The Ignitor, Eck and either Browning or Bresnahan.

Now that the main thread is open...I don't get the love for Eck. Check his thread, and someone tell me why he's a slam dunk.

500 more IP for Jimmie Key and he'd be getting a ton of votes. He's got the big years and the career rate. Lots of guys in the HOVG are only two years short of immortality.

When Kevin Mitchell was healthy, he could *hit*.

Eck will likely be #1 on my ballot, but I wonder if he will get elected. Maybe it will be Browning AND Bresnahan.... Nah, Pete is snake-bit.

When you look at OCF's division of Eck's career into segments, he's got about 10 years as a top-notch pitcher, and another seven years as an average starter. No other eligible pitcher is close to having that much value, unless perhaps you wholly accept Joe Dimino's analysis of Rick Reuschel or Jack Quinn.

Eck won't be a slam dunk, but he'll clear the backlog easily.

Granting that MVP voting has been, er, eccentric...still, we've had some conversation lately about what candidate's contemporaries thought of them. Following is the number of times various backloggers have been in the top 10 in MVP voting.

1. Kirby Puckett 7 times--6th 3rd 3rd 7th 7th 2nd 7th
2 (tie). Dave Parker 6--3 3 1 10 2 5
Jim Rice 6--3 4 1 5 4 3
Pie Traynor 6--8 7 6 7 7 8
5. Vern Stephens 6*--4 9 3 6 4 8
6 (tie). Lou Brock 5--10 7 6 6 2
Steve Garvey 5--1 7 6 2 6
Bruce Sutter 5--7 7 8 5 6
9. Rabbit Maranville 4--3 2 7 10**

*includes 2X during WWII so IOW his 6 are discounted
**no MVP award through much of his career

10 (tie). 4 each--Dizzy Dean, Travis Jackson, Heinie Manush, Vic Wertz, Rocky Colavito, Maury Wills, Tony Oliva, Tony Perez, Greg Luzinski, Cecil Cooper, George Foster, Jack Clark, Dan Quisenberry, Andre Dawson, Don Mattingly, Pedro Guerrero, Dennis Eckersley

Also: Dixie Walker 5*, Frank McCormick 4*, Bob Elliott 4*

Since I'm looking at the current backlog, I only researched up to 2000. As of 2000, the active leaders were Frank Thomas with 8, Piazza and Griffey Jr. with 7, Rickey with 6, and Bagwell, Boggs and Belle with 5. That puts Puckett in some pretty exclusive territory.

Oh, Eck had 4 (5, 5, 6, 1) and Molitor 2 (5, 2). Fielder had 3; Carter, Pendleton and Mitchell 2, also among the 2004 cohort. So it's had to say that Mollie's contemporaries (writers, anyway) were completely knocked out by him.

And, oh, I missed a couple guys with top 10s in both leagues. Fred McGriff had 6 (4 NL, 2 AL) and Mark McGwire 5. I also missed Andres Galarraga with 6, though these 3 are in the upcoming category, not the current backlog, and that is just as of 2000 as I said.

HOM by pct of games at each position in the field or DH, thru 2003

If 75 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 14 Cs, 15 1Bs, 15 2Bs, 09 3Bs, 13 SSs, 52 OFs, 58 Ps.
If 65 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 16 1Bs, 19 2Bs, 10 3Bs, 19 SSs, 58 OFs, 59 Ps.
If 50 pct is your cutoff, then we have elected 15 Cs, 18 1Bs, 19 2Bs, 14 3Bs, 21 SSs, 62 OFs, 59 Ps.

Prelim 2004 (elect 3)

Curious what my consensus score is. Hoping it is going down.

Again I’m mostly a peak/prime Win Shares voter though I look at a lot of information—especially my own annual MVP ballot and all-star selections, OPS+ and ERA+, HoFS, HoFM, ink, etc.—in trying to correctly interpret the numbers.

2004 PHoM—Molitor, Eckersley, Trammell

* PHoM/not HoM so far 21st century elections—Puckett, Mattingly, Munson, Dean, Dawson
HoM/not PHoM 21st century elections—Whitaker, Randolph, Stieb

1. Dennis Eckersley (new, PHoM 2004)—what was it? He was Jimmy Key and Bruce Sutter? Good enough for me

2. Dizzy Dean (3-5-6, PHoM 2002)—for a peak voter, the one big oversight of the HoM project to date

3. Kirby Puckett (4-2-1, PHoM 2001)—top 10 in BBWAA MVP voting 7 times, most of any current backlogger; most of any eligible player, for that matter; Molitor, by comparison, was top 10 twice

4. Paul Molitor (new, PHoM 2004)—a great player and a clear HoMer whose value nevertheless was limited 1) initially by fairly significant durability issues and 2) later, when playing time became less of an issue, because he became a DH and therefore had little defensive value

5. Elston Howard (5-9-12, PHoM 1994)—weird career, continual loss of opportunities that he was more than ready to take on, the potential comp was Mickey Cochrane

6. Ed Williamson (6-6-2, PHoM 1924)—more peak and more glove than than almost any other available IF; the knock seems to be those 27 HR but he didn’t make the rules and I don’t see how they hurt his team

7. Don Mattingly (7-3-3, PHoM 2001)—another real difference-maker though the team success somehow didn’t follow

8. Andre Dawson (8-8-new, PHoM 2003)—didn’t deserve the MVP in ’87 but I don’t deduct for that

9. Don Newcombe (9-7-8, PHoM 1997)—missed more opportunities than anybody; coulda been Robin Roberts

10. Thurman Munson (10-4-5, PHoM 2002)—the real straw that stirred the pot

(10a. Alan Trammell [11a-11-new], PHoM 2004)—his value proposition suffers by comparison to Ripken and Yount, but still….)

