hot topics

92 1938 Jimmie Reese-2B/Coach

Did you ever hear about him without the words "Babe Ruth's roommate" coming up?

Oooh... Darrell Evans is in the hot seat. He's the top borderline newbie running against our backlog. Time to do the homework!

Just so you know, I'm working on a major retooling of my OPS+ system, that will allow me to better evaluate cross-positional players, and account for shifts in the spectrum. I hope to use it for this election, but I'm not planning on it (although I will integrate some of its conclusions).

Whatever comes to mind.

Mike Schmidt: Best 3B ever, and among the best post-handlebar-era moustachioed players ever.

Darrell Evans: Underoveroverunderrated. But still making my ballot.

Buddy Bell: I have him as about as good as Cey, Yost, and Boyer. He's got less peak than all three, but more career than them.

Tommy John: I know the commish likes him a lot, but he's just absolutely peakless. Despite that he's still pretty close to HOMable for, just not close enough. Induced 604 DPs, but I was surprised to see that he only picked off 20 guys. Lefty Carlton picked off like 140 or so most ever. Baserunners were 60.9% against John in 394 attempts; against Carlton, 58.3% in 539 attempts. Is Carlton better with runners or John? (Carlton 90 balks, 16 for John.)

Jim Rice: At the end of the day, the Roy White comparison isn't far fetched.

Chris Speier: Better than Justin. Had that one really good year, and a long string of serviceable ones. In this epoch, he would be among the lesser SS in the league, not one of the better ones.

Jim Sundberg: Very good catcher; I was surprised how good he was. Not HOMable, but he's the AL's best catcher during Fisk's down periods and Munson's demise.

Jerry Reuss: I don't know if Reuss is comical but he always seemed comical to me. Moustachioed lefties, i guess.

Doyle Alexander: An amazingly long career for a truly mediocre pitcher. He is, of course, the basis for one of the great trivia questions of the last 25 years...the answer is John Smoltz.

Dwayne Murphy: Very good player who wasn't quite peaky enough and didn't have much of a career outside of his prime. I guess I put him and Lloyd Moseby in the same buckett, though that's a really off-the-cuff statement and could be very wrong. Henderson and Murphy were 2/3 of a sweet outfield: i don't know if Oakland did, but I'da batted them 1/2 to take advantage of all that on-base goodness.

Kent Tekulve: Most IBB ever.
Tekulve 179
Maddux 169
G Perry 164
Garber 155
Carlton 150
Glavine 139
McDaniel 136
Minton 131
McGraw 128
Lavelle 126

All relievers. I suppose that makes sense; relievers come on in tense situations, and the best ones face all comers, lefty or righty. So they may well end up walking a lot of oppositepaw hitters to get the good matchup. And in the NL or pre-DH days, they probably walked some hitters to set up situations where they would face a pitcher or a lesser benchie. Or just walking someone to set up the double play. Whatever the case may be, they do it a lot, and no one was better with the four finger salute than Kent. Or as my anti-French friend says: Kahhhhhhhhhhhhnt Taykooooooooooooooooooove. I suspect Tekulve is probably not a French name (Dutch or Danish?), but my friend doesn't have time for facts.

Rick Rhoden: How many freakin' pitchers did the Dodgers come up with in the 1960s and 1970s and early 1980s? Hough, Sutcliffe, Rhoden, Fernando, Howe, Welch, Hershiser, and that's just off the top of my head among guys that I saw play.

Bob Stanley: The Steamah. Sorry, man, it was your fault.

Glenn Hubbard: Old Glenny Hubbard fielded so many balls he didn't know what to do.... If only he could hit too.

Manny Trillo: You shoulda seen his cousin, Manny Duo.

Lee Mazzilli: Visually I often mix up his hair with Erik Astrada's. I recollect him using one of those funny-looking bats that's really short, wide, and round, tapering down gently rather than being kind of flattish at the top and cupped. I could be wrong, and I could be thinking of Mookie's bat or something. I saw him pinch hit a lot on WWOR, and it was interesting to me that he stopped wearing glasses after a while. I guess he switched to contacts?

Willie Hernandez: 1984 MVP blah blah blah. Seriously, it's unlikely we'll see another Willie Hernandez 1984-like season for a longgg time.

Tony Armas: The not-as-good third of the A's early 1980s outfield. Yet at the time he probably was seen as the equal or superior of Murphy thanks to the homers and ribbies. He's got the only season of 100+ RBI with an average below .230...he hit .218 while driving in 107 in 1983. Amazing.

Craig Reynolds: See Chris Speier, only much less so.

Shane Rawley: Another great one of the name-combining game---Shane Rawley Fingers

Mike Krukow: I remember him as the Met Killer. Just as Frank Lary was the Yankee Killer. Was it earned? Here's his W-L and ERA against all teams: 124-117 3.90. And against the Mets: 22-7 3.69 in 243 innings. He pitched more innings against them than any other team (by 20), won 9 more games than against any other team and had a lower ERA against only three other teams (min. 100 innings). Considering how good the Mets were in the second half of his career, that's pretty impressive.

I gotta ask: How did the shorthand-anglicization of Jesus Marcano Trillo ended up being Manny Trillo? The Marcano part is a last name (which, BTW, is also my own. Just a coincidence, though).

The Marcano part is a last name (which, BTW, is also my own.

Funny, but from here you look more like a Trillo to me. ; )

Schmidt and Trouppe look like locks.

Then, Evans or Wynn? Or Keller or Fox?

Tommy John? You gotta be kidding.

What would really shock--shock!--the outside world. From this list probably Keller. Do it.

Ranking Darrell Evans against Charlie Keller is a task I am not looking forward to in this election.

Talk about cranberries and watermelons . . .

But it does look like the key assessment to make, for the electorate as a whole, is Evans v. Wynn v. Keller, though not many may actually rank them all that close to one another . . .

Fox is within striking distance, but as the recent returnees to the voting pool are not Fox fans, I think that his move toward election is going to be slowed. Plus, head-to-head comparisons of Fox to Graig Nettles and Buddy Bell, if folks bother to do them, really don't look helpful to Fox's case . . .

Gosh, I was assuming that Evans was a near-lock, and Trouppe would likely be the backlogger to make it in. Maybe more people are Darrell doubters than I thought...

I'm with DanR on this one. Evans is a waltz. Trouppe or Fox or Keller or Wynn . . .


Tommy John: I know the commish likes him a lot, but he's just absolutely peakless. Despite that he's still pretty close to HOMable for, just not close enough. Induced 604 DPs, but I was surprised to see that he only picked off 20 guys. Lefty Carlton picked off like 140 or so most ever. Baserunners were 60.9% against John in 394 attempts; against Carlton, 58.3% in 539 attempts. Is Carlton better with runners or John? (Carlton 90 balks, 16 for John.)

Carlton, if "like 140 or so" is reasonably precise!
90 balks - I guess most balks are a consequence of the leadoff & pickoff game and few occur with a runner on third, so those are essentially bases, usually second base.


Jerry Reuss: I don't know if Reuss is comical but he always seemed comical to me. Moustachioed lefties, i guess.

Reuss was Captain Kangaroo, right? Or was it someone else, maybe Bob Horner?


Doyle Alexander: An amazingly long career for a truly mediocre pitcher. He is, of course, the basis for one of the great trivia questions of the last 25 years...the answer is John Smoltz.

