versatility is a major plus in his case. I can understand not giving him credit if you think his playing time at other positions was worthless but when he was an outfielder he was one of the best ones in the league.

7. Nellie Fox – Outstanding defense and hitting production for a good length of time.

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

9. Rollie Fingers – Given some post-season credit. His career taken all together is around the bubble.

10. Tony Perez - See him similar to Beckley in terms of value. His prime/career value is pretty good.

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

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

13. Bob Johnson – Have been overlooking Indian Bob. PCL credit counterbalances any war discounts.

14. Vic Willis – Jumps into the top 20. Blame the cohort analysis for making me take another look at Vic.

15. Bob Elliot – Moves onto my ballot for the first time. The post someone made about holding his outfield time against him was true in my case. Not as much an outfielder as I had previously thought.

16. Darrell Evans – Some lingering doubts about his fielding prowess keep him just off the ballot.

17. Quincey Trouppe – All evidence points to him being a good to great hitter for his position and a solid if not good catcher. Works for me

18. Burleigh Grimes - Has enough big seasons and career bulk to edge him over other similar candidates.

19. Pie Traynor - I'll agree that he is not as great as the praises make him out to be but he still has a worthy resume.

20. Gavvy Cravath – One of the enigmas in terms of career interpretation. His career in the majors combined with my interpretation of the other information places him here.

Not on ballot but made Top 10:

Jimmy Wynn – In my top 30.

Charlie Keller – Gets some credit but not enough to overcome the playing time issues to get him on my ballot.

4. Edd Roush – Appears to be an error of omission. With considerations for hold out credit.

Did you mean a HoM error of omission or a HoF error of omission? If you meant the latter, Roush was inducted by the VC in 1962.

Actually, it's supposed to reference an error of omission on my part (didn't always vote for Roush). The phrase is a leftover from some old ballot comments. I really have to sit down and change most of them. You can almost see the mold on them from how long they've been there.

Chris Fluit and sunnyday2, here are charts for Fox and Concepción. (differences from the salaries on my ballot are due to different standard deviation calculations, but the relative weights should be the same).

Glossary

BWAA/Yr: Batting wins above overall league average per 162 games.
BRWAA/Yr: Baserunning wins above overall league average per 162 games.
FWAA/Yr: Fielding wins above positional average per 162 games.
Rep: Wins above/below overall league average of a replacement player at the given position per 162 games.
WARP1/Yr: Wins above a replacement player at the given position per 162 games. (This should equal the sum of the first four numbers; variations are due to rounding).
SFrac: Percentage of the league average plate appearances per lineup slot.
WARP1: Wins above a replacement player at the given position (WARP1/Yr*SFrac).
LgAdj: The ratio of the 2005 NL standard deviation to the regression-projected standard deviation of the league-season in question.
WARP2: Standard deviation-adjusted wins above a replacement player at the given position (WARP1*LgAdj).
WARP2/Yr: Standard deviation-adjusted wins above a replacement player at the given position per 162 games (WARP2/SFrac).
PennAdd: Pennants added.
Salary: How much the 2005 free agent market would have paid for the player's performance in the given season.

Nellie Fox

Year BWAA/Yr BRWAA/Yr FWAA/Yr   Rep WARP1/Yr SFrac WARP1 LgAdj WARP2 WARP2/Yr PennAdd       Salary
1949     -1.2    -0.2     0.9  -2.4      2.1   .43   0.9  .932   0.8      2.0    .010     $694,891
1950     -3.5    -0.1    -1.1  -2.2     -2.3   .74  -1.7  .917  -1.5     -2.1   -.017           $0
1951      2.0    -0.5     0.4  -2.2      4.2  1.00   4.2  .936   3.9      3.9    .051   $4,898,448
1952      0.1    -0.2     1.3  -2.1      3.4  1.05   3.5  .953   3.4      3.2    .043   $3,666,903
1953     -0.1    -0.2     0.0  -2.2      2.1  1.04   2.1  .946   2.0      1.9    .024   $1,648,733
1954      1.5    -0.2     0.7  -2.0      4.1  1.06   4.4  .953   4.2      3.9    .054   $5,193,173
1955      1.2    -0.3     1.3  -2.1      4.4  1.06   4.7  .945   4.4      4.2    .058   $5,750,587
1956     -0.2    -0.1     0.7  -2.1      2.8  1.07   3.0  .933   2.8      2.6    .034   $2,619,946
1957      3.2    -0.2     1.4  -2.1      6.5  1.10   7.2  .960   6.9      6.3    .098  $11,966,828
1958      0.7    -0.2     0.2  -2.0      2.7  1.07   2.9  .974   2.8      2.6    .035   $2,681,193
1959      2.1    -0.2     0.8  -2.0      4.7  1.09   5.1  .968   4.9      4.5    .066   $6,680,884
1960      0.5    -0.2     0.8  -2.1      3.3  1.03   3.4  .958   3.3      3.2    .041   $3,550,740
1961     -1.9    -0.1    -0.4  -2.1     -0.1   .99  -0.1  .897  -0.1     -0.1   -.002           $0
1962     -1.4    -0.1     0.8  -2.0      1.6   .98   1.5  .897   1.4      1.4    .016     $967,944
1963     -2.0    -0.1     0.8  -2.0      0.9   .85   0.8  .913   0.7      0.8    .008     $396,175
1964     -0.3     0.0    -0.6  -1.8      1.0   .72   0.7  .913   0.7      0.9    .007     $404,176
TOTAL     3.5    -2.8     8.2 -31.6          15.27  42.7        40.5             .526  $51,106,516
RATES     0.2    -0.2     0.5  -2.1      2.8              .950            2.7                     