11. Pete Browning (11-10-9, PHoM 1961)—even with AA discount, way too much offense to ignore; but his sun may have set in 2001 and 2003

12. Tommy Bond (12-23-38, PHoM 1929)—he’s baaaack; pretty much the all-time WS peak monster

13. Larry Doyle (13-14-10, PHoM 1975)—an eminently deserving MVP at his best

14. Phil Rizzuto (14-12-13, PHoM 1995)—wow, lots of Yankees on this list; fact is, I hate the Yankees, but they had the horses or in this case the gloves

15. Dan Quisenberry (15-20-26)—7 years of Gossage is the comp

Close—i.e. right around in/out line, as I think we will elect another 8-9 or so backloggers before we’re done

16. Dale Murphy (16-17-17)
17. Dick Redding (18-28-12, PHoM 1971)
18. Vern Stephens (19-13-14)
19. Addie Joss (20-25-15, PHoM 1967)
20. Gavvy Cravath (21-37-36, PHoM 1995)
(20a. Ken Boyer [21a-25a-42a])
21. Chuck Klein (22-16-15)
22. Jim Rice (23-18-29)
23. Johnny Pesky (24-24-39)
24. Eddie Cicotte (25-27-40)
25. Hugh Duffy (26-29-32)
26. Dave Parker (27-32-33)

HoVG—and, for many, the HoO (Hall of Overrateds)

(26a. Wes Ferrell [27a-40b-43a])
27. Roger Bresnahan (31-47-27)
28. Tony Perez (28-21-23)
29. Hack Wilson (29-26-31)
30. Sal Bando (30-22-28)

31. Pie Traynor (32-19-20)
(31a. Lou Whitaker [31a-29a-19])
32. Ken Singleton (37-NR-57)
33. Vic Willis (33-48-42)
34. Bill Monroe (34-NR-59)
35. Dick Lundy (35-50-41)
36. Bucky Walters (36-HM-44)
37. Bruce Sutter (41-40-35)
38. Al Rosen (38-34-22)
39. Orlando Cepeda (39-30-18, PHoM 1987)
40. Alejandro Oms (40-38-25)

41. Reggie Smith (43-35-24, PHoM 1988)
(41a. Jim Bunning [41a-31a-32b])
42. Hilton Smith (42-NR-47)
(42a. Quincy Trouppe [42a-37a-24a])
43. Frank Howard (47-36-21, PHoM 1987)
44. Tommy Leach (44-49-37, PHoM 1998)
45. Fred Dunlap (45-HM-30)
46. Bob Johnson (46-NR-66)
47. Rabbit Maranville (NR-NR-111)
48. Luis Tiant (48-44-67)
49. Burleigh Grimes (49-HM-45)
50. John McGraw (50-NR-71)

Honorable Mention

Wally Berger (HM-33-55)
(Dewey Evans [HM-HM-38b])
(Joe Sewell [HM-38a-32a])
(Jimmy Sheckard [HM-49a-38a])
Bobby Estalella (HM-HM-63)
Tony Oliva (HM-31-34)
Luke Easter (HM-HM-48)
Lefty Gomez (HM-HM-52)
Bobby Avila (HM-NR-54)
Lee Smith (HM-new)

10 (tie). 4 each--Dizzy Dean, Travis Jackson, Heinie Manush, Vic Wertz, Rocky Colavito, Maury Wills, Tony Oliva, Tony Perez, Greg Luzinski, Cecil Cooper, George Foster, Jack Clark, Dan Quisenberry, Andre Dawson, Don Mattingly, Pedro Guerrero, Dennis Eckersley

I believe Dale Murphy also had 4 seasons in the top 10.

Update from last year

After 2003's election, we have a total of 15 spots left (3 per year from 2004-2008).

It looks like the remaining elections will be:

2004 - Molitor, Eckersley, backlog
2005 - Boggs, backlog, backlog
2006 - Will Clark, backlog, backlog
2007 - Ripken, Gwynn, McGwire
2008 - Raines, backlog, backlog

McGwire will have some protests, and I could be overestimating support for Will Clark, but I think each of them makes it sometime before we go to yearly voting. That leaves only 7 spots for the backlog.

The current backlog still probably consists of just 12 individuals(everyone who received 200-300 points in the last election). Let's look at how they have done since 2000:

Player   2003   2002   2001   2000 
OF Pete Browning   307 300 316 286
C Roger Bresnahan  301 271 252 255
OF Andre Dawson 274 235 n/e n/e
OF Kirby Puckett   253 214 205 n/e
OF Bob Johnson  252 250 251 211
1B-3B Tony Perez   244 230 196 238
P Dick Redding  228 232 253 289
P Bucky Walters 218 210 220 225
OF Hugh Duffy   216 222 224 222
OF Alejandro Oms   215 186 177 185
OF Gavy Cravath 212 206 204 197
3B-OF Tommy Leach  207 211 152 163

I chose 2000 because in each year since then, we have had two strong candidates and one weak candidate.

Analyzing the numbers for each candidate, I see that:

1. No one succeeded in derailing support for Browning. It has remained steady. Support for Charley Jones went from 264 in 2000 to 256 in 2001 to 270 in 2003 and finally to 317 this year. Dave Stieb was at 267 in 2000, 271 in 2001 and 314 in his election year. For some reason, Jones picked up some support this year, and Steib picked up some in 2002, but Browning didn't gain any support, and lost a voter or two.

2. Bresnahan is slowly gaining supporters, and could pass bridesmaid Browning in 2004.

3. Dawson and Puckett are each building up a head of steam to pass Browning in 2005.

4. Bob Johnson gained some supporters in 2001, but has held steady since. He's below Browning, though. He may get in in 2006.

5. Tony Perez must have had some supporters fail to vote in 2001. He still may have difficulty overtaking Browning in 2006. He might flip-flop with Johnson, but one of them should be elected 2006, the other in 2008.

6. Dick Redding is fading. Bucky Walters is holding steady. Saberhagen, Hershiser and Cone compare favorably with these two. I think a pitcher (one of these five) takes the last backlog spot in 2008.