Alexander was also traded for Frank Robinson
and I suppose he was the principal bait the Yankees bit in '76.
Alexander at baseball-reference

Well, Chris certainly called it on Sutton. Will Evans make more than half the ballots, which would seem to be the minimum to run down the top of the backlog? Maybe he will, I for one woulda had him ahead of Sutton if needs be, not that it matters if he doesn't make my ballot. (Prelim #16 but not much analysis of that yet, really.)

Not everybody likes this listing, but enough of us find it useful or interesting to make it worth posting:

1860s - 1 (Pearce) (SS)

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

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

1890s - 16 (Burkett, Childs, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Griffith, Hamilton, Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, McPhee, Nichols, Rusie, Thompson, Young) (P-4, 2B-3, SS-3, LF-3, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Beckley, Duffy, Van Haltren, McGraw}

1900s - 17 (M Brown, Clarke, J Collins, Crawford, Flick, R Foster, Hill, G Johnson, Lajoie, Mathewson, McGinnity, Plank, Sheckard, Waddell, Wagner, Wallace, Walsh) (P-6, 2B, 3B, SS-3, LF-2, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Bresnahan, Leach, Willis, Joss}

1910s - 16 (Alexander, Baker, Carey, Cobb, E Collins, Groh, Jackson, W Johnson, Lloyd, Magee, Mendez, Santop, Speaker, Torriente, Wheat, Williams) (P-4, C, 2B, 3B-2, SS, LF-2, CF-4, RF)
{Candidates – Redding, Cravath, Doyle, Taylor}

1920s - 18 (Beckwith, Charleston, Coveleski, Faber, W Foster, Frisch, Goslin, Heilmann, Hornsby, Mackey, Moore, Rixey, Rogan, Ruth, Sewell, Sisler, Vance, Wilson) (P-6, C, 1B, 2B-2, 3B-2, SS-2, LF, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates – Roush, Oms, Grimes, Mays, Schang, Traynor}

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

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

1950s – 17 (Ashburn, Banks, Berra, Campanella, Doby, Ford, Kiner, Lemon, Mantle, Mathews, Minoso, Pierce, Roberts, J Robinson, Snider, Spahn, E Wynn) (P-6, C-2, 2B, 3B, SS, LF-2, CF-4)
{Candidates – Fox}

1960s – 20 (Aaron, Boyer, Bunning, Clemente, Drysdale, Freehan, B Gibson, Kaline, Killebrew, Koufax, Marichal, Mays, McCovey, B Robinson, F Robinson, Santo, Torre, Wilhelm, B Williams, Yastrzemski) (P-6, C-2, 1B-2, 3B-3, LF-2, CF, RF-4)
{Candidates – Cepeda, Cash, Brock, E Howard}

1970s – 16 (Allen, Bench, Carew, Carlton, Grich, RJackson, Jenkins, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Rose, Seaver, Simmons, Stargell, Sutton) (P-7, C-2, 1B-2, 2B-3, OF-2)
{Candidates- J Wynn, Fingers, Perez, Staub, Tiant, Singleton, Bonds, Bando, RSmith, Munson}

Would Nellie FOx be the smallest post WWI position player in the HoM?
Would Charlie Keller have the most body hair of any member of the HoM?
Would Jimmy Wynn have played in the worst hitting environment(relative to league) of any position player in the HoM?

Sutton was a pretty easy call. Evans is not so easy a case. I can certainly see him making enough ballots. Perez made 15, and I think most will ultimately find Evans better than Perez, but will he get enough top ballot support to break away from the pack? A few respected commentators are saying "near-lock" and "waltz" about Evans, which suggests that Evans going to draw some top ballot support.

It looks like the high backlog will draw 8-10 elect me votes. Sutton drew 16, against a stronger field than Evans will face, with everything except #1 wide open. Perez looks set to draw about 6 next time, so at least 8 for Evans seems highly likely.

I'd say that, given the analysis of his case so far, then, that Evans is _highly_ likely to break into the top 10. It's too soon to say that he's likely to be elected, but he's certainly going to be a strong competitor. His thread is going to be lively this week, I am sure, and I expect by the time we're done discussing him, it'll be fairly clear where he's going to end up.

He looks bound for the top half of my ballot, but I have no idea whether he'll be #2 or #8, or if he'll slip under further scrutiny.

I wish I could find something in the posts here that justifies what is happening with Trouppe. If I rate him purely as a catcher, with all the catcher advantages provided in my system to account for the disadvantages in real baseball, he's nowhere near the ballot. Clearly the only rationale for his ballot position is anecdotal evidence, which isn't amazing...it's just pretty good.

Most of the ballot comments about Trouppe are along the lines of "We don't have much of his record" or "We don't know as much as we would like," followed by something like "I disregard his MLEs" and "I'm convinced he was good."

That doesn't make him sound like a HoMer to me, even reading the comments of those who are voting for him. Most are conclusory, saying he's the "best catcher available." On what basis? I don't ever recall a case where everyone was unimpressed by a player's MLEs and defensive abilities, and hazy on his career, but ranked the player so highly because he said to be "good." Isn't that exactly the kind of thing that kept us from electing Cool Papa Bell (and rightly so, I think)?

I see that some voters are suggesting he has been underrated anecdotally. I can't imagine how. If his MLEs aren't good, he wasn't a good defensive catcher and his anecdotal evidence isn't amazing, on what basis can we conclude he was underrated?

IMO, if he doesn't hit well enough as a catcher to meet the lower standards we require for catchers at the bat, I have a hard time believing his numbers would be magically transformed if he played 1b or OF, such that he would put up the MONSTER numbers he'd need to get in at those positions. Perhaps he would have been a great defensive shortstop?

It's obvious we are going to elect him, but I think we are working in the wrong direction: from the result to the justification.

Would Jimmy Wynn have played in the worst hitting environment(relative to league) of any position player in the HoM?

Off the top of my head, I'd say Eddie Mathews probably has a case, as would Pete Hill, though we can't be certain just how Schorling park played.

If his MLEs aren't good, he wasn't a good defensive catcher and his anecdotal evidence isn't amazing, on what basis can we conclude he was underrated?

But his MLEs are good. Dr. Chaleeko's MLEs for Trouppe put him at a career 116 OPS+, over about 1700 games, 277 win shares, with several years missing from early in his career because he was playing in Bismarck rather than in the NeL.

Here's what the anecdotal evidence discussion is about. He doesn't have a stellar reputation as a defensive catcher, but he does have a reputation as an excellent all-around athlete. The anecdotal record of NeL players at high-defense positions like 2B, 3B, and C, suggests that players who were smooth and flashy were often overrated as all-round players even though they couldn't hit (see Oliver Marcelle, Judy Johnson, Sammy T. Hughes). Trouppe, the analysis suggests, was not a great and stylish defensive catcher, so he is likely underrated on the "all-time NeL greats" sorts of lists, as were players like John Beckwith and Jud Wilson, and his playing more in Mexico than in the American NeLs also makes it likely that he was not observed as much in his prime as many other black stars were. Those are the two main arguments that explain the lack of anecdotal praise for him despite MLEs that show him to be a strong candidate.

We just elected Ted Simmons easily, with his career 118 OPS+, 1771 games caught as an average defensive catcher. He did have 2456 career games, but a lot of that was not-so-valuable late career DH work, where we are missing maybe 300-400 games of Trouppe as catcher from his early career.

