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Hall of Merit by Decade:

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, Bancroft, 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, Klein}

1940s – 18 (Appling, Boudreau, W Brown, DiMaggio, Doerr, Feller, Gordon, Hack, Irvin, Keller, Leonard, Mize, Musial, Newhouser, Reese, Slaughter, Trouppe, TWilliams) (P-2, C, 1B-2, 2B-2, 3B, SS-3, LF-3, CF-3, RF)
{Candidates – Walters, Rizzuto, Clarkson, Elliott, 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 – 22 (Bench, Blyleven, Carew, Carlton, Da Evans, Fingers, Fisk, Grich, R Jackson, Jenkins, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Rose, Ryan, Seaver, Schmidt, Simmons, Stargell, Sutton, J Wynn) (P-10, C-3, 1B-2, 2B-3, 3B-2, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Perez, Nettles, Singleton, RSmith, Staub, Tiant, Bonds, Concepcion, John, Tanana, Bando}

1980s- 8 (Brett, Carter, Dw Evans, Gossage, Hernandez, Randolph, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount) (P, C, 1B, 2B-2, 3B, SS, RF-2)
{Candidates- Stieb, Puckett, Murphy, Mattingly)

1) Smith
2) Trammell
3) Tiant
4-50) Move people up from last year

I'm still anxiously awaiting a revised Ben Taylor MLE. He's very close to my ballot.

1) Trammell
2) Smith
Dawson mid-ballot, circa #8
everybody else stays put

Smith and Dawson will also all be in my top 8. Dawson should definitely outpoint Perez, which should get him in the top 10. I have the two players in a virtual dead heat, but many defense oriented or peak oriented voters should have Dawson ahead. His early career as a centrefielder was truly great.

I haven't decided about Trammell yet.

1. Smith
2. Trammell

I don't think Dawson - or any other new candidate - cracks my top 15. But I've got a couple of weeks to think about that.

And now a few words about, of all people, Vince Coleman.

Around here, we're in that habit of dismissing candidates by calling them "HOVG." No one is going to use that phrase to refer to Coleman - I'm not really sure you can even call him Good. He wasn't a team leader. The best evidence I know of concerning his character was that jumbo firecracker incident in the Dodger Stadium parking lot - and that marks him as an overgrown juvenile punk. But for all of that, there are some markers to remember his career by.

He was the last of his kind - the last man to steal 100 bases in a season. There are a lot of skills that go into making a ballplayer, and baserunning is nowhere near the most important - but at that one particular skill, Coleman might have been the best ever. (Among those with real major league careers, anyway - hard to know what to say about someone like Larry Lintz.) There was one year in there in which something like 20% of all balks called in the entire NL were called with Coleman on base. If you needed a pinch-runner, and could call on anyone in the history of the game, in his prime, is there anyone you'd rather have than Coleman?

Whitey Herzog made a couple of decisions early in the 1985 season, decisions that were brave, visionary, and maybe just plain stupid. (There's no doubt that he would have been roasted for them in 1985 time-warp BTF.) He called Coleman up, despite MLE's that suggested he wasn't ready to be a major league hitter. And then, eventually (once everyone was healthy), he made sure Coleman's grip on the LF job was unchallenged by trading Lonnie Smith for no immediate (and little eventual) return.

This was Lonnie Smith in the "doughnut hole" portion of his oddly shaped career, the several years he spent after coming back from cocaine rehab in which he wandered around being a shell of what he once was. There's no doubt that the Smith of 1980-83 and the Smith of 1989-90 was a far greater player than Coleman ever could have been - but we're talking about the Smith of 1985. As near as I can make out, there's not much difference in overall value between Coleman and that Smith. Even so, I'm going to claim that the two moves benfited the Cardinals that year - that they were better off with Coleman than they would have been with Smith. It's a psychological argument, an "intangibles" argument, if you will.

Smith's offensive value was distributed around several components, no one of which dominated the picture. Coleman's offensive value was concentrated in one small facet of his game: his baserunning. That had psychological value, because it helped give the team an identity, a self-image. They were the biggest, baddest bunch of basestealers you ever saw - that's an image. I think that any strong self-image, anything to swagger about, is a good thing in the life of a team.

The other side of it was defensive. Coleman may not have been a great defensive player, but he was a clear improvement over Smith. It's not even that Smith caused so much direct damage, but Smith was scary: you saw a ball hit to LF and you didn't know what was going to happen. One thing to note about Coleman: he had a lot of outfield assists. You can dismiss this as byproduct of disrespect for his arm, but the outs were real. I think that Coleman's speed, and his willingness to charge balls in front of him, accounted for quite a few of those assists. So, Coleman was a defensive upgrade over Smith. Why does that matter? Maybe it mattered in the psyche of John Tudor. Whitey to Tudor: you've got to throw strikes, and left-handed pitchers have to be willing to throw inside to right-handed batters. Tudor's mind was willing to go along, but was his gut? Take a look out to the left side of the field. In Boston, that's a very bad view - way too much wall in the picture. But this is St. Louis, and the fence is a long way away. Having Lonnie Smith and his defensive adventures in view can be a distraction, but clean that up with Coleman out there, and you can now focus on the foreground: Pendleton, Ozzie, and the double-play pivot of Herr. That's more like it.

Chris Cobb, #100 of the ballot thread:

There was a bit of talk about “our biggest mistake” election. The only two choices we have made that I see as clear “mistakes” are Bill Terry and Sam Thompson, with Thompson being the bigger of the two. Browning is distinctly less qualified than Thompson. All three players were overrated, I think, because they have very gaudy batting statistics that aren’t as meritorious as they appear.

Sam Thompson was elected in 1929, and I've always considered his election to have been a mistake. Just for entertainment value, here's the 1929 vote totals:

703 Wallace - elected
629 Thompson - elected
616 Sheckard (Italics represent eventual election)
582 Caruthers
551 Pearce

488 Pike
448 Beckley
446 Van Haltren
381 Griffith
367 R. Foster

361 Ryan
332 Bresnahan
315 Welch
296 Childs
295 Jennings

293 Waddell
259 Duffy
246 Browning
218 Doyle
216 Monroe

205 Leach
186 C. Jones
161 Poles
147 Cicotte
125 Cravath

109 Chance
96 Williamson
80 Joss
68 F. Jones
68 McGraw

53 Konetchy
44 Willis
41 Long
38 McCormick
36 Bond

34 Cross
34 Petway
25 Tiernan
18 King
18 Bush

17 Mullane
16 York
10 S. White
9 Meyerle
9 Evers

8 H. Wright
8 J. Williams
7 Beaumont
7 Chapman
7 Tinker

6 Nash
6 Dunlap
6 Vaughn (Hippo, I presume)

As much as I like to bluster about which guys deserve to be elected or not, I'd have to admit that there really are 80 guys who COULD be worthy, and I could easily be wrong in my assessments. The fog of 19th century vs preWWII vs post expansion, defense vs offense, durability, peak/prime/career, never mind the intangibles, really is quite large.

Having said that.... I'm still not sold on Pete Browning. Is he the best hitter on the board? No, John McGraw is. Cravath might be next, or maybe Chuck Klein. Browning is as good a hitter ("hitter" = offensive force, scoring runs) as Frank Chance, but not a whit better.

Chance lifetime OWP .720
Browning lifetime OWP .745
Browning career OWP, not counting his first few years in the weak AA: .707.

Chance, I think we would all agree, was a much more valuable fielder than Browning. A great first baseman / parttime catcher, versus a poor outfielder / parttime infielder.

Browning was more durable.

I'm not trying to crank up the Chance bandwagon; his 5000 career PA (spread out, not concentrated) is too brief for many voters. I'm just continually surprised at how much support the Louisville Slugger has, since I think it's very debatable that he is really the best bat we have to choose from.

In a funny way, Charley Jones is the reverse of Browning. Jones did his early damage in the NL, which was the only league, of course, then battered the AA. Their support is about equal, but I wonder if Jones gets a little more benefit of the doubt by having proved himself in the NL first and merely corroborated his ability in the AA (as an older player to boot).

Naturally I'm not taking into account the notion of how weak the NA/NL were in the pre-1880 period, but then it's hard to know that as well as we know how weak the AA was.

I'd prefer Singleton to Browning and Cravath to Browning. And all of them to Thumpson, of course. I'm not sure I agree that Terry is a clear mistake, my system sees him as being about as good as Hernandez, but then my system is somewhat idiosyncratic and solely WS based.

Dr. Chaleeko--might I inquire why you have chosen to make your system solely WS-based, rather than incorporating BP WARP or its components, my WARP, or any and all other methods? Isn't more information always better than less?

Do we have an Andre Dawson thread? I only ask because I hear rumblings he might be in the top half of people's ballot. I don't understand this at all as he will not even sniff my ballot. I prefer Parker, Murphy, Rice, Singleton, and many other to Hawk.

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
What a surprise to see that twice in one batch (Dawson and Coleman).

Beside the steals leaders printed in the newspaper, my only memory of Vince Coleman is the tarpaulin.
My only memory of Ron Leflore is the steals leaders printed in the newspaper, which may be better.

"The fog of 19th century vs preWWII vs post expansion, defense vs offense, durability, peak/prime/career, never mind the intangibles, really is quite large."

Maybe the best way to approach it is to break it down and lift some of the fog. If we as a group don't have consensus that Pete Browning was the best player from his era that deserves election how can we have consensus that he's the best available backlogger? I'll give my take on players split into Pre-Ruth, Ruth-Integration and post-Integration.

Pre-Ruth

1) Gavy Cravath - how did we elect Kiner and Keller and let Cravath slip through the cracks?
2) Ben Taylor - Could make it above Cravath with a slight upwards revision in the MLEs. How did we elect Beckley and Keith Hernandez and dismiss Ben Taylor?
3) Tommy Leach - Very good glove, decent bat. Value at 3B puts him ahead of the other outfielders
4) Dick Redding
5) Johnny Evers - terrific glove, just enough bat
6) Jack Quinn - career candidate, played forever
7) Vic Willis - a lot like Dick Redding, they both concentrated a lot of value in a few workhorse years
8) Lave Cross - Played a lot of C and 3B, hit better than most C
9) Fred Dunlap - Good fielding SS who put up good numbers against the AA. I like that better than a poor fielding CF
10) Charley Jones
11) Pete Browning
12) Roger Bresnahan
13) Jim McCormick
14) Jack Fournier
15) Carlos Moran
16-20) Jimmy Ryan, George Van Haltren, John McGraw, Joe Tinker, George Scales
21-25) Ed Konetchy, Ed Cicotte, Hugh Duffy, Spots Poles, Larry Doyle

Ruth-Integration
1) Bus Clarkson - looks like more bat and less glove than Trammell but pretty much equivalent
2) Bob Johnson
3) Tommy Bridges
4) Virgil Trucks
5) Bob Elliott - I liked him a lot better before I saw Clarkson's translations
6) Dutch Leonard
7) Dave Bancroft - could be better than all those pitchers
8) Urban Shocker - Dave Stieb like with a good bat
9) Luke Easter
10) Dizzy Trout
11) Alejandro Oms - Lots of career value. If his MLE is currently too conservative he should fly up the list
12) Hilton Smith
13) Tony Lazzeri
14) Dick Lundy
15) Bobo Newsom
16-20) Johnny Pesky, Kiki Cuyler, Del Pratt, Wally Schang, Tommy Henrich
21-25) Bucky Walters, Dom DiMaggio, Dick Bartell, Vern Stephens, Chuck Klein

Post-integration is a lot easier to figure out, obviously. I don't think people are having a really hard time ranking players within this broad era but I think that it is being underrated as an era. I believe Graig Nettles was a superior player to Tommy Leach and Bobby Bonds beats Pete Browning hands down.

Dan,

Let me start by saying why I choose not to use BP WARP.

1) BP WARP changes fairly often, and I don't have time to track its fluctuations. You can see in looking back in some threads that the changes have been enough in some instances to refigure some folks' rankings, sometimes in surprising ways. And it's not ever broadcast when the changes come (which is part of the proprietary impenetrability problem I guess).

2) The mechanics behind making the changes for BP WARP would involve looking up hundreds, maybe thousands of individual DT cards. Remember, my system is very complex in the making: 8 questions, hundreds to thousands of players to run through these questions. To the best of my understanding, it's not easy (or possible?) to download WARPs for every player in one fell swoop.

3) Finally, the research base for my rankings was essentially done by hand via a spreadsheet. I don't have the db skills at this time to create queries to spit it all out quickly. So each time the WARPs would change, I'd be forced to reenter the research mode in this way to recalibrate my findings and rankings.

As for other systems, well, I don't really trust TB's TPRs, and I'm not yet sold on WPA (and it doesn't go far enough backward). PA and your system interest me, and I'd certainly like to spend more time with them and maybe work them into my ranking process. So I use some of their conclusions to help me assemble a final ballot as tiebreaks or informationals, but not as a basis. I may yet, though.