7. Duffy and Cravath aren't gaining new support.

8. Oms and Leach are creeping up, but not gaining fast enough.

Per Howie's list in the "Eligibles" thread, the following 13 individuals could become backloggers:

2004 - P Dennis Martinez, OF Joe Carter
2005 - UT Tony Phillips, P Bret Saberhagen
2006 - OF Albert Belle, P Orel Hershiser, P Dwight Gooden
2007 - OF-DH Harold Baines, SS Tony Fernandez, OF Paul O'Neill, P David Cone
2008 - P Chuck Finley, P Chuck Knoblauch

None looks like they will beat Browning in 2005.

So, my predictions, based on the above voting trends:

2004 - Molitor, Eckersley, (Bresnahan)
2005 - Boggs, (Dawson), (Puckett or Browning)
2006 - Will Clark, (Puckett or Browning), (Johnson or Perez)
2007 - Ripken, Gwynn, McGwire
2008 - Raines, (Johnson or Perez), (pitcher from Redding, Walters, Saberhagen, Hershiser, Cone)

Again, check your ballots, we don't have many left. It is unconstitutional to abandon lost causes, but everyone should make sure their ballots accurately reflect their current thinking.

> believe Dale Murphy also had 4 seasons in the top 10.

That is correct, sorry. 1 1 5 7.

And if I convert the MVP placements into a point system (a simple 10-9-8...1) I get this.

1. Jim Rice 46
2. Dave Parker 42
Kirby Puckett 42
4. Vern Stephens 34, but I would discount that a bit
5. Steve Garvey 33
6. Andre Dawson 32
Dizzy Dean 32
George Foster 32
9. Pedro Guerrero 31
10. Heinie Manush 30
Tony Oliva 30
Dale Murphy 30

Where's the love for the G-men, Garvey and Guerrero? Not to mention everybody else on this list? Personally, despite the fact that MVP voting is eccentric as hell, I do think this suggests we might want to take a fresh look at Rice and Parker...and that Puckett would be a pretty good selection.

2004 Prelim Ballot

I've incorporated some of the findings of WAR but like Chris Cobb I'm not really ready to go in with both feet yet. This is a bit of a "transitional" ballot and is subject to change as I ripple WAR through my all-time list and the nether regions of the ballot.

1) Dennis Eckersley - not really informed by WAR but if we don't elect him we won't elect another modern pitcher.
2) Paul Molitor - okay, those were the easy ones.
3) Reggie Smith - I see Andre Dawson moving his way up the ballot results but Smith seems stuck. They're similar in lots of ways - both CF/RF that were pretty good defenders (FWAA is essentially even), both power hitters .489 SLG for Smith, .482 SLG for Dawson, both hit about .280-.285. The difference is Reggie Smith has a career OBP of .366 to Dawson's .323. Which is the difference maker for me.
Are you a peak voter? I'm not but let's look at big years on the WARP2 from WAR. Reggie's top 10 years are 6.7, 6.1, 5.4, 5.2, 4.6. Dawson's top 5 are 8.4 (1981), 5.7, 5.7, 5.6, 3.9. If you add up the 5 years and you get 28 for Reggie and 29.3 for Dawson. Dawson's peak is slightly higher but the short season of 1981 really helps him out and even then it's pretty close. Reggie has more WARP2 value outside of his peak though 34 > 29. That's essentially one more good season for Reggie.

4) Bob Johnson - add in the PCL credit and it counterbalances the inherent war discount in WARP2.
5) Roger Bresnahan - I'm sold. There's no slippery slope, he was clearly the best MLB catcher of his era and he was good enough, long enough to make the ballot.
6) Luis Tiant - Still the best non-Eck modern pitcher and I haven't even seen the WAR data. Might move up farther.
7) Norm Cash - outstanding defensive scores and a better bat than Cepeda.
8) Tommy Bridges
9) Bus Clarkson - moves down a little but still will have a place on my ballot. Lots of estimates in the numbers make me a little uncomfortable with the placing.
10) Graig Nettles - Rates in about the same spot in both systems so my confidence level is really high that he belongs.
11) John McGraw - I'm a lot more conservative in my methodology toward McGraw than a peak voter or one who rates by salary but his WARP2 numbers are truly outstanding.
12) Tommy Leach - We're light on both 3B and CF representatives. I may be a little heavy but I'd rather do that than take more marginal corner outfielders.
13) Rick Reuschel - Like Tiant, could move up
14) Ron Cey - Is 6 3B too many? There's another just off ballot.
15) Gavy Cravath - Great pre-Ruth slugger

16-20) Virgil Trucks, Ben Taylor, Bob Elliott, Lee Smith, Jack Clark
21-25) Dick Redding, Vic Willis, Urban Shocker, Dave Bancroft, Buddy Bell

Dropping like a rock: Tony Perez, Rusty Staub, Orlando Cepeda - bats are not good enough for the higher replacement value of WARP2.

26) Pete Browning - but there isn't any good WARP2 data on his career, may drop lower but I'm giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. Won't make my PHOM.

Haven't finished ranking enough players to precisely rank Andre Dawson or Kirby Puckett but neither is close. Dawson is behind notables such as Staub, Bobby Bonds and Kiki Cuyler. Puckett is down around Chuck Klein.

Reggie Smith - I see Andre Dawson moving his way up the ballot results but Smith seems stuck. They're similar in lots of ways - both CF/RF that were pretty good defenders ...

Dawson's big advantage is that he has 2323 games in the field over 20 years to Smith's 1879 in 17 years (186 of those at 1B). Smith has more in-season durability issues than Dawson. But as for offense? Here's my context-adjusted RCAA-based system for the two of them:



Smith made my ballot in 2003 in the #15 spot, and has a good chance of staying there for 2004. Dawson isn't in my top 30.