I'm not saying that Trouppe was as good as Simmons, and the electorate isn't saying that. But the evidence that we have suggests that Trouppe has a record that bears comparison to Simmons, which means he is definitely a serious candidate.

And then there's Bill Freehan, 112 OPS+, 1581 games caught in a 1774-game career. Freehan was an excellent defensive catcher, which gains him some ground on Trouppe, but Trouppe was a better hitter and had a longer productive career. And we elected Freehan a while ago, when the pool was deeper.

All I'm saying is that the stats we have, which are prominently displayed in the early posts on the Trouppe thread, are easily enough to put Trouppe on this ballot.

Few people are talking about how incredibly great anyone in the backlog is, and, if they are, nobody is believing them. We are electing the bottom tier of the HoM right now, so lukewarm praise is the order of the day.

notable: Ps have finally passed OFs (though they were way ahead already on things like '90 pct or more at position'). And Cs have passed 3Bs, barely.


HOM by pct at position, thru 1994

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

C (12.56) - Cochrane 100, Dickey 100, Hartnett 98, JGibson 95, Campanella 95, Freehan 90, Bennett 88, Berra 87, Mackey 80, Bench 78, TSimmons 77, Santop 75, Ewing 47, Torre 41, Kelly 36, McVey 30, White 28, O'Rourke 11

1B (19.04) - Start 100, Gehrig 100, Mize 100, Terry 99, Brouthers 98, Sisler 97, Leonard 95, Connor 88, McCovey 88, Foxx 87, Anson 83, Greenberg 83, Suttles 70, Banks 51, Carew 50, Allen 47, Wilson 45, Killebrew 40, Stargell 40, Stovey 37, Torre 36, Charleston 35, Musial 35, McVey 31, Rose 27, Jennings 26, Lloyd 25, Yastrzemski 23, Heilmann 22, Ewing 19, Kelley 16, Delahanty 15, Hines 12, Lajoie 12, Mantle 11, FRobinson 11, Spalding 10, O'Rourke 10, Dihigo 10, JRobinson 10, Irvin 10

2B (15.61) - McPhee 100, Doerr 100, Childs 100, Gehringer 99, Morgan 99, E Collins 98, Gordon 98, Herman 95, Grich 86, Lajoie 83, Frisch 77, Hornsby 72, Grant 70, Barnes 69, JRobinson 65, Carew 47, Richardson 43, HR Johnson 25, Ward 24, Groh 20, Hill 20, Pike 18, Rose 18, Dihigo 15, Wright 10, Wilson 10

3B (12.45) - Baker 100, BRobinson 99, J Collins 98, Hack 98, Santo 95, Mathews 93, Boyer 90, Groh 79, Sutton 69, White 51, Beckwith 50, Wilson 40, Allen 38, Sewell 34, Killebrew 33, Torre 23, Davis 22, Frisch 20, Rose 18, Wallace 17, Dihigo 15, JRobinson 15, McVey 14, Richardson 13, Vaughan 11, Ott 10

SS (17.20) - Pearce 96, Boudreau 95, Reese 95, Glasscock 94, Appling 94, Cronin 92, Wells 90, Moore 90, GWright 89, Dahlen 88, Vaughan 85, Wallace 74, Jennings 70, HR Johnson 70, Lloyd 70, Wagner 68, Sewell 65, Davis 58, Banks 45, Ward 39, Beckwith 35, Barnes 28, Grant 20, Sutton 19, Hornsby 16, Dihigo 15, Irvin 10, WBrown 10

OF (53.06) - Carey 100, Clarke 100, Hamilton 100, Thompson 100, Wheat 100, Goslin 100, DiMaggio 100, Averill 100, Doby 100, Slaughter 100, TWilliams 100, Ashburn 100, Snider 100, Clemente 100, Simmons 99, Burkett 99, Cobb 99, Flick 99, Gore 99, Sheckard 99, Speaker 99, Medwick 99, SJJackson 98, Stearnes 98, Keeler 97, PWaner 97, Mays 97, Kiner 96, CP Bell 95, Crawford 94, Minoso 93, Magee 91, Ott 90, Kaline 89, Mantle 88, Aaron 86, BWilliams 86, WBrown 85, Hines 82, Torriente 80, Kelley 79, Ruth 79, Heilmann 77, FRobinson 77, RJackson 77, Irvin 75, Pike 73, Delahanty 72, Hill 70, O'Rourke 69, Rogan 65, Musial 65, Stovey 63, Yastrzemski 63, Charleston 60, Stargell 60, Kelly 47, Richardson 40, Rose 38, Caruthers 33, Suttles 30, Killebrew 20, Santop 20, Dihigo 20, McVey 18, Ewing 17, Greenberg 17, Allen 15, Davis 13, Wagner 13, Berra 13, McCovey 12, Spalding 11, Ward 10, White 10, JRobinson 10

DH (0.69) - RJackson 23, Yastrzemski 13, TSimmons 12, FRobinson 11, BWilliams 10

P (53.64) - Alexander 100, Covaleski 100, Faber 100, Plank 100, Vance 100, Grove 100, Hubbell 100, Lyons 100, Newhouser 100, Feller 100, Ruffing 100, Rixey 100, Wynn 100, Spahn 100, Roberts 100, Koufax 100, W Ford 100, Drysdale 100, Bunning 100, Wilhelm 100, Marichal 100, Gibson 100, Waddell 100, Pierce 100, GPerry 100, Palmer 100, Jenkins 100, Seaver 100, Carlton 100, Niekro 100, Sutton 100, R Foster 99, MBrown 99, Mathewson 99, Walsh 99, SJ Williams 99, Young 99, B Foster 99, Paige 99, WJohnson 98, McGinnity 98, WFerrell 97, Lemon 97, Keefe 96, Nichols 96, Rusie 95, RBrown 95, Griffith 95, Clarkson 94, Galvin 92, Mendez 90, Radbourn 78, Spalding 80, Caruthers 66, Rogan 35, Dihigo 25, Ward 25, Ruth 20

Caveats: Totals treat all careers as equal. A little off on players like McVey and Sutton due to changing schedule length. Guesstimates on Negro Leaguers. Hybrid P-hitters such as Ward, Ruth, Caruthers, Spalding have estimates that attempt to reflect their respective roles.

I don't know if discussion at this point will change anybody's mind about Trouppe or any of the other high backloggers. To me, a shortage of catchers works to his advantage, but we've got a surfeit of HoMers from his era, which doesn't.

I have no problem with Chris' list, and it's disappointing if we end up with a HoM that is top-heavy on Golden Age (1930s) and personal favorites (1960s++) players. I don't know that any era is under-represented but there's a couple that are or are threatening to be overly so.

So in considering Trouppe...was he better than Bresnahan? Ellie Howard?

And Evans...was he better than Tommy Leach or Edd Roush?

To me, the large contingent of NgL catchers works to Trouppe's disadvantage.

Those voting for Quincy: if you could, would you wish to UNelect Mackey or Santop or Campanella or Gibson (just kidding on that one!), or are 5 NgLg catchers from 1910-1955 HoM-worthy, while we only have honored about a dozen major league catchers who appeared between 1875 and 1990?

