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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Sunday, May 06, 20071998 Results: Carter, Blyleven and (finally) Beckley Are the Hall of Merit’s Centennial Choices!In the Hall of Merit’s 100th “year” of existence, star Expo and Met backstop Gary Carter sailed into our institution with a robust 97% of all possible points in his first year of eligibility. Curveball master Bert Blyleven also commanded an impressive newbie tally with his 93% of all possible points. But the biggest news may very well be the induction of famed turn-of-the-last century first baseman Jake Beckley in his 86th year of eligibility (though he shattered Edd Roush’s dubious 1-year old record of 29% of all possible points with his own 25%). Congratulations also go to Eagle Eye’s biggest booster karlmagnus, who tirelessly supported him for many an election. Rounding out the top-ten were: Cannonball Dick Redding, Willie Randolph (very strong in his innaugural year of eligibilty!), Pete Browning, Bucky Walters, Rollie Fingers, Roger Bresnahan and Bob Johnson. Thanks to OCF and Ron Wargo for helping make sure that the tally is accurate. RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 n/e Gary Carter 1143 49 33 13 1 1 1 2 n/e Bert Blyleven 1098 48 13 31 1 3 3 4 Jake Beckley 294 23 1 2 2 1 2 3 1 1 3 3 1 1 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 6 Cannonball Dick Redding 286 19 5 1 1 2 1 2 3 1 3 5 n/e Willie Randolph 275 23 1 4 2 4 1 3 3 3 2 6 7 Pete Browning 260 17 1 3 3 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 7 5 Bucky Walters 257 19 3 2 4 1 3 3 1 1 1 8 8 Rollie Fingers 254 18 1 3 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 9 9 Roger Bresnahan 238 18 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 2 10 10 Bob Johnson 235 18 1 4 3 3 1 2 1 1 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 13 Hugh Duffy 228 17 1 3 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 12 12 Gavvy Cravath 221 19 2 1 3 3 3 2 2 3 13 11 Charley Jones 221 14 2 2 1 3 1 1 2 1 1 14 14 Tony Perez 210 15 4 1 1 1 3 1 1 3 15 n/e Dave Stieb 202 16 2 1 1 3 1 1 2 3 2 16 17 Alejandro Oms 185 15 2 3 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 17 16 Tommy Leach 172 13 1 3 2 3 1 2 1 18 15 George Van Haltren 169 12 6 1 1 1 1 1 1 19 22 Ken Singleton 136 13 1 1 1 3 6 1 20 21 Burleigh Grimes 133 11 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 3 21 23T Mickey Welch 132 10 1 3 2 3 1 22 23T Lou Brock 130 10 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 23 18 Graig Nettles 124 11 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 24 19 Phil Rizzuto 123 10 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 25 32 Norm Cash 122 10 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 26 28 Larry Doyle 121 9 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 27 29 Vic Willis 113 10 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 28 35 Bus Clarkson 109 7 3 1 1 1 1 29 20 Reggie Smith 108 10 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 30 30T Rusty Staub 107 9 1 1 1 2 3 1 31 33 Bobby Bonds 106 10 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 32 25 Dizzy Dean 106 7 2 2 2 1 33 26 John McGraw 104 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 34 38 Tommy Bridges 103 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 35 34 Bob Elliott 102 10 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 36 27 Luis Tiant 102 9 1 1 1 2 2 2 37T 30T Orlando Cepeda 101 9 1 1 3 2 1 1 37T 37 Elston Howard 101 9 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 39 41 Ben Taylor 83 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 40 43 Vern Stephens 80 7 1 2 1 1 2 41 44T Tommy John 68 6 1 1 1 2 1 42 47 Pie Traynor 67 6 1 1 1 1 2 43 40 Carl Mays 64 6 2 1 2 1 44 39 Dave Bancroft 63 6 1 1 1 3 45 44T Sal Bando 62 6 1 2 2 1 46 42 Chuck Klein 62 5 2 3 47 n/e Jack Clark 59 5 1 1 1 1 1 48 51 Addie Joss 58 4 1 1 1 1 49 36 Dave Concepción 57 5 1 1 1 1 1 50 49 Bill Monroe 55 6 2 1 1 2 51 50 Wally Schang 53 4 1 2 1 52 52 Ed Williamson 52 4 1 1 2 53 46 Frank Howard 48 6 1 1 2 1 1 54T 48 Buddy Bell 47 5 1 1 2 1 54T 56T Jim Rice 47 5 1 1 2 1 56 66 Sam Rice 43 4 1 2 1 57T 63T Don Newcombe 41 4 1 1 1 1 57T 63T Urban Shocker 41 4 1 1 1 1 59 62 Wilbur Cooper 41 3 1 1 1 60T 55 Frank Chance 36 3 1 1 1 60T 58 Rick Reuschel 36 3 1 2 62 65 George J. Burns 35 4 2 1 1 63 56T Thurman Munson 34 4 1 1 2 64 61 Rabbit Maranville 33 3 1 1 1 65 67 Fred Dunlap 33 2 1 1 66 68 Ernie Lombardi 28 2 1 1 67 53 Ron Cey 26 3 2 1 68 71 Luis Aparicio 26 2 1 1 69T 84T Leroy Matlock 25 2 1 1 69T 79T Al Rosen 25 2 1 1 69T 69 Jimmy Ryan 25 2 1 1 72 73 Bobby Veach 22 3 1 1 1 73 60 Lefty Gomez 22 2 1 1 74 n/e Luke Easter 22 1 1 75 72 Bruce Sutter 21 2 1 1 76 76 Tony Mullane 19 2 1 1 77 74T Gene Tenace 18 2 1 1 78 74T Dave Parker 17 2 1 1 79T 54 Ed Cicotte 17 1 1 79T 59 Tony Oliva 17 1 1 79T 78 Jack Quinn 17 1 1 82 n/e Carlos Morán 16 1 1 83T n/e Brian Downing 15 1 1 83T 79T Dizzy Trout 15 1 1 85 70 Jim Kaat 14 1 1 86 82 Al Oliver 13 2 1 1 87T 79T Fielder Jones 13 1 1 87T 83 Sam Leever 13 1 1 89 77 Hack Wilson 12 1 1 90 84T Tony Lazzeri 11 1 1 91 88T George Kell 9 1 1 92T 90T Bill Madlock 8 1 1 92T 87 Mickey Vernon 8 1 1 94T n/e Wally Berger 7 1 1 94T 88T Bill Mazeroski 7 1 1 96 93T Cesar Cedeno 6 1 1 Dropped Out: Steve Garvey(90T), Toby Harrah(86), Billy Nash(93T), Johnny Pesky(90T), Virgil Trucks(93T), Sol White(93T). Ballots Cast: 49 John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy
Posted: May 06, 2007 at 05:35 PM | 116 comment(s)
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Beckley almost let it slip through his hands, but he finally persevered.
Randolph and Redding had me really scared because I haven't done their plaques yet. :-)
HOF-not-HOM through 1998
Meaning, all of the members of the Hall of Fame as of 1998, not 2007.