> Dawson's big advantage is that he has 2323 games in the field over 20 years

WAR gives him a big 0 for his last 4 seasons and Reggie Smith has an argument for Japan credit.

I want to stop for a moment consider the notion of Eck's 11 year prime as ERA+ and INN see it and in the context of his leaguemates. Again, I've got a chip about Eck, and I'm trying prove or disprove my skepticism of his being any better than much of the backlog.


For this purpose, closer is the guy who leads the team in saves with more than 10. Eck tied for the team lead in saves in 1987 with Jay Howell and was more effective, so for this purpose, he's the closer that year.

I think someone (Joe D?) is likely to say how we should be comparing Eck to the replacement reliever; I simply disagree. His peak is all about closing---as being the ur-closer---and we should ask whether that reputation was deserved.

What do the rough gauges above tell us?
-That as a starter he wasn't too durable and was intermitently effective in the Grimes/Wynn jeckyll/hyde mode.

-1987: Take a look on bb-ref sometime. This was an awful season for closers. Only four guys with 20+ saves, which is not at all in keeping with save totals in surrounding years. Eck's innings include some starter innings, but not many and so do others' totals. This season is so weird for closers that it's hard to say much about other than he emerged at just the right moment as a closer.

-1988: Above average closer. Better than average by effetiveness, equally below by innings, but I'm more disposed to the ERA+ than the innings.

-1989: Was he hurt or did the team have a very small number of relief innings to dole out? His innings total is low given the context of his career. Anyway, his ERA+ is typical of top-shelf closers throughout the closer era. A peak year.

-1990: Obviously the signature year. It's fluky, yes, but it's a great year. His innings are below average among closers, but more than made up for by the ERA+. Legit peak year.

-1991: He's an average or slightly below average closer this year. His ERA+ is one peg above average, the innings are further below. Is being an average closer indicative of peak performance? Is being an average 1B indicitive of peak or prime performance?

-1992: Another legit peak year. He's well inside the upper echelon of closers.

-1996: Not a peak/prime year. He's manifestly below average.

So trying to make oranges into apples....

1975: above average (rookie year with low innings, could be seen as top starter)
1978: top starter (excellent ERA+, top-ten innings)
1979: top starter (ditto)
1985: above average (well above average ERA+, but not durable)
1987: above average closer
1988: above average closer
1989: top closer
1990: top closer, signature year
1991: average closer, possibly below
1992: top closer
1996: below average closer

Now let me dole these out and add in some other seasons in his record which OCF has previously characterized

----peak = 5 or 6 years------
top starter = 2 years (or 3 if you want 1975 here)
top closer = 3 years

----add'l prime = 7 years (or 6)-----
above avg sp = 5 years (add 1977, 1982, 1984 or 4 years if you put 1975 in peak)
above avg cl = 2 years

----filler/avg years = 3 years----
average SP = 2 (1976, 1980)
average closer = 1 year

----below avg/dreck years = 9 years----
below avg cl = 1 year
dreck sp = 3 years (1981, 1983, 1986)
dreck cl = 4 years (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997)
dreck su = 1 year (1998)

So then, 12 prime years of above-average or top seasons, plus 3 years of average play. John and Joe and others advocate tossing a player's bad years. In which case, Eck has a 15 year career, during which time he has 5 or 6 top years.

Of course there's more information we could in each case, but this is simplified way to look at his performance and being to digest it in segments.

Now who in the upperbacklog has a career of about 12 prime years with 5-6 peak years?

-Bresnahan is close, especially contextualizing for competing catchers and their durability.
-Browning has fewer prime seasons (only 13 years total, after all), league quality discounts to hurdle, and defense and baserunning to consider. The question is whether his peak is longer and higher than Eck's. I don't see Eck's peak as all that high, frankly, since he wasn't unsually durable or effective as a SP and RPing tends to limit the amount of value a guy can rack up, his 1990 season's dominance notwithstanding.
-Dick Redding: Not much sense of this one.
-Kirby Puckett and Bob Johnson: Eck has as many years of prime as Puckett and Johnson, obviously. By the nature of their roles and their respective durabilities, one would think that perhaps Puckett/Johnson would have more value in prime, though Eck may pull slightly ahead due to the presence of three years of average play post-prime. More analysis would be needed, to my mind, to draw a solid conclusion here.
-Andre Dawson and Tony Perez: He has eight years above a 120 OPS+, then he's got a 110 and a 115 as a CF, but a bunch of mid-teens OPS+ as a RF. I'd gather Dawson's less impressive than Eck in the rough cut, though perhaps he catches up in seasonal value? Perez is pretty similar to Dawson in this regard.

Anyway, then there's the lower down guys that I vote for.... In the end, Eck's doing well against more career-oriented guys in this sense, but the prime guys out there need more mano y mano analysis.

And if I convert the MVP placements into a point system (a simple 10-9-8...1) I get this.

You know, BB-Ref has a page that compiles players' career "award shares" for MVP and Cy Young voting. Dave Parker is 28th all-time in MVP shares, the highest ranking of any eligible player not in the Halls of Fame or Merit. Jim Rice is 29th.

Thanks. All the same folks for sure.

Closing out the 1850-75 period (ok, ok, Tommy Bond still gets 1 vote, but otherwise....), I have these years credited to these players:

HOMers 1856-70, * is part-time (10+ G, but fewer than half in field or 1 IP per G/or 35 G)

Any clear errors (granting that this is a very inexact science in this era)?