I know Bresnahan's press clippings were probably enhanced, but I'm beginning to be swayed by a bit more by non-numerical arguments from way back in his day that maybe, given how few catchers we have from that period, he does belong. Roger is creeping up my ballot.

Tom - given that HOM electees, and even serious candidates are severe outliers, I don't think we should be worried about some slight over and under representation (position/era/whatever). If this was severe, than we should be sure to have our eyes wide open. Otherwise, we all know that life isn't fair and not all opportunities are equal, so we can't, andshouldn't expect equal results.

Interesting note: When I look at Rice and John compared to the eligibles for the Hall of FAME, I concluded that they belonged. When I look at them among the eligibles for the Hall of MERIT, they aren't even close. They are both around 50.

Prelim:

PHoM: Mike Schmidt, Darrell Evans, Ted Simmons


1. Mike Schmidt
2. Darrell Evans
3. Tony Perez
4. Edd Roush
5. Jake Beckley
6. Rusty Staub
7. George Van Haltren
8. Jimmy Wynn
9. Tommy Leach
10. Lou Brock
11. Nellie Fox
12. Quincy Trouppe
13. Mickey Welch
14. Graig Nettles
15. Jose Cruz

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

sunnyday2--yes, Evans was substantially better than both Leach and Roush--assuming that you a) adjust for ease or difficulty of domination of league and b) accept the conclusion of Win Shares and BP FRAA that Evans was the best-fielding 3B in the NL from 1971-1975.

rawagman, I agree with your judgment that we should not care a whit about slight over-/under-representations.

I believe major league catchers prior to 1975 or so are severely underrepresented. They might be, from Howie's list above, 9.5 of our honorees among about 115 non-pitcher major leaguers. That is 1/12th, as opposed to the "expected" 1/8th.

OTOH, we have elected many guys from the 1930s, and many NgLers from that period, and many NgL catchers overall. None of these may be "mistakes" - maybe there were more players from 1930 that excelled, maybe catcher was the NgL's strongest position. Or maybe catchers were treated differently in NgL play than MLB. Different schedules? Responsbilities? I dunno. It seems like we are pushing the edge of the envelope.

I could be wrong. Trouppe has some fine MLEs, and maybe his defense was better than his rep, as Chris Cobb has explained. But Breshnahan and Trouppe, for example, seem to have many similar characteristics - flexible players, good on base skills. Bresnahan was probably a better hitter, Trouppe a longer projected career. I believe, if it's a close call, we ought to consider erring on the side of the guy who dominated his day, not the one who got lost in it.

I said it in the Evans thread, and its worth repeating here: The difference in defensive reputation and statistics may be greater for Darrell Evans than for any other player who has ever lived (Jeter would have a case). Evans defensive statistics were terrific, but he was perceived by his own managers as being so bad that they moved him to another position during his prime even when they had no other third baseman to replace him with. No one, probably including Evans himself, thought of him as a particularly good defensive third baseman when he played- its all hindsight.

So I would suggest carefully considering whether to accept his defensive statistics at face value - and by extension, his WS/WARP, etc.

Would Charlie Keller have the most body hair of any member of the HoM?

Hang on while I disinter him and count his folicles. ; )

Dizzy makes an excellent point with Darrell Evans. If you look up defensive Win Shares for Evans you are in rare air. At peak he's slightly below Nettles, on par with Mike Schmidt. People he beats for FWS (total and rate) are gold glovers like Brooks Robinson, Buddy Bell, Ken Boyer, Doug Rader and Aurelio Rodriguez. This is during their respective primes.

If someone can did up articles where Darrell Evans is stated as being robbed of gold gloves during the early 70s I must have missed it.

OK, people are talking about Trouppe, which I like (MLEs alone, I see him as mini-Ted Simmons). Time for my personal "Is he really, really, really someone we want to elect to the Hall of Merit?": Nellie Fox

He's just another middle infielder with a good glove and a meh bat. 94 OPS+, which is OBP-heavy, but the outs he didn't make with the bat he made in the basepaths (76 stolen bases, 80 caught stealing). What about EqA? Here's both versions (season and all-time) for him and a bunch of others.



Fox is hardly distinguishable from all of these other guys (except Rabbit, who had the longest career in the group). And they are all shortstops, with (presumably) more defense value.

A few thoughts...

1) To answer Tom's question, as a supporter of Trouppe I would unelect (or rather go back in time and try my best to keep him from getting elected) Biz Mackey. My ballot comment on Trouppe pretty much says so. And to what degree does Campanella count as an MLB catcher? Doesn't counting him as an NeL catcher and then say that electing troupe would make the NeL to MLB catcher ratio a little heavy on the side of the NeLs sound a little odd?

2) I have no problem with a lot of NeL gusy at certain position because we have some positions with very few NeL players. Our only 2B was Frank Grant, and we only have Suttles and Leonard at 1B, IIRC. NeL players tended to cluster at a few positions because while the top line talent was as good as MLB, the middle and below was certainly not. Have a good athelte? Put him at SS or C or CF, therefore there were fewer guys at other positions.

3) I will be supporting Darrell Evans, probably in my top 10. That said, he feels like a player who should be backlogged for a few years. However, our backlog is getting to the point where some voters (i.e., not yest ;-)) have no more than 1 or 2 guys they really, really like. I know that there is only 1 guy in the backlog I would throwdown for and that is Charlie Keller. I like Duffy, Redding, Walters, Wynn, and Trouppe, but not so much as to go overboard trying to get them elected.

Maybe it looks better like this?

If I make Darrell Evans a strictly average defensive 3B he's still in my top 15.

1995 Prelim

1) Mike Schmidt - best 3B ever and slotted between Frank Robinson and Joe Morgan for 22nd all time.
2) Luis Tiant - Tiant scores about half as high as Schmidt in my rankings. Best P available.
3) Bob Johnson
4) Norm Cash
5) Darrell Evans - just about even with Cash. Cash has more BRAA and FRAA but 1B isn't as valuable as 3B.
6) Tommy Bridges - I can't be accused of anti-Tiger bias
7) Quincy Trouppe
8) Tony Perez
9) Jake Beckley
10) Reggie Smith
11) Gavy Cravath
12) Virgil Trucks
13) Rusty Staub - drops this week. I wasn't deducting enough for his defense.
14) Bus Clarkson
15) Jim Wynn - edges the last spot out over

16) Edd Roush
17-20) Dutch Leonard, Orlando Cepeda, Bob Elliott, Ron Cey
21-25) Tommy John, Charlie Keller, Jack Quinn, Dick Redding, Vic Willis
John and Quinn form a pair just ahead of Redding and Willis. If I went a little more peak Redding and Willis would leapfrog.
26-30) Dizzy Trout, Johnny Evers, Luke Easter, Urban Shocker, Dave Bancroft

Bancroft moves down. I was giving him extra credit for some reason. Trout moves up because I was discounting him too severely.

58) Buddy Bell - definitely behind Nettles
115) Jim Rice - 12 spots behind Tony Oliva which seems correct

1996 is going to be a free-for-all.

I like Darrell Evans, and have argued before that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. It is interesting though that Baseball Prospectus' statistics (which love his defence) still have him contributing fewer runs above replacement than Tommy John. It is certainly difficult to compare third basemen with starting pitchers, but calibrating the various positions against each other seems to be one of the tasks...

It may be that both Evans and John belong.