On the whole, the issue is one of manhours, manpower, and my own lack of db expertise. I can't really do anything about that in the now, though I hope this winter to revise my system a bit to take more measurements (increase the number of intervals I measure a couple things, that sort of stuff). Maybe then I'll be able to incorporate more data and figure out how to run queries and whatnot.

9) Fred Dunlap - Good fielding SS Decent fielding 2B who put up good numbers against the AA. I like that better than a poor fielding CF

But I can agree with your placement of him :)

Saves, Oakland A's 1988-1990 (three pennants)
45-7-5-3-3-1
33-12-8-3-1
48-7-5-3-1
As a group the starting pitchers are ordinary.

That's Rick Honeycutt in column two. Gene Nelson is 3-3-5. ERic Plunk, Greg Cadaret and Todd Burns are in there. The 1988 staff is essentially a quintet with minimum statistics
49 games, 16 games finished, 3 wins, 2 losses, 3 saves, 71.7 innings, 279 batters (Eck), 108 era+

and 2 balks --76 for the team-season

I can send you a spreadsheet with all the BP data if you'd like, Eric. And of course the spreadsheet with all of my data is up on the Yahoo group.

prelim for newbies

1 Trammell &
2 Ozzie, possibly reversed

Dawson between #8 and #19. Similar to Bob Johnson, Kirby, Bobby Bonds. Similar to Kirby in career shape, if Kirby had a few so-so tail years.

no one else close.

While I'm not Dick Redding's biggest fan (voted for him #12 last time), every time we unearth another 'wasn't-he-great' dark-skinned star (Clarkson & Moran our two most recent), I ask myself if we're going overboard on the Negro (and Cuban) league hitters while dissing the pitchers. Seems like our % of Negro league hurlers-to-position players is very small. Is this a problem, or another "hey it's a small sample" item to dismiss? Someone remind me if there were reasons that the early black leagues produced fewer mound aces? I do recall something about more bazooka arms being used at catcher than maybe MLB had.

DL from MN:
1) Gavy Cravath - how did we elect Kiner and Keller and let Cravath slip through the cracks?

radical disagreement about minor league play

3) Tommy Leach - Very good glove, decent bat.
5) Johnny Evers - terrific glove, just enough bat
8) Lave Cross - Played a lot of C and 3B, hit better than most C
9) Fred Dunlap - Good fielding SS who put up good numbers against the AA. I like that better than a poor fielding CF

Cross at 3B and Dunlap at 2B were both considered maybe as good as anyone ever.
Among this non-contemporary quartet I believe Evers would get a lot of #4 votes for his glove.

DL revised by TomH:
9) Fred Dunlap - <strikeout>Good fielding SS</strikeout> Decent fielding 2B who put up good numbers against the AA. I like that better than a poor fielding CF

ahem. decent?

played 8 games in AA 1891, washed up
one prime season in UA
six prime seasons in NL Cleveland and St Louis (defunct clubs)

durability and longevity should be the only counts against him

DL alone:
Post-integration is a lot easier to figure out, obviously. I don't think people are having a really hard time ranking players within this broad era but I think that it is being underrated as an era. I believe Graig Nettles was a superior player to Tommy Leach and Bobby Bonds beats Pete Browning hands down.

Is it obvious? Excepting the annual frontlog, the ranking of Rizzuto, Tiant, and Staub within this "era backlog" seems to range from about #1 to #50.

I can send you a spreadsheet with all the BP data if you'd like, Eric. And of course the spreadsheet with all of my data is up on the Yahoo group.

Dan, that's kind of you, but that wouldn't address my concern about the update issue, right? Or do you have a db that somehow downloads all the data from the web periodically?

Someone remind me if there were reasons that the early black leagues produced fewer mound aces?

Just some noodling on this subject becuase it perplexes me too. I personally think that part of it is that the pitching stats don't seem quite as complete as the hitting stats, and they are a little bit more difficult to parse without good defensive statistics (which haven't yet made it outside the black vault in cooperstown, if they exist).

Cooper, Redding, Winters, Byrd, Matlock, and others are, indeed, screaming for more in-depth coverage, but I'm not sure we have an adequate statistical record to give them the attention they deserve. And so our best guesses have to suffice, and it's possible that our best guesses don't pick up certain aspects of the NgL game that they do in the MLB game, and that this is causing distortion that lowers pitchers relative to hitters.

But there's one additional piece of guesswork: that so many black players were combo players in different ways it affects things. Here's a couple examples of what I mean.

1) Bullet Rogan's and 2xRadcliffe's amazing two-way abilities allowed the Monarchs to carry fewer players, but partiuclarly fewer pitchers. Imagine if on the Red Sox Manny and Varitek were also pitchers. You wouldn't carry 12 pitchers, you'd carry a couple extra hitters. But then remember that the functional rosters for NgL teams were probably more like 16 guys than 25. That means you got to get maximum use out of everyone. Well, you have to have eight positional players to start, and you have to carry a backup catcher (two since you're barnstorming so much???). There's nine. The remainder must be a combination of backups and pitchers. You can see quickly that it's more efficient to carry a guy who plays three to five positions than to carry a guy who can only pitch. So I imagine that each time a team carried a two-way guy, it likely reduced the number of pure pitchers it carried. Just a guess, though.

2) CP Bell and Ben Taylor. Both men began as primarily pitchers. Both soon transitioned to the field. We don't know if they could have mustered a HOM career on the mound. But we could think of the time they spent as pitchers as having two effects on the possibilit of HOM-level pitchers. One possibility is that they themselves could have been HOM-level pitchers, but they aborted this effort, and so there's a little gap created: the player is still in the talent pool but no longer a pitcher. Meanwhile, other pitchers who could have been getting the chance to establish themselves (or extend their career?) weren't while Bell and Taylor were on the mound. So in HOM terms, the migration denied an established pitcher (Bell/Taylor) the chance to become a HOM pitcher, and it may have denied the chance for another pitcher to get going.

I chose specific examples here, but you can find lots of instances where this was happening around the NgLs, and perhaps there were enough pitcher/hitters out there that it created a little bit of disruption in the normal cycles of HOM-level pitcher production.

One curious thing that I'd love for Gary or anyone to weigh in on is the question of NgL hitters becoming pure pitchers, we don't hear about them as often. It seems like the prevailing trend went this way: if you were just a pitcher, you were just a pitcher. If you were a pitcher/hitter, your career drift eventually tended to be away from pitching and toward the remainder of the defensive spectrum. You could almost show it this way:

THE MACRO DEFENSIVE SPECTRUM

PURE PITCHER>>>>>>PITCHER/HITTER>>>>>>HITTER

(see also: Huck Rile, Jose Mendez, and Alonzo Perry for quick examples, there are probably dozens more)

Someone remind me if there were reasons that the early black leagues produced fewer mound aces? I do recall something about more bazooka arms being used at catcher than maybe MLB had.

I suppose "early black leagues" means before 1920, which includes Dick Redding's peak.
I think the conventional wisdom is that the teams were relatively strong at pitcher. HOMers Mendez (playing mainly in Cuba), Williams and Rogan were born in the late 1880s. Otherwise Redding and Donaldson 1890 and 1892 both peaked in the teens.

What you say TomH may pertain to the proper Negro Leagues era. Bill James has said that the Negro Leagues were relatively strongest at catcher and he doesn't mean Louis Santop in the teens. Among HOF pitchers the Hall of Merit has recognized only Willie Foster and Satchel Paige, born 1904 and 1906; has rejected Andy Cooper, Hilton Smith and Leon Day, born 1898, 1907 and 1916.

Wow, good to have the conversation. Dunlap as a 2B slides way down the list - below Van Haltren.

How did the AA end up as a major league for Browning while the PCL is considered a minor league for Cravath?

No, my sheet doesn't automatically update when new BP WARP come in. Sorry.

2) CP Bell and Ben Taylor. Both men began as primarily pitchers. Both soon transitioned to the field. We don't know if they could have mustered a HOM career on the mound. But we could think of the time they spent as pitchers as having two effects on the possibilit of HOM-level pitchers. One possibility is that they themselves could have been HOM-level pitchers, but they aborted this effort, and so there's a little gap created: the player is still in the talent pool but no longer a pitcher. Meanwhile, other pitchers who could have been getting the chance to establish themselves (or extend their career?) weren't while Bell and Taylor were on the mound. So in HOM terms, the migration denied an established pitcher (Bell/Taylor) the chance to become a HOM pitcher, and it may have denied the chance for another pitcher to get going.

I haven't looked at the pitching stats in depth for either Bell or Taylor but is it possible that they're more Van Haltren than Ruth on the mound. Van Haltren was an average pitcher but not a great one before he became a full-time position player. For me, that doesn't add much to Van Haltren's candidacy. Ruth, however, was an All-Star caliber pitcher and potentially a HoMer at that position alone. So what about Bell and Taylor? Were they merely average pitchers? In which case, they're not necessarily taking a spot away from an outstanding pitcher. They're more likely filling out a rotation so that the outstanding pitcher can have the day off. Or were they actually excellent pitchers before concentrating on position play? In which case, Taylor's candidacy gets a real boost.

22. DL from MN Posted: July 10, 2007 at 01:08 PM (#2435743)
Wow, good to have the conversation. Dunlap as a 2B slides way down the list - below Van Haltren.

Did you put him in the National League :-?

They are two completely different candidates. Van Haltren should attract only and Dunlap no pure careerists.

As John Tudor owes Pendleton, Smith, and Herr,
Jim McCormick owes Jack Glasscock and Fred Dunlap.

--
Back to the pre-Negro Leagues,
I wonder whether for young black baseballists ~1910 as for young whites ~1870 there were opportunities to earn money as a pitcher or catcher, not available at other positions. Around 1870 some teams were semipro in that seven or more local batters hired a foreign battery to play with them for the season. If so then 15-year-olds might focus especially on pitching (and catching?).

--maybe still true today but it's the 50-year-old pitcher whose softball league entry fees and postgame beers are paid by his younger teammates --rather than the 20-year old pitcher of my 1870-1910 baseball ruminations.

At least at the highest level, I understand, the pitcher was commonly a major gate attraction. If so, that may have consequences worth understanding, but I don't have the time and knowledge to support any more words on it.

Loose lipped notes from a tightly squeezed notebook

-Ozzie Smith: An easy player to like, to enjoy watching. His body is amazingly tiny when I see film today. Compare with the new big SS, and it's amazing how small he is. But even the less big guys are simply more muscular. Or maybe it's the form-fitting uniforms? He was the host of The Baseball Bunch or some such show for a while, wasn't he? One thing I once read/heard him say was that one of the ways he got so good at anticipating balls was something like this: as a youngster he would lay in bed and throw a ball in the air. But he would close his eyes at or before it reached its apex, then try to catch it without opening his eyes. He may have also done the same thing by bouncing a ball off of a brick wall. I can't exactly remember, and I might be conflating two stories.

-Alan Trammell: Hosed by time in that he played alongside two or three of the best SS since WW2. Hosed by the MVP voters. Hosed by the HOF voters. Hosed by inept Detroit FO guys when he managed (though he did take the job). I hope we put a stop to the hosing.

-Andre Dawson: IIRC correctly, in 1977, three players with the initials AD were awarded Rookies of the Year: Andre Dawson, Anthony Dorsett, and Adrian Dantley.

-Tim Wallach: I didn't mind him, but I prefered Eli Wallach. I don't remember anything about him that stands out at all. In fact, three of these top four were all very nice, classy, didn't say much types. Ozzie's obviously a little different, but even he let his actions speak more than his mouth.

-Lenny Dykstra: Well, scratch that last thought, here's a guy whose playing persona had its own life. One of my very favorite players, a rough, crude, uncouth, dirty guy with a huge plug in his mouth and the ability to sometimes say really funny but insenstive stuff ("Great trade! Who'd we get?") When he was able to play, he was great, but that wasn't terribly often. I thought he had been platooned a lot, but as it turns out, a full 29-30% of his PAs were against lefties. He gave up sixty points of slugging to them, but would you believe his OBP was within one point against each paw? That's a nifty trick that helps explain a little more about why he was a sensational leadoff hitter...when he was in the lineup.

-Danny Tartabull: Tartabull was very much a puzzle to me. The second-baseman turned bulky rightfielder was part of the first generation of excellent Mariners' prospects, but was dealt for Scott Bankhead or someone like that. He was a SABRry kind of hitter, walks and taters with enough average to be a top figure in the AL. But he began to get a bit of a rap. He signed with the Yankees, and almost immediately his character was questioned: he was lazy, he didn't hustle, he only cared for the money, he didn't play hurt, sometimes he didn't want to play when he wasn't hurt. I don't actually know if any of these were true statements, but he wasn't much of a RF, he only played 140+ games twice, and the Yanks could wait to unload him for the "village idiot." After a renaissance in Chitwon, he signed with the Phils for some $2 million in 1997, fouled a ball off his foot in the first week and never appeared for them again. The same quesitons sprung to life once more. He retired after 1997 or maybe no one wanted him? I don't know. In NY he was depicted as a calculating money grabber who dind't want to put out effort that would impede his earning power and who didn't have much zest for professional baseball. Maybe that's true. I don't know. What's anyone else think?