1856 (1) - Pearce
1857 (1) - Pearce
1858 (1) - Pearce
1859 (1) - Pearce
1860 (1) - Pearce, Start
1861 (2) - Pearce, Start
1862 (2) - Pearce, Start
1863 (2) - Pearce, Start
1864 (3) - Pearce, Start, GWright
1865 (2) - Pearce, Start
1866 (2) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike
1867 (4) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike
1868 (6) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding
1869 (8) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey
1870 (9) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton

National Association HOMers, 1871-75
1871 (10) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson
1872 (12) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson, Hines, O'Rourke
1873 (12) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson, Hines, O'Rourke
1874 (12) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson, Hines, O'Rourke
1875 (13) - Pearce, Start, GWright, Pike, Barnes, Spalding, White, McVey, Sutton, Anson, Hines, O'Rourke, CJones*


Basically, cups of coffee are not listed, but otherwise they can be with an asterisk (like a 1990 player who appears in 25 G with 65 AB, for instance).

For 1875, I would suggest that Jones not be marked as part time.

His team, the Keokuk Westerns, only played 13 games in the NA, and Jones appeared in 12 of them. We know from Paul Wendt's research that he was captain of the Keokuk squad in 1874, so he was already a front-line player. It might even be appropriate, depending on your view of non-Association play, to list him for 1874 also.

Thanks, Chris.
I knew Keokuk's situation, but figure his actual game total is way below the others. Tough call.
At the moment I'm not factoring non-NA play here, but that's debatable as well.

I'll look again at everything once we "catch up."

by the by, nice article by KJOK in the SABR convention program about the 1928 STL Stars.

by the by, nice article by KJOK in the SABR convention program about the 1928 STL Stars.

Seconded.

Thanks guys. It was too bad that Gary A.'s stats on the 1928 NNL Series didn't make it in, but it was still nice to be a 'real' baseball writer for once.

Can't find Mullane's thread, but since his candidacy needs a big boost, posting this from Posnansky's blog:

Anyway, I was doing some Win Shares research for my Top 100 list, and I found that, with only five exceptions, the Top 75 players in career Win Shares are either in the Hall of Fame or are going to the Hall.

The five exceptions are:

No. 14: Pete Rose. Well, we all know that story.

No. 47: Tony Mullane. A 19th Century pitcher who won 30 games five years in a row. He could pitch both right-handed and left-handed. It was a very different game when Mullane pitched, but it does seem like historians have overlooked him.

No. 52: Rafael Palmeiro. Well, things might loosen up on the steroid stranglehold, but for now it appears that Palmeiro will be on the outside looking in despite his 3,000 hits and 569 homers.

No. 54: Bill Dahlen played from 1891-1911, and he wasone of the first brilliant defensive shortstops in baseball history. He was also, for the time, a power hitter (he finished among the leaders in homers five times), an aggressive base runner (he stole more than 500 bases) and a Moneyball man (he walked more than 1,000 times in his career).

No. 57: Tim Raines.

Rawlings released a list of "all-time Gold Gloves" today.

C-Johnny Bench
1B-Wes Parker
2B-Joe Morgan
SS-Ozzie Smith
3B-Brooks Robinson
OF-Willie Mays
OF-Roberto Clemente
OF-Ken Griffey
P-Greg Maddux

Fairly standard list for the most part, though two names really stick out. Joe Morgan & Wes Parker. The only way Morgan makes this list is by name-recognition and hitting credit... which are the big things that Wes Parker does not have. Anyhow, typical fan-voting done online and in stores but since its Rawlings, it has a certain air of officialness to it.

You guys probably know this, but in Mullane's big year (1887), the Red Stockings had 2 and 1/2 starters and Mullane was the 2nd best. The 19 year old left-hander Elmer Smith was the best. Smith ended up as an outfielder for the Pirates in the 1890s and was among the league leaders in OBP and slugging for several years, although he wasn't quite Ruthian.

Who said Raines wasn't going to the Hall? Negative thinking will get you nowhere...

I knew there would be one we missed from the early days. Elmer Smith, where were you when we needed you? Does he deserve minor league credit for 1890 and 1891, which should have been his prime years (and with 3 leagues, why wasn't he playing for somebody?) If he should be given prime credit for those 2 years, he's a more batting-oriented Caruthers (not quite as good, and not much both at once) and an easy HOMer! I don't remember anyone ever voting for him -- he was eligible in 1907, before Dan started doing proper lists for us.

Mullane of course played in the AA. I have him behind Welch whom I have never supported. I don't think Apollo is a miss by either of the Halls.

As for the "all-time" golden gloves, I'm pretty sure the promo says that they are for the last 50 years, not really "all-time." A panel of "experts" picked 50 players and fans then voted for their top 9.

Fairly standard list for the most part, though two names really stick out. Joe Morgan & Wes Parker.

Parker was a great first baseman, but over Hernandez?!

From "Elmer Smith" by Bob Tiemann in Nineteenth Century Stars (SABR, 1989).

"The sore shoulder reappeared in 1889 and Smith pitched less and less as the season progressed. Finally he was released in October. He played 1890-91 in Kansas City, Western Association. (That may be the AA club of 1887-88.) As a pitcher 23-9, 1-4. As a batter, bat/slug .331/.512 and .314/.479
. . .
Elmer was sought after by several National League clubs. He signed with his hometown Pirates for 1892.
. . .
Elmer was a fast runner and good base stealer, so he was used in the leadoff position a fair amount."

Mullane of course played in the AA. I have him behind Welch whom I have never supported. I don't think Apollo is a miss by either of the Halls.

As did around maybe 25% of 19th century players. He also played in the NL, and played well.
Oh, and he could hit a little too...

#32
He played 1890-91 in Kansas City, Western Association. (That may be the AA club of 1887-88.) As a pitcher 23-9, 1-4. As a batter, bat/slug .331/.512 and .314/.479

That much is my editorial synopsis not quotation of Tiemann

For 1875, I would suggest that Jones not be marked as part time.

His team, the Keokuk Westerns, only played 13 games in the NA, and Jones appeared in 12 of them.

This, of course, can be debated. Jones had a 1G tryout with Hartford at some point later in the season, and apparently did not impress the manager, ol' "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson. Charley went 0-4, played CF, making 2 catches and one error.