Since BP's replacement level is so low, it will virtually always prefer the guy with a longer career--it credits "just showing up" at an extremely high level. Evans was durable, but John pitched forever, which is the key to having a high BP WARP score.

If you classify guys according to the position they contributed the most value (rather than the most playing time, you get:

16 C; 16 1B; 17 2B; 11 3B; 20 SS; and 56 OF.

If you are willing to treat the SS and 3B as coming from the same pool of players in the same way as OF come from the same pool, we are damn near even across the board. If your goal were strict proporationality, all you would need to do is remove 3 OF's and add 3 SS's or 3B.

That we are that close to even after so many years strikes me as mind-boggling.

And 58 pitchers which is just under 30%. I think 30% is a little light which helps explain my ballot construction. For most of baseball history pitchers have been > 30% of the roster.

Oh, and Tekulve was better than Sutter but not good enough to make the top 130.

Roster construction is one way of looking at it. I suppose another is to try to estimate how much pitchers contribute to their teams' success. Most analysts have the figure at 35-40%.

I guess the other thing is that it should be possible now to get better statistics (i.e. pbp) on Evans' defence during the period 73-75. There is one oddity I noticed with just a quick glance. The club had only 20 games started by left-handed pitchers during those years, but I do not recall whether it was a groundball or flyball staff. The club K rate was low.

I have targeted 36% and I think I'm hitting it. It concerns me to see ballots like Rusty's with 1 pitcher in the top 25.

16 C; 16 1B; 17 2B; 11 3B; 20 SS; and 56 OF.

What's the current outlook for the positions (including players retird by 1995's end or far engouh along to know)?

C (3 and 1 maybe): Carter, Fisk seem likely to go in. Parrish will be close.

1B (1, 1) : Murray. Maybe Hernandez

2B (1, 1): Ryne Sandberg. Maybe Whitaker.

3B: (4, 1): Brett, Schmidt, Boggs, Molitor*. Maybe Evans.

SS (2, 2): Yount, Ripken. Maybe Trammell or Ozzie.

RF (2, 2): Winfield, Gwynn. Maybe Parker or Dawson.

CF (0, 2): None. Maybe Puckett, or Dale Murphy.

LF (2, 0): Rickey, Raines.

*I put him at 3B because while he played a plurality of games at DH, he played a majority at "fielder." So I think it misstates his total contribution to list him at DH. YMMV.

3B has the highest number of probable electees, and the highest number of probable electees plus maybes. It's not a big advantage over the other stations, but it means that 3B will increase its share relative to the other positions, in all likelihood.

It concerns me to see ballots like Rusty's with 1 pitcher in the top 25.

Single ballots need not reflect the HoM as a whole, and the concern should be for the balance of the institution as a whole, not for any one ballot. We have recently inducted Palmer, Seaver, Jenkins, Carlton, Niekro, and Sutton. Nolan Ryan isn't eligible yet, but if we elected Sutton, we're not likly to pass on Ryan. Given that, now would seem to be an odd time to be worrying about the welfare of pitchers in general. In the case of pitchers, we're down to backlog - I like Bridges, and to a lesser extent, Walters. Others like Fingers, or Tiant, or Willis, or Dean, or Redding. There are scattered votes for Cicotte, Mays, Trout, Kaat, and others. John will clearly have some support, although I can't guess yet how much. We just elected a bunch of pitchers - I wouldn't be worried if some voter can't find that much to like in who's left. Crank up the debate when we get to the Steib/Viola/Morris/Saberhagen generation.

Here we sit in the sour taste of the 1994-1995 offseason, the first year without a World Series in nearly a century.

San Francisco played 115 games. If you linearly extrapolate that out to 162 games, you get:

Matt Williams, 61 HR, 135 RBI (.267/.319/.607)
Barry Bonds, 52 HR, 116 RBI (.312/.426/.647)

Mantle and Maris, 1961, with Williams in the Maris role and Bonds as Mantle. (Although Maris drew more walks than that.)

Eric's list in post #39 is of players with nothing left to prove in their careers. If we want to be speculative, we can add a few names to that list:

Barry Bonds, through age 29, has just had a 3-year run of OPS+ 205, 206, 182. I don't have to tell you how short the list is of players who have ever done anything like that, or the status around here of the few who have.

Matt Williams is a year younger than Bonds, and maybe without the strike he could have matched Maris - what will his future look like?

And then there's Jeff Bagwell, just 26 years old and the unanimous MVP with a .750 SLG.

And Frank Thomas - same age as Bagwell, and he roared into the league as a full-blown monster, not needing to grow into it. His OPS+ so far in his career: 177 (in 60 games), 180, 174, 177, 212. Ouch!

And you doubt there's a CF but Junior is only 24 years old and he's hit 45 and 40 HR in the last two years - think he'll have a bunch before he's done?

We have recently inducted Palmer, Seaver, Jenkins, Carlton, Niekro, and Sutton. Nolan Ryan isn't eligible yet, but if we elected Sutton, we're not likly to pass on Ryan. Given that, now would seem to be an odd time to be worrying about the welfare of pitchers in general.

Part of me agrees. Pitchers have been flying in first ballot of late and they just don't have time to sit on ballots for a while and accumulate "ballot percentage".

On the other hand, we've really hit the end of the run. We still have Ryan and Blyleven from this generation but that's it. If you include Eckersley, that's three shoo-in pitchers left until 2009.

I'd add Barry Larkin to that list, OCF, he's 10 years in and won the MVP in 1995. Another possibility is Will Clark who was the NL's best player for several years before Bonds began his reign. Robby Alomar is seven years in and Peter Gammons's favorite player. Jose Canseco looks like a sure bet for 500 homers. Craig Biggio is the NL's best 2B at this point, eight years into his career. We'll have to watch them all very closely and see how they turn out.

I'd add Barry Larkin to that list, OCF, he's 10 years in and won the MVP in 1995. Another possibility is Will Clark who was the NL's best player for several years before Bonds began his reign. Robby Alomar is seven years in and Peter Gammons's favorite player. Jose Canseco looks like a sure bet for 500 homers. Craig Biggio is the NL's best 2B at this point, eight years into his career. We'll have to watch them all very closely and see how they turn out

Oooh, are we in character?

Vitology rules, man...have you seen my flannel shirt?

... and won the MVP in 1995

I'm treating "now" as the 1994-95 offseason, so that hasn't happened yet. But Larkin is quite clearly the best SS in the NL - the interesting question is exactly when that title passed from Ozzie to him.

OCF, could you run one of your seasonal adjusted offense production tables for the current group of borderline 'bat' candidates? Cepeda, Cash, Howard, ReSmith, Wynn, Rice, Staub, Singleton, BoBonds, (and anyone else I may have forgotten)? Perhaps guys from older eras who are getting support as well. Do you have those tables readily available?

Nolan Ryan isn't eligible yet, but if we elected Sutton, we're not likly to pass on Ryan.

Since Ryan was better, that makes sense.

With the talk of Rhoden and Tekulve, take another look at the amazing 1984 Pirates - amazing the way the 2003 Dodgers were amazing. Both teams are in contention for the title of "best-pitching bad team" ever.