-Mark Gubicza: One of the skinniest major leaguers I remember. His comeback from major arm owies was actually pretty startling for the early 1990s. Perhaps it heralded the beginning of the wave of guys whose predictable returns from major surgery would begin to make the term 'comeback' a bit obselete, replaced by terms like 'rehab protocol.'

-Robby Thompson: A really good player doomed by injury. Back or shoulder IIRC. He and Clark were an excellent half-an-infield, and if they'd had a good SS, Clark-Thompson-SS-Williams could have gone down as one of the best infields in recent memory. Somehow, though, Jose Uribe just didn't cut it.

-Mike Greenwell: Talk about a guy with a split image. On one hand, he was adored by Boston fans, the heir apparent in the famous left field lineage, a sweet stroke, near batting champ. On the other hand, the Southerner was, IIRC, in the midst of a controversey about racism in the Boston clubhouse. Later in life, he was arrested for going bezerk on an ump during a Little League or High School ball game he was coaching in. His career peetered out really quickly after he turned thirty, though I seem to recollect him having a chronic knee or shoulder injury of some sort (though I could be wrong).

-Scot Sanderson: The Yankee ace during the Hawkins/Milletello days and another of Duncan/LaRussa's brief reclamation projects, going 17-11 depsite the 96 ERA+ in 1990. He owes them some cashola.

-Rick Honeycutt: Speaking of veteran reclamations! Everyone's favorite pinch-hitting reliever. Honeycutt rode a 3-16 1987 season to a ten years as a top lefty-getter, including five ERA+s in relief of 138 or higher. So let me get this straight. The 1988 A's had a reclaimed swingman (Stewart) who they turned into a starter, a former alcoholic who they turned into a closer (Eck), a guy who went 3-16 and became the best lefty-getter in the league for a couple years (Honeycutt), a failed starter turned righty setup machine (Gene Nelson), and guy who the year before only mustered 93 ineffective innings in a major league rotation (actually two, Storm Davis). Nah, LaRussa/Duncan don't deserve their reputation.

-Sid Fernandez: Another favorite player from my NY days. I like mesomorphs, what can I tell you. Sid was routinely cited for unhittability. Often you'd see all kinds of numbers on the screen about how he was second in the league in OppAVG to Nolan Ryan. Despite middling velocity, he was sneaky fast thanks to his elbow action. Fernandez's forearm would #### back to a near horizontal position, so that as his shoudler came through the motion, it appeared that elbow was being thrust at the hitter. The ball would magically appear out of his elbow and be darned near impossible to track. I saw plenty of replays of this on WWOR growing up, and sure enough his arm action just naturally cloaked his release point. His control wasn't always superb, but it's nonetheless an oddity to me that he never threw a no-no. On the other hand, he wasn't consistently durable. He had injury issues from time to time, but I can never remember if they were knees, elbow, or both. Shea helped him a lot too. I remember his as an extreme flyball pitcher, and its homer-suppressing tendencies helped a lot, I think.

-Dick Schofield: Will be forever remembered in these quarters as the counterpoint to Tony Fernandez in Bill james' 1985 abstract article outlining the MLE process. The classic no-hit shortstop. But I think he must have had those precious intangibles to get so many chances to prove he couldn't hit a lick.

-Vince Coleman: His long stirrups made him look even faster. "It's a tarp!" is one of the really funny metajokes at BTF, and we can thank this guy for it. Though what I've never fully understood is how he could have gotten stuck under the autotarp. Didn't he see it coming? Or did it turn on at just the moment he decided to lay down in front of it? OCF, help!

Danny Tartabull: ... he began to get a bit of a rap. He signed with the Yankees, and almost immediately his character was questioned: he was lazy, he didn't hustle, he only cared for the money, he didn't play hurt, sometimes he didn't want to play when he wasn't hurt. I don't actually know if any of these were true statements

DT story. Friend of mine knew Steve Farr, the pitcher. Steve left KC as a free agent and went to the NYY in Nov of 1990. When my friend asked how he felt, he said he was not thrilled to be going to New York, but the money was great, and at least he was going to not be anywhere near Danny Tartabull.

... and then the next winter DT signed with the Yankees ...

OK - so my best friend, Hugh Duffy, is a top ten returnee again.
Can one of his detractors run his reasons for lack of faith in Duffy? Please.

Doc C. - as for the tarp, I didn't see it and don't really know any more about it than you do. Sorry. As it turned out, Tito Landrum had a pretty good series, and it caused Ozzie to be moved up from the bottom of the lineup to leadoff, which was a good thing.

"as a youngster [Ozzie] would lay in bed and throw a ball in the air. But he would close his eyes at or before it reached its apex, then try to catch it without opening his eyes"

I did the same thing but I got hit in the nose a lot.

Thanks for electing 3 of my top 15, Virgil Trucks will make it back on my ballot.

from http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/duffyhu01.php
Career? WARP3 < 80.
Peak? One season above 8.0 WARP3
Fine fielder, but his 'translated stats' come out at a good bat, definitely not great. OPS of about 830.

He has a case, but so do 20 other OFers.

If you use Win Shares, we have been stoooopid not to elect him. WS gives him lots of credit for the team overperforming (wins versus raw stats) for a few key years when the Sox won pennants. Depending on how much we buy this is whether he belongs.

contemps Ryan and GVH were at least as good with the stick, with longer careers, but not as good in the field. GVH gets credit from some for his mound work.

.440!!!!!!

Sorry, I thought I was on talk radio.

I'll give a quick summary of why I always have Duffy ahead of everyone except some of the brand-new inner circle or thereabouts type candidates.
1) He was very durable. I am not one to quibble at missing the odd game here or there, and I give this ranking to anyone who exceeds a baseline above 85-90% of his teram's games in a given season. My spreadsheet tells me Duffy accomplished this in 11 consecutive seasons. His team was a winner in many of those occasions. Also, in those seasons, he finished with with an OPS+ above 120 7 times. He dropped below 100 only twice (once was in his last season as a regular).
Those who know my tendencies know that I, much like Howie Menckel, pay no heed to uberstats. I did a study on Duffy as a fielder a number of months ago which I posted on the Duffy/GVH/J.Ryan thread which, I beleive, helped to make up for much of Duffy's time as a non-CF. In light of that, I think that Duffy should be seen as primarily a CF. His fielding numbers are among the best I have ever seen for outfielders. The game being what it was in those days, I give a small boost to good fielding from that era.
Finally, his offensive abilities were multi-dimensional. He had power, he had speed (led the league in power-speed combo in 91, 94 and 97.) His mass of gray ink comes from a multitude of different categories.
For the life of me, I cannot find where the holes in his game (in his prime years) were.

If anyone cannot find my older study, I will try to do so myself and repost it here.

Why Duffy is a Top 10 returnee and Ryan is a lost cause, I will never get.

Well, I for one am fine with giving Duffy and his teammates teh extra credit for their continued overperformance. Someone should get that credit, no? With this he has a much better peak than GVH or Ryan, guys who look at career numbers and career rates or try to evaluate players by looking at what skills they had (all valid) miss this. Durability and the ability to have great seasons really mattesr and Duffy has those. That said, I do believe that Duffy's WS #'s a slightly inflated as WS loves early CFers, before the position became a defense oriented as it is now.

Duffy is currently #2 in my backlog, but that isnt' a rigning endorsement, just one that says I think he is in the bottom 15% or so of the HOM.

If I have a pet candidate right now it is Dick Redding, though I keep thinking that #3 Dave Stieb should be higher.

Early prelim

PHOM - Smith, Trammell, GVH

1. Smith
2. Trammell - tempted to switch these two. I thought that his name was Tramammell as a kid, much more fun to say.
3. Redding
4. Duffy
5. Stieb - may switch with Duffy
6. Walters
7. Elston Howard - Why is he not thought of as well as Quincey trouppe was? Is it better to play in the Mexican league than be stuck behind Yogi Berra?
8. Pete Browning - I like high offense peak guys, this isnt' a traditional stats thing
9. Gavvy Cravath
10. Don Mattingly - Why Hernandez adn Sisler with mattingly at like #50?
11. Dizzy Dean - Koufax Lite, I can see why some dont' like him
12. Vic Willis
13. Ale Oms
14. Roger Bresnahan
15. Larry Doyle

16-18 (i.e. PHOM candidates) GVH, Shocker, Mcgraw

No one else even gets close to my ballot, Wallach is probably the closest. Not a Dawson fan at all, no peak whatsoever, severely low OBP for an outfielder. I have to admit that I really hope that he does not get in.

> Why Hernandez adn Sisler with mattingly at like #50?

Why Sisler at all is a better question.

I've long thought that what hurts Duffy (and Van Haltren and Ryan) is the lack of consensus as to which one of the three is the most meritorious. I've voted for each and at different times thought each was more deserving than the other two depending on how I happened to be looking at the numbers. And while I wouldn't object to any of them being elected, I think electing all three would give us a lot of 1890s OFs. It may not be fair, but I think that's part of the problem. If the other two didn't exist, the one left would probably have gone in long ago.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I believe that the right answer to "Duffy or Van Haltren or Ryan?" is "None". Force me to choose one, and I pick Ryan.

Well, I for one am fine with giving Duffy and his teammates teh extra credit for their continued overperformance. Someone should get that credit, no?

The manager? Seeing Chris Jaffe's research on the subject...

How did the AA end up as a major league for Browning while the PCL is considered a minor league for Cravath?

And vice versa.

How did the AA end up as a major league for Browning while the PCL is considered a minor league for Cravath?

Browning and Cravath would have regarded as foreign the modern notion that playing for a "minor" league is somehow less valid or meaningful than playing for a major league.

HOM by pct at position, thru 2001

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

If 65 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 15 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 10 3Bs, 17 SSs, 57 OFs, 58 Ps.
If 50 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 17 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 14 3Bs, 19 SSs, 61 OFs, 58 Ps.


C (15.01) - Cochrane 100, Dickey 100, Hartnett 98, JGibson 95, Campanella 95, Freehan 90, GCarter 90, Fisk 90, Bennett 88, Berra 87, Mackey 80, Bench 78, TSimmons 77, Santop 75, Trouppe 65, Ewing 47, Torre 41, Kelly 36, McVey 30, White 28, O'Rourke 11

1B (21.36) - Start 100, Gehrig 100, Mize 100, KHernandez 100, Beckley 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, DaEvans 32, 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 (18.59) - McPhee 100, Doerr 100, Childs 100, NFox 100, Gehringer 99, Morgan 99, Whitaker 99, Randolph 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 (14.79) - Baker 100, BRobinson 99, J Collins 98, Hack 98, Santo 95, Mathews 93, Schmidt 92, Boyer 90, Groh 79, Sutton 69, Brett 63, DaEvans 54, White 51, Beckwith 50, Wilson 40, Allen 38, Sewell 34, Killebrew 33, Trouppe 25, Torre 23, Davis 22, Frisch 20, Rose 18, Wallace 17, Dihigo 15, JRobinson 15, McVey 14, Richardson 13, Vaughan 11, Ott 10

SS (17.72) - 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, Yount 52, Banks 45, Ward 39, Beckwith 35, Barnes 28, Grant 20, Sutton 19, Hornsby 16, Dihigo 15, Irvin 10, WBrown 10

OF (58.23) - 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, Keller 100, Simmons 99, Burkett 99, Cobb 99, Flick 99, Gore 99, Sheckard 99, Speaker 99, Medwick 99, Roush 99, SJJackson 98, Stearnes 98, Keeler 97, PWaner 97, Mays 97, JWynn 97, Kiner 96, CP Bell 95, Crawford 94, Minoso 93, Magee 91, Ott 90, Kaline 89, Mantle 88, Aaron 86, BWilliams 86, WBrown 85, Winfield 85, DwEvans 83, 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, Yount 43, HRichardson 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, Trouppe 10

DH (1.23) - RJackson 23, Brett 19, Winfield 14, Yastrzemski 13, TSimmons 12, FRobinson 11, DwEvans 11, BWilliams 10, DaEvans 10

P (57.64) - 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, Blyleven 100, Ryan 100, Gossage 100, Fingers 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.

Someone wondered if we already have plenty of 1890s OFs already. And of course early OFs are among our favorite leftovers.
This list is off a "play in at least half a team's games" minimum.