OTOH, his Keokuk teammate, pitcher Mike Golden did catch on with Chicago, playing 39 more games, 14 as pitcher and 25 in LF.

The point is that Jones was available, but for whatever the reason, nobody picked him up.

Also, Keokuk SS Jimmy Hallinan would catch on with the Mutuals in NY, playing 44G for them as their regular SS. Three other Keokuk players would get extended tryouts for the Mutuals, Chicago, and/or Hartford, ranging from 9-22 games.

Thanks very much Paul, gives me exactly what I need.

OK, deduct 10% from Elmer's 1890 and 1891 batting and slugging percentages we get 301/461 and 284/431 resectively. Comparing agianst the PL of 1890 gives an OPS+ of about 130, against the NL of 1891 gioves an OPS+ of about 139. That gives him 14 years of full-time play; adjust those to 130 game seasons (which I did for 19th century players gives him about 2140 hits at an OPS+ of 128-129 plus a pitching record of about 1400IP at an ERA+ of 113 and a W/L of about 96-72.

Elmer baby, you're on my ballot, albeit at the bottom of it. Only 97 years late.

Incidentally, not-Grandma, doesn't Elmer deserve his own thread?

Hey, I was planning on voting last monday and then got really distracted (something about Honey, a one hour drive, and teh LEgend of Zelda, don't ask) so I missed the cut. It kinda sucks because there is a good cahnce that I would have pushed pEte BRowning over the top and I may be the reason for Dick Redding's slide as he is my top backlogger.

Speaking of people playing before things got really organized, Pete Browning started playing with the Louisville Eclipse in 1877 at the age of 16. And according to David Nemec's Beer and Whiskey League, he had received numerous offers to play elsewhere. "It was not loyalty that bound him but a fear of the unfamiliar." Granted, it was a semi-pro team, but it was basically that team (plus Tony Mullane, which, OK, is a good-sized plus) that went into the AA and finished 3rd in 1882. I'm not saying he should get credit for anything, but it's certainly possible he could have had some value in 1880-81.

Rawlings released a list of "all-time Gold Gloves" today.

C-Johnny Bench
1B-Wes Parker
2B-Joe Morgan
SS-Ozzie Smith
3B-Brooks Robinson
OF-Willie Mays
OF-Roberto Clemente
OF-Ken Griffey
P-Greg Maddux

That's too bad. I found that website in May, and I went in once every day (you couldn't vote more often) just to vote for Mazeroski and Hernandez, once I heard that Morgan was leading at 2B. Ain't that odd, that a guy so underrated as an offensive force wins a fielding popularity contest that he manifestly did not deserve?

Jones had a 1G tryout with Hartford at some point later in the season,

probably sometime Hartford was in the West.
Rather than a tryout, or another perspective on tryouts in those days, it may have been an emergency replacement when Hartford visited the locale. --most likely Cincinnati, that is Covington KY, where Hartford played Philadelphia -09-22

1875 Philadelphias at retrosheet
>>Home parks:
Jefferson Street Grounds
Star Baseball Park
Ludlow Baseball Park
<<

> I'll look again at everything once we "catch up."

That's right. It all depends what you, Howie, want the "part-time" designation to mean. Alternatively what is the force of the 1875 count, 12 or 13 players (or 14 with Jim Galvin)?
My impression is that it is most commonly used to say this period is under- or over-represented. That is, to direct attention toward or away from a timespan or a timespan and a fielding position.

I want to thank John for taking care of my ballot last week!


Prelim

PHoM: Molitor, Eckersley, Puckett

1. Paul Molitor
2. Andre Dawson
3. Tony Perez
4. George Van Haltren
5. Tommy Leach
6. Reggie Smith
7. Lou Brock
8. Rusty Staub
9. Graig Nettles
10. Mickey Welch
11. Hugh Duffy
12. Norm Cash
13. Ken Singleton
14. Orlando Cepeda
15. Bob Johnson
16-20. Puckett, Browning, Eckersley, Redding, Bonds
21-25. Willis, Monroe, Murphy, Streeter, Mullane
26-30. Strong, McCormick, Greene, Gleason, Grimes

Rusty, you have Eck going PHoM but he's not actually listed on your ballot.

Nevermind, I found him after Puckett. I just figured he was in ahead of Puckett because of the way in which you listed them. Still, Eck not making the ballot?

2004 prelim
1)Hugh Duffy (PHOM)
2)Paul Molitor (PHOM)
3)Ben Taylor (PHOM)
4)Tommy Bridges (PHOM)
5)Kirby Puckett (PHOM)
6)Lefty Gomez (PHOM)
7)Vern Stephens (PHOM)
8)Dale Murphy (PHOM)
9)Dennis Eckersley (PHOM)
10)Gavvy Cravath (PHOM)
11)Bob Johnson (PHOM)
12)Bobby Veach (PHOM)
13)Orlando Cepeda (PHOM)
14)Tony Oliva (PHOM)
15)Al Oliver
The scrubs
16)Bus Clarkson
17)Andre Dawson
((17a)Dwight Evans))
18)Jack Clark
((18a)Darrell Evans))
19)Jim Rice
20)Wally Berger
21)Dizzy Dean
22)Don Mattingly
23)Dan Quisenberry
24)Lee Smith
25)Bruce Sutter
26)Ernie Lombardi
((26a)Jimmy Wynn))
27)Alejandro Oms
28)Reggie Smith
29)Dick Redding (PHOM)
30)Ron Guidry

39)Bucky Walters
43)Tony Perez
55)Roger Bresnahan
56)Pete Browning

I expect Eck will fail to make a lot of ballots. I could be wrong. He looks like a #1 to me. But I expect him to miss on some, too.

Yep, Eck is off the ballot. This isn't because I think he is unworthy (obviously because I am putting him in my PHoM). Rather it is because I think we have missed the boat on a number of other, more deserving candidates. This is a minority view. That is why we vote. :)

Guys like GVH, Perez and Dawson tower over Eck, imo.