Dave Concepción

Year BWAA/Yr BRWAA/Yr FWAA/Yr   Rep WARP1/Yr SFrac WARP1 LgAdj WARP2 WARP2/Yr PennAdd       Salary
1970    -1.6      0.2    -0.6  -3.7      2.0   .42   0.8  .921   0.8      1.8    .009     $614,190
1971    -4.9      0.0    -0.6  -3.9     -1.4   .51  -0.7  .957  -0.7     -1.3   -.008           $0
1972    -3.3      0.5     0.6  -3.7      1.6   .65   1.1  .961   1.0      1.6    .012     $748,585
1973     1.6      0.7     1.3  -3.7      7.4   .51   3.8  .966   3.7      7.1    .047   $7,075,531
1974     1.1      0.7     1.7  -3.7      7.3   .94   6.9  .977   6.7      7.1    .095  $12,814,683
1975    -0.5      0.6     2.4  -3.7      6.3   .81   5.1  .998   5.0      6.3    .068   $8,763,368
1976     1.1     -0.1     2.2  -3.7      6.9   .93   6.4  .997   6.4      6.9    .089  $11,872,616
1977    -0.8      0.4     2.2  -3.7      5.5   .90   5.0  .982   4.9      5.4    .065   $7,628,355
1978     1.7      0.0     0.8  -3.7      6.1   .93   5.7 1.022   5.8      6.3    .080  $10,107,943
1979     1.4      0.2     1.5  -3.6      6.7   .97   6.5 1.012   6.6      6.7    .092  $12,069,992
1980    -1.2      0.2     0.5  -3.6      3.0   .98   2.9 1.033   3.0      3.1    .038   $3,229,851
1981     2.0     -0.3     1.3  -3.7      6.8  1.02   7.0  .977   6.8      6.7    .097  $12,446,923
1982     0.3     -0.6     1.6  -3.6      4.8   .92   4.4 1.031   4.5      4.9    .060   $6,590,730
1983    -2.8      0.1    -0.1  -3.7      0.7   .87   0.6 1.044   0.6      0.7    .007     $365,068
1984    -1.8     -0.3    -1.1  -3.7      0.4   .86   0.4 1.042   0.4      0.4    .004     $184,379
1985    -1.4     -0.5    -0.9  -3.6      0.8   .92   0.8 1.023   0.8      0.9    .009     $466,660
1986    -1.4      0.6    -0.3  -3.5      2.4   .50   1.2 1.031   1.2      2.4    .014   $1,111,922
1987     1.0     -0.3     0.0  -1.1      1.8   .45   0.8 1.013   0.8      1.8    .009     $634,615
1988    -4.4      0.0     0.4  -1.2     -2.8   .33  -0.9 1.028  -0.9     -2.9   -.011           $0
TOTAL   -6.4      1.2    11.8 -51.1          14.44  57.6        57.5             .775  $96,725,411
RATES   -0.4      0.1     0.8  -3.5      4.0              .998            4.0                     

A few things (sorry to clog up this thread)

1. I would not count Musial as a 1B, but that is mostly because I generally don't distinguish between LF and RF when I make my comparisons. Plus, can a guy really be the best ever at a position and play only like 35% of his games there? And even if 35% is too low, it is surely less than half.

2. Career OBP is a stat that is very dependent on context. Evans played a good bit longer than Elliot, making it harder for him to post a higher career OBP, while Traynor played in some years where the league batting average was .300. Any guesses as to why he has the higher OBP? Plus, Evans did have some power as well.

3. This is a question for Dan R. You do your standard deviations to league average right? How does this effect players below average? Here is a situation, take two years, say 1976 and 1959. One player had a 150 OPS+ in 1959 and your SD analysis says that it is equal to a 140 OPS+ in 1976. Fine. Then take two other players, one had a 90 OPS+ in 1959 and the other a 94 in 1976. Woudln't these be equal as well (or at least closer)? If you are doing SD vs. average then wouldn't have been 'easier' to have a lower OPS+ in a high standard deviation year and easier to post the higher, but still below average, OPS+ in a low SD year? I only ask because Fox and Concepcion were both below average hitters for their careers. In this context, shouldn't Fox's 94 OPS+ be more valuable than Concepcion's 88, since in a league with high SD's, like the 1950's, Concepcion may have posted an 83 or something. In other words, isn't the pull always to the center? I am just wondering how you calculate such things.

Chris Fluit and sunnyday2, there you have it. Fox was actually fully 9.9 wins better than Concepción as a hitter, which is certainly significant, more than I thought, but Concepción makes up 4 of those wins on the basepaths, leaving Fox 5.9 wins ahead. Concepción was 11.8 fielding wins above an average SS during his time, while Fox was 8.2 fielding wins above an average 2B during his, reducing the gap to 2.3 wins in Fox's favor on performance versus overall league average. *THEN* you factor in the position scarcity--that replacement SS averaged 3.5 wins below league average during Concepción's time, while replacement 2B averaged 2.1 wins below average during Fox's--and it's not even close, with Concepción jumping out in front 57.6 to 42.7. The fact that Fox's leagues were slightly easier to dominate adds a further 2.1 wins to Concepción's advantage.

The gap is even bigger on peak, since Concepción's fielding was stellar in the 70s and downright bad in the 80s, while Fox's had a flatter profile.

Dr. Chaleeko, that speaks EXACTLY to Nate Silver's point--that you can't define replacement level as a percentage of league average, because SS is (his words) a "feast or famine" position, where you have your A-Rods and Larkins and then your Neifi Pérezes. Nate's system (which I've adopted) looks at ACTUAL replacement players (over age 27, making less than twice the league minimum salary) to come up with replacement levels, and it yields results like these.

Mark Shirk, you're entirely correct, the "pull" of regression is always towards the center, which is league average. But remember that the stdev adjustment is applied to all players--including replacement players! So let's say Player 1 is 2 wins below average, and a replacement player at his position is 4 wins below average, in a league where the standard deviation is 50% higher than the 2005 NL. He's 2 WARP1 (-2 - -4). Now we regress: Player 1 indeed "improves" to 1.3 wins below average. But the replacement player "improves" more, to 2.6 wins below average. Thus, Player 1 is just 1.3 WARP2 (-1.3 - -2.6) after the regression.

What you will see is that *below* replacement players in high-stdev years will have higher WARP2 than WARP1.

reducing the gap to 2.3 wins in Fox's favor on performance versus overall league average.

So let me understand... Fox was better than Concepcion, in terms of hitting, baserunning, and fielding against average, and had more plate appearances, and somehow Concepcion is twice as good as Fox. Anyone else agree that this doesn't pass the smell test?

I'm a Fox supporter but Fox was not better than Concepcion in terms of baserunning.

Dizzypaco, that's before taking position into account!! Then you have to factor in that Concepción played SS in the toughest era ever for the position. Just adding up hitting, baserunning, and fielding against overall league average, you would have about 80% first basemen and corner outfielders. Look, Ozzie Smith only had 300 BRAA+FRAA, which is fewer than Jack Fournier. But we'll rush the Wizard in and don't look at Fournier because SMITH WAS A SHORTSTOP. After adjusting for postiion, Concepción comes out as 42% more valuable than Fox career-wise. The 2x figure you mention (actually 89% better) includes my salary estimator's taste for peak.

My overall point here is that I'm afraid Fox supporters are simply thinking of him as a "middle infielder" and thus lumping him with Bancroft, Concepción, etc. SS and 2B are WORLDS apart, at least according to Nate Silver's research (and my own), and if you don't distinguish the two you'll be electing a whole lot of second basemen and not too many shortstops.

Chris Fluit, Dizzypaco was referring to the sum of hitting, baserunning, and fielding against overall league average, before taking position into account.

DanR, here's my issue with the chart in post #157, showing the levels for 1950s 2Bmen and 1970s SS. The 1950's 2Bman is lower than the SS for 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th place, with the gap widening. So how bad would the 12th place 2Bman have been? I know the 70s were drawing from a wider pool, but it seems to me that your method gives Concepcion an unearned benefit because his replacement player is at a deeper level.

More broadly, while I know that you say you're not timelining, and you regress 1993 more than 1913, etc., the results you seem to get appear to be an awful lot like timelining. Someone asks about a 1910s player, and your response is always that they weren't that far ahead of a weaker league. I'd be interested to see what a PHoM using your system would look like.

Chris Fluit, Dizzypaco was referring to the sum of hitting, baserunning, and fielding against overall league average, before taking position into account.