1 Aparicio, Luis
2. Bancroft, Dave
3 Bender, Chief
4 Bottomley, Jim
5 Bresnahan, Roger
6 Brock, Lou
7 Chance, Frank
8 Chesbro, Jack
9 Combs, Earle
10 Cuyler, Kiki
11 Dandridge, Ray
12 Day, Leon
13 Dean, Dizzy
14 Duffy, Hugh
15 Evers, Johnny
16 Ferrell, Rick
17 Fingers, Rollie
18 Gomez, Lefty
19 Grimes, Burleigh
20 Hafey, Chick
21 Haines, Jesse
22 Hooper, Harry
23 Hoyt, Waite
24 Hunter, Catfish
25 Jackson, Travis
26 Johnson, Judy
27 Joss, Addie
28 Kell, George
29 Kelly, George
30 Klein, Chuck
31 Lazzeri, Tony
32 Lindstrom, Freddie
33 Lombardi, Ernie
34 Manush, Heinie
35 Maranville, Rabbit
36 Marquard, Rube
37 McCarthy, Tommy
38 McGraw, John
39 Pennock, Herb
40 Rice, Sam
41 Rizzuto, Phil
42 Schalk, Ray
43 Schoendienst, Red
44 Tinker, Joe
45 Traynor, Pie
46 Waner, Lloyd
47 Welch, Mickey
48 Willis, Vic
49 Wilson, Hack
50 Youngs, Ross
HOM-not-HOF
1 Allen, Dick
2 Barnes, Ross
3 Beckwith, John
4 Bennett, Charlie
5 Blyleven, Bert
6 Boyer, Ken
7 Brown, Ray
8 Brown, Willard
9 Carter, Gary
10 Caruthers, Bob
11 Childs, Cupid
12 Dahlen, Bill
13 Evans, Darrell
14 Evans, Dwight
15 Ferrell, Wes
16 Freehan, Bill
17 Glasscock, Jack
18 Gordon, Joe
19 Gore, George
20 Grant, Frank
21 Grich, Bobby
22 Groh, Heinie
23 Hack, Stan
24 Hernandez, Keith
25 Hill, Pete
26 Hines, Paul
27 Jackson, Joe*
28 Johnson, Home Run
29 Keller, Charlie
30 Mackey. Biz
31 Magee, Sherry
32 McPhee, Bid
33 McVey, Cal
34 Méndez, José
35 Minoso, Minnie
36 Moore, Dobie
37 Pearce, Dickey
38 Pierce, Billy
39 Pike, Lip
40 Richardson, Hardy
41 Rose, Pete*
42 Santo, Ron
43 Santop, Louis
44 Sheckard, Jimmy
45 Simmons, Ted
46 Start, Joe
47 Stearnes, Turkey
48 Stovey, Harry
49 Suttles, Mule
50 Sutton, Ezra
51 Torre, Joe
52 Trouppe, Quincy
53 Torriente, Cristobal
54 White, Deacon
55 Williams, Smokey Joe
56 Wilson, Jud
57 Wynn, Jimmy
* not eligible for the HOF
Try again to see if I can get the link to work.
I must get quite a high consensus score this time, will be interesting to see. Meanwhile I'd take beckley in a shot for the 2007 or even 1998 Red Sox, even though I quite like Kevin Youkilis, (never took much to Mo Vaughan) though come to think of it at 131 or 140 years old he's more of a fit with the Yankees :-)
How does second-to-last place sound? ;-)
Willie Randolph, my favorite player of all-time (in a 4-way tie with Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Dave Righetti) moves right to the top of the backlog, where he certainly belongs.
Jake Beckley, who I've been a great friend of finally gets in too! I even got the Carter/Blyleven order right.
I don't see Walters being that far ahead of Stieb - they are very similar, but Stieb was a little better, IMO.
Heh.
1) We have our first Expo.
2) We have Bert.
3) We don't have to deal with the bad news until at least two years from now.
4) Karl will die a happy man.
Bad news next:
1) I'm not exactly a fan of Beckley's, though less of an enemy than in previous years. I still fail to see the separation between him and four or five other 1Bs, among whom only Perez is getting serious backing. I hope Beckley's election doesn't look like an inconsistency when we reach 2007, nor especially do I hope that FO Perez or other 1Bs in the field use Beckley's election as justification for their candidate's would-be election. As an extreme backlogger with massively divided opinion about his candidacy, he's probably on the in/out line and can hardly be construed as representing any kind of consensus about the relative qualifications of other 1B candidates. In other words, he is not a credible starting point in an if-than argument.
2) More important, I find Stieb's poor showing a little unfortunate. I'm willing to concede I'm probably wrong about Randolph (though he wouldn't be my choice), but I think Stieb's debut, while not low certainly, speaks to skepticism about "best of a bad lot" among 1980s AL starters. That's not an reasonable position, but I think DanR's analysis, which suggests that the 1980s were a time of especially narrow distribtions of performance (that is, harder to have dominant seasons in) is worth keeping in mind. In addition, while Stieb isn't terribly far behind Walters, there's good reason to believe he ought to be closer or even ahead of Bucky, particularly when taking the lower quality of war play into account.
3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.
Congrats to Beckley, who leaves as the only 25,000-pt man.... Congrats also to Van Haltren and Duffy, who now chase the top spot together... Welch passes Jennings for 8th, sets his sights on pitching leaders Griffith and Waddell... Redding now the 10th member of the 15,000-pt club.
TOP 25, ALL-TIME
Beckley.... 25856
VAN HALTREN 24942.5
DUFFY...... 24662.5
BROWNING... 22412.5
Childs..... 18484
Griffith... 17924
Waddell.... 17596
WELCH...... 16981
Jennings... 16976
REDDING.... 15049
CJONES..... 14582
Sisler..... 13892
Pike....... 13399
BRESNAHAN.. 13335
TLEACH..... 13098
Sewell..... 12769
Mendez..... 12555
Thompson... 12349
RYAN....... 12322.5
Roush...... 12005
Bennett.... 11503
Moore...... 10904
Rixey...... 10789
Caruthers.. 10704
Beckwith.... 9896
OTHERS IN THE TOP 25 ACTIVE
(Cravath 9317, Walters 8680, Doyle 8568, Grimes 7975, Monroe 7001, BJohnson 6623, Oms 6583, McGraw 6089, Schang 6005, Williamson 5867, Willis 4528, Joss 4135, Dean 4106, Elliott 3961, BTaylor 3463)
Two more named on 40%.
So Randolph is the only incumbent with 40% support.
Dick Redding continues his surge. Surely every one of his supporters voted this year!
Where will they be in six weeks, that is the question.
Uh...guys?
We've got to give the surge more time before the Redding people decide to pull their support for the operation.
Stieb is close enough that he could rise rapidly once SNT fear wears off and more head-to-head comparisons with Walters show his quality. I think there's cause for optimism here.
3) More important yet, I'm just mystified by Dick Redding who, to my mind, didn't come out as a stud between Chris' ERA+ and WS projections and the HOF's 1920s stats. I'll have to take another look at his thread.
I agree. I don't think the electorate has really studied the HoF numbers for him, and we ought to look again at the fragmentary teens data before electing him on reputation alone. I'm looking forward to having more time for serious analysis and debate after this week!
> DanR's analysis, which suggests that the 1980s were a time of especially narrow distribtions of performance (that is, harder to have dominant seasons in)
I think this is confusing the cause and the effect. Was there something structural in the game that caused players not to have dominant seasons? Or did they just not have them? Can somebody tell me how you know which is the cause and which is the effect?
Stieb had a fine showing, #15, the #3 backlog pitcher, 10+ ballots, 200 points, a man can be proud of having that kind of support. He is ahead of players like Dizzy Dean, Burleigh Grimes, Mickey Welch, Addie Joss, Lefty Gomez. A fine showing.