1870 (1) - McVey
1871 (1) - Pike
1872 (1) - Pike OF-2B
1873 (2) - Pike OF-SS, Hines
1874 (2) - McVey, Hines
1875 (2) - Pike, Hines OF-2B, O'Rourke OF-3B
1876 (3) - Pike, Hines, O'Rourke
1877 (3) - Pike OF-2B, Hines, O'Rourke
1878 (5) - Pike, Hines, O'Rourke, Anson, Kelly
1879 (3) - Hines, O'Rourke, Gore

1880 (5) - Hines, O'Rourke OF-1S, Kelly OF, Gore, Stovey OF-1B
1881 (5) - Hines, Kelly, Gore, Brouthers OF-1B, Richardson
1882 (3) - Hines, O'Rourke, Gore
1883 (4) - Hines, O'Rourke OF-C, Kelly OF-C, Gore
1884 (5) - Hines, O'Rourke, Kelly OF-C, Gore, Ward OF-2B
1885 (5) - Hines, O'Rourke, Kelly OF-C, Gore, Thompson
1886 (8) - Hines, O'Rourke OF-C, Kelly OF-C, Gore, Stovey OF-1B, Richardson OF-2B, Thompson, Sutton OF-3S2
1887 (5) - Hines, Kelly OF-2C, Gore, Stovey OF-1B, Thompson
1888 (3) - Hines, O'Rourke, Stovey
1889 (6) - O'Rourke, Kelly, Gore, Stovey, Thompson, Hamilton

1890 (7) - O'Rourke, Gore, Stovey, Richardson, Thompson, Hamilton, Burkett OF-P, GDavis
1891 (7) - O'Rourke, Gore, Stovey, Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty
1892 (7) - O'Rourke, Stovey, Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Caruthers
1893 (7) - O'Rourke, Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Ewing
1894 (7) - Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke
1895 (7) - Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke
1896 (7) - Thompson, Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke
1897 (6) - Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke
1898 (8) - Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick
1899 (8) - Hamilton, Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick

1900 (9) - Hamilton, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Wagner, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford
1901 (10) - Hamilton, Delahanty OF-1B, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill
1902 (10) - Delahanty, Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Wagner OF-S1, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill
1903 (7) - Burkett, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill
1904 (7) - Burkett, Keeler, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill, Magee
1905 (8) - Burkett, Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill, Magee
1906 (9) - Kelley, Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb
1907 (8) - Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Flick, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb
1908 (7) - Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb
1909 (8) - Keeler, Clarke, Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker

1910 (8) - Clarke, Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat
1911 (9) - Clarke, Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey
1912 (8) - Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey
1913 (9) - Sheckard, Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente
1914 (8) - Crawford, Hill, Magee OF-S1, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente
1915 (10) - Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente, Roush
1916 (11) - Crawford, Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente, Roush, Charleston
1917 (11) - Hill, Magee, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente, Roush, Heilmann, Charleston
1918 (10) - Hill, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Carey, Torriente, Roush, Heilmann OF-1B, Charleston, Ruth OF-P
1919 (9) - Hill, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Torriente, Roush, Ruth, Charleston
1920 (10) - Hill, Cobb, Speaker, Wheat, Jackson, Carey, Torriente, Roush, Ruth, Charleston

avg HOMers per year, minimum 10 G or equivalent

1850s - 0.4
1860s - 3.5
1870s - 11.8
1880s - 22.2
1890s - 26.8
1900s - 26.1
1910s - 28.7
1920s - 40.5
1930s - 41.9
1940s - 32.6
1950s - 30.1
1960s - 34.8
1970s - 38.1
1980s - 23.7

holdovers with 200+ points (meaning, they have a shot):
1870s - CJONES 1875-79
1880s - CJONES 1880/83-87, BROWNING 1882-89, DUFFY 1888-89
1890s - BROWNING 1890-93, DUFFY 1890-99
1900s - DUFFY 1900-01/04-05, BRESNAHAN 1901-09, CRAVATH 1906ish-09
1910s - BRESNAHAN 1910-15, CRAVATH 1910ish-18, REDDING 1911-19ish
1920s - REDDING 1920-21ish
1930s - WALTERS 1932-39, BJOHNSON 1933-39
1940s - WALTERS 1940-47, BJOHNSON 1940-45
1950s - none
1960s - none
1970s - STIEB 1979
1980s - STIEB 1980-89, PUCKETT 1984-89

Howie's fine list reconstituted:

HOM by pct at position, thru 2001

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

If 65 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 60 C/IFs, 72 1B/OFs, 58 Ps.
If 50 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 66 C/IFs, 78 1B/OFs, 58 Ps.


. C/IF ..... (66.11)
1B/OF/DH (80.82)
.. all P .... (57.64)

With a few shoo-in IFers impending soon....

A quick derivative of Howie's list.

% of guys in Howie's list whose careers were 100% at their listed position (per Howie's criteria).

c 13%
1b 23%
2b 22%
3b 7%
ss 0%
of 26%
-lf 23%
-cf 35%
-rf 17%
dh 0%
p 62%

LF/CF/RF are as I classify them below, this is, of course, a necessarily rough cut, we could further subdivided them into their respective times at each OF position, but this was good enough for now.

Interesting that CF is such a high percentage, but I guess that's about fast players retaining skills a long time and being lefthanded having fewer options for sliding along the spectrum. 3B again shows up as a transitional position. And SS, being so difficult has 0 guys who went all the way 100% in at 6. Pretty interesting.




LF--(21.48) Clarke 100, Wheat 100, Goslin 100, Keller 100, TWilliams 100, Simmons 99, Burkett 99, Sheckard 99, Medwick 99, SJJackson 98, Kiner 96, Minoso 93, Magee 91, BWilliams 86, Kelley 79, Irvin 75, Delahanty 72, Hill 70, O'Rourke 69, Musial 65, Stovey 63, Yastrzemski 63, Stargell 60, Suttles 30, Killebrew 20, Santop 20, McVey 18, Ewing 17, Greenberg 17, Allen 15, Berra 13, McCovey 12, JRobinson 10,

CF--(20.28) Carey 100, Hamilton 100, DiMaggio 100, Averill 100, Doby 100, Ashburn 100, Snider 100, Cobb 99, Gore 99, Speaker 99, Roush 99, Stearnes 98, Mays 97, JWynn 97, CP Bell 95, Mantle 88, WBrown 85, Hines 82, Torriente 80, Pike 73, Charleston 60, Yount 43, Davis 13, Spalding 11, Ward 10,

RF--(16.96) Thompson 100, Slaughter 100, Clemente 100, Flick 99, Keeler 97, PWaner 97, Crawford 94, Ott 90, Kaline 89, Aaron 86, Winfield 85, DwEvans 83, Ruth 79, Heilmann 77, FRobinson 77, RJackson 77, Rogan 65, Kelly 47, HRichardson 40, Rose 38, Caruthers 33, Dihigo 20, Wagner 13, White 10

??--Trouppe 10

ss 0%

Checking on Howie's rules ... He lists Frank Baker as 100% 3B. Baker is listed with 1575 games, 1548 games in the field, 1548 games at 3B. OK, so pinch-hitting appearances do not count against this statistic. It's percentage of games in the field.

Well, then, we're about to have our first 100% shortstop.

2B has pushed ahead of SS, though that will change with the next election.

C and 3B appear to be falling behind again.

hmm..
short on 3Bmen...
short esepcially on 3B pre-WWII.....
who might fit that description?
Gimme an R
Gimme a C
Gimme an A
Gimme a P
Whatcha got? RCAP!
Say it again... RCAP!
RCAP! RCAP! RCAP!

This message brought to you by Kevin Johnson's best voting friend, and by those who think the batter with the 3rd highest OBA in MLB history
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/OBP_career.shtml
should join fellow OBP kings Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig in the HoM.

who might fit that description?

Ooh, ooh, I know, Tommy Leach!!!!

We also get Boggs, who becomes eligible in 2005, and some fraction of Molitor. My personal highest-ranking backlog 3B is Bando, followed by Elliott. Both are sometimes in my top 15.

Want third basemen? Well, go and take the Bus!

Short on third basemen? Cey it ain't so!

(Even though I don't vote for him and have Clarkson, Leach and Elliott ranked higher, I couldn't pass this one up.)

If you're looking at it by position, the one you're probably most short on is pitchers. The target ought to be 30-40 per cent, depending on taste. I know that Tommy John, Rick Reuschel, Bucky Walters and Dave Stieb don't feel Hall-worthy, but...

...Luis Tiant sure does.

For some reason, we seem to be more comfortable electing borderline outfielders than borderline pitchers.

There's been criticism in the past of the decade-by-decade description of HoMers. My response has been to admit that the arrangement is flawed but that the answer should be more information, not less.

Changing the selective end-points gives us:

Split-Decade

1865-75- 4 (Barnes, Pearce, Spalding, Wright) (P, 2B, SS-2)

1875-85- 12 (Anson, Bennett, Galvin, Gore, Hines, McVey, O’Rourke, Pike, Start, Sutton, Radbourn, White) (P-2, C-2, 1B-2, 3B-2, LF, CF-3)
{Candidates- CJones, Williamson}

1885-95- 17 (Brouthers, Caruthers, Childs, Clarkson, Connor, Ewing, Glasscock, Grant, Hamilton, Keefe, Kelly, McPhee, Richardson, Rusie, Stovey, Thompson, Ward) (P-3, C, 1B-2, 2B-4, SS, LF, CF, RF-3)
{Candidates- Browning, Duffy, Van Haltren, Welch}

1895-1905- 20 (Beckley, Burkett, Clarke, J Collins, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Flick, Griffith, Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, Lajoie, McGinnity, Nichols, Sheckard, Waddell, Wagner, Wallace, Young) (P-5, 1B-2, 2B, 3B, SS-5, LF-5, RF-2)
{Candidates- Willis, McGraw}

1905-15- 14 (Baker, M Brown, Cobb, Crawford, R Foster, Hill, J Jackson, G Johnson, W Johnson, Magee, Mathewson, Mendez, Plank, Walsh) (P-7, 3B, SS, LF-2, CF-2, RF)
{Candidates- Bresnahan, Cravath, Doyle, Leach, Joss, Monroe}

1915-25- 21 (Alexander, Carey, E Collins, Coveleski, Faber, Groh, Heilmann, Hornsby, Lloyd, Moore, Rixey, Rogan, Roush, Ruth, Santop, Sisler, Speaker, Torriente, Wheat, J Williams) (P-6, C, 1B, 2B-2, 3B, SS-2, LF, CF-4, RF-2)
{Candidates- Redding, Grimes, Taylor, Mays, Schang}

1925-35- 29 (Averill, Beckwith, Bell, Charleston, Cochrane, Cronin, Dihigo, Ferrell, Frisch, W Foster, Foxx, Gehrig, Gehringer, Goslin, Grove, Hartnett, Herman, Hubbell, Lyons, Mackey, Sewell, A Simmons, Stearnes, Suttles, Terry, Vance, Waner, Wells, Wilson) (C-3, P-7, 1B-4, 2B-2, 3B-2, SS-3, LF-2, CF-4, RF-2)
{Candidates- Oms, Traynor, Dean, Klein} {P, 3B, CF, RF}

1935-45- 17 (Appling, Boudreau, R Brown, Dickey, DiMaggio, J Gibson, Gordon, Greenberg, Hack, Keller, Leonard, Medwick, Mize, Ott, Paige, Ruffing, Vaughan) (P-3, C-2, 1B-3, 2B, 3B, SS-3, LF-2, CF, RF)
{Candidates- BJohnson, Walters, Bridges} {P-2, LF}

1945-55- 21 (Ashburn, Berra, W Brown, Campanella, Doby, Doerr, Feller, Irvin, Kiner, Lemon, Minoso, Musial, Newhouser, Reese, Roberts, J Robinson, Slaughter, Snider, Spahn, Trouppe, T Williams) (P-5, C-3, 1B, 2B-2, SS, LF-4, CF-4, RF)
{Candidates- Clarkson, Elliott, Rizzuto, Stephens} {3B-2, SS-2}

1955-65- 16 (Aaron, Banks, Boyer, Bunning, Drysdale, Ford, Fox, Kaline, Koufax, Mantle, Mathews, Mays, Pierce, F Robinson, Wilhelm, E Wynn) (P-7, 2B, 3B-2, SS, CF-2, RF-3)
{Candidates- E Howard} {C}

1965-75- 23 (Allen, Bench, Clemente, Freehan, B Gibson, R Jackson, Jenkins, Killebrew, Marichal, McCovey, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, BRobinson, Rose, Santo, Seaver, Stargell, Sutton, Torre, B Williams, J Wynn, Yastrzemski) (P-8, C-3, 1B-3, 2B, 3B-2, LF-4, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Perez, Brock, Cash, Cepeda, F Howard, R Smith, Staub, Tiant, Bonds, Bando} {P, 1B-3, 3B, LF-2, CF, RF-2}

1975-85- 17 (Blyleven, Brett, Carew, Carlton, Carter, Da Evans, Dw Evans, Fingers, Fisk, Gossage, Grich, Hernandez, Randolph, Ryan, Schmidt, Simmons, Winfield, Yount) (P-5, C-3, 1B, 2B-3, 3B-3, SS, RF-2)
{Candidates- Stieb, Nettles, Murphy, Singleton, Concepcion, John, Tanana} {P-3, 3B, SS, CF, RF}

1985-1995- 1 (Whitaker) (2B)
{Candidates- Puckett, Mattingly} {1B, CF}

Assigning each player to one category (straight decade or split decade) gives us:

1860s - 1 (Pearce) (SS)