This is correct. I understood that the figure did not take into account position. I even agree that Concepcion is (slightly) ahead of Fox for this reason. However, while shortstops maybe more scarce than second basemen, I don't think 2B and SS are world's apart, regardless of Nate Silver's research -there's a lot of research in which I don't agree with the conclusions.

I was not objecting to the idea that position should be taken into account, or that Concepcion might be better as a result, but rather the idea that Concepcion was vastly better.

Obviously we're not having a Concepcion vs. Fox discussion but rather a WARP vs. the world discussion. It is not going to go anywhere, trust me. We just disagree.

Devin McCullen, thanks very much for your interest in my work. Responses:

1. That is simply a function of league size, since the numbers in that chart are before adjusting for standard deviations. In fact, I calculate replacement level by looking at the number of standard deviations below overall league average of the worst regulars in the league and comparing that to Nate Silver's FAT levels. Since one stdev is 34% of any distribution, regardless of whether it has 8 teams or 16, league size isn't a factor in my replacement level calculation (as it might appear to be by simply looking at the chart in #157).

I'm surprised you mention the 1910's, because they had an extremely *low* standard deviation. First, I'd refer you to the graph of league adjustments in the downloadable file (http://www.mindpsring.com/~cooberp/WARP.zip). You'll see there that with a few dips for war and expansion, stdevs basically stayed between 1 and 10% below the 2005 NL level from 1920-1970 and 1993 to the present. The 1900's and particularly 1890's get a stiff correction, as stdev's back then were dramatically higher than the rest of the game's history, while the 1910's, 70's, and 80's receive a bit of a boost for having the lowest stdevs in the game's history.

I can't actually do a PHoM until I have the AL and pitchers data (hopefully by the 1996 election!), and of course my PHoM would also reflect my voting tendencies (heavily biased towards peak rate). As soon as I put it together I'll post it for comparison.

>I have Boggs, Brett(Iv'e seen many lists with him number 1), and Baker better then Schmidt

I've seen as many lists with Brett as Sponge Bob Square Pants. Why am I even responding?

BUT: Boggs, Brett, Baker and Bob are all better than Schmidt is you rank them alphabetically.

sunnyday2, well, at least it's worth identifying the cause of the disagreement...I imagine most people would be on board with saying that Fox was 2.3 wins better than Concepción relative to overall league average (pre-position adjustment), and that Concepción makes up that small difference by playing in the integrated 1970's NL instead of the 1950's AL...the issue then becomes how big you think the gap is between 2B and SS. (Although, if they're even before taking position into account, I don't see how anyone could make an argument that Fox is *better* than Concepción...the issue is just the size of the gap).

I’m gonna get Katherine Grace (2/15/07) working on that lefty heater just as soon as we get this standing thing worked out.

1. Mike Schmidt (n/a), Phila. (N) 3B (’73-’89) (1995) – How appropriate in the year of the third baseman to have the best ever eligible.
2. Darrell Evans (n/a), Atl. – S.F. (N) 3B / 1B (’71-’89) (1995) – Looks like the exactly average HOMer in my system, although it’s been long enough that I probably need to recalibrate to be sure.
3. Rollie Fingers (3), Oak. (A) – S.D. (N) RP (’70-’84) (1991) – 33% bonus on his pitching runs to account for leverage. This could be low, but I don’t think I can support using a higher multiplier.
4. Tony Perez (4), Cinc. (N), 1B / 3B (’65-’86) (1994) – Completely different BA/OB/SG breakdown, but the sum of his offensive and defensive value to a team makes him look like a twin of Willie Keeler to me.
5. Luis Tiant (5), Bost. – Clev. (A) SP (’64-’80) (1988) – Right there with Drysdale, Ford and Marichal. Not a slam dunk, but the ballot’s not strong enough to hold him down.
--. Ted Simmons, St.L – Mil. (N) C (’70-’88) (1995) –
6. Jim Kaat (7), Minn. (A) SP (’61-’83) (1991) – Kaat would probably be in the Hall today if his ’62-’66-’74-’75 had instead occurred consecutively. His best seasons don’t seem to coincide with Minnesota’s best as a team in the ‘60s either. Value is value in my system, and this is where he deserves to rank.
7. Rusty Staub (8), Hou. – N.Y. (N), RF (’63-’81) – In my system, I have to take 9400 AB’s of 0.295 EQA over 6400 AB’s at 0.301. Wynn has the bigger peak, but Staub has 5 more seasons to his career.
8. Jimmy Wynn (9), Hou. (N), CF (’63-’76) (1985) – Hitting the ballot the same year as Allen doesn’t make for a favorable comparison. Good hitter - but not as good as Richie – with a relatively short career. Close in overall value in CF as another Richie – Ashburn.
9. Graig Nettles (10), N.Y. (A) 3B (’69-’88) – How can the Hall not find enough 3B to honor?
10. Dutch Leonard (11), Wash. (A) SP (’34-’53) (1972) – Amazing how valuable he was before and after the war, the lost time to injury in ’42 and the apparent effects of recovery in ’43-’44 keep him from the 15-18 votes that all his equals seem to be getting. Penalize one guy for playing too good during the war, penalize another for not playing good enough...
11. Dizzy Trout (12), Detr. (A) SP (’39-’52) (1967) – Bob Lemon was better than Dizzy Trout, but Lemon on the cusp while Trout isn’t even the best Dizzy according to the voters is too steep a drop IMO. It would take a war discount of close to 50% to drop him from my ballot, which is about 35-40% below what the quality drop-off actually was. Don’t penalize the players for being in their prime in ’42-’45.
12. Norm Cash (13), Detr. (A), 1B (’60-’74) (1985) – Ben Taylor appears to be the comp, but Cash ranks so close to Dizzy in the total value column that I have raised Taylor 5 spots instead of starting Norm at 14.
13. Buddy Bell (n/a), Clev. – Tex. (A) 3B (’72-’89) – Close enough to Nettles that he has to have a place on the ballot. Graig has more value offensively, and thus gets the nod.
14. Alejandro Oms (14), Cuba (--), CF (‘21-‘37) (1965) – I’m not enough of a Cuban baseball expert to be Oms’ biggest fan. On top of the fact that I don’t like the slippery slope his election might lead to.
15. George Van Haltren (15), NY(N), CF / LF (’87-’03) (1926) – Would already be in but for the fluke scheduling quirk in ’31. Here’s hoping it won’t take much longer.

Quincy Trouppe – I think I spent the first half overrating catchers, and now apparently I underrate them relative to the group. To my recollection, I have not changed my methodology regarding backstops in a long while, so I’m blaming you guys.
Charlie Keller – DiMaggio, Ryan and Hooper rank above him among the OF’s. I know each of them has previously appeared on my ballot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve given Keller a few votes over the years. A 23% bonus for war credit still leaves him short of 5,000 AB’s; it’ll be a hard sell to make the ballot again.
Nellie Fox – Not the best glove man missing from the ballot.
Pete Browning – Much closer to the ballot than anyone else listed below, but even he’s only approx. low 20s-high 30s.
Edd Roush – I can’t even tell if career voters or peak voters should be voting for Roush. Near the bottom of the OF consideration set.