The HoF in its infinite wisdom won't elect Carter until next year. John's list are as of the "year" of our election.
Second, while it was inevitable that Beckley would get in some day, and while I am sort of proud that people like me kept him out as long as they did, I stil lhave to say 'ugh'. He is currently the worst HOM in my rankings BY FAR. I guess this is how people felt when Charlie Keller or Sir Hughie were elected, despite their obviously superior credentials...;-)
All of that said, for some reason I am more worried that Bob Johnson might make it than Beckley, even though I have Johnson ranked higher. Why do we need another 30's outfielder who could stand out amongst his peers?
If Stieb and Randolph get elected someday, they will be credible if they do the same.
The reason is, Howie, that it's 1998 in our HoM world. I also like the way each list shapes up after each election.
Ron Wargo was the originator of this list, BTW, and I'm glad that he brought it to our attention.
I'm not sure how much is in the Redding thread. Several people must have upgraded him in the last few years, perhaps without comment that anyone noticed?
Among the 13 leaders, eleven appear on 30-odd% of the ballots (with Randolph in the high 40s, Jones in the high 20s). So that eleven has roughly equal opportunity to gain points. Among them, support for Redding (5), Fingers, Browning, Jones, and Perez (4 each) is soft because they got a few elect-me bonuses this year. Walters and Oms (last of the 13) got no bonuses, everyone else got one or two. Randolph, Cravath, and Stieb are poised to drop off five ballots next year, but that should be short-term
Who are they? The backlog is no longer dominated by bats, and the bats tend to be a little lower (italics)
pitch- Redding, Walters, Fingers, Stieb
bats - Browning, Johnson, Duffy, Cravath, Jones, Perez, Oms
glove- Randolph, Bresnahan,
~1890 - Jones, Browning, Duffy
~1910 - Bresnahan, Cravath, <u>Redding</u>
~1930 - <u>Walters</u>, Johnson, Oms
~1950 -
~1970 - Perez, <u>Fingers</u>
~1990 - Randolph, <u>Stieb</u>
--
JTM, There seems to be a typo in the 'LY' column for Elston Howard.
Gary actually has five more years to wait. Coop inducts him in 2003.
<Checking Karl's ballot>
Looks like Addie Joss. ;-)
Seriously, though. Congrats to Beckley. I actually voted for him... last year. The two newbies bumped him this year.
PW: I'm not sure how much is in the Redding thread. Several people must have upgraded him in the last few years, perhaps without comment that anyone noticed?
Redding's support has been pretty steady. The top ten is extremely bunched. His climb appears to be due losing less suppot to the newbies than other candidates.
I thought he was a 1910s candidate. That's why I wasn't concerned about the 1920s data. He was born in 1890.
I like the rate stats and the peak is good... but how many HOM-ers do we have with fewer than 3000 IP? He's no Koufax or Pedro and he looks quite a bit like Tommy Bridges.
In 1958, he was 24th again. Since then he has passed Van Haltren, Duffy, Browning, Welch. On the other hand, Mendez, Gordon, Waddell, Roush, Keller, and Trouppe have passed Redding.
Roush was 18th in 1948, 37th in 1958! Maybe Redding has been fairly steady.
Actually, Oms had both more years and his best years in the '20s, not the '30s.
49 voters is a low-turnout election. Dan Rosenheck, 'zop, and TomD didn't vote this "year." And it's been two "years" since Jeff M, Patrick W, or Trevor P last voted. I haven't checked the recent ballots of those people to see whether their absence made any difference - someone else can if they want to.
The average consesnsus score was -4.4, which is what passes for a "high-consensus" year these days.The highest possible score was +7. Here's how various individuals ranked:
Mark Shirk: +2
Howie Menckel: +2
Esteban Rivera: +1
ronw: +1
TomH: +1
favre: 0
Rick A: 0
John Murphy: -1
Rob Wood: -1
Thane of Bagarth: -1
...
Chris Cobb: -3
Andrew Siegel: -4
Chris Fluit: -4 (median)
sunnyday2: -4
SWW: -4
...
OCF: -6
...
Joe Dimino: -7
Michael Bass: -8
rico vanian: -8
KJOK: -9
Tiboreau: -9
jimd: -9
EricC: -10
Adam Schafer: -13
karlmagnus: -15
yest: -24
Supporting Beckley wasn't worth all that much in favor of anyone's consensus scores because Beckley was a rather weakly supported candidate, appearing on fewer than half the ballots and having only 3 "elect me" votes. It's just that everyone else had even weaker support. Leaving either Carter or Blyleven out of one's "elect me" votes counted strongly against a consensus score.
Interestingly, Beckley's low record of 25%, beating the next best at 29%, for percentage support in getting elected will probably last several centuries. It's not really a reflection on Beckley; he was only just behind Roush in 1997 so wouild normally have been expected to take the record by a sliver, not drive a truck through it. To get that low you need to be a borderline/deep backlog candidate in a year when all the slots bar one are taken by slam dunks and other newbies are below election level. That way you get a minimal number of "elect-mes" and lose several people off the bottom falling from 15th to 16th. It's a rare year that has that combination, however; we'll probably see a lot of marginal candidates elected with percentages worse than Roush but better than Beckley.
The speed and depth at which we're tearing through our backlog suggests to me that the assumption that expansion produces more elite ballplayers is in fact false. By electing 3 every year we are exhausting the supply of recent HOM-quality players, if you assume we are smart enough to keep standrads approximately level between eras. Expansion in fact produces dilution, the alternative hypothesis. This also suggests that 1940s and 1950s players, the last who ran the gauntlet before expansion, may be the ones to lose out.
Mark Shirk: +2
Howie Menckel: +2
Esteban Rivera: +1
ronw: +1
TomH: +1
Me? High consensus? How dare I be labeled as trendy? Fear not, fellow voters. With Beckley gone, and once Bill Monroe, Bob Elliot and Rick Reuschel get on my ballot in the near future, I shall re-plumb the depths of contrarianism!
The list itself is a very good idea, I like it. But pegging it to the imaginary '1998' rather than real time only confuses people.
It's like when a comedian tells a joke - if people don't laugh, then it isn't funny.
I'd humbly suggest the minor adjustment that simply lists actual guys who are in the HOM but have never gotten into the HOF. I think otherwise people get stuck on what they think are errors, and they don't get the full benefit of the lists.
...........
As for Beckley, I had him 8th. I don't see any reason to hang our heads. He's got the lowest peak and the longest prime on the entire holdover ballot. So which wins?
I haven't voted for Dizzy Dean in 50 years, easy, but if he got elected, I'd figure, 'Well, he's got the highest 2-3 year monster peak on the entire ballot, and there's something to be said for that, too.'
...
Joe Dimino: -7
Michael Bass: -8
rico vanian: -8
KJOK: -9
Tiboreau: -9
jimd: -9
EricC: -10
Adam Schafer: -13
karlmagnus: -15
yest: -24
I'm on the rocket train to the top, as in not among the bottom ten for the first time in several elections!
Dr. Chaleeko, I take it I can count on your support?
I am your humble servant, Karl.
If someone doesn't mind, I'd like to hear a brief summmary about the Beckley candidacy. If not, I understand, Beckley might be like steroids in the newsblog and maybe no one wants to rehash his story.