1870s – 6 (Barnes, McVey, Pike, Spalding, Start, Wright) (P, C, 1B-2, 2B, 3B-2, SS, CF)

1875-85- 5 (Anson, Hines, O’Rourke, Sutton, White) (P-2, C-2, 1B-2, 3B-2, LF, CF-3)
{Candidates- CJones}

1880s – 12 (Bennett, Brouthers, Caruthers, Galvin, Glasscock, Gore, Keefe, Kelly, Radbourn, Richardson, Stovey, Ward) (P-5, C-2, 1B-2, 2B, SS-2, LF-2, CF-2, RF)
{Candidates –Welch, Williamson}

1885-95- 5 (Clarkson, Connor, Ewing, McPhee, Thompson) (P, C, 1B, 2B, RF)
{Candidates- Browning}

1890s – 11 (Beckley, Burkett, Childs, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Hamilton, Jennings, Nichols, Rusie) (P-2, 2B-2, SS-3, LF-2, CF)
{Candidates- Duffy, Van Haltren, McGraw}

1895-1905- 5 (JCollins, Griffith, Keeler, Kelley, Young) (P-2, 3B, LF, RF)

1900s - 10 (Clarke, Flick, G Johnson, Lajoie, Mathewson, McGinnity, Sheckard, Waddell, Wagner, Wallace) (P-3, 2B, SS-3, LF-2, RF)
{Candidates – Bresnahan, Leach, Willis, Joss, Monroe}

1905-1915- 7 (MBrown, Crawford RFoster, Hill, Magee, Plank, Walsh) (P-4, LF, CF, RF)

1910s - 8 (Baker, Cobb, E Collins, J Jackson, W Johnson, Mendez, Santop, Speaker) (P-2, C, 3B-2, LF, CF-2)
{Candidates – Cravath, Doyle}

1915-1925 – 6 (Coveleski, Faber, Moore, Rixey, Roush, Sisler) (P-3, 1B, SS, CF)
{Candidates- Redding, Taylor, Schang}

1920s – 9 (Beckwith, Charleston, Frisch, Heilmann, Hornsby, Rogan, Ruth, Sewell, Vance) (P-2, 2B-2, 3B, SS, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Oms, Grimes}

1925-1935 - 15 (Bell, Cochrane, Dihigo, W Foster, Gehrig, Goslin, Grove, Herman, Lyons, Mackey, ASimmons, Stearnes, Suttles, Terry, Wilson) (P-4, C-2, 1B-3, 3B, LF-2, CF-2, RF)
{Candidates- Traynor}

1930s – 14 (Averill, Cronin, Ferrell, Foxx, Gehringer, J Gibson, Greenberg, Hartnett, Hubbell, Ott, Paige, Ruffing, Waner, Wells) (P-4, C-2, 1B-2, 2B, SS-2, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Dean, Bridges, Klein}

1935-1945 – 7 (Appling, R Brown, Hack, Leonard, Medwick, Mize, Vaughan) (P, 1B-2, 3B, SS-2, LF)
{Candidates- B Johnson, Walters}

1940s – 10 (Boudreau, W Brown, DiMaggio, Doerr, Feller, Gordon, Irvin, Keller, Newhouser, Trouppe) (P-2, C, 1B, 2B-2, SS, LF, CF-2)
{Candidates- Clarkson, Elliott, Stephens}

1945-1955 – 9 (Campanella, Doby, Kiner, Lemon, Musial, Reese, J Robinson, Slaughter, T Williams) (P, C, 2B, SS, LF-3, CF, RF)
{Candidates- Rizzuto}

1950s – 9 (Ashburn, Berra, Fox, Minoso, Pierce, Roberts, Snider, Spahn, E Wynn) (P-4, C, 2B, LF, CF-2)

1955-1965 – 10 (Aaron, Banks, Boyer, Ford, Kaline, Koufax, Mantle, Mathews, Mays, Wilhelm) (P-3, 3B-2, SS, CF-2, RF-2)
{Candidates- E Howard}

1960s—9 (Bunning, Clemente, Drysdale, Killebrew, Marichal, McCovey, B Robinson, F Robinson, Santo) (P-3, 1B-2, 3B-2, RF-2)
{Candidates- Cepeda, F Howard}

1965-1975—11 (Allen, Freehan, B Gibson, Jenkins, Perry, Rose, Torre, Stargell, BWilliams, J Wynn, Yastrzemski) (P-3, C-2, 1B, LF-4, CF)
{Candidates- Perez, Brock, Cash, Staub, Tiant, Bando}

1970s—14 (Bench, Blyleven, Carew, Carlton, Da Evans, Fingers, Grich, R Jackson, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Ryan, Seaver, Simmons, Sutton) (P-8, C-2, 2B-3, 3B, RF)
{Candidates- Nettles, Singleton, R Smith, Bonds}

1975-1985—6 (Brett, Fisk, Gossage, Hernandez, Schmidt, Winfield) (P, C, 1B, 3B-2, RF)
{Candidates- Concepcion, John, Tanana}

1980s—5 (Carter, Dw Evans, Randolph, Whitaker, Yount) (C, 2B-2, SS, RF)
{Candidates- Stieb, Murphy, Mattingly}

1985-1995
{Candidates- Puckett}

And looking at players by five-year chunks (which duplicates some of the work that Howie has been doing):

1870-74- 7 (Barnes, McVey, Pearce, Pike, Spalding, Start, Wright) (P, C, 1B, 2B, SS-2, RF)

1875-79- 11 (Anson, Barnes, Hines, McVey, O’Rourke, Pike, Spalding, Start, Sutton, White, Wright) (P, C, 1B-2, 2B, 3B-2, SS, CF-3)
{Candidates- C Jones} {LF}

1880-84- 19 (Anson, Bennett, Brouthers, Connor, Ewing, Galvin, Glasscock, Gore, Hines, Keefe, Kelly, O’Rourke, Radbourn, Richardson, Start, Stovey, Sutton, Ward, White) (P-3, C-2, 1B-5, 2B, 3B-2, SS, LF, CF-3, RF)
{Candidates- C Jones, Welch, Williamson} {P, 3B, LF}

1885-89- 22 (Anson, Bennett, Brouthers, Caruthers, Clarkson, Connor, Ewing, Galvin, Glasscock, Grant, Gore, Hines, Keefe, Kelly, McPhee, O’Rourke, Radbourn, Richardson, Stovey, Thompson, Ward, White) (P-4, C-2, 1B-3, 2B-3, 3B, SS-2, LF-2, CF-2, RF-3)
{Candidates- Browning, C Jones, Welch, Williamson} {P, SS, LF, CF}

1890-94- 21 (Anson, Beckley, Brouthers, Burkett, Childs, Clarkson, Connor, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Ewing, Hamilton, Kelly, McPhee, Nichols, Rusie, Stovey, Thompson, Ward, Young) (P-4, C-2, 1B-4, 2B-4, 3B, SS, LF-3, CF, RF)
{Candidates- Browning, Duffy, Van Haltren, McGraw} {3B, LF, CF-2}

1895-99- 20 (Beckley, Burkett, Childs, Clarke, J Collins, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Grant, Griffith, Hamilton, Jennings, Keeler, Kelley, Lajoie, Nichols, Rusie, Thompson, Wallace, Young) (P-4, 1B, 2B-3, SS-4, LF-4, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Duffy, Van Haltren, McGraw} {3B, LF, CF}

1900-04- 26 (Beckley, Burkett, Clarke, J Collins, Crawford, Dahlen, Davis, Delahanty, Flick, R Foster, Grant, Griffith, Hill, G Johnson, Keeler, Kelley, Lajoie, Mathewson, McGinnity, Nichols, Plank, Sheckard, Waddell, Wagner, Wallace, Young) (P-8, 1B, 2B-2, 3B, SS-5, LF-6, RF-3)
{Candidates- Bresnahan, Leach, Willis, Joss, Monroe} {P-2, 2B, 3B, CF}

1905-09- 20 (M Brown, Clarke, Cobb, Crawford, Davis, Flick, R Foster, Hill, G Johnson, Lajoie, Magee, Mathewson, McGinnity, Plank, Sheckard, Waddell, Wagner, Wallace, Walsh, Young) (P-8, 2B, SS-4, LF-3, CF, RF-2)
{Candidates- Bresnahan, Cravath, Leach, Willis, Joss, Monroe} {P-2, C, 2B, CF-2, RF}

1910-14- 26 (Alexander, Baker, M Brown, Carey, Cobb, E Collins, Crawford, R Foster, Hill, J Jackson, G Johnson, W Johnson, Lajoie, Lloyd, Magee, Mathewson, Mendez, Plank, Santop, Sheckard, Speaker, Wagner, Wallace, Walsh, Wheat, J Williams) (P-9, C, 2B-2, 3B, SS-4, LF-4, CF-3, RF-2)
{Candidates- Redding, Bresnahan, Cravath, Doyle, Leach, Taylor, Monroe} {P, C, 1B, 2B-2, CF, RF}

1915-19- 26 (Alexander, Baker, Carey, Charleston, Cobb, E Collins, Coveleski, Faber, Groh, Heilmann, Hill, Hornsby, J Jackson, W Johnson, Lloyd, Magee, Mendez, Rixey, Roush, Ruth, Santop, Speaker, Sisler, Torriente, Wheat, J Williams) (P-8, C, 1B-2, 2B-2, 3B-2, SS, LF-3, CF-6, RF)
{Candidates- Redding, Cravath, Grimes, Doyle, Taylor, Mays, Schang} {P-3, C, 1B, 2B, RF}

1920-24- 32 (Alexander, Beckwith, Bell, Carey, Charleston, Cobb, E Collins, Coveleski, Faber, Frisch, Goslin, Groh, Heilmann, Hornsby, W Johnson, Lloyd, Mackey, Mendez, Moore, Rixey, Rogan, Roush, Ruth, Santop, Sewell, Sisler, Speaker, Torriente, Vance, Wheat, J Williams, Wilson) (P-9, C-2, 1B, 2B-3, 3B-3, SS-3, LF-3, CF-7, RF)
{Candidates- Redding, Oms, Grimes, Taylor, Mays, Traynor, Schang} {P-3, C, 1B, 3B, CF}

1925-29- 41 (Alexander, Beckwith, Bell, Carey, Charleston, Cobb, Cochrane, Coveleski, Dihigo, Faber, W Foster, Frisch, Gehrig, Gehringer, Goslin, Grove, Hartnett, Heilmann, Herman, Hornsby, Lloyd, Lyons, Mackey, Ott, Rixey, Roush, Ruffing, Ruth, Sewell, ASimmons, Sisler, Speaker, Stearnes, Suttles, Terry, Torriente, Vance, Waner, Wells, JWilliams, Wilson) (C-3, P-11, 1B-4, 2B-2, 3B-2, SS-3, LF-2, CF-8, RF-5)
{Candidates- Oms, Grimes, Traynor, Schang} {P, C, 3B, CF}

1930-34- 36 (Appling, Averill, Beckwith, Bell, R Brown, Charleston, Cochrane, Cronin, Dickey, Dihigo, Ferrell, Frisch, W Foster, Foxx, Gehrig, Gehringer, J Gibson, Goslin, Greenberg, Grove, Hartnett, Herman, Hubbell, Lyons, Mackey, Ott, Paige, Ruffing, Ruth, ASimmons, Stearnes, Suttles, Terry, Vance, Vaughan, Waner, Wells, Wilson) (C-5, P-10, 1B-6, 2B-2, 3B-2, SS-4, LF-2, CF-3, RF-4)
{Candidates- Oms, Traynor, Dean, Bridges, Klein} {P-2, 3B, CF, RF}

1935-39- 34 (Appling, Averill, Bell, R Brown, W Brown, Charleston, Cronin, Dickey, Dihigo, DiMaggio, Feller, Ferrell, Foxx, Gehrig, Gehringer, J Gibson, Greenberg, Grove, Hack, Hartnett, Hubbell, Leonard, Lyons, Mackey, Medwick, Mize, Ott, Paige, Ruffing, ASimmons, Stearnes, Suttles, Vaughan, Waner, Wells, Wilson) (P-9, C-4, 1B-7, 2B, 3B-2, SS-4, LF-2, CF-5, RF-2)
{Candidates- B Johnson, Walters, Bridges, Klein} {P-2, LF, RF}

1940-44- 34 (Appling, Bell, Boudreau, R Brown, W Brown, Campanella, Cronin, Dickey, Dihigo, DiMaggio, Doerr, Feller, J Gibson, Gordon, Hack, Irvin, Keller, Leonard, Lyons, Medwick, Mize, Musial, Newhouser, Ott, Paige, Reese, Ruffing, Slaughter, Suttles, Trouppe, Vaughan, Waner, Wells, T Williams, E Wynn) (P-8, C-3, 1B-4, 2B-2, 3B, SS-6, LF-3, CF-3, RF-4)
{Candidates- B Johnson, Walters, Clarkson, Elliott, Rizzuto, Bridges, Stephens} {P-2, 3B-2, SS-2, LF}