Their record was 75-87. Part of that was that they underperformed their pythag by 12 games. Rhoden, McWilliams, Tudor, and Candelaria anchored what was probably the best rotation in the league, with ERA+ of 132, 123, 110, and 132. Even Jose De Leon, the 5th starter, wasn't bad. Tekulve was old and declining, but still OK; the rest of the bullpen (Robinson, Scurry, Guante) was good. The team ERA+ was 116.

And the everyday lineup featured the likes of Dale Berra at SS and Marvell Wynne and Doug Frobel in the OF - that's a RF batting .203/.271/.388. That Whitey mangaged to lift Tudor from the Pirates for what little was left of George Hendrick counts as a heist, but these guys were desparate.

> We still have Ryan and Blyleven from this generation but that's it. If you include
> Eckersley, that's three shoo-in pitchers left until 2009.

And Gossage.

Whoa...Gossage is clearly the third-best reliever ever after Wilhelm and Mo, but that doesn't make him a shoo-in. I imagine a meaningful portion of the electorate just may not think that relievers are Meritorious, period. Gossage will certainly make my ballot, but I have no idea how high he'll be....

Dwayne Murphy: Very good player who wasn't quite peaky enough and didn't have much of a career outside of his prime. I guess I put him and Lloyd Moseby in the same buckett, though that's a really off-the-cuff statement and could be very wrong. Henderson and Murphy were 2/3 of a sweet outfield: i don't know if Oakland did, but I'da batted them 1/2 to take advantage of all that on-base goodness.

Just a quick jump in as Dwayne Murphy was my idol when I was a wee lad. The A's did, in fact, bat Murphay in the 2 hole behind Rickey and he was prefectly suited to it as batting with Rickey on first meant taking an awful lot of pitches. Also, Murphy played the shallowest centerfield I have ever seen and, depending on the batter and pitcher, would actually play with his back to left or right field to get a better jump on the ball. I'm convinced he was the smartest centerfielder ever. It's too bad his physical tools eroded so quickly. Not a HOMer, but he's in the Hall of Cool, for sure.

I was just assuming that if Fingers is top 10 and Wilhelm went in on the first ballot, Gossage is a lock.

Wilhelm is a unique player in MLB history who can't be compared to any other reliever--I don't think anyone can match his usage patterns. I agree that if Fingers gets in, Gossage will be a lock, but I don't see Fingers' election as a fait accompli by any means.

> We still have Ryan and Blyleven from this generation but that's it. If you include
> Eckersley, that's three shoo-in pitchers left until 2009.

And Gossage.

And Mike Crudale.

I was just assuming that if Fingers is top 10 and Wilhelm went in on the first ballot, Gossage is a lock.

That's also my assumption, DL.

20. sunnyday2 Posted: February 13, 2007 at 07:46 AM (#2296719)
I don't know if discussion at this point will change anybody's mind about Trouppe or any of the other high backloggers. To me, a shortage of catchers works to his advantage, but we've got a surfeit of HoMers from his era, which doesn't.

It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that we have a surfeit of HoMers from Trouppe's era. While he started playing in the mid-to-late '30s, his career centered on the '40s. We may have overrepresented the 1930s, but we certainly don't have too many players from the '40s. Even if Trouppe and Keller go in during the next couple of elections, we have merely smoothed out the bump rather than added to it. The catcher that I think is hurt due to era isn't Trouppe, it's Lombardi. Lombardi's peak comes in the '30s. For that decade, we've already elected Cochrane, Dickey, Gibson and Hartnett. It's hard to make the argument that Lombardi is more deserving of induction as the 5th best catcher of the '30s than Bresnahan as the best catcher of the '00s.

I have no problem with Chris' list, and it's disappointing if we end up with a HoM that is top-heavy on Golden Age (1930s) and personal favorites (1960s++) players. I don't know that any era is under-represented but there's a couple that are or are threatening to be overly so.

While it's true that the HoM is top-heavy on the Golden Age of the 1930s, I'm not sure that we're too heavy on personal favorites of the 1960s and beyond. The 1960s do have 20 players represented and the 1970s will end up about there as well (and possibly slightly higher). But remember, that the 1960s and '70s were also a time of expansion. There were more players and more teams. And the HoM was intentionally set up to recognize that fact- that's why we've been increasing the number of inductions as we've gone along. Personally, I wouldn't be worried about having a few more players per decade from 1960-1990 though that doesn't mean that we should do a Bill James-like timeline.

So in considering Trouppe...was he better than Bresnahan? Ellie Howard?

Yes. Over in Trouppe's own thread, somebody mentioned that Trouppe belonged in the same group as Bresnahan/Howard/Munson and Schang, though Trouppe was probably the top of that group. However, I think that's significantly underrating Trouppe. According to Chris Cobb's earlier post (#18), Trouppe is much closer to the Freehan/Simmons and Torre group that we've already elected than he is to the other backloggers.

21. TomH Posted: February 13, 2007 at 07:58 AM (#2296725)
To me, the large contingent of NgL catchers works to Trouppe's disadvantage.

Those voting for Quincy: if you could, would you wish to UNelect Mackey or Santop or Campanella or Gibson (just kidding on that one!), or are 5 NgLg catchers from 1910-1955 HoM-worthy, while we only have honored about a dozen major league catchers who appeared between 1875 and 1990?

I agree with Mark Shirk (post #30). First of all, it's unfair to count Campanella strictly as a Negro Leaguer. His induction cap is actually as a Dodger. So we're talking about 4 1/2 catchers not 5. And I agree with Mark that 4 1/2 Negro League catchers in 50 years is not too many. As I noted in the Quincy Trouppe thread, the best players gravitated to catcher in the Negro Leagues more than they did in the Majors. So it's not surprising that we have more catchers from the Negro Leagues than we do players from other positions. And the ratio of NeL to MLB isn't off by that much as we're inducting MLB catchers at a rate of about one per decade as well.

I also agree with Mark that while I wouldn't unelect Mackey, I would have taken Trouppe ahead of Mackey (and voted accordingly at the time).

I know Bresnahan's press clippings were probably enhanced, but I'm beginning to be swayed by a bit more by non-numerical arguments from way back in his day that maybe, given how few catchers we have from that period, he does belong. Roger is creeping up my ballot.

Bresnahan is getting closer to my ballot as well but this is more of a pro-Bresnahan comment than it is an anti-Trouppe comment. Surely a ballot can have room for more than one catcher. And considering the present underrepresentation of catchers in the Hall of Merit, surely there's room for both Bresnahan and Trouppe.

One quick pro-Nellie Fox comment:

When Joe Sewell was still a candidate, a number of voters mentioned his excellent at-bats-per-strikeout ratio. Well, the same point can be made in Fox's favor. While Sewell is first all-time in that category, Fox isn't far behind at 4th. And Fox was putting up his numbers in an era that saw a lot more strikeouts so he stands out against his contemporaries more than Sewell. Fox led his league in this category 12 times, including 11 in a row, finished 2nd two other times (for a 14 year streak of being either 1st or 2nd) and one more at 4th.

I'll just point out that I do think some of the overrepresentation of the 1930s is due to voters' failure to take standard deviations into account (I know, I'm a broken record). A 150 OPS+ in the 30s is only equivalent to about a 145 in 1915 and a 140 in 1980, which is not a small difference.

Oooh, are we in character?

Vitology rules, man...have you seen my flannel shirt?