My "raw" number for Willis was 258-186. He's one of the handful of pitchers for whom I estimated an adjustment based on the defenses that supported him. That adjustment knocks him down to 248-196. Using that number, the difference between Willis and Joss comes out as 87-96. Now 87-96 isn't all that spectacular, but i do take it to be positive value. And my "big years score" of yearly FWP over 15 are nearly the same: 44 for Willis, 40 for Joss.
Here are my takes on the two:
1. Joss gets no extra credit from me for getting sick and dying. That's as much a part of his baseball record as anything else.
2. I would rank Willis ahead of Joss. I understand the voters who have Willis on their ballots better than I understand those with Joss.
3. For both of them, I would acknowledge that they pitched when IP were easier to come by than they would have been post-1920. Hence I rank both of them lower than their RA+-equivalent W-L would suggest, and neither is currently in my top 30.
4. We were right to pass over Joss when he was a fresh candidate. There's no good reason to revive his case now. We've had a lot of candidates since - for instance, why should Joss rank ahead of Lefty Gomez?
Well, I don't know about that, seeing how Sutton, Hernandez and the Evanses flew in.
1 above average player for incredibly long.
2 1B was different in 1900 than today, distorting perception of value. Clearly the best career-value 1Bman from his era.
3 no peak. at all. I mean none. So some voters cringe at honoring him.
Re. post #34:
The speedy induction of backloggers is about to slow down to a trickle.
1999: 3 new candidates: Brett, Yount and Fisk
2000: as many as 3 recent candidates: Ryan (held over from '99), most likely Gossage and Randolph (though Redding still has a shot)
2001: at least 2, maybe 3 new candidates: Winfield, Whitaker, plus possibly Puckett or Mattingly
2002: at least 2, maybe 3 new candidates: Smith, Trammell, plus possibly Dawson
2003: 2 new candidates: Murray, Sandberg, backlog spot could go to one of four recent candidates
2004: 2 new candidates: Molitor, Eckersley
2005: 1 new candidate: Boggs
2006: 1 new candidate: W. Clark, plus borderline new candidates Belle, Gooden and Hershiser
2007: 2 new candidates, maybe 3: Ripken, Gwynn, plus controversial new candidate McGwire and borderline new candidate Baines
2008: as many as 2 new candidates: McGwire (held over from '07 depending on size of protest), Raines
30 spots to go. At least 19 will be claimed by new candidates (Boggs, Brett, Clark, Eckersley, Fisk, Gossage, Gwynn, McGwire, Murray, Molitor, Raines, Ripken, Ryan, Sandberg, Smith, Trammell, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount). As many as 4 other spots could go to new candidates (Dawson, Mattingly, Puckett, Randolph). So we're looking at somewhere between 7 and 10 spots for the current backlog and an outside chance of no backloggers getting in again until 2004 (if Randolph leapfrogs Redding by 2000 which seems likely, and if we elect all three of Puckett, Mattingly and Dawson which doesn't).
I agree that the players of the '40s and '50s had to run a tougher gauntlet than the post-expansion players. But I don't agree that they've lost out in the long run. Those two decades have made up the gap through recent backlog elections. It started with the 1987 vote when 3 players from the '50s were voted in (Kiner, Pierce and Minoso). Recently, we elected 2 other players from the '40s and one more from the '50s (Trouppe, Keller and Fox). Currently, we have one other '40s candidate high in the backlog (Walters). So, while the '40s and '50s trail the decades immediately preceding and following (the '30s and the '60s), they're about even with the earlier decades of the 1880s through the 1920s.
Here's the most recent update:
1860s - 1 (Pearce) (SS)
1870s – 9 (Anson, Barnes, McVey, Pike, Spalding, Start, Sutton, White, Wright) (P, C, 1B-2, 2B, 3B-2, 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 - 17 (Beckley, Burkett, Childs, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Griffith, Hamilton, Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, McPhee, Nichols, Rusie, Thompson, Young) (P-4, 1B, 2B-3, SS-3, LF-3, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates –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, Monroe}
1910s - 17 (Alexander, Baker, Carey, Cobb, E Collins, Groh, J Jackson, W Johnson, Lloyd, Magee, Mendez, Roush, Santop, Speaker, Torriente, Wheat, Williams) (P-4, C, 2B, 3B-2, SS, LF-2, CF-5, 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 –Oms, Grimes, Mays, Traynor, Schang}
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, Klein}
1940s – 18 (Appling, Boudreau, W Brown, DiMaggio, Doerr, Feller, Gordon, Hack, Irvin, Keller, Leonard, Mize, Musial, Newhouser, Reese, Slaughter, Trouppe, Williams) (P-2, C, 1B-2, 2B-2, 3B, SS-3, LF-3, CF-3, RF)
{Candidates – Walters, Clarkson, Elliott, Rizzuto, Stephens}.
1950s – 18 (Ashburn, Banks, Berra, Campanella, Doby, Ford, Fox, Kiner, Lemon, Mantle, Mathews, Minoso, Pierce, Roberts, J Robinson, Snider, Spahn, E Wynn) (P-6, C-2, 2B-2, 3B, SS, LF-2, CF-4)
1960s – 21 (Aaron, Allen, 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-3, 3B-3, LF-2, CF, RF-4)
{Candidates – Brock, Cash, Cepeda, E Howard, F Howard}
1970s – 19 (Bench, Blyleven, Carew, Carlton, Da Evans, Grich, R Jackson, Jenkins, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Rose, Seaver, Schmidt, Simmons, Stargell, Sutton, J Wynn) (P-8, C-2, 1B-2, 2B-3, 3B-2, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Fingers, Perez, Staub, Nettles, Tiant, RSmith, Singleton, Bonds, Concepcion, Bando, John}
1980s- 3 (Carter, Dw Evans, Hernandez) (C, 1B, RF)
{Candidates- Randolph, Stieb, J Clark)
How about if I explain it at the beginning of each post from now on, Howie? ;-)
I corrected it on our site, Paul, though it was correct on my file. Weird.
I was traveling all last week and didn't get to vote. Randolph wouldn'tve been high enough on my ballot for me to have made a difference, though.
.beg ..end .Pit C/IF 1B/OF
1870 1899 10 .16 ..17
1880 1909 16 .16 ..21
1890 1919 15 .16 ..22
1900 1929 17 .17 ..20
1910 1939 18 .21 ..25
1920 1949 16 .23 ..26
1930 1959 16 .22 ..27
1940 1969 14 .18 ..25
1950 1979 20 .18 ..20
More 1970s guys still becoming eligible.
We have honored proportionately FEWER bats since 1960. Holdovers in that category would be T Perez, R Smith, B Bonds, L Brock, R Staub, K Singleton, O Cepeda, N Cash, F Howard.
Good sanity check question might be: Do I have NONE of the above on my ballot? If not, can I defend that call?
I meant of late (last five years or so). No major recent evals have vaulted him into 4th place. Its the same 19-20 voters giving him points for the past five years or so.
In the long haul, Redding has had an interesting candidacy. He was 6th in 1973 & 76 and 5th in 1977 -- ahead of many later inductees each year. Then the "new 1920s information" came out and he took a beating. I think his current position in the backlog is just the natural percolation up the backlog as people are inducted in front of him.
Many players catgorized as "glove" positions played a significant part of their career as "bats"; exhibit A are newly eligibles Yount and Brett, thought of as SS and 3B, but played a lot of OF and 1B/DH.