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

10) LUIS TIANT: Best pitcher remaining, as the 70's glut goes increasingly behind us. ERA+ underrates him.

Why? How?

1995 Ballot

(I hate to jump in right now with a ballot that has Fox #2 and Concepcion nowhere to be found, but I am sending this from an airport lounge and any reevaluation of Dave C. will have to wait for at least one ballot.)

1. (new) Mike Schmidt. He stayed in a condominium next to my grandmother in Clearwater one spring training. She mentioned to him that her grandson was a baseball fan, and he gave her an autographed ball—which I lost, of course. My grandmother, who wouldn’t have known Mike Schmidt from Mike Cuellar, said he was a very nice man.

2. (3) Nellie Fox.
3. (4) Larry Doyle.
The gap between 1 and 2 is greater than between 2 and 30. I have Fox and Doyle this high because they are more clearly above where I would put the in/out line for their position than anyone below them on the ballot.

Fox was durable (he never had fewer than 600 ABs between 1951-1962), consistent, got on base a lot, and was excellent fielder at an important defensive position for more than 2300 games. His 94 OPS+ is OBP heavy and dragged down by some poor years at the very beginning and end of his career. His MVP season was neither undeserved nor a fluke.

Doyle had a career OPS+ of 126, and he was consistently in the NL top 10 in HRs and slugging pct. He also won an MVP award and was an 8-time STATS NL all-star. He was also the best offensive player on the best offensive team in the league 1911-1913. By all accounts Doyle played extremely hard and captained the team for several years. Assessments of his fielding vary from average to poor.

4. (5) Edd Roush.
5. (6) Charlie Keller.
Both of these guys are hard to rank. There are some peculiar things about Roush’s career—holdouts, the Federal League, etc., but I like his 5 year peak between 1917-1921 where he was in the top 4 in OPS+ and playing A-level CF (according to Win Shares—WARP thinks less of his fielding), and he played long enough to accumulate some pretty good career numbers.

Keller’s even peakier than Roush, but he has only 4600 plate appearances. His rate stats benefit from not having a real decline phase, but there aren’t many guys who hit like he did through age 30.

6. (7) Dick Redding. Long career, decent peak. I wish I had a better handle on parts of his career, but I have him on top of my list of eligible pitchers.

7. (9) Quincy Trouppe. His defense seems to have been at least average. His hitting ability seems unquestioned. I’ve got him just over the in/out line for catchers (more or less where I have Freehan—though they were very different players.)

8. (10) Tommy Bridges. He’s not really a peak or career candidate. He finished his career with just fewer than 3,000 IP and his top ERA+ season is 147. In his favor, he’s probably missing 360 or so innings from 1944 and 45, and he had six seasons in which his ERA+ was between 140 and 147 (and ten seasons in which he was in the top 10 in the AL). And while he wasn’t much of a workhorse, he did finish in the top 10 in innings five times.

9. (11) Bob Johnson. Career OPS+ 138, 10 times in AL top 10. Comparable to Medwick and Averill in the lower tier of HoM OFs.

10. (12) Jimmy Wynn. Another unusual, relatively brief, career, but he got on base a ton, hit for power, seems to have been a decent fielder.

11. (new) Darrell Evans. To me, he’s right on the in/out line. How you feel about him may depend on how you feel about positional distribution, his defense, and all those games at 1B. Taking the easy way out for now, I’ve grouped him next to the other part time 3B who I’ve never known what to do with.

12. (13) Tommie Leach. See above. Long career, excellent fielder at both CF and 3B. Hit enough for 3B.

13. (15) George J. Burns. Arguably the best NL OF of the 1910s. Rarely missed a game, had 3 MVP caliber seasons (1914, 1917, 1919) and averaged close to 27 Win Shares a season for a decade. I’ve never been convinced Roush was the better player, to be honest.

14. (15) Dave Bancroft. Strikes me as a slightly lesser version of Nellie Fox--Great glove, league average hitter, walked a lot. Not as durable as Fox. A Hall of Fame “mistake” that really wasn’t.

15. (new) Tommy John. Not much of a peak, but he’s got too many innings of above-average to good pitching to ignore. Also, by reputation, an excellent fielder.

Next 20 (more or less in order)
Luis Tiant
Phil Rizzuto
Bucky Walters
Ken Singleton
Rollie Fingers
Alejandro Oms
Orlando Cepeda
George Van Haltren
Jimmy Ryan
Bob Elliott
Vern Stephens
Graig Nettles
Bobby Bonds
Reggie Smith
Herman Long
Sal Bando
Tony Perez
Hugh Duffy
Jake Beckley
Bruce Sutter

Required Disclosures:
Pete Browning—Too many unanswerable questions
Rollie Fingers—I find his support surprising, but this may reflect a latent anti-reliever bias.

13. George Burns (PHOM 1938): Best leadoff hitter of the 1910s NL.

Is the best lead-off hitter better than the average #3 or #4 hitter. Is Damon a better hitter than Glaus or Thomas. Is Furcal a better hitter than Garciaparra.

Almost everybody who hits 3rd or 4th would be an awesome leadoff hitter. Anybody who is a good enough hitter to bat 3rd or 4th will never bat leadoff no matter how many BB or SB he might accumulate.

My overall point here is that I'm afraid Fox supporters are simply thinking of him as a "middle infielder" and thus lumping him with Bancroft, Concepción, etc. SS and 2B are WORLDS apart, at least according to Nate Silver's research (and my own), and if you don't distinguish the two you'll be electing a whole lot of second basemen and not too many shortstops.

DanR, last time Howie ran some of his position distributions for the HOM we were at something like 17 SS and 15 2B. I don't think we're running a deficit SS vs. 2B. Just as we should be fair to all eras I'd say I want to be fair to all positions. Saying shortstop player A = second basemen player B, ergo always pick player A since his position is tougher...well, I just don't know about that.

>sunnyday2, well, at least it's worth identifying the cause of the disagreement..

Chris F. pretty much covered it in #154 and I covered it in a different way in #174.

>My overall point here is that I'm afraid Fox supporters are simply thinking of him as a "middle infielder"

I'm afraid you want Fox supporters to not know the difference between 2B and SS, but I think we do. SS is the one to the left.

4) Roland Glen Fingers – “Rollie”
Interestingly, watching Rich Gossage’s unnecessarily-long march to Cooperstown has helped me assess my placement of relief pitchers. I think the weirdness of the position has led this electorate to underrate him, and not entirely unfairly. But Fingers is one of the best at his position, outdistances guys like Sutter, Lyle, and McGraw. 76th on SABR Top 100. 82nd on McGuire & Gormley Top 100. 97th on Sporting News Top 100. New York Times Top 100. Ritter & Honig Top 100.

The fact that a lot of people don't get it, doesn't mean that the more thoughtful of insightful have to fall in line. The majority is very seldom right.