Dude, Vs. was totally cooler. "Leash" is a hidden gem and "Elderly Lady..." is among the most poignant and most empathetic songs anyone's written since "Elanor Rigby." Anyway, I hear that Dave Grohl's got a record coming out, I wonder if it'll be cool. Which reminds me, has anyone heard whether the Breeders or My Bloody Valentine have anything in the pipeline???

he's in the Hall of Cool, for sure.

I LOVE the idea of the Baseball Hall of Cool. First member, of course, Cool Papa Bell! Quis gets in for being a cool submariner, ironic in that he's kind of dorky. Moe Berg has got to be cool: scholar, spy, and catcher. Jim Bouton, of course. Jimmy Wynn gets in for those sideburns. And Len Dykstra because, well, because he's Lenny Dykstra. Frank Robinson for the stirrups....

I am not 'pitching-lite' even if it sems so on my current ballot. I have helped induct lots of pitchers. Sometimes, however, the best players available to the ballot are not pitchers.

I have no quotas. (Which probably hurts me a lot more at catcher than it does at pitcher).

1994-1996 was a rough time to be a baseball fan in MN. No World Series, Twins suck, Puckett's done. Rich Becker, Frankie Rodriguez, Scott Klingenbeck. It just kept getting worse.

On Tekulve and IBB:

One of the problems with the IBB is that it takes away your margin of error for throwing outside the strike zone to the next batter. A second, unintentional, walk will land you in deep trouble, as the second walk will advance runners. But if you have fabulous control - if you just don't walk people unitentionally - then you're not afraid of this. If you want to find the perfect setup for a pitcher to issue a lot of IBB, he would look like this:

(1) A high-leverage reliever: a closer, setup man, relief ace, or top LOOGY,

(2) with very good control and a very low unintentional walk rate,

(3) who is a sidearmer or submariner with a large platoon differential.

Tekulve fits that perfectly, but Quisenberry fits that even better. And what are Quisenberry's stats? 1043 IP, just 162 BB - and of the 162 walks, 70 of them were intentional.

Incentally, I have always detested the strategy of intentionally walking the #8 hitter. If it's late in a close game, then there are all sorts of situational considerations - I'm not really talking about those. But to do it in a middle inning? I really don't like that. If you've got a chance to get out of the inning by getting Dal Maxvill, why not take your shot going after him? He's batting 8th for a good reason. If you succeed in getting Dal, then you get the pitcher leading off the next inning, which is very good for you in that inning. But if you go ahead and issue the IBB, what happens? Even if it works, you're setting up a next inning starting with the leadoff hitter, which is presumably the way those guys want to start out innings, and you've rolled the lineup around another notch, giving some one of their hitters another chance to hurt you in some later inning. And if it ever doesn't work, if for some reason you don't get the pitcher out, then you're risking a multi-run explosion.

In answer to David Foss (#46 above):



And, segregated into a different list, four guys with serious playing time issues:



Draw your own conclusions. The "Howard" is Frank and the "Powell" is Boog.

I agree that if Fingers gets in, Gossage will be a lock, but I don't see Fingers' election as a fait accompli by any means.

Based on our previous discussions of relievers, I think it's pretty clear that unless a lot of people change their minds about him, Gossage will get in easily, whether or not Fingers makes it (which he probably will, eventually).

The highest number in each column (first list only):
1. Cash 100
2. Howard 71
3. Howard 63
4. Powell 50
5. Singleton/Bonds 46
6. Singleton 43
7. Cepeda 38
8. Howard 35
9. Cash/Smith 29
10. Cash/Smith 29
11. Smith 27
12. Smith 23
13. Cash 17
14. Cash 17
15. Staub 11
16. Staub 6
17. Staub 5
18. Staub 4
19. Staub 2
20. Staub 0
21. who cares?

Trades around a lot.

Thanks OCF!

Those are rate stats, right? Some sort of RC+ (minus 100)?

>Draw your own conclusions. The "Howard" is Frank and the "Powell" is Boog.

My own conclusion is that "the Howard" looks pretty damn good. Clearly the best for 2 and 3 and then right there through 9.

And the Reggie(2). In the pack (not out of it but right there) through 5-6, then pulling out ahead through 8-12.

Those are the best 2 on that list to my taste. Thanks for the great list. I always love it when my particular prejudices get such an elegant confirmation. Doesn't happen every year.

I don't want to start any problems over on this thread, but the Rice thread is, or is becoming a superfund site. Is anyone in the electorate planning to vote for Rice. If so, what's the argument in his favor?

Or, based on the top/bigger list, here is the cumulative leader.

1 year--Cash 100, Howard 72, Cepeda 70
2--Cash 145, Howard 143, Cepeda 133
3--Howard 206, Cash 190, Cepeda 188
4--Howard 252, Cepeda and Singleton 233
5--Howard 293, Singleton 279, Cepeda 276
6--Howard 333, Singleton 322, Cepeda 318
7--Howard 369, Cepeda 356, Singleton 352
8--Howard 404, Cepeda 386, Singleton 377
9--Howard 429, Cepeda 412, Singleton 396
10--Howard 441, Cepeda 432, Cash 420

11--Howard 453, Cepeda 445, Cash 443
12--Cash 464, Howard 461, Cepeda 457

There, my friends, are your recent "hitter" candidates. I need to move Singleton up and Perez down. Reggie mith is the only guy on this list who had much defensive value so I still see him as part of this group (Howard, Cepeda, Cash, Singleton, Reggie). Powell is also a surprise (+) while Rice is obviously quite a bust on this particular measure.

the Rice thread is, or is becoming a superfund site.

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm certainly the HOM voter most to blame...

It's not a rate stat, but it is compared to average (not positional average) and it turns out to be not particularly sensitive to time played even though it's more or less a counting stat. It's also not league-adjusted (yes, that "100" for Cash is in an expansion league), except for a uniform 3% clipped off the park factor for DH leagues. Since it's RC, it does, crudely, include baserunning - or at least, SB/CS and GDP.

I have been voting for Frank Howard - I'm one of his small number of friends - but he might be the worst defensive player on the list. You do have to consider that. Rice comes up as low as he does in part because his GDP are being held against him. The system is designed to project forward those from low-scoring times and places (like Howard, and also Chance) and pull back those from higher-scoring times and places (like Rice and McGraw). For some problems with it, see the conversation betwen me and Dan Rosenheck on the Evans thread - to a certain extent, I'm at the mercy of a sometimes-quirky raw source.

And, to answer Eric: Rice will not be in my top 30.

Rice will not be in my top 50.

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm certainly the HOM voter most to blame...

Maybe, but the response to you was out of proportion in regard to what you posted, IMO.

Seasons with 10 or more HOM pitchers (at least 1 IP per G or 35 G)

1908, 1912, 1915 - 10/10/10 (Plank Mathewson RFoster TFBrown WJohnson for all 3, and Walsh Mendez SJWilliams Rixey for 2 of them)

1925-32 - 11/12/11/11/12/11/10/11 (mainly Williams Alexander Rixey Faber Vance Lyons Grove Ruffing BFoster Paige, some WJohnson Rogan Ferrell)

1962-70 - 11/10/10/11/10/11/10/11/11 - mainly Wilhelm Drysdale Bunning Marichal Gibson GPerry Niekro, with Spahn Koufax Ford Jenkins Palmer Seaver Sutton Carlton)

Ryan would not qualify until 1972 by these standards. Fingers would be 1969-70, lifting those 2 years to a record-tying 12. Tiant would be 1965-69. Blyleven would be 1970.
We have 9 qualifiers so far from 1971-73.