Secondly, it's obvious that we have honored more "bats" than "gloves" over the course of this project; should we panic because we might (horrors!) be in danger of bringing the ratio back in line?
Please take everything that man says with a grain of salt.
OK I get the expansion thing.
Was it a high population per team era? Do we know that? Do we know that it matters, considering the increasing numbers of kids playing other sports? Or is this just an inference from the expansion thing?
Explain to me again how low run scoring makes it harder to "dominate." What does "dominate" mean? What numbers did you use? (Sorry, I just find this to be difficult.)
The big reason is the number of ballots. Randolph was on 23 ballots to Redding's 19. Generally, the player on more ballots is the one elected.
I mean, obviously, some people who didn't vote this year could turn up.
In the last 5 elections, Redding's high has been 20 ballots, which he reached 3 times, so it's not like Redding had a bunch of missing supporters who failed to vote this year. As others have noted, Redding has been pretty steady of late.
And I don't know who got 16th and 17th place votes this year.
I didn't do a systematic approach. But I did notice that Randolph was just off of a couple of ballots in 16th or 17th. A number of voters are worried about the Shiny New Toy phenomenon and therefore take a conservative approach to new candidates. So Randolph is more likely to add a couple of extra ballots than Redding. Furthermore, he's more likely to add elect-me bonuses than Redding as Redding is already pretty much maxed out in that category. Finally, with the conservative approach to SNT's, it's more likely that Randolph will move up a couple of spots on individual ballots than Redding. With all of those different factors, it shouldn't be too hard for Randolph to make up the 11 point difference. Two extra ballots and one more elect-me spot would do it (or vice versa). It's not a guarantee. It's just likely, especially as Randolph has two elections in which to close the gap and not just one.
And I don't know where Gossage is going to land.
I don't know for sure where Gossage is going to land either. Based on his support in our simulated Hall of Fame voting in which he's been elected in each of the last three years along with Blyleven and Trammell, and based on the numerous comments throughout this site which rank him as a top 3 reliever of all-time with Wilhelm and Rivera, I'd have to say that he's going to land pretty high. And it's not like he'd need that much support. 50% of the ballots would do it. Considering the current position of Rollie Fingers (8th in the most recent vote), it seems very likely that Gossage will go in on his first ballot.
To me that's a lot of unknowns, and all else being equal, well, all else will be equal. What do you know that I don't know?
Yup, there are a lot of unknowns. But there's also past history and voting patterns on which to base predictions. I think it's pretty likely that 2000 will be Ryan, Randolph and Gossage. But I could be wrong.
Ask and ye shall receive. Actually, I had been posting this a while back, but just hadn't reposted in a while. FWIW, I never liked the "pretend time" list and always posted through the present who were eligible for the HOM and were elected to the HOF.
HOM-not-HOF
1. Allen, Dick
2. Barnes, Ross
3. Beckwith, John
4. Bennett, Charlie
5. Blyleven, Bert
6. Boyer, Ken
7. Caruthers, Bob
8. Childs, Cupid
9. Dahlen, Bill
10. Evans, Darrell
11. Evans, Dwight
12. Ferrell, Wes
13. Freehan, Bill
14. Glasscock, Jack
15. Gordon, Joe
16. Gore, George
17. Grich, Bobby
18. Groh, Heinie
19. Hack, Stan
20. Hernandez, Keith
21. Hines, Paul
22. Jackson, Joe
23. Johnson, Grant
24. Keller, Charlie
25. Magee, Sherry
26. McVey, Cal
27. Minoso, Minnie
28. Moore, Dobie
29. Pearce, Dickey
30. Pierce, Billy
31. Pike, Lip
32. Richardson, Hardy
33. Rose, Pete
34. Santo, Ron
35. Sheckard, Jimmy
36. Simmons, Ted
37. Start, Joe
38. Stovey, Harry
39. Sutton, Ezra
40. Torre, Joe
41. Trouppe, Quincy
42. White, Deacon
43. Wynn, Jimmy
HOF-not-HOM (eligibles only)
1. Aparicio, Luis
2. Bancroft, Dave
3. Bender, Chief
4. Bottomley, Jim
5. Bresnahan, Roger
6. Brett, George
7. Brock, Lou
8. Cepeda, Orlando
9. Chance, Frank
10. Chesbro, Jack
11. Combs, Earle
12. Cooper, Andy
13. Cuyler, Kiki
14. Dandridge, Ray
15. Day, Leon
16. Dean, Dizzy
17. Duffy, Hugh
18. Evers, Johnny
19. Ferrell, Rick
20. Fingers, Rollie
21. Fisk, Carlton
22. Gomez, Lefty
23. Grimes, Burleigh
24. Hafey, Chick
25. Haines, Jesse
26. Hooper, Harry
27. Hoyt, Waite
28. Hunter, Catfish
29. Jackson, Travis
30. Johnson, Judy
31. Joss, Addie
32. Kell, George
33. Kelly, George
34. Klein, Chuck
35. Lazzeri, Tony
36. Lindstrom, Freddy
37. Lombardi, Ernie
38. Manush, Heinie
39. Maranville, Rabbit
40. Marquard, Rube
41. Mazeroski, Bill
42. McCarthy, Tommy
43. McGraw, John
44. Pennock, Herb
45. Perez, Tony
46. Rice, Sam
47. Rizzuto, Phil
48. Ryan, Nolan
49. Schalk, Ray
50. Schoendienst, Red
51. Smith, Hilton
52. Sutter, Bruce
53. Taylor, Ben
54. Tinker, Joe
55. Traynor, Pie
56. Waner, Lloyd
57. Welch, Mickey
58. White, Sol
59. Willis, Vic
60. Wilson, Hack
61. Youngs, Ross
62. Yount, Robin
This list is about to get at least 4 shorter very quickly. By the end, the two lists will be even.
HOFers who aren't eligible for the HOF yet (with year of HOM eligibility)
1. Puckett, Kirby (2001)
2. Winfield, Dave (2001)
3. Smith, Ozzie (2002)
4. Murray, Eddie (2003)
5. Sandberg, Ryne (2003)
6. Eckersley, Dennis (2004)
7. Molitor, Paul (2004)
8. Boggs, Wade (2005)
9. Gwynn, Tony (2007)
10. Ripken, Cal (2007)
The "pretend time" list was fun when we used to do more "pretend time" discussion. We'd envision a pretend acceptance speech by Deacon White... Someone in 1937 would post that they noticed a kid down in San Diego tearing up AA pitching... someone would post their pessimistic outlook for the Braves' 1914 season. That type of thing. As we've gotten closer to the present we've gotten away from that and without the "pretend time" discussion it is pretty darn confusing.
HOF-not-HOM (eligibles only)
This is a nice list. Sure it contains some real lemons, but it also contains many active HOM candidates and also some player who might deserve a second look from us.