2004 prelim

I still have to examine Dennis Martinez and Key more closely, but at present I think it's safe to say they won't make my ballot. Given that...

PHOM: Eck, Molitor, Rizzuto (probably; last PHOM spot still a bit up for grabs among him, Stieb, Frank Howard, and Leach)

1. Eck--He wouldn't get in on either just his relief work (about tenth all-time, just below Henke) or just his starting work alone, but the combination gives him both enough peak (the relief, mostly) and enough bulk (the good starting years, mostly) to edge out the backlog.
2. Dean
3. Williamson
4. Molitor--Not quite what I was expecting. Even if I look at him purely as a 3B, he doesn't get past Williamson. (Then again, I'm quite high on Williamson.) Without a small boost for the impressive postseason numbers, he might be even a little lower (though not much).
5. E. Howard
6. Willis
7. Browning
8. Cravath
9. Tiant
10. Bresnahan
11. Rosen
12. Singleton
13. Duffy
14. McGraw
15. Pesky

meta issue

which set of numbers is better--

A: 9, 6, 1, 3+
B: 8, 6,(x),5

These might represent quality of play plus durability on a scale of 0-10. Maybe each number is 4 or 5 years of combined play; corresponding to a set of peak years (or, when taking 2 together, a set of prime years)

A has a teensy better peak and prime. He also has a teensy higher total (9 + 6 + 1 + 3+ = 19+ , which is > 8+6+5=19)

B, who either retired early, or was injured often, was better on average when he played.

A few of our voters are strict careerists. A few of our voters are strict peak/primies. Many combine the two measures in some fashion.

My fear is this: the tendency for many (most?) to weight peak/prime and career in some fashion such that peak/prime seasons are worth more, while all non-peak/prime years are weighted equally. And so, many (most!?) of our voters will take player A over B. Well, excuse me for saying so, but B's season(s) of "5" value are much more valuable than A's comparable season(s) of "3+", never mind the "1". And from both the a) ballot methodology comments, and b) voting totals, it is clear this is jsut not given much value in our collective minds.

It is clear that we have one "A" player in our collective top 10 (within the good possibility of backlog electability thru '2007') and another contemporary player of similar 'type', well outside the top 10 (probably not gonna get HoMed) who is "B" by most of the metrics we use. And to me, B belongs obviously in before A.

Before I present my particular player case arguments tho, please think through whether this mythical "B" player oughta be preferred over "A".

I expect Eck will fail to make a lot of ballots. I could be wrong. He looks like a #1 to me. But I expect him to miss on some, too.

FWIW, I didn't know if Eckersley would make my ballot, as my method isn't too keen on relievers (Fingers never made my top 15), so I'm surprised that Eckersley is at #4 on my preliminary run through the ballot.

side note - 3-day weekends are the one of the world's best inventions :)

about Elmer Smith
I don't remember anyone ever voting for him -- he was eligible in 1907, before Dan started doing proper lists for us.


I don't know who voted for him, but Elmer Smith received 13 points in 1907 and 8 points in 1908.

The ballots and ballot discussion threads from 1907 are somewhat corrupted, and I saw no reference of Elmer.

I did see marc/sunnyday predicting that eventually we'd have 100 players get votes (ding ding); discussions on perpetual eligibility; where newcomer Duffy should rank among the OF glut; and whether Ezra Sutton should get credit for being the best of a weak field (with a reference to Dave Concepcion and 1970s SSs!

Elmer Smith
I don't remember anyone ever voting for him -- he was eligible in 1907, before Dan started doing proper lists for us.

Au contraire. The first such list was for the 1904 election. It's those corrupted threads dropping the list.

More complete versions of the old threads can be found at Internet Archive.

1907 Discussion thread

1907 Ballot thread

Incidentally, not-Grandma, doesn't Elmer deserve his own thread?

I guess, though you could probably say the same the same for another hundred players of equal value. ;-)

BTW, I keep seeing myself referred to as "not-Grandma," even though I haven't used that as part of my screen name for a couple of years now. The impression it made! :-)

Thanks, DanG, I had looked in vain for the archived stuff.

Here's one ESmith vote from 1907, from Clint:
11. Elmer Smith (--). This is really what you're missing because of my computer crash. I had an extensive discussion of Elmer that I won't repeat here. Here's a summary. Great pitcher in '87 -- tied for most win shares in baseball with Bob Caruthers. Did the Roy Hobbs thing, and came back with seven strong seasons as an outfielder. Great season in '92 as a slash. An MVP candidate in '93 (fouth among position players in baseball in win shares, and within 3 win shares of the leader). Also was in the top ten among position players in win shares in '96 and '98, and had some high quality years in '94-95 and '97 to fill in the seven year period. Not HoM worthy, but certainly ballot worthy.

Meanwhile, I see that Dimino's brother got married the day Joe sent his Aug, 2003 ballot in for "1907 voting"....

Eckersley
1975-79 (age 20-24) - wow, ERA+s of 148, 146, and 138 this young suggest the start of something big.
1980-84 (age 25-29) - league-average pitcher (avg OPS+ of 99, in fact). oh well.
1985 (age 30) - good ERA+ of 130, but only hurled 169 IP.
1986 (age 31) - 201 IP of 89 ERA+. so much for a comeback. Is he done?
1987-92 (age 32-37) - Wow, great RP, including some off-the-charts all-time seasons.
1993-98 (age 38-43) - subpar numbers for a RP; maybe shoulda quit while he was ahead.

What this says to me, again, is how easy is to to be a modern closer.
If we vote him in ahead of contending SPs, are we saying they couldn't have done this in relief?
Ok, they wouldn't have been THIS good from 1987-9. But conversely, what would Eckersley have done if he stayed a starter? Probably nothing of note.