1945-49 – 30 (Appling, Berra, Boudreau, R Brown, W Brown, Campanella, DiMaggio, Doby, Doerr, Feller, Gordon, Greenberg, Hack, Irvin, Keller, Kiner, Lemon, Leonard, Minoso, Mize, Musial, Newhouser, Paige, Reese, J Robinson, Slaughter, Spahn, Trouppe, T Williams, E Wynn) (P-7, C-3, 1B-5, 2B-3, 3B, SS-3, LF-5, CF-3)
{Candidates- Clarkson, Elliott, Rizzuto, Stephens} {3B-2, SS-2}

1950-54- 27 (Aaron, Ashburn, Berra, W Brown, Campanella, Doby, Feller, Ford, Fox, Irvin, Kiner, Lemon, Mantle, Mathews, Mays, Minoso, Musial, Paige, Pierce, Reese, Roberts, JRobinson, Slaughter, Snider, Spahn, T Williams, Wilhelm, E Wynn) (P-9, C-2, 1B, 2B-2, 3B, SS, LF-4, CF-6, RF-2)
{Candidates- Clarkson, Rizzuto, Stephens} {3B, SS-2}

1955-59- 29 (Aaron, Ashburn, Banks, Berra, Boyer, Bunning, Clemente, Doby, Drysdale, Ford, Fox, Kaline, Koufax, Lemon, Mantle, Mathews, Mays, Minoso, Musial, Pierce, Reese, Roberts, F Robinson, Slaughter, Snider, Spahn, Wilhelm, T Williams, E Wynn) (P-10, C, 1B, 2B, 3B-2, SS-2, LF-3, CF-5, RF-4)
{Candidates- E Howard} {C}

1960-64- 31 (Aaron, Banks, Berra, Boyer, Bunning, Clemente, Drysdale, Ford, Fox, Freehan, B Gibson, Kaline, Killebrew, Koufax, Mantle, Marichal, Mathews, Mays, McCovey, Minoso, Pierce, Roberts, B Robinson, F Robinson, Santo, Snider, Spahn, Torre, Wilhelm, B Williams, Yastrzemski) (P-10, C-2, 1B-2, 2B, 3B-4, LF-5, CF-3, RF-4)
{Candidates- Brock, Cash, Cepeda, E Howard, F Howard} {C, 1B-2, LF-2}

1965-69- 35 (Aaron, Allen, Banks, Boyer, Bunning, Carew, Carlton, Clemente, Drysdale, Freehan, B Gibson, R Jackson, Jenkins, Kaline, Killebrew, Mantle, Marichal, Mays, McCovey, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, B Robinson, F Robinson, Rose, Santo, Seaver, Stargell, Sutton, Torre, Wilhelm, B Williams, J Wynn, Yastrzemski) (P-12, C-2, 1B-3, 2B-2, 3B-4, LF-3, CF-3, RF-5)
{Candidates- Perez, Brock, Cash, Cepeda, E Howard, F Howard, R Smith, Staub, Tiant, John, Bando} {P-2, C, 1B-2, 2B, 3B-2, LF-2, CF, RF}

1970-74- 39 (Aaron, Allen, Bench, Blyleven, Carew, Carlton, Clemente, Da Evans, Fingers, Fisk, Freehan, B Gibson, Grich, R Jackson, Jenkins, Kaline, Killebrew, Marichal, Mays, McCovey, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, B Robinson, F Robinson, Rose, Ryan, Santo, Seaver, Schmidt, Simmons, Stargell, Sutton, Torre, B Williams, JWynn, Yastrzemski) (P-12, C-4, 1B-3, 2B-3, 3B-5, LF-4, CF-2, RF-5)
{Candidates- Perez, Nettles, Brock, Cash, Cepeda, Singleton, R Smith, Staub, Tiant, Bonds, Concepcion, John, Tanana, Bando} {P-3, 1B-3, 3B-2, SS, LF, CF, RF-3}

1975-79- 33 (Bench, Blyleven, Brett, Carew, Carlton, Carter, Da Evans, Dw Evans, Fingers, Fisk, Gossage, Grich, Hernandez, RJackson, Jenkins, McCovey, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Randolph, Rose, Ryan, Seaver, Schmidt, Simmons, Stargell, Sutton, Whitaker, Winfield, Yastrzemski, Yount) (P-11, C-4, 1B-4, 2B-4, 3B-4, SS, LF, RF-3)
{Candidates- Perez, Nettles, Murphy, Brock, Singleton, R Smith, Staub, Tiant, Bonds, Concepcion, John, Tanana, Bando} {P-3, 1B, 3B-2, SS, LF, CF, RF-3, DH}

1980-84- 29 (Bench, Blyleven, Brett, Carew, Carlton, Carter, Da Evans, Dw Evans, Fingers, Fisk, Gossage, Grich, Hernandez, RJackson, Jenkins, Morgan, Niekro, Palmer, Perry, Randolph, Rose, Ryan, Seaver, Schmidt, Simmons, Sutton, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount) (P-11, C-4, 1B-3, 2B-4, 3B-3, SS, RF-3)
{Candidates- Stieb, Perez, Nettles, Murphy, Singleton, Staub, Concepcion, John, Tanana, Mattingly} {P-3, 1B-2, 3B, SS, CF, RF, DH}

1985-89- 17 (Blyleven, Brett, Carter, Da Evans, Dw Evans, Fisk, Gossage, Hernandez, RJackson, Niekro, Randolph, Ryan, Schmidt, Sutton, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount) (P-5, C-2, 1B-2, 2B-2, 3B-2, CF, RF-2, DH)
{Candidates- Stieb, Puckett, Nettles, Murphy, John, Tanana, Mattingly} {P-3, 1B, 3B, CF-2}

1990-94- 5 (Brett, Ryan, Whitaker, Winfield, Yount) (P, 2B, 3B, CF, DH)
{Candidates- Puckett, Tanana, Mattingly} {P, 1B, CF}

This message brought to you by Kevin Johnson's best voting friend, and by those who think the batter with the 3rd highest OBA in MLB history
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/OBP_career.shtml
should join fellow OBP kings Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig in the HoM.

Bill Joyce?

2002 Prelim ballot

1) Ozzie Smith - Best defensive SS ever? If you like Concepcion, Rizzuto, Maranville, Bancroft or Dick Lundy I expect to see Ozzie at the top of your ballot.
2) Alan Trammell - I have him significantly lower than Ozzie and right about even with...
3) Bus Clarkson - Going with an all-SS top of the ballot this year. My top available Ruth-integration period player. His MLEs have him pretty much equivalent with Trammell.
4) Luis Tiant - Comparable to Bunning and Marichal. 10 more PRAA than Stieb, 267 more PRAR than Stieb. Has the top seasons, career bulk and stellar postseason performance that should make him a favorite. Injuries broke up the consecutiveness of his peak and you have to throw out his final hanging-on years.
5) Bob Johnson - better than several contemporary elected outfielders (Medwick, Averill, Willard Brown). Did everything well for teams that didn't do anything well.
6) Tommy Bridges - Deserves war credit, strikeout pitcher with good postseason work
7) Norm Cash - Cash = Cepeda + glove
8) Graig Nettles - How is he much different than Randolph? Great glove, good bat, played for the Yankees.
9) Tony Perez - could be overrated but I like his time at 3B and the long career
10) Buddy Bell - Brooks lite
11) Ron Cey - I'm favoring marginal 3B and marginal P over marginal OF mainly because the electors aren't doing a great job of it. I haven't adjusted anything, you've just elected all the OF I had in between these guys.
12) Rick Reuschel - Why is Stieb that much better?
13) Reggie Smith - A marginal OF I can get behind
14) Rusty Staub - maybe I'm awarding him too much for the partial seasons but he has a great 5 year peak
15) Gavy Cravath - I'm going with the consensus here because it's so close and I'm acknowledging his status as my favorite pre-Ruth player.
16-20) Virgil Trucks, Bob Elliott, Ben Taylor, Jack Clark, Tommy John
21-25) Orlando Cepeda, Frank Tanana, Dutch Leonard, Dave Bancroft, Tommy Leach

58) Andre Dawson - I always thought Willard Brown was Dawson-lite

Some observations:

Pete Browning and Charley Jones are sometimes treated as a pair because they're both listed as 1880s players. The split-decade view shows the fallacy of that. Jones gets pushed into '75-'85 while Browning gets pushed in '85-'95 as Jones' prime is '76-'86 (excluding blacklisted years in '81 and '82) while Browning's 10 year prime is '83-'92. They only overlap as elite players for 4 seasons. The induction of one shouldn't necessarily be a reason to not induct the other.

There's still a question of whether or not the 1890s are underrepresented. They no longer look underrepresented by the straight decade view or the split decade view. However, the five year view shows a dip in players during the 1890s as opposed to the 1880s and the '00s from 22 to 21 to 20 to 26. But is it a dip in the 1890s, or is it a rise in the '00s? The 1905-1910 period is right in line with the 1890s. So it's possible that the aberration is an increased number of players from 1900-05 due to the advent of the AL and not an underrepresentation during the 1890s. That doesn't mean we can't support or elect 1890s players, but after the inductions of Beckley and Childs, era representation is not currently a concern.

The 1890s may no longer be underrepresented but the deadball era could be. The split-decade view shows a clear drop in 1905-1915 between 1895-1905 and 1915-1925: 20-14-21. The five year view shows a similar drop 26-20-26-26. However, it's hard to address the drop directly as any player who would be present in the five year period 1905-1909 would also be counted in the period before or after (and sometimes both). Even so, it's worth considering whether or not we've been fair to deadball players.

The 1930s surge, though real, is not confined to the 1930s. The split-decade view shows the surge beginning in 1925-1935, while the five year view shows the surge beginning in early '20s, peaking in the late '20s and continuing into the '30s. This could mean that the voters began reacting against the surge and that late '30s players weren't given the same consideration as late '20s and early '30s players. If so, that could mean that Bridges, Johnson and Walters are being unfairly held back.

Also, there's some back and forth as to whether or not the 1930s surge was caused by Negro League players. I found something interesting doing several systems- some of which account for a player only once, and one which accounts for players multiple times. Any system that accounts for players multiple times- whether it's a year-by-year analysis as Howie does, or a five-year period as done here- will overrate the presence Negro League players. Because of the lower replacement level, many Negro League players were starting as teenagers and continuing well into their forties. I've mentioned it before, but it's not unusual to see Negro League players with 24, 25 or even 28 year careers. Any system that accounts for each individual player only once shows that the Negro League players at a better proportion. If anything, they were added at a similar rate when compared to major league players. Going by the split decade view, NeL players increase from 4-6-10-4, while MLB players increase from 10-15-19-13 for a total of 14-21-29-17. The Negro Leaguers are not solely responsible for the surge. Furthermore, most of the Negro Leaguers still under consideration come before (Monroe, Redding and Taylor) or after (Clarkson) the surge. They'd actually help smooth it out, rather than embellish it.

The next dip after the deadball era is in the '40s and the '50s- the era of World War II and integration. A number of voters don't give war credit. And a number of voters don't give credit to early integration players. Perhaps the war deductions are too harsh while the war credits are too low. Whatever the reason, it shows.

Pete Browning and Charley Jones are sometimes treated as a pair because they're both listed as 1880s players. The split-decade view shows the fallacy of that. Jones gets pushed into '75-'85 while Browning gets pushed in '85-'95 as Jones' prime is '76-'86 (excluding blacklisted years in '81 and '82) while Browning's 10 year prime is '83-'92. They only overlap as elite players for 4 seasons. The induction of one shouldn't necessarily be a reason to not induct the other.

While I certainly agree with your conclusion, do you really think Browning's 1892 is more "prime" than his 1882?

Why the AA was a Major League for Browning while the PCL wasn't for Cravath:
Because the AA champion played the NL champion in the World Series. Because the AA could draft players from minor leagues but other leagues couldn't draft players from the AA. Because the AA had teams in NY, Boston, and Philadelphia, the largest cities in the country. Those things aren't true of the PCL, or for that matter the second AA which Cravath also played in.

Cblau, could the majors of the time draft PCL guys? I don't have any expertise in MiL stuff, but i thought for some reason that PCL players had to be purchased.

I believe the minor league draft was first established in 1892 (looking at an article on minor league history by Bob Hoie in an old Total Baseball.) However, there were a lot of restrictions during the early years--only one player per minor league team could be drafted, and players weren't eligible to be drafted during their first three years. My understanding is that if different major league teams wanted to draft, say, five different players from a single PCL team, they would draw lots to see which player would be selected. That meant minor league teams could sometimes hold onto major league quality players for quite a few years. Players more often advanced to the majors through sales and trades than through the draft, though the draft did give the minor league teams an incentive to sell their better players rather than risk losing them for a lower price through the draft.

After World War I, the highest minor leagues withdrew from the agreement for several years, refusing to be subject to the draft. Eventually, however, they all rejoined the system (the International League was the last holdout). The new (1921) agreement had a clause that allowed major league teams to buy minor league teams, which helped Rickey to establish the first farm systems.