Anyway there are indeed some lemons there who seem to be pretty real, but Brett, Yount, Fisk and Ryan look pretty good and I kinda like Fingers, Joss, Rizzuto and Willis, too. Anybody who thinks we're short of pitchers, there they are ;-)
HOF-not-HOM (eligibles only)
8 Rollie Fingers 254 18
9 Roger Bresnahan 238 18
11 Hugh Duffy 228 17
14 Tony Perez 210 15
20 Burleigh Grimes 133 11
21 Mickey Welch 132 10
22 Lou Brock 130 10
24 Phil Rizzuto 123 10
27 Vic Willis 113 10
32 Dizzy Dean 106 7
33 John McGraw 104 7
37T Orlando Cepeda 101 9
39 Ben Taylor 83 8
42 Pie Traynor 67 6
44 Dave Bancroft 63 6
46 Chuck Klein 62 5
48 Addie Joss 58 4
56 Sam Rice 43 4
60T Frank Chance 36 3
64 Rabbit Maranville 33 3
66 Ernie Lombardi 28 2
68 Luis Aparicio 26 2
73 Lefty Gomez 22 2
75 Bruce Sutter 21 2
89 Hack Wilson 12 1
90 Tony Lazzeri 11 1
91 George Kell 9 1
94T Bill Mazeroski 7 1
3. Bender, Chief
4. Bottomley, Jim
10. Chesbro, Jack
11. Combs, Earle
12. Cooper, Andy
13. Cuyler, Kiki
14. Dandridge, Ray
15. Day, Leon
18. Evers, Johnny
19. Ferrell, Rick
24. Hafey, Chick
25. Haines, Jesse
26. Hooper, Harry
27. Hoyt, Waite
28. Hunter, Catfish
29. Jackson, Travis
30. Johnson, Judy
33. Kelly, George
36. Lindstrom, Freddy
38. Manush, Heinie
40. Marquard, Rube
42. McCarthy, Tommy
44. Pennock, Herb
49. Schalk, Ray
50. Schoendienst, Red
51. Smith, Hilton
54. Tinker, Joe
56. Waner, Lloyd
58. White, Sol
61. Youngs, Ross
FYI. It bears on next year's election.
HoMers in bold
all HoFers with significant playing careers are included
1936
Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson
1937
Nap Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Cy Young , Connie Mack, John McGraw, George Wright
1938
Pete Alexander
1939
George Sisler , Eddie Collins , Willie Keeler , Lou Gehrig, Cap Anson , Charlie Comiskey , Candy Cummings , Buck Ewing , Charles Radbourn , Al Spalding
1942
Rogers Hornsby
1945
Roger Bresnahan , Dan Brouthers , Fred Clarke , Jimmy Collins , Ed Delahanty , Hugh Duffy , Hughie Jennings , King Kelly , Jim O’Rourke , Wilbert Robinson
1946
Jesse Burkett , Frank Chance , Jack Chesbro , Johnny Evers , , Clark Griffith, , Tommy McCarthy , Joe McGinnity , Eddie Plank , Joe Tinker , Rube Waddell , Ed Walsh
1947
Carl Hubbell , Frankie Frisch , Mickey Cochrane , Lefty Grove
1948
Herb Pennock , Pie Traynor
1949
Charlie Gehringer , Mordecai Brown , Kid Nichols
1951
Mel Ott , Jimmie Foxx
1952
Harry Heilmann , Paul Waner
1953
Al Simmons , Dizzy Dean , Chief Bender , Bobby Wallace , Harry Wright
1954
Rabbit Maranville , Bill Dickey , Bill Terry
1955
Joe DiMaggio , Ted Lyons , Dazzy Vance , Gabby Hartnett , Frank Baker , Ray Schalk
1956
Hank Greenberg , Joe Cronin
1957
Sam Crawford
1959
Zack Wheat
1961
Max Carey , Billy Hamilton
1962
Bob Feller , Jackie Robinson , Bill McKechnie , Edd Roush
1963
John Clarkson , Elmer Flick , Sam Rice , Eppa Rixey
1964
Luke Appling , Red Faber , Burleigh Grimes , Miller Huggins , Tim Keefe , Heinie Manush , Monte Ward
1965
Pud Galvin
1966
Ted Williams , Casey Stengel
1967
Red Ruffing , Lloyd Waner
1968
Joe Medwick , Kiki Cuyler , Goose Goslin
1969
Stan Musial, Roy Campanella , Stan Coveleski , , Waite Hoyt,
1970
Lou Boudreau , Earle Combs , Jesse Haines,
1971
Dave Bancroft , Jake Beckley , Chick Hafey , Harry Hooper , Joe Kelley , Rube Marquard , Satchel Paige
1972
Sandy Koufax , Yogi Berra ,Early Wynn, Lefty Gomez , Ross Youngs , Josh Gibson , Buck Leonard
1973
Warren Spahn , George Kelly , Mickey Welch , Monte Irvin , Roberto Clemente
1974
Mickey Mantle , Whitey Ford , Jim Bottomley , Sam Thompson , Cool Papa Bell
1975
Ralph Kiner , Earl Averill , Bucky Harris , Billy Herman , Judy Johnson
1976
Robin Roberts, Bob Lemon , Roger Connor , Freddy Lindstrom , Oscar Charleston
1977
Ernie Banks ,Amos Rusie , Joe Sewell , Al Lopez , Martin Dihigo , Pop Lloyd
1978
Eddie Mathews, Addie Joss
1979
Willie Mays , Hack Wilson
1980
Al Kaline, Duke Snider, Chuck Klein
1981
Bob Gibson, Johnny Mize , Rube Foster
1982
Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Travis Jackson
1983
Brooks Robinson, Juan Marichal, George Kell
1984
Luis Aparicio, Harmon Killebrew, Don Drysdale, Rick Ferrell , Pee Wee Reese
1985
Hoyt Wilhelm, Lou Brock, Enos Slaughter , Arky Vaughan
1986
Willie McCovey, Bobby Doerr, Ernie Lombardi
1987
Billy Williams, Catfish Hunter, Ray Dandridge
1988
Willie Stargell
1989
Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Red Schoendienst
1990
Jim Palmer , Joe Morgan
1991
Rod Carew, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins , Tony Lazzeri
1992
Tom Seaver, Rollie Fingers, Hal Newhouser
1993
Reggie Jackson
1994
Steve Carlton, Leo Durocher , Phil Rizzuto
1995
Mike Schmidt, Leon Day , Vic Willis , Richie Ashburn
1996
Jim Bunning, Bill Foster , Ned Hanlon
1997
Phil Niekro, Nellie Fox, Willie Wells
1998
Don Sutton, George Davis , Larry Doby , Joe Rogan
1999
Orlando Cepeda, Joe Williams
2000
Tony Perez, Bid McPhee , Turkey Stearnes
2001
Bill Mazeroski , Hilton Smith
2003
Gary Carter
2006
Bruce Sutter, Ray Brown, Willard Brown, Andy Cooper, Biz Mackey, Mule Suttles, Cristobal Torriente, Jud Wilson, Frank Grant, Pete Hill, Jose Mendez Louis Santop, Ben Taylor, Sol White
IMO, he's Rafael Palmeiro, without the steriod controversy. If his career spanned 1988-2007, instead of 1888-1907, he would have finished his career with 3000 hits and 500 HR. BPro's translated stats show him with 3077 hits and 527 HR for example.
Palmeiro was only a 4x all-star, Beckley probably would have had a similar number. Unlike Palmeiro, Beckley's era wasn't littered with all-time greats at the position - he was probably the best overall 1B of the 1890s and early 1900s (Palmeiro obviously wasn't in his era), it was just that every year there was a different guy on top at the position.
But they are extremely similar as players when you adjust for the era. Beckley had outstanding power for his era, 6x in the top 8 in HR, 7x in the top 10 in 3B (4th all time), 5x in the top 5 in his league in TB, etc. He didn't draw a ton of walks, but he did hit .033 over the average batting average for his era (.308 vs. .275). His OBP was .361 vs. .341 average, his SLG was .435 vs. .366 average. He was a very consistent, very good hitter.