I guess the conclusion might be that while ther 1960s-mid1970s are a very good time for P HOMers, we don't seem to be out of control - and won't be.


For reference, the two seasons with 12 HOM Ps
1926 (12) - WJohnson Williams Alexander Rixey Faber Covaleski Rogan Vance Lyons Grove Ruffing BFoster
1929 (12) - Williams Rixey Faber Rogan Vance Lyons Grove Ruffing BFoster Paige Hubbell Ferrell

Sneaking on to my ballot in 1995 - Bill Monroe.

# of 20th century NgL second basemen we have honored - 0.

# of seasons Bil James chose Monroe as the best NgL player - 3 (1904-06, the same years Rube Foster was chosen as best pitcher).

Who was thought of as more dominant in his day - Alex Oms, Q Trouppe, or Monroe? This ain't close, is it?

Yes, it's murky and foggy, but the fog rolls both ways. Monroe COULD deserve to be #2 on my ballot for all I know. Or #60. Looks like he'll grab on to spot 15.

Yes, it's murky and foggy, but the fog rolls both ways.

Monroe is one of the guys I'm most perplexed by. Why are Johnson and Grant OK to go in sans much stats, but Monroe isn't?

The two guys I think I may have missed the boat on are Monroe and Ben Taylor.

Just read this in the obits:

Eddie Feigner, R.I.P.

I have no problem with no 20th century NeL 2B since most good middle infielders were playing SS.

That said, Monroe does intrigue me. Weren't we pretty dependent on I9's back then? I dont' think his I9's really stood out that much.

the Rice thread is, or is becoming a superfund site

What's a "superfund site"? I suppose I can make a good guess as to what it means, but I'm curious as to the origin of the term.

I encourage any overly frustrated HOM-er's to go watch classic "Even Stevphen" clips on the comedy central website to put things into perspective. :-) Ah... Those always put a smile on my face.

Superfund sites are places of intense pollution/environmental contamination that the government paid to have decontaminated. I'm not sure where the term originates, but presumably in the legislation authorizing the funding or from the jargon surrounding it.

Presumably whenever you use the term, you're suggesting a place that's highly toxic.

Ah, I had incorrectly assumed that it was BTF-specific jargon. OK. Thanks.

Is anyone in the electorate planning to vote for Rice. If so, what's the argument in his favor?

He will be in my top 20, probably not top 15 -- I made my argument, such that it is, in the Rice thread, around post 270. I'm surprised he doesn't have more support from the peak voters. We once had a voter who only voted based on the top 3 years of a candidate -- you'd think Rice would do well on his ballot in these backlog days.

Monroe is in my top 25, for the same reasons Tom cites.

Just posted a little bit of data that Gary A kindly shared for Monroe on his thread.

We once had a voter who only voted based on the top 3 years of a candidate -- you'd think Rice would do well on his ballot in these backlog days.

I'm not sure if you mean me here...but that's never been true of me. I think I probably give top-3 more weight than most, but I'm quite far from voting on nothing else.

Of course, even if I did, Rice would be behind Keller, Charley Jones, Browning, Frank Howard, Cravath, and Singleton on top-3 alone, in my system, anyway. And that's just the other corner OFs.

I believe the top-3 guy was "Bernie Williams Doubled to Catcher".

he was the main proponent of WPA in the HOM, wasn't he?

I believe the top-3 guy was "Bernie Williams Doubled to Catcher".

I must be getting paranoid. :)

>Who was thought of as more dominant in his day - Alex Oms, Q Trouppe, or Monroe? This ain't close, is it?

I think that's right--it would be Monroe, though I would also agree he was a big fish in a very small pond, not unlike, say, Dickey Pearce, whom I supported. I've had Monroe on my ballot before but probably not for 70 years now. To me, all 3 of these are indeed pretty close--I mean it's not close that Monroe was considered more dominant, but all things considered they come out close on my ballot. Here's the catch. They're all in the 40-60 range.

>The two guys I think I may have missed the boat on are Monroe and Ben Taylor.

I still think if we've missed the boat it is on guys who didn't have "regular" NeL careers--guys like Newcombe and Ellie Howard, but also Bobby Estalella. Monroe and Taylor were early and the numbers aren't all there, true, but there was a more or less stable background against which to measure them. Not so the guys who seem to have had "normal" ML careers but were still held back by their color.

PS. I saw Eddie Feigner pitch and I saw Sandy Koufax pitch. Feigner was more fun.

Bernie Williams warped into 'zop, who warped into Dan Rosenheck, pt. II, no?
Mr. Siegel - if you think you may have missed the boat on Ben Taylor, I urge you to look again. It's not too late to catch that boat. He had career in spades and a super prime in a time lost to power hitting. And he is highly recognized as being an extraordinary defensive 1B, particularly seen in his scooping ability.

I saw Eddie Feigner pitch and I saw Sandy Koufax pitch. Feigner was more fun.

When people say I saw so and so play, I am rarely jealous, but I would have loved to have seen Feigner. I read about him almost 30 years ago in one of those pre-teen books about baseball that had an illustration on every third page. I can still see this larger than life guy with a crown on his head (BTW, I know he didn't actually where a crown) and only two fielders behind him. The batter looks like he is in that Bugs Bunny movie -- where he has struck out on one pitch by swinging three times.

Cool Papa Bell is another guy I'd've liked to have seen -- or at least been in his hotel room in the split second after he flicked the lightswitch to the off position.

'Dwayne Murphy: Very good player who wasn't quite peaky enough and didn't have much of a career outside of his prime. I guess I put him and Lloyd Moseby in the same buckett, though that's a really off-the-cuff statement and could be very wrong. '

Funny you said that Eric. I've always thought of them as pretty similar players too, but have never done an actual statistical comparison. sounds like a fun project for President's day(I work in a bank).

Does Tekulve deserve a thread? Not that I plan to vote for him or anything radical like that, but I noticed that I have him ahead of Sutter and Fingers among RP.

Indeed Feigner had a 4 man team--pitch, catch, SS and 1B. No OF.

He had one pitch where he went around (windmilled) twice and then threw up a change-up. The old high school coach timed it and hit a line drive over the SS head. The guy didn't even bother to run it down, it went for an inside-the-park two-run HR (Feigner did this with a guy on base!). Feigner's team beat my local all-stars 3-2 that night. After the HR he didn't give up much--no more of the eefus, though he pitched one inning from 2B (I am not kidding) and pitched to one batter with a blind-fold on. Probably a 3 hitter overall with16-17 Ks and a couple BB (7 innings).

Cool Papa Bell is another guy I'd've liked to have seen -- or at least been in his hotel room in the split second after he flicked the lightswitch to the off position.

come on, this a family site.... ; )

Bernie Williams warped into 'zop, who warped into Dan Rosenheck, pt. II, no?

Ah... Bernie did change his name to 'zop! Sorry, man. Yeah, he's still around and actively participating. I thought I recall him having a 3-year peak method when he started voting, but I suppose he could chime in and correct me if I'm mistake.

Dan Rosenheck is a different poster.

To understande rawagman's reference in #92 to "Dan Rosenheck, pt. II" see the results thread and the 88 cross-voter similarity score between 'zop and Dan R.

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