Because the AA champion played the NL champion in the World Series. Because the AA could draft players from minor leagues but other leagues couldn't draft players from the AA. Because the AA had teams in NY, Boston, and Philadelphia, the largest cities in the country.

There are some caveats on each of these points. Based on Hoie's article, I don't believe the AA (or the NL) could yet draft minor league players (it's first mentioned in 1892), though the Tripartite Agreement did guarantee the NL and AA higher minimum salaries than the Northwestern League (the third party to the agreement). In its first year, the AA didn't yet have franchises in NY (established in 1883) or Boston (in 1891), and it never placed a franchise in Chicago. On the other hand, in 1882 the NL was also lacking NY and Phila franchises and was still playing in such grand metropolises as Troy and Worcester. After 1884, the NY AA franchise essentially became a farm team to the city's NL team. Also, during Cravath's time the PCL had one city, San Francisco, that was about as large as the smaller "major league" cities. (A decade later, Los Angeles would surpass it in population.) A post-season series between the champions of the two leagues was held in 1882, but it wasn't regarded as determining a national (or "world") championship until two years later.

El Chaleeko on Mike Greenwell:
On one hand, he was adored by Boston fans, the heir apparent in the famous left field lineage, a sweet stroke, near batting champ.

Is that the Down East perspective? He was disliked, too.

His career petered out really quickly after he turned thirty,

While his career didn't yet peter out, his achievements declined sharply after he turned 25, after the "ROY-4" and the "MVP-2" sophomore season.


I don't know whether anyone said this :-)
How did the AA end up as a major league for Browning while the PCL is considered a minor league for Cravath?


I know Howie Menckel said this but I don't know whether anyone is Howie Menckel :-)
If 65 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 15 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 10 3Bs, 17 SSs, 57 OFs, 58 Ps.
If 50 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 17 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 14 3Bs, 19 SSs, 61 OFs, 58 Ps.

So the number of no-position stars is 23 or 11 respectively?

(Actually, he is so consistent that I am morally certain someone is Howie Menckel.)


Chris Fluit:
However, it's hard to address the drop directly as any player who would be present in the five year period 1905-1909 would also be counted in the period before or after (and sometimes both).

Maybe the group should consider Orval Overall, Jack Pfiester, Ed Reulbach, and Carl Lundgren.

Orvie and "Jack the Giant Killer" may qualify for 1905-1909 only. Reulbach put up his five best and Lundgren his three best seasons then.

Lefty Leifield has a cool name and he didn't really make it past 1911 (but that doesn't work I know).

Prelim thoughts:

Two off my previous ballot, Winfield and Whitaker, were elected. Smith and Trammell are the two best shortstop candidates and two best overall new candidates. They will be on the ballot somewhere.

Dawson - considered as a right fielder, is the fourth best of the 1980s behind Gwynn, Winfield, and Evans. If he was close to them, then I could see a vote, but he is far enough behind them that I do not think he will make my ballot. Gwynn beats him on peak/prime/career; Winfield beats him significantly on career after splitting peak and prime; Evans beats him on prime and career while being even on peak. All three had more "all-star" seasons.
considered as a centerfielder, he is behind Dale Murphy in peak and prime. Dawson's career advantage is not enough to make up the difference. Top 30-40.

Tim Wallach - better than Carney Lansford and Gary Gaetti, but behind Howard Johnson

Lenny Dykstra - Got the most out of his talent. The 1993 Phillies were one of my favorite non-Padres NL teams. Not close to a ballot.

Cage match, Reggie Smith vs Kiiirrrrrbbeeeeeee Puckett

good CF vs avg CF/RF: edge to KP

career length: with Japan credit, 500-1000 PA edge to RS
*** But, KP was more in-season durable; RS lasted longer

offense: using BP translated stats, RS was more effective per PA by about 20 OPS pts, with similar speed.

shape: KP better peak/prime, but this is almost all from durability, covered before. If you took away KP's best year, and gave him 4 years of half-time play at similar pace (i.e., more total goodness butmore spread out), they would look identical IMHO.

intangibles: bpoth bring that "winning" thing: KP won two rings with clubs that werent all that special, and he played Very key roles. RS's teams won wherever he went. KP did better in award voting, but that seems to be general writer bias (luv RBI, hate walks).

I would have KP a little higher. He was, I believe, more valuable to his teams.

I am, however, bothered by the big question that they had switched parks/teams/time, that RS would have been much better. KP's home advantage was Huge (RS, BTW, had a big home/road split too, but it was in three parks; maybe he adapted well? And it's not nearly as large).

In the cage match, I suspect KP wins.... but only if he has the home ref :)

I think the team has dismissed Joss altogether too definitively; he stands out as the best player on the HOF not HOM list and he would fit like a glove into 1905-09. Joss's ERA+ is eighth best all time (excluidng three current players, of whom I would guess only Pedro will be ahead when he retires) -- substantially better than Dean or Koufax, and Dean had a much shorter career. The argument against Joss is the second-order one of IP per season, but I don't see why that should be allowed to dominate his first-order excellence.

He's also the poster-boy against "off after 40 years" rules -- it would be by no means irrational for the team to see some new argument, probably not by me, and be so convinced by it they put him in the HOM within a few years. Chance or McGraw would be others with extreme cases whom we might all suddenly come to like.

comparing Reggie Smith and Andre Dawson (very similar fielders):

Every year, Reggie spends two weeks on the DL. During this time each season, Andre hit 5 home runs and make 35 outs (no singles, no walks). And he might pinch run and steal a few bases. Making better counting stats, but no more value above replacment; certainly not above what another cleanup hitter would do.

Anyone think this is an unfair comparison?

Incidentally, I don't see the case for Ozzie. Trammell is fairly clearly in, although only modestly above the borderline, but I have yet to see any research that the difference between a good and a great SS is worth an OPS+ of 87 -- I just don't see how you can field well enough to make up that level of differential against the 105-115 OPS+ SSs of whom there are quite a few.

Agree with karl. If Joss et al stay on some ballots, lowering the "% vote" for our electees, I care not a whit, and maybe we'll change our minds. I'm glad we've keep eligibility alive.

Besides, I look forward to a fan of Tom Henke (or some other low-IP stud of more modern times) to hound karl into voting for him by comparing him favorbaly to Joss :)

karl, an 87 OPS+ to a 110 OPS+ might be 20 runs a year. Ozzie's speed is worth some of that, and I can find lots of research that shows his defense could we worth that much (of course I can also find some that says it isn't...). Oz also played over 2500 games at short; how many of those we got who could hit well?

but I have yet to see any research that the difference between a good and a great SS is worth an OPS+ of 87 -- I just don't see how you can field well enough to make up that level of differential against the 105-115 OPS+ SSs of whom there are quite a few.

The answer lies in:
-durability
-GIDP avoidance
-SB%
-baserunning
-fielding.

I took Ozzie's and Trammell's career figures and expressed them as a per/162 single season. I used bb-ref's per 162 numbers, then figured each player's % of team games played, then pegged that number to 162, rejigging the bb-ref numbers to this new level of playing time. Ozzie averaged 141 games per 162, Trammell just 119. This durability difference, wipes away most of the difference. Here's the resultant stat lines (there's some rounded figures here):


Then I used extrapolated runs to estimate their runs created. Since XR is fit to the post-war period and has very specific weights for its regressed figures, it will do a better job of picking up subtle differences that basic RC and OPS don't see.

-Ozzie created about 62.8 runs
-Trammell created about 63.1 runs.
-Total difference of .3 runs toward Trammell.

I calculated from the non-rounded figures, so you may not get the exact same I do if you follow at home. In addition, I have not included park factors which might slant things one way or the other.

I'll break out a couple of things I mentioned earlier. This chart shows the XR from the specific events in the stat lines above rounded one place:


Trammell's out-avoidance is mostly a function of fewer ABs (less durability), and his big advantage in HR is slowly washed away by a host of small advantages for Ozzie.

Now then, I don't have Dan R's spreadsheet with eqBR handy, but Ozzie was known as one of the better baserunners of his time. The best baserunners add about 7-10 runs with their feet, so we can conservatively say that Ozzie probably added another 5 runs there per annum. I don't know whether Trammell was generally an excellent baserunner, but his SB% are not good. I think it's safe to assume that baserunning probably moves Ozzie ahead by a run or two per annum.

NOW you can tack on the fielding. Trammell gets 69 FRAA and Ozzie 270. And FRAA is a relative, not absolute number, so that's not quite all the runs they each "create" with their glove. But for handy reference, we'll just use them like so. Smith saves about 17.0 runs above average per year, while Trammell saves 4.9 above average per year.

So now it looks like:

Ozzie = 62.8 XR + ~5 EQBR + 17 FRAA = ~85 Runs
Tram = 63.1 XR + 0-3 EQBR? + 4.9 FRAA = ~70 Runs

Huge difference. Virtually all by dint of fielding and durability. A peak/prime measure might prove differently, however.

karlmagnus, another knock against Joss is his defensive support, worth some 23 points of career ERA according to BP.

You only get the 141/119 differential by adding in Trammell's late seasons when he was playing part-time. For his prolonged prime, Trammell played FAR more than 119 games per season. The RC/162 is thus wholly artificial; it assumes that a team with late Trammell wouldn't know he'd be half-time and make arrangments (grant you, Detroit 1992/96 was an exceptionally dozy outfit and didn't, but he added no pennants in those years -- A-Rod at his peak couldn't have made them competitive.) It thereby assigns a large negative value to that part of his career, far more than if he'd hung it up earlier.

Still not convinced, and become more unconvinced. Why is Smith significantly better than Concepcion and Rizzuto, neither of whom we've elected? Why indeed is he better than Rabbit Maranville? His SB/CS ratio is only 580/148, adding about 138 net bases; that's not nothing, but it doesn't make him Rickey Henderson. Looks more like a SS Lou Brock to me, grossly overrated by conventional wisdom.

Dan R, what metric are you using? There's no way Joss's defensive support was 23 points of ERA+; 23 points of ERA is only about 7-8 points of ERA+; he's still better than Koufax, who had a few unfair advantages of his own.

karlmagnus, BP's DERA minus NRA = defensive support.

The main thing separating Ozzie from other SS was the length of his defensive peak. He wasn't appreciably better with the glove than Concepción or Rizzuto at their best--but he was saving 15-20 runs a year for over 15 straight years, while those guys maxed out at about half that. It's a tremendous difference. And yes, baserunning adds a bunch too. He's still a good notch down from Trammell for me, but an easy #2--for me, Trammell is a monster.

Karl,

I used every season in the two players' respective careers, including all partials. Ozzie had about three-four seasons of partials, Trammell had more. Here's their gams played laid out best to worst.

OZ 159 159 158 158 158 156 155 153 153 150 143 141 140 132 124 110 98 82 44
AL 157 151 151 149 146 146 142 142 139 139 128 121 112 105 101 76 74 66 29 19

How much convincing do you need that Trammell is sifnificantly less durable?
-Ozzie plays 10 seasons of 150+ games (plus 110 of 110 SD games in 1981). Plus three seasons over 140.

-Trammell plays 3 seasons of 150+ games (plus 105 of 109 in 1981). Plus five seasons over 140. Plus two seasons over 130.

Here's let's look this way. In their 10 best seasons by games played, Ozzie averages 156 games. In Tram's top ten by games played, he averages 146. Ten fewer games in their ten most durable seasons, and then Smith goes on with plenty more durable years, while Trammell fades off.

Then there's this: In Smith's three under-100G years, his OPS+ was 78, 41, 93 (in chrono order). Trammells were 21, 114, 85, 81, 35.

But here, I'll pull out his age 19 seasons (19 games), and recalculate...124 games. That gets him up to 65.7 runs created. Now a three run advantage for him. I'd bet the baserunning makes that up, then the fielding is once again the big boost.

As to why Smith betters Concepcion, Rizzuto, and Maranville? Probably a better hitter than Davey (more on-base skills), and FRAA and WS have him as a better fielder. Rizzuto has less career length. Maranville is absolutely a worse hitter. No sense on his baserunning or on whether his SB% was more/less valuable in his era. Fielding he's close, but lots of time at 2B, where Ozzie's time is all at short.

Ozzie is, for better or worse, a little-ball perfect-storm candidate. He does nothing well except everything that's not AVG or SLG. And in many instances he's an exceptional percentage player. He's as good a player as you can be with a league-average AVG and zero HR power. And the funny thing is that I haven't even supported him all that strongly before. I'm not even saying he's anything more than the 15th-22nd best SS all time. I'm only saying he's as high just about as good as you can be without frontline hitting ability.