Al Peterson--I'm not saying the entire HoM isn't distinguishing between them sufficiently, I'm just saying that I'm worried Fox supporters aren't, when there are SS who were similar with the stick and the glove.. And come on, if shortstop player A and second baseman player B are REALLY identical in EVERY other way, OF COURSE you'd always pick the SS. Obviously no two players are EXACTLY identical, which is where the rub comes in. I guess I'm just trying to call attention to the excellent research that has been done showing a massive gap in replacement level between 2B and SS.

sunnyday2--not if you're in the outfield, it isn't!

Ballot counters are going to hate this...

10) LUIS TIANT: Best pitcher remaining, as the 70's glut goes increasingly behind us. ERA+ underrates him.

Why? How?

Low ratio of unearned runs relative to his era's norm.

As for the topic of the moment (Why didn't we have this in the ballot discussion thread, when I tried to start the discussion?), the point of us Concepción supporters is that there is a bigger gap between him and the guy who would have replaced him, than the gap between Fox and the guy who would have replaced him. I guess that depends on each voter's definition of "merit".

I use WARP3 as my primary tool, with mental adjustments to downgrade (not eliminate, but downgrade) the timeline. I prefer gloves with moderate bats to bats with terrible gloves; both Stargell and Killebrew are not in my PHOM, though they're in the queue. I'm peak-oriented, but my system is much more friendly to long career candidates than it once was, when those long careers stand out, or have an extended prime, if not an outstanding peaks.

PHOM this year is Schmidt, Evans, and Perez

1. Mike Schmidt (PHOM 1995) - Not much interesting to be said here, so I will compare him to recent NBs. I have him ranked ahead of Seaver and Perez, and slightly behind Joe Morgan.

2. Fred Dunlap (PHOM 1926) - I'm close to alone on this one. My case for him is simple, he was one of baseball's best players for 6 straight years. Win shares underrates him, just as it overrates pitchers from the era. Very good hitter, great fielder from an era when fielding meant more.

3. Bob Elliot (PHOM 1968) - Never understood the lack of love for him. I have always viewed him as very close, just short of Stan Hack. This time around, I liked Hack a lot, so Elliot slots in very highly, as we're real deep into the backlog at this point.

4. Bob Johnson (PHOM 1971) - Maybe the foremost all-prime career. Gets no minor league credit despite his late start (it was investigated at the time, he was just a late bloomer). Like Elliot takes a slight minus from his raw stats for the inflated 44-45 years when they were playing with a bunch of AA guys. Clockwork hitter for 12 of his 13 years.

5. Phil Rizzuto (PHOM 1972) - Scooter is the first pure glove man on my ballot; and outstanding shortstop with an average bat (MVP level the year he was more than an average bat). Add in 3 years of war credit (which came right in the middle of his best years), and you get him to this spot.

6. Quincy Trouppe (PHOM 1973) - All evidence points to a very strong bat for a catcher. He would have to be a horrible fielder to not make my ballot given what I believe of his bat, and there's no evidence he was horrible; probably a solid C.

7. Rabbit Maranville (PHOM 1976) - Rizzuto for an earlier generation. Longer career (gets nearly a year of war credit), doesn't have the one year peak of Rizzuto, and was a moderately worse hitter. But an amazing fielder forever. I'll be a big Ozzie supporter, and this guy was Ozzie-lite.

8. Bucky Walters (PHOM 1979) - Had a very nice peak just before the war, and some shoulder seasons before that and during the war.

9. Dick Redding (PHOM 1981) - Had a nice career length, and the numbers indicate a strong peak as well. Not long enough career or high enough peak to go higher than this, but enough of both to land here.

10. Darrell Evans (PHOM 1995) - Best way I can describe him value wise is Nettles/Bell, but just a hair better. Little more peak, little more career, very little in both cases really, but it's enough for 10 or so slots on a tight ballot.

11. Dave Concepcion (PHOM 1994) - Well, I'm voting for Rizzuto and Maranville, so this vote should shock no one. Good career value, plenty of prime value, lacks Rizzuto's peak or Maranville's career, and is thus 3rd of the 3.

12. Urban Shocker (PHOM 1942) - Nice prime, nice 1920-1923 peak, all in the strong league at the time.

13. Burleigh Grimes (PHOM 1986) - Long career, wrong league, but some nice seasons along the way. He's in my view what Eppa Rixey (who I didn't like) was to most other people. Not overly enthused by him, or anyone else on this portion of the ballot (after Trouppe I'd say), but we're deep into the backlog, both for PHOM purposes and for my ballot.

14. Dave Bancroft (PHOM 1987) - Rizzuto-esque candidate. A little more consistent bat, not quite the glove, though still real good with it. Long career, plenty of prime.

15. Bill Monroe (PHOM 1930) - Largely forgotten 2B from the first documented days of the Negro Leagues, was a solid glove a pretty good bat for a long time. In retrospect, wish we'd centered on him, rather than Grant, about whom there was very little evidence and a whole lot of guesswork.

16. Thurman Munson (PHOM 1987) - Plenty of defense, plenty of hitting, durable.
17. Jake Beckley (PHOM 1931) - Yeah, I'll never hear the end of this one, but his career stands out for the era, even if he's still peakless.
18. Dizzy Dean (PHOM 1988) - I wonder how many ballots have Beckley and Dean side by side. Anyway, all peak, obviously.
19. Lave Cross (PHOM 1988) - Back to the career, plus a touch of catching credit (even when not catching, he played a tough position and played it well).
20. Tony Perez (PHOM 1995) - Lots of career, and plenty of prime as well. Never understood the irritation many statheads expressed when he got in. Sure there are better players out, but he is not any sort of slouch by the Hall's induction standards. If he'd stayed at 3B longer, he'd be a particularly obvious HOMer.


Other top 10 returnees

21. Jimmy Wynn - Nice hitter, career's a little short considering he's an outfielder, and his fielding is not a plus (or a minus, but he needs the help).
38. Charlie Keller - Missed some games at his peak which kept it from being high enough to overcome his very short career. Only 1.5 years of war credit.
24. Nellie Fox - Basically Rizzuto, but at 2B rather than SS, and the difference hurts on a ballot this bunched up.
NR. Edd Roush - Consistently missing games, in the weak league, not a good fielder, not a great hitter. Pass.
81. Pete Browning - Not in love, no fielding, career is short for an OF.
28. Rollie Fingers - Might squeeze into my PHOM one day, but I believe the importance of relievers is vastly overblown by baseball men, and I don't feel compelled to go along with it too much. If pressed on it, I'd say Wilhelm, Gossage, and Rivera were the only HOM relievers, with a couple others (including Fingers) right on the borderline.




Other newcomers

22. Buddy Bell - So close to Nettles in my system that it's almost impossible to separate them. Underrated player in many circles, probably because his teams were miserable.
51. Tommy John - Not all that different from Sutton in my eyes. Both were HOVG material to me.
63. Jim Rice - Also HOVG material, just not enough on the peak or career to top that.
68. Chris Speier - Never, ever would have predicted he would finish this highly.

Since some people asked us to include what we consider . . . I try to look at it all. I'm a career voter mostly - not because I have any bias towards it, but just because the numbers (and every study I've ever seen) tell me that peaks are overrated and 5+5 is only about 10-15% less valuable than 10+0.