His adjusted for season EQA was .290 vs. Palmeiro's .295. They were very similar players.
I think his 'total lack of peak' is a little overstated because of WS inability to understand the importance of fielding 1B before 1920, when so much more of the game took place in the IF. IMO 1B was just as important as CF defensively in this time . . . the defensive spectrum was more like SS/3B 2B/1B/CF LF/RF at this time.
I'd argue he's somewhat similar to Palmeiro, EXCEPT Palmeiro's close contemporaries are guys like:
Bagwell
McGwire
Frank Thomas
Will Clark
Jim Thome
Fred McGriff
Olerud
Giambi?
Helton?
Delgado?
while Beckley's close contemporaries are guys like:
Brouthers
Connor
Frank Chance
Anson
Harry Davis
and Beckley's a lot close to the top of his position in his era than Palmeiro is for his era.
though come to think of it at 131 or 140 years old he's <Beckley's> more of a fit with the Yankees :-)
Cheap, old FA-->Gotta be the Giants. Only thing is he won't help Sabean unload one of his draft picks.
I agree with Joe on the Palmeiro comparison; my guess is steriods will be just enough to keep Palmeiro out, otherwise he'd have gone into the HOF certainly and the HOM probably. However, looking for one last time at Beckley's stats page, I think he'd have done better than Palmeiro on All-Star games, partly because he didn't have much competition and the All-Star game is small-c conservative, so likes to vote the same players every year and not reward one-year wonders.
Assuming they elected 3 1Bs every year, Beckley would have missed out in 1890, 1891 1893 and 1894 because of this (being 2nd best 1B in 1890 but beaten by ABCs) but would have beaten the fading Anson in 1895, missed in his mediocre 1896 and then been in an ASG in 1897, possibly 1898, definitely 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904. That's 8-9 ASGs, simply because he was the best long term 1B of his era. Argue about 1-2 of them, he would still have been well ahead of Palmeiro. The 1-year wonders would not have made it ahead of the consistent star if the latter was having a decent year.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns---the ones we don't know we don't know.
You know?
How about the unknown knowns? the ones we don't know we know?
Disagree with KJOK about Anson, Brouthers, and Connor. While Beckley was a candidate for all-star each year, Brouthers and Connor, and sometimes Anson, were usually candidates for best player in the league. My 2 cents.
I could have sworn that I modeled my list exactly on your older ones, but...
First base was more of a defensive position. But no one ever came up with a defensive adjustment, just that it was more valuable. People tried to prove it was more defensive by looking at aggregate OPS+ scores by position and decade, but nothing was ever translated into defensive adjustments (and you run into Anson, Brouthers, and Connor throwing OPS+ numbers out of whack). At least I never saw them and I requested them numerous times when I would make anti-Beckley posts. My feeling was the Deadball Era firstbasemen, such as Chance and Konetchy, who dealt with huge numbers of sacrifices and stolen base attempts deserved it more.
We talked about how first basemen should have more credit, and I think many people gave it, but it was either subconscious or no one ever publicly said how much more it deserved.
I'm with you on this one M&S. In fairness to Beckley that's a decent hunk of his career.
My population-per-team estimate is just the 18-34 year old male US population, divided by the # of MLB teams, with an unscientific guess for Latin Americans and the decline in participation by American blacks. It's quite inexact, of course, but it does show a strong (inverse) correlation to standard deviation. This is, to me, an interesting finding, since it means that the absolute greatest players have been improving at a slower rate than the rest of the league as population per team increases (which suggests that Ruth, Cobb, and Wagner would still have been superstars had they been born today).
Run scoring is interesting, theoretically. What's empirically true is that as run scoring goes up, standard deviation does too. I had initially thought that this was just because more R/G = more PA/G = more opportunities for players to distinguish themselves from each other, which is of course true. But I get a stronger correlation to standard deviation on R/G than on PA/G, which means that there's something about higher R/G leagues that spreads players out further from the mean *beyond* this OBP or PA effect (ie, of course a 150 OPS+ will "buy" more WARP1 in a high-scoring league than in a low-scoring one, because of the extra 50 PA or so per player-season, but it also appears to be easier to have a 150 OPS+ in the first place in a high scoring league than a low scoring one). I'm not sure what it is, I just know that it's empirically there. I'd love to hear thoughts on why this might be the case.
"Ease of domination" is just my shorthand to try to translate standard deviation for the group, and distinguish it from quality of play. (The 1998 NL, for example, was easier to dominate but had a higher quality of play than the 1908 NL). I am actually measuring the standard deviation of position player wins above average per 162 games (offense plus defense), so this shouldn't be applied to pitchers (I haven't done a study of them yet). And remember that I use the standard deviation *projected* by the regression equation rather than the actual one--the actual stdev in the teens was much higher in the AL than in the NL because Cobb, Speaker, and Collins were tearing it up, but they are not regressed more than Zack Wheat and George Burns. Perhaps the best way to think of ease of domination/stdev is: "If all we knew about a league were its time since expansion, player population per team, run scoring, DH use, and a few other less important factors, how many WS/WARP would we expect its MVP to have?"
Re 1B in the 1890s, I was no friend of Beckley's, but the worst 3/8 of regulars from 1893-1903 averaged 1.2 fewer wins above average per 162 games than they did from 1960-2005.
I recall once reading a newsarticle where Evar Swanson or some other basestealer from the 30s said that he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs. Was it more around the deadball era?
Does that help at all? ;-)
Hall of Fame, hello?!?
Is anybody listening
- oh oh, No reply at all.
[Swanson] he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs.
Evidently in these words, it is a matter of degree, and it must be only a matter of degree. Foxx is holding runners on first but not very well. Maybe he didn't hustle on close plays?
Anyway, that degree determines the number of runs. It may be a small number of runs only because it is a small degree; Foxx "wouldn't really try" made a difference on only a few plays because he would tag them out "without really trying" if they took significantly bigger leads against him.
Factoid just discovered. So far, we have elected eight players who were rookies in 1970 or later. Two are in The Coop: Schmidt and Carter; six are outside: Bert Blyleven, Darrell Evans, Dwight Evans, Bobby Grich, Keith Hernandez, and Ted Simmons.
I daresay Freehan and Torre will raise more eyebrows when the crowds come visiting.
Of course that may support Dan Greenia's point. Everyone recognizes that Freehan and Torre are not only sabrmetric selections but avant garde special cases, so there is no disappointment that the BBWAA has not honored them. In contrast, it seems reasonable to be irked that the BBWAA "killed" (all but Blyleven and Hernandez?) from that seventies sextet.
Note the shortage of outfielders (Dwight Evans alone) among the eight players Dan names, not to mention the two older catchers, and the only 1Bman is half a "glove" selection here. The BBWAA may predictably do best at electing "bats", right? But 1970 rookies are smack in the middle of a period when there were unusually few star outfielders. And 1Bmen Perez and Allen started at 3B.
Between Yaz or Stargell and Murray or Henderson, who arrived on the scene?
> My feeling was the Deadball Era firstbasemen, such as Chance and Konetchy, who dealt with huge numbers of
> sacrifices and stolen base attempts deserved it more.