Working on my prelim now, and I must say that Trammell doesn't show up nearly as high as I thought he might. He is still over my in-out line comfortably, but I might not be putting him in an elect me spot. The killer for me was his lack of durability. Only 7 seasons of more than 600 PA's. That might be including a strike season wherein I would eyeball the cutoff. He really reminds me of Vern Stephens. Trammell hung around a fair bit longer than did Stephens, but Stephens was much more durable when he played. I think Trammell was a better gloveman by a fair margin, but Stephens was a margin better as a hitter, even when I take into consideration the war time quality of play. I will have Trammell a bit ahead of Stephens in my final ranking, but not by much - which is fine as Stephens is a proud member of my PHOM.

my 2002 prelim
1)Hugh Duffy (PHOM)
2)Ozzie Smith - I cannot justify putting a hitter of his quality above Duffy, who I still consider to be a fully developed and valuable player from all sides of the game. Smith was not without value offensively, but I don't think his total offensive value was much above average if that much. Of course, that glovework was still a sight to behold. Welcome to the Hall of Merit, Mr. Smith. (PHOM)
3)Ben Taylor (PHOM)
4)Tommy Bridges (PHOM)
5)Kirby Puckett (PHOM)
6)Alan Trammell - A great all round shortstop. Better durability would have seen him top this ballot. Hopefully, a quick election from us could help his case with the BBWAA voters. (PHOM)
7)Lefty Gomez (PHOM)
8)Charley Jones (PHOM)
9)Vern Stephens (PHOM)
10)Dale Murphy (PHOM)
11)Gavvy Cravath (PHOM)
12)Bob Johnson (PHOM)
((12a)Willie Randolph)) (PHOM)
13)Bobby Veach (PHOM)
14)Orlando Cepeda (PHOM)
15)Dave Stieb

The second team
16)Andre Dawson - Like Trammell, his lack of durability really hurts him for me. At this time, I prefer the resumes of Veach and Murphy among the OF backlog. He may yet make my ballot and my PHOM, but he's on the wrong side of the fine line for this year.
17)Al Oliver
18)Tony Oliva
((18a)Dwight Evans))
19)Jack Clark
20)Jim Rice
21)Wally Berger
22)Dizzy Dean
23)Don Mattingly
24)Bus Clarkson
((24a)Darrell Evans))
25)Dan Quisenberry
26)Bruce Sutter
27)Ernie Lombardi
((27a)Jimmy Wynn))
28)Alejandro Oms
29)Reggie Smith
30)Dick Redding (PHOM)

Ozzie is, for better or worse, a little-ball perfect-storm candidate.

One amusing exercise I once set for myself was to envision constructing a team entirely of clones of one player. Any position you could reasonably imagine the player in question handling (with a year or two to learn it, if necessary), you put a clone there. Any leftover posisitons get whoever you can scrape out of AAAA or the waiver wire. Of course, it's a system that gives an advantage to right-end of the defensive spectrum players (and right-handed throwers.) And of course, the best possible version would be the all-Honus team.

The all-Ozzie team wouldn't necessarily be the best of the lot, but imagine how they'd play? On defense, I have to assume that Ozzie would be a terrific CF (and hence LF and RF as well) and a spectacular 2B. At 3B he'd be very good but he would lose some of his edge - a SS should be both quick and fast, while a 3B needs only quickness, giving quick but not fast guys a chance to catch up, and Ozzie's arm wasn't his biggest asset. At 1B I'm not sure whether to drag in someone tall with a little power - Hee Seop Choi from a couple of years ago, someone like that - or whether to just let an Ozzie clone play first. If the latter, I definitely don't recommend bunting against this team. For C, I think the AAAA/waiver wire route gets you three guys whom you rotate based on slumps and health. Then, if possible, you'd want to play in a big, HR-suppressing ballpark, and you'd acquire a pitching staff of people who throw strikes. (Trade away all your Kaz Ishii types, get Bob Tewksbury if you can.)

But on offense ... For one thing, this team would lead the league in runners LOB, hands-down. They'd also lead the league in SB. They'd sacrifice, they'd hit-and-run, they'd squeeze - there's no good reason not to try all of those things. I'm not sure what fans would think. Would you think they were highly entertaining? Or would they drive you nuts? Or both at the same time?

Yeah, so it looks like I am still going to vote. I'm still not thrilled at how things have been going down of late (and I'm sure that there still some people who aren't thrilled with me), but I've been voting since 1900 and I want to see it through to the end.

Prelim

PHoM: Ozzie, Trammell, Andre

I am a heavily career-minded voter. I go so far as to say that since we are judging player's careers, how could we be anything but? I recognize that not everyone sees things this way.

My first run through had Andre Dawson first, but even to a career guy like me, I realized that that was too high, so I looked deeper and made adjustments etc. He is certainly ballot worthy, though.

I also think that the electorate is overrating Smith and Trammell... but I still think they are very good and very deserving and I am putting them in my PHoM this year so I don't have a problem with their election.

1. Tony Perez
2. George Van Haltren
3. Tommy Leach
4. Mickey Welch

As I said, I'm a career voter. These four have impressive careers and have been maligned by the peak-lovers. :)

5. Ozzie Smith

Great Player. I would just rather see the overlooked players above get in first.

6. Lou Brock

The top base stealer pre-Rickey.

7. Rusty Staub

Worth the #1 spot on name alone.

8. Reggie Smith
9. Graig Nettles
10. Alan Trammell

Trammell could easily be above Smith and Nettles, but I would rather be conservative on this one... not that I think it will matter.

11. Andre Dawson

I had him at #1 and dropped him to #11. Now I am worried that I dropped him too far.

12. Hugh Duffy

Another overlooked candidate, but a solid notch below the top guys.

13. Orlando Cepeda
14. Norm Cash
15. Bob Johnson

Good players, but slipping into the group of people I'm not personally lobbying for.

16-20. Redding, Singleton, Browning, Puckett, Bonds
21-25. Mullane, Murphy, Streeter, Willis, McCormick
26-30. Strong, Monroe, Greene, Gleason, Grimes

-Vince Coleman: His long stirrups made him look even faster. "It's a tarp!" is one of the really funny metajokes at BTF, and we can thank this guy for it. Though what I've never fully understood is how he could have gotten stuck under the autotarp. Didn't he see it coming? Or did it turn on at just the moment he decided to lay down in front of it? OCF, help!

Not sure many people actually saw what happened, but my best recollection of the story is that Coleman had his back to the 1st base line, stretching or something, and the tarp, which popped out of the astroturf from foul territory just outside the 1st base line, came out and started its automatic unrolling, rolling up the back leg of Coleman before someone could turn it off.

Another knock on Joss is lack of durability. Joss finished in the top 10 of innings pitched only twice in his career. This would be the worst performance of any starting pitcher in the HoM.
Here are the totals for pitchers from around his time:

Young: 19 years, including 9 straight in the AL
Waddell: 4 years
Brown: 4 years
Mathewson: 14 years
McGinnity: 8 years (would be 9 except he split leagues in 1902)
Willis: 9 years
Powell: 7 years
Rusie: 7 times
Nichols: 12 times
Plank: 8 times
Mullin: 8 times
Chesbro: 5 times
Walsh: 5 times
Doc White: 4 times
Orth: 3 times in the AL

He does tie Sam Leever and Clark Griffith's 2 times.

I have Joss' career broken down by start at my home and I will post the various times when Joss missed starts. Because of work requirements, I won't be able to post the numbers until Saturday.

Joss' lack of durability is a key factor for me - just my 2 cents.

And along with his excellent defensive support and his lack of durability, Joss also had as high an UER percentage as Waddell did. All of these things add up to a non-HOMer for me. I want to vote for Joss, but if he even had one of these three things (durability would help the most with me) I may think about it. But missing all three is just too much.

Going back to posts 66-68, there was a draft in the 1891 National Agreement. Since the AA didn't honor that agreement, they never did take part in the draft as the NL did.

An important point is that in the years when the PCL and other minors didn't take part in the draft, they couldn't draft players from the lower minors; it wasn't just that they couldn't lose players that way.

And if the IL was the last holdout, it was only by a matter of days. All three double-A leagues went back into the draft pool in 1931.

in 1882 the NL was also lacking NY and Phila franchises and was still playing in such grand metropolises as Troy and Worcester.

Populations of MLB cities in 1882 (from the US Census of 1880).

AA: 2 Million
Phi 847K, StL 350K, Bal 332K, Cin 255K, Pit 156K, Lou 124K

NL: 1.5 Million
Chi 503K, Bos 363K, Cle 160K, Buf 155K, Det 116K, Prv 104K, Wor 58K, Troy 57K

Only 6 teams, and the AA market is still 33% bigger than the 8-team NL market. Long term, the NL is in trouble unless it can change this (or the AA messes up).

Suppose you didn't know how it had actually turned out. Suppose I then told you that 10 years later, in 1892, there would be one 12-team league, and that it would consist of 4 teams originating from the NL and 8 teams originating from the AA.

Wouldn't you naturally assume that the AA had fulfilled its initial promise and was now the dominant force in the Baseball marketplace?

Are there AA players other than Bid McPhee and Tony Mullane with significant NL careers after the failure of the AA? Caruthers, but I'm not sure how to interpret his dropoff in performance...arm trouble, I assume?

Charley Jones went the other way, but with a two year layoff in between. Any others?

I listed quite a few names in my study of AA quality on the estimating league quality thread. Some of them played in the Players League before moving to the NL.

Interesting that 5 of the 10 largest cities in the 1880 census didn't have teams in either league in 1882: #1 New York (1206K), #3 Brooklyn (567K), #7 Baltimore (332K), #9 San Francisco (234K), and #10 New Orleans (216K).

Also interesting to see some of the cities that were ranked 11 to 20 (populations 160K to 104K): #15 Newark, #17 Jersey City, #20 Providence. I'd always thought of industrialization/urbanization in the late 19th-century creating a number of really big cities, but in 1880 New York/Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Chicago were the only ones with population > 500K.

Oops - scratch Baltimore, which did have an AA team in 1882. (I didn't even have to look it up--it was right there in jimd's post!)

Many AA players beside Jones had previous major league experience.

Four clubs switched from AA to NL before the former league failed. Four more (one being relatively new and never successful Washington) merged with the NL in 1892. Those "moves"


ome big cities moved from the Strong AA clubs moved xcept St Louis and Philadelphia


Wouldn't you naturally assume that the AA had fulfilled its initial promise and was now the dominant force in the Baseball marketplace?

P.S. Baltimore, Brooklyn and Pittsburgh won the pennant 8 times in 10 years, 1894-1903.

Hey, I just noticed that every NL champion between Detroit 1887 and Pittsburgh 1909 won two or three pennants back to back (Brooklyn winning in AA and NL 1889-1890). And the singleton winners before Detroit all won another within five seasons. Pittsburgh was strong between 1903 and 1909. Before WWII only Detroit 1887 and the 1914-15-18-19 winners seem to be isolated.

Strange "moves" eh?
Those "moves" (switch or merge) happened within the contract and reserve system.
Beside players who entered the NL with their employers, others including stars Hamilton and Childs entered by interleague transactions (Hamilton sale, Childs trade).

Interesting that 5 of the 10 largest cities in the 1880 census didn't have teams in either league in 1882: #1 New York (1206K), #3 Brooklyn (567K), #7 Baltimore (332K), #9 San Francisco (234K), and #10 New Orleans (216K).

New York probably had its own thriving baseball scene independent of the NA/NL during and after the adventures of the Mutuals and Atlantics 1871-76. Top players could go for more visibility in the NA/NL or stay at home and avoid much of the travel.

SF and NO were probably just too far away to bother with for the regular train-based schedules. If they were more like NY in size and could support maybe two teams, that might change the economics.

I know Baltimore is on that list by accident, but I'll make my comment anyway.

Baltimore probably wound up outside the "original 16" of 1903-1952 because of a continued history of fan non-support during the 19th century. A local group set up a well-funded NA team that failed. The AA team was always struggling. They had a NL championship dynasty during the 1890s' but were contracted in 1899; the NL kept the 8 largest markets except for Cincinnati (which had a good attendance history despite no winner after the AA's first season) instead of Baltimore. The AL abandoned after two years. There are some "yes, but"s about each situation but it's not a good history.

Also, we think of Washington and Detroit as big cities today (because they are, no doubt about it). But in 1901, those were two of the three smallest markets in MLB, about the same size as Milwaukee then, and not part of the NL's "big 8". Cars and gov't radically changed both.

P.S. Baltimore, Brooklyn and Pittsburgh won the pennant 8 times in 10 years, 1894-1903.

Yes, but it was called the National League, not the American Association.
And the NL clubs were very influential in the board room.

Before WWII only Detroit 1887 and the 1914-15-18-19 winners seem to be isolated

Yes, but Detroit bought their way to a pennant, purchasing the entire Buffalo club so they could get Brouthers, Richardson, White, and Jack Rowe (Buffalo's big 4). They also paid a then record price the next season to get Fred Dunlap (moving Richardson to the OF). According to the story as I remember it, Detroit was paying for all these salaries out of their road-gate as a league "All-Star" team. The other clubs changed the rules for gate-sharing so the home team kept more and the "pyramid" scheme collapsed. Unable to support the team on the home-gate, the team disbanded in debt.

Please correct any details that are misremembered.

1914-1926 NL is the shortest span in which all of the teams in a league win a pennant.