I give full war credit, and I think it's a major mistake not to when comparing players across eras. My biggest regret on this project is that we didn't require all voters to give war credit like we did with Negro League credit. I see no difference, both were a circumstance of the player's birthday that was beyond his control. I also follow similar philosophy on strikes. I think it's a cop out to say we don't know so it's a zero. If a guy was a 25 WS a year player before and after the war, a zero is a much bigger mistake than giving him three 25s. As far as injury you just credit a guy based on his playing time before and after the war. There's no reason to assume he would have been any more (or less) injury prone during those years.

I'll give minor league credit for players trapped - once they've had a 'here I am, let me play!' season.

Of late I've been much more hands on in rating the pitchers than the position players. I'm very confident in my pitcher rankings. My position player rankings I'm less confident in, but there are only so many hours in the day, and because of that you'll see more position players moving around from week to week than pitchers.

Note that the previous ballot ranking dates to 1993, I missed 1994:

1. Mike Schmidt 3B (n/e) - The best player in baseball over the 1977-86 decade and the greatest 3B of all-time. Should be another unanimous selection.

2. Darrell Evans 3B (n/e) - I agree with Bill James that Evans is probably the most underrated player in history. I think Dave Kingman really hurt his Hall of Fame chances. Before Kingman, 400, not 500 was the magic number for automatic Hall of Fame induction. Kingman made it obvious that nothing is automatic. But if Kingman hadn't existed, I don't think it would have been the same with Evans. Then again, the HoF monitor only shows him with 42 points, so he was likely to be excluded anyway. Not that it was right.

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

4. Jack Quinn SP (6) - I'm giving him credit for 1916-18 where he was pitching (quite well) in the PCL after the Federal League went belly-up. He gets a big leverage bonus for his nearly 800 IP of relief work at a LI of 1.26. Without any PCL credit I still have him between Bridges and Grimes.

5. Rollie Fingers RP (7) - Very easily the number 3 reliever we've seen through 1990, behind only Wilhelm and Gossage, way ahead of Sutter. He's the best I've found at preventing inherited runners from scoring. He was as leveraged as high as just about anyone. His peak is only beaten by Gossage (and Hiller if you call 1-year a peak). ERA+ severely understates how much he prevented runs from scoring, when I adjust for everything, I get his DRA+ at 124. His career was as long as any reliever except for Wilhelm. He's a laughably easy choice IMO, unless you think we should only have 1 or 2 relievers.

6. Tommy John SP (n/e) - Tons of career value. I would probably be sick to my stomach if Jim Kaat (who did very well in the Veteran's Committee balloting this year) got in and John did not. On the surface (career W-L) they appear similar, but when you adjust for everything, they aren't close. I have John as similar to, but better than Burleigh Grimes - about 800 more translated IP, at a 106 rate instead of a 104 rate. That's more than enough to offset Grimes peak edge. I get John somewhere between Eppa Rixey/Red Faber and Grimes on the continuum. He's over the in/out line for me. I also give no extra credit for his poineering the surgery - someone had to be first.

7. Urban Shocker SP (8) - Vaulted in 1981, with 1918 war credit (he was having a great year), and an adjustment for the AL being much better than the NL during his time. He was a great pitcher, peak guys should really look closer at him. He'd be a no brainer without his illness, which should not impact a peak vote.

8. Tommy Bridges SP (9) - Unspectacular peak (although he would have won the 1936 AL Cy Young Award if it had been invented), but a lot of career value. War credit helps nudge him above Trout and Leonard. He could obviously still pitch when he left for the war, and was still good when he returned for a short time. I give him 2 years of credit at his 1941-43 level.

9. Jake Beckley 1B (10) - I still fully endorse his election. A smidge below Rafael Palmeiro, they were basically the same player, though Palmeiro was a little bit better with the stick, 1B was much tougher in Beckley's day. The average 1B had just a .531 OWP during his career, Beckley was .596, played good, though not great defense (+67 FRAA according to WARP) and played for nearly 20 years. The Ted Lyons, Red Faber or Red Ruffing of 1B. There's just so much career value here. Too much to ignore.

10. Charlie Keller LF (11) - Gave him minor league credit for 1938, when he was clearly major league quality, and I threw in war credit. He comes out way ahead of Kiner once I do this.

11. Graig Nettles (n/e) - Vacuum cleaner at 3B, one HR title, another runner-up. He was a better hitter than Brooksy, almost his equal with the glove. Almost as long of a career, and while he wasn't as good as Robinson, Brooks had plenty of room to spare. I think he's a fairly easy choice, especially considering our lack of 3B.

12. Thurman Munson C (12) - Better than I realized - just a hair behind Freehan. Better career D, better career O, but Freehan played more and had the higher peak. Very, very close.

13. Buddy Bell 3B (n/e) - Just a hair behind Nettles - arguably as good as fielder (though about a season less at 3B) and a hair behind as a hitter also. Who realized at the time that he was one of the best players in the game from 1980-82?

14. Dave Concepcion SS (n/e) - Better than I realized, and was really hurt by the 1981 strike, which occurred during his best season (and a season where the Reds had the best record in baseball, but missed the playoffs). Still no Trammell or Ozzie, but a very good player indeed. We could do worse than induct him.

15. Wally Schang C (13) - Basically the best MLB catcher between Bennett and Cochrane/Hartnett. As valuable a hitter as Campanella or Bennett. Defense was questionable.

Honorable Mention:

16. Ben Taylor 1B (14) - Consider me convinced that he was really was a great hitter. I was underrating him.

17. Rusty Staub RF (27) - Finally pushed him higher, I like career candidates with nice peaks, and from 1967-71 Staub was one of the best players in baseball. Looking at Jose Cruz made me realize I had Staub way too low.

18. Pie Traynor 3B (15) - The more I look, the more I think we missed on this one. He gets another bump this week. I don't agree with rating Boyer above him. Traynor far outhit his 3B peers relative to Boyer and his.

Honorable Mention:

19. Dave Bancroft SS (16) - Let's see. You've got a SS with a .498 OWP, during an era where the average SS has a .414 OWP. He's also one of the 15 most valuable defensive shortstops in history to this point. He had a reasonably long career as well, though his in-season durability wasn't great. Think that's a valuable player? I do.

20. Jimmy Wynn CF (35) - I had him too low. Man this ballot is jammed with great players.

21. Darrell Porter C (17) - A lot higher than I thought he'd be. His 1979 was an MVP caliber season - of course it came in the one year between 1977-81 that the Royals didn't make the playoffs, so he finished 9th behind guys like Mike Flanagan and Gorman Thomas. As a catcher, in 679 PA, he had as good of an offensive season as the LF/DH that won the award. I could see ranking him almost as high as Freehan. I wish I'd looked at this sooner - I'd like to see him get the close look that Ron Cey got. Porter was definitely a better player.

22. Charley Jones LF (18) - A superstar of the early NL/AA. I give full credit for his contract debacle / blacklisting, which I consider a product of his timeframe, and not something that would hinder any modern player. I have dropped him this week. I still think he was great, but I think I'd been giving him a little too much credit for his AA seasons.