I recall once reading a newsarticle where Evar Swanson or some other basestealer from the 30s said that he was able to get a bigger lead off of Foxx than the other first baseman because Foxx wouldn't really try to tag runners on the pickoff play. I was unaware that anyone ever took this into consideration. I figured that the impact would be maybe a handful of runs. Was it more around the deadball era?
Actually, I'm not sure whether Keeler means MLB baserunners or HOM participants. The quotation suggests that he means the latter. As a longtime reader (arrived 1904), I daresay that dozens of HOMeboys have considered the bunt & steal game of the deadball era, and have proceeded to take it seriously as a special and significant demand on the 1Bmen of that era. Some extend the point to Jake Beckley, whose career straddles the changes in the game.
Regarding 30, 40, and 50 years before Beckley, Chance, and Konetchy probably every one of Joe Start's supporters considered the introduction of the fielding glove at first base --none at all until the last ten years of his 28-year career-- and his reputation for reliability in that context. That is, reliably catching the throw to first was a special and significant demand on the 1Bmen of that era.
What no one has done in this forum, as far as I know, is bridge the chronological gap, even by speculation. That may be because ABC Anson Brouthers Connor were such outstanding batters, with D Delahanty the obvious candidates for greatest batsman of the 19th century. Assessment of fielding would have been relevant to consideration of any other 1Bmen of the 1870s-80s (betw Start & Beckley) but the issue didn't come up because the ABC candidates for unanimous election cast everyone else into shadow. (On a later, liberal standard JTM would have established threads for several "no-chancers" .)
Election year1898 '18 '38 '58 '78 '98
--------------------------
top twenty in 1898, not elected by 1998
10 34 39 49 48 52 Williamson
14 36 -- -- -- -- ONeill
16 29 21 28 18 13 Jones
17 24 10 21 27 21 Welch
18 -- 46 65 73 65 Dunlap
19 26 55 -- -- -- McCormick
20 -- -- -- -- -- Orr
top twenty in 1918, not elected by 1998 (not listed above)
13 12 15 17 18 Van Haltren
14 20 44 43 69 Ryan
15 6 14 8 3 Beckley [elected in 1998]
17 14 17 9 11 Duffy
19 13 18 19 6 Browning
top twenty in 1938, not elected by 1998 (not listed above)
15 24 10 4 Redding
16 35 22 17 Leach
18 33 24 9 Bresnahan
top twenty in 1958, not elected by 1998 (not listed above)
none
top twenty in 1978, not elected by 1998 (not listed above)
none
top twenty in 1998, not elected by 1998
5 Randolph
8 Fingers
14 Perez
15 Stieb
19 Singleton
Every newcomer who ranked in the top twenty in 1958 or 1978 has been elected. For example, in 1978 that is Kiner, Minoso, Pierce, Boyer, Fox.
I haven't been able to easily cache individual ballot placement counts (number of #1's, number of #2's, etc) due to the lack of 0's in the results page, but that might be doable at some point... just now now.
Anyhow, if anyone wants other plots, let me know. They are quite easy to generate once the template is created (and they are big fun for me! :-)).
The SBE strikes again. Among the top 100 RCAA totals between 1965-1975, the following made their debut during that ten year span:
Reggie Jackson
Bobby Bonds
Bobby Murcer
Rod Carew
Roy Whtie
Reggie Smith
Sal Bando
Johnny Bench
John Mayberry
Rick Monday
Cesar Cedeno
Richie Hebner
Bob Watson
Gene Tenace
Mike Epstein
Ken Singleton
Darrell Evans
Amos Otis
Bernie Carbo
Bobby Grich
Lee May
Richie Zisk
Greg Luzinski
Al Oliver
Jim Northrup
Mike Schmidt
Thurman Munson
Carlton Fisk
Joe Rudi
Jeff Burroughs
Ted simmons
Don Bylor
Ralph Garr
Carlos May
George Scott
Steve Garvey
Fred Lynn
Bill Melton
Davey Johnson
Bill Madlock
Nate Colbert
Mike Hargrove
Dusty Baker
And you can add Toby Harrah, George Brett, and Robin Yount to their ranks.
OF and 1B. My point, the gloves dwarf the bats in all-time context.
--
DavidFoss,
I have not yet looked at your plot. I will be grateful for a copy of the data because I would like to continue fiddling with some plots. If you welcome competing plots, pwendt at fas dot harvard dot edu is a better eddress to use now.
I have constructed my own master list of voting results for the purposes of making graphs and other general fun stuff. I was wondering if I could validate my list with what you have to generate post #12. Could we set up some sort of data exchange? I could sent you the file that I have.
Thanks
David and others,
I have some specific annual data not all of which is simply derivative. For example, the number elected and the numbers of first- and quasi-first ballotees pertain to the quality of the eligible pool. For short, the number of first and quasi-first is the number "elected promptly".
I say "not simply derivative" although elected promptly might be programmed on a variety of definitions. I defined them as the smallest set of players who never ranked behind anyone outside the set and identified them manually (errorprone). Thus two first ballotees do not qualify as elected promptly in this sense, and the annual number of quasi-first ballotees is -1 twice. Rusie 1904 and Ashburn 1968 finished second behind ballot veterans who had previously trailed someone outside the set, eg Glasscock in 1904. (I will check 1898-1904 and post the series.)
Howie just updates the top numbers. Apologies for forgetting the real master - one of the Dans?
The crux is that Stovey, elected slowly, ranked ahead of Radbourn as a newcomer in 1899. So Radbourn was not elected promptly. But Radbourn beat Wright in 1898; Wright beat Keefe in 1899; Wright and Keefe beat Glasscock in 1901; Glasscock beat Rusie in 1904. No one from the earliest elections except first ballotees (and not Rusie 1904) qualifies as elected promptly. In contrast, eight men on the 1934 ballot were elected promptly. Except for 1939-1940, there was at least one quasi-first ballotee every year 1933-1956. Groh and Suttles were on the ballot a "long time" but "elected promptly".
Number of Quasi-First Ballot electees (= elected promptly - first balllot)
[1] 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
[26] 2 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 6 4 4 2 0 0 1 1 2 3 2 1 2
[51] 3 2 2 2 2 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 -1 1 1 0 0
[76] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 2 1 0 0 0
[101] 0
The first column in brackets gives the index at the beginning of the row, eg the second row is the 26th to 50th numbers in the series and the fifth row is the 101st and final number. Heinie Groh's 1933-1938 tenure on the ballot is that run "1 6 6 4 4 2" in the second row. The 16-year run of nonzeros, or 16 years with a backlog of players elected promptly, is 1941-1956 from {Ruth Hornsby
Number of First Ballot electees
[1] 4 2 2 0 2 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 2
[38] 0 1 0 0 1 1 2 1 2 1 0 2 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 0 1 2 1 1
[75] 2 1 2 1 0 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 0 3 1 0 1 3 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 2
This series sums to 114 which does not match the HOM Plaque Room, so there is some mistake.
Number on the ballot who were "Elected Promptly" (= first ballot + quasi-first ballot)
[1] 4 2 2 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 3 2 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 1 3 8 [8 in 1934]
[38] 6 5 4 2 1 1 3 2 4 4 2 3 4 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 3 2 1 0 2 1 0 3 2 1 2 1 0 0 3 2 1
[75] 2 1 2 1 0 2 2 1 3 2 3 4 2 3 1 0 1 4 3 1 3 4 3 2 1 1 2
This series sums to 189
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