23. Jim Fregosi SS (19) - I like middle infielders that can hit.

24. Don Newcombe SP (20) - Gets color-line and Korea credit. Moving up this week after a few tweaks in the system adjusting for fielding behind him.

25. Bucky Walters SP (21) - Big years, good hitter for a pitcher, career kind of short though. Basically tied with Newcombe.

27. Ken Singleton RF (38) - I've got him as very similar to Henrich. Singleton lasted longer (ever after accounting for the war), but Henrich was a much better fielder. Henrich had more power and Singleton more OBP. But when you add it all up, their overall value was quite similar.

26. Burleigh Grimes SP (22) - Faced pretty steep competition (.520 RSI), so his 256-226 RSI and 107 ERA+ understates his record somewhat. I wouldn't be against his election at this point - his hitting puts him over the top. The updated fielding adjustments in WARP drop him a little in the rankings.

27. Phil Rizzuto SS (26) - Lost 3 prime years to WWII. Great defense, and a huge year in 1950 also.

28. Norm Cash 1B (23) - Wow, history books, where have you been hiding this guy? .671 career OWP! +109 fielding runs! That puts his defense at a level with Roger Connor, George Kelly and Frank McCormick among the all-time greats. He has more FRAA than Vic Power, for example.

29. Roger Bresnahan C/OF (24) - Great hitter / catcher = tough combination to overlook.

30. Quincy Trouppe C (25) - Convince me that I should have him higher than Bresnahan . . . not being sarcastic.

31. Tommy Henrich RF (40) - Very underrated, gets a ton of war credit.

32. Luis Tiant SP (28) - Very nice career. Said I could see ranking him a little higher, now I've done it.

33. Cecil Travis SS (29) - Career destroyed by WWII. I'm comfortable with projecting his 1942-45 at a high enough level to get him here.

34. Nellie Fox 2B (30) - Long solid career at a key position.

35. Tony Lazzeri 2B (31) - Great hitter for a 2B. Short career and fielding keep him from being higher.

36. Virgil Trucks SP (32) - Very underrated pitcher, hurt by the war.

37. Waite Hoyt SP (33) - Peak is nothing special, but good pitcher for a long time.

38. Bob Johnson LF (34) - Overlooked star, not much difference between Johnson and Medwick.

39. Bert Campaneris SS (36) - He would be much higher if I only compared him to his peers. SS didn't hit at all when he played (average OWP for SS during his career was .370). I split the difference and here is where he ends up. I could see moving him higher.

40. Toby Harrah 3B/SS (37) - This guy could flat hit. If he wasn't so bad with the glove, I could see myself endorsing him for election - he was clearly a good enough hitter for the positions he played. But I can't get him past Lazzeri. He's also under 9000 PA, and I just can't get him past HoVG. But he was a much better player than I realized as an 11 year old watching him on the 1984 Yankees . . .

41. Ron Cey (39) - I see him as similar to Boyer, with a lower peak.

42. Gene Tenace C/1B (41) - Could go higher than this, just a machine as a hitter, and 900 games caught. Kind of a poor man's Joe Torre.

43. Alejandro Oms OF (42) - Pretty good hitter, conservative ranking, I really don't have a handle on him.

44. Reggie Smith OF (43) - Very good player, but missed a lot of time in his good years. Only played 150 games 3 times.

45. Jim Rice (n/e) - Not as a good a hitter for his career as Smith. Not close really. Also, Smith played CF. Rice catches him with his extra 2 seasons.

46. Dick Redding SP (44) - I'm just not seeing what everyone else does for some reason.

47. Dizzy Trout SP (--) - Great peak. Funny that I only have Dean as the #2 ranked "Dizzy", but that's how I see it.

48. John McGraw 3B (46) - If only he could have stayed in the lineup more.

49. Edd Roush CF (47) - I can't argue with guys that vote for him.

50. Jose Cruz LF (n/e) - If only he'd gotten off to a better start.

Pete Browning - Let's be careful here guys. He was not a good fielder, in an era where fielding was very important. He played in extremely weak leagues during the prime of his career. If he'd had a long career, I could see getting on board, but he has too many weaknesses to overcome his short career - this isn't Albert Belle or Charlie Keller - this is Hack Wilson.

4. Sutter, Bruce – Hard to separate from Fingers, but I give him the edge because he was an innovator with the split-fingered fastball. He also had a higher peak, and his success was more attributable to great stuff.

6. Fingers, Rollie – One of the few relief pitchers from this era that arguably deserves a spot in the HoM. One of the first consistently good relievers used as a true closer. His numbers indicate, however, that he got away with less than great stuff during some seasons.


More love for the part-timers.

His numbers indicate, however, that he got away with less than great stuff during some seasons....thus explaining the low ranking.

Whoops, I missed that Sutter was eligible. I doubt he would have cracked the top 50 anyway. He's much closer to Stu Miller and Lindy McDaniel than he is to Lee Smith and Rollie Fingers.

I don't buy anything for 'innovator' credit. Someone eventually would have figured it out. How much did it help his teams? How good was he because of the innovation. That's all that matters.

I see Quinn and Shocker...we got our 100.

And Leonard. That's 101.

Using OWP w/playing time, Player Overall Wins Score, and defense (Win Shares/BP/Fielding Runs) for position players, applied to .500 baseline. Using Runs Saved Above Average, Player Overall WInsScore and Support Neutral Fibonacci Wins for Pitchers. For Position Players AND Pitchers, heavily weight comparison vs. contemporaries, and lightly look at WARP1 and Win Shares.

1. MIKE SCHMIDT, 3B. 79 POW, 467 Win Shares, 157 WARP1, 576 RCAP & .688 OWP in 10,062 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Could have been the first A-Rod SS if the Phillies had just punted Bowa.

2. ROGER BRESNAHAN, C. 23 POW, 231 Win Shares, 75 WARP1, 282 RCAP & .651 OWP in 5,373 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. He’s no Berra, but was best Catcher from 1880s – 1915.

3. JOHN McGRAW, 3B. 20 POW, 78 WARP1, 459 RCAP & .727 OWP in 4,909 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Was CAREER ALL-TIME OBP% leader until Ruth qualifies in 1923, EVEN adjusting for League, and is STILL #3 behind Williams and Ruth. AND he played 3B, where offensive output was generally very low. Plus led his team to 3 consecutive championships. Oh, AND at least 2nd best 3B between 1875-1900!

4. BOB JOHNSON, LF. 36 POW, 287 Win Shares, 102 WARP1, 319 RCAP & .651 OWP in 8,047 PAs. Def: VERY GOOD. Many many very very good seasons. Best OF candidate not elected.

5. GENE TENACE, C/1B. 26 POW, 231 Win Shares, 73 WARP1, 244 RCAP & .670 OWP in 5,525 PA’s. Def: FAIR. Highly underrated, and very close to Bresnahan in performance.

6. REGGIE SMITH, CF/RF. 32 POW, 325 Win Shares, 99 WARP1, 281 RCAP & .653 OWP in 8,050 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Hit like a 1st baseman, yet could play multiple defensive positions well.

7. FRANK CHANCE, 1B. 23 POW, 237 Win Shares, 72 WARP1, 308 RCAP & .720 OWP in 5,099 PAs. Def: VERY GOOD. Excellent hitter and good fielder back when 1st base was MUCH more important defensively. Top seasons better than Beckley’s best. Deadball era offensive stars continue to get no respect….

8. QUINCY TROUPPE, C. Estimated 115 OPS+ over 8,462 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Comp looks to be Gary Carter. He could hit for a catcher, and seems to have been AT LEAST average defensively. One of the best major league teams was willing to give him a chance at age 39, which I think says something about his talent.

9. DARRELL EVANS, 3B. 41 POW, 363 Win Shares, 111 WARP1, 198 RCAP & .596 OWP in 10,737 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Played a long time, and played well. Unless his defense was somehow poorer than indicated by the best measurement tools, he belongs in HOM.

10. BEN TAYLOR, 1B. Estimated 138 OPS+ over 9,091 PA’s. Def: FAIR. Comps are Fred McGriff and Mule Suttles. Too bad his best years were pre-live ball, pre-Negro Leagues, but we do have his 1921 stats that show his greatness. He’s Bill Terry plus about 3 more Bill Terry type seasons.

11. DAVE BANCROFT, SS. 36 POW, 269 Win Shares, 111 WARP1, 157 RCAP & .498 OWP in 8,244 PA’s. Def: EXCELLENT. Similar to Bobby Wallace and Ozzie Smith, so surprised he’s not getting more votes.

12. NORM CASH, 1B. 31 POW, 315 Win Shares, 102 WARP1, 295 RCAP & .671 OWP in 7,910 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Obviously underrated player who just needs more in-season PT to make a high ballot slot.

13. DICK REDDING, P. 183 MLE Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 114 MLE ERA+ in 3,556 innings. Was the 2nd best Negro League Pitcher in his era, behind only Williams.

14.JIMMY WYNN, CF. 30 POW, 305 Win Shares, 98 WARP1, 202 RCAP & .634 OWP in 8,010 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Better than Kiner overall.

15. TONY MULLANE, P.30 POW, 399 Win Shares, 89 WARP1, 241 RSAA, 240 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 118 ERA+ in 4,531(!) innings. He could hit a little too. Had a very good career AND some really good individual seasons. AA discount keeps him from being a TOP 5 ballot player.

LEFT OFF THE BALLOT:

NEWBIES OF NOTE:

BUDDY BELL, 3B. 29 POW, 301 Win Shares, 100 WARP1, 61 RCAP & .524 OWP in 10,009 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Just off ballot due to so much of his value being defensive and due to peers like Schmidt and Evans being better.

JIM RICE, LF. 19 POW, 282 Win Shares, 79 WARP1, 155 RCAP & .593 OWP in 9,058 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Just doesn’t stand out enough in production or longevity for a corner outfielder.

TOMMY JOHN, P.20 POW, 289 Win Shares, 111 WARP1, 173 RSAA, 204 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 111 ERA+ in 4,710 innings. Matches up well with Jack Quinn, who is off ballot.

RETURNEES:

CHARLIE KELLER, LF. 22 POW, 67 WARP1, 291 RCAP & .748 OWP in 4,604 PAs. Def: AVERAGE He was very good when he played, but McGraw & Chance were even better ‘short career’ choices relative to position, peers, etc.

NELLIE FOX, 2B. 14 POW, 93 WARP1, 129 RCAP & .483 OWP in 10,349 PAs. Def: EXCELLENT. Would rank Concepcion and Monroe ahead of him.

EDD ROUSH, CF. 10 POW, 110 WARP1, 205 RCAP & .622 OWP in 8,156 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Edge of playing CF not enough to overcome Bob Johnson’s edge in offense.

PETE BROWNING, CF/LF. 28 POW, 95 WARP1, 478 RCAP & .745 OWP in 5,315 PAs. Def: POOR. Baseball’s premier hitter in the 1880’s. Much better hitter than any eligible outfielder, but only around 6th best CF in 30 year period.

ROLLIE FINGERS, RP. 23 POW, 188 Win Shares, 80 WARP1, 103 RSAA, & 119 ERA+ in 1,701 innings. Even with post season and leverage, can’t match up to starters with that ERA+.

JAKE BECKLEY, 1B. 23 POW, 115 WARP1, 245 RCAP & .596 OWP in 10,492 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. A very good for a long time player. Possibly best first baseman from 1880 – 1920, but I’m not 100% sold he was better than Chance or even Taylor.

CHARLIE JONES, LF. 19 POW, 71 WARP1, 245 RCAP & .697 OWP in 3,958 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Not a lot of PAs due to short schedules and suspension, but lots of offensive production.

BUCKY WALTERS, P.25 POW, 89 WARP1, 161 RSAA, 166 Neut_Fibonacci_Wins, and 115 ERA+ in 3,104 innings. Hitting helps him, but doesn’t quite stack up to other pitchers.

TONY PEREZ, 1B/3B. 10 POW, 349 Win Shares, 113 WARP1, 146 RCAP & .582 OWP in 10,861 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. I don’t see the love – had a few years at 3B that were not quite Rosen-esque, then became Beckley-lite. Perhaps most over-rated player ever.

HUGH DUFFY, CF/LF. 5 POW, 95 WARP1, 154 RCAP & .623 OWP in 7,838 PAs. Def: AVERAGE. Just not in the elite OF class offensively, and fielding runs doesn’t even like his defense (-31).

ALEJANDRO OMS, CF/RF. Estimated 126 OPS+ over 5,152 PA’s. Def: AVERAGE. Comp is possibly Eric Davis. That won’t cut it in this crowd.

GEORGE VAN HALTREN, CF. 12 POW, 118 WARP1, 167 RCAP & .620 OWP in 8,992 PAs. Def: FAIR. He wasn’t that far above position offensively, and wasn’t that good defensively.

Ah, I lost track of how many new ballots there were. Did somebody already vote for Tommy John?

More love for the part-timers.

Yeah, it's a puzzler. Teams try to hide those relief aces, you know, but somehow, they keep getting stuck using them when the game is on the line anyway. I can't understand it. And then the HoM voters go and give them credit for helping their teams win in crucial situations. Sheer close-minded, counterstatistical adherence to the conventional wisdom!

As for the topic of the moment (Why didn't we have this in the ballot discussion thread, when I tried to start the discussion?), the point of us Concepción supporters is that there is a bigger gap between him and the guy who would have replaced him, than the gap between Fox and the guy who would have replaced him. I guess that depends on each voter's definition of "merit".

I wouldn't agree that it's just a replacement level issue. Player Overall Wins, which uses a ".500" baseline, gives Concepcion 18 WINS vs. 14 WINS for Fox.

Devin: Tommy John has five votes, one of them a #3. KJOK's ballot didn't add anyone new to the 101. My guess is that that's the final number.

now testing here, have been trying to post ballot for half an hour...

Great, I can post a sentence but when I paste the whole ballot in, I get an error message.

I'll try again later, good thing the deadline's moved back.

Maybe your ballot is too long. What happens if you try to post half of it?

Bump?