I might vote for Eck, because he has about half a HOM SP recipe, and a brilliant RP peak, and there isn't a ton of competition left (most of my faves already have been elected).

But I can understand the nose-wrinkling going on before he pops onto various ballots.
And I can't see him measuring up near Molitor at all...

(I got no action on this over the weekend, so let me try again before thigns get too busy at the office here; with a little more OOMPH this time to drag out some arguin.......)


Meta-issue

peak / prime / career preferences

I’ll put the conclusion up front, just so you can start thinking of (useless) counter-arguments to my (impervious) logic :)

As a group, we are significantly undervaluing long prime and/or ‘shoulder’ seasons.

This position, if not altered, will possibly lead to election of some players (Dawson, T Perez) with weaker shoulders instead of others (McGraw, VanHaltren, R Smith) with strong ones. How can I feel so sure about this? Lemme try to ‘splain.

All of us are some mix of peak and career. Some differentiate between ‘peak’ and ‘prime’, but these two are sliding scales of the same metric “period of greatness”, where “period” can mean 3 to 10 years, depending on taste of the voter. In the Historical Abstract, James used best 3 (any) years and best 5 consecutive for his system.

In effect, this often comes down to an equation in the form of
VALUE = [all years weighted equally] PLUS [some years weighted more]
or
VALUE = [all years] PLUS [best n years] * X

For those who are career-oriented, X is low (<1/3), so pretty much all years are valued the same.

For those who are peak/prime-oriented, X is high (>1), so the players best n (3 to 8) years are valued at least twice that of the others. For extreme peak/prime voters, “X” is high enough that the other years are not very relevant. ‘Best n’ can be consecutive or non-consecutive, also by voter preference.

When looking at our composite voter then, what we wind up with is that a player’s best years (1 thru 5-to-8) are counted about equally at a higher rate, while his middle-to-lesser years (6-to-9 thru end) are counted equally at a lower rate; and, depending on voter’s system, poor years may be discounted entirely.

I have no problem with a superstar year being much more value than year 12. Nor do I have heartache with those who count them equally (which brings to mind St. Pauls’ quote in the letter to the Romans dealing with debates among the early Christians: “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”). My issue is THIS: <u>those players with long, strong primes are hosed either way</u>. Guys who were just as good in years 7 thru 13 as they ever were do not get bonus credit for a few great seasons, AND they do not get bonus credit for longer primes, as very few voters I’ve seen count years around 10 to 12 any more than year 16 or 20. So you can get into the HoM from career voters by having decent or even sub-par years forever, or you can Jennings- or Koufax- blast your way in the door, but there is little love for the tweeners.

Simple example. Let’s say we give each player-season a score from 1 to 10.

Here are careers of two guys, ordered from best-to-worst. If you’d like, you could slide 3 growth years from middle/back to the front and pretend they both had quick ascents to great play in their 20s and a decline afterward.

Peak+Career (aka PC) 9 9 9 . 8 8 8 . 7 7 7 . 6 5 5 . 4 4 3 . 3 2 2 . 2 2 1 1 .. total=112
Primeyman .. (aka PM) 9 8 8 . 8 8 8 . 7 7 7 . 7 6 6 . 5 5 4 . 4 3 x . x x x x .. total=110

PC has the best peak and prime (by 2 points), and the longest career, although his contribution to his team at the long end was that he filled in a replacement level hole with performance that was barely above replacement level.

PM was better in years 10 through 17 (1 pt / year, 8 total), sustaining a solid level of play for a longer period.

From our voting patterns, peak/primers prefer PC. Careerists ALSO prefer PC. And PM, in my mind, is clearly (only very slightly, but it is still clear) more deserving. There is no friggin’ way that a teensy edge up front and an almost worthless extra amount of play at the end (piling up those fine career ‘grey ink’ ##s) is worth a big advantage in the middle. No …. friggin’ …. way.

What does that mean for our next ballot? I'll tell ya what it means:

Two contemporaries: Reggie Smith, and Tony Perez. Defensive pos & value approx the same. Tony Perez is in our top 10. Reggie S ain't. Which only makes sense if we, as a group, think seasons 8 thru 14 are worth much LESS than seasons 1 thru 4, AND no MORE than seasons 15-22.

Long shoulders are important. Don't ignore them. Stop the madness.

Vote for Reggie, the man who improved every team he joined, and whose teams magically went downhill went he left.

FWIW, I also like Smith much better than Perez, Tom. He's close enough to make my ballot, but I don't think he'll make it for this election.

And then I look at your ballot and see George Van Haltren and Andre Dawson...

I like your philosophy but I'm puzzled by its application on your ballot.

Reggie Smith was 'da man and I have been voting for him since the beginning. I think people must be forgetting to give him Japan credit which he fully deserves.

Not sure I understand your Q correctly enuf to give a response, DL.

One way to deal with TomH's artificial example is to create a threshold. Subtract a certain number m from each of these number, ignore negatives, and simply add up the remaining totals.

As it stands, with m=0, we have PC over PM by 112-110.
If m=1, then we have PM over PC by 93-90
If m=2, then we have PM over PC by 76-70
If m=3, then we have PM over PC by 59-54
If m=4, then we have PM over PC by 43-40
If m=5, then we have PM over PC by 29-28
If m=6, then we have PM over PC by 18-17
If m=7, then we have PC over PM by 9-7
If m=8, then we have PC over PM by 3-1

Setting a low threshold value favors career candidates. Setting a high threshold value favors peak candidates, with these two stipulations: it doesn't care whether the peak years are consecutive, and the longer the peak the better. And intermediate levels of the threshold may be able to pick out a prime candidate - again, the years don't have to be consecutive, the more prime years there are the better, and the higher the peak the better.

TomH's example was pretty carefully rigged, of course. Real cases are likely to be messier.

yeah, 'twas rigged to make a point. But the Smith/Perez comp would be eerily like my example.

One of my other issues with Tony P (not that I think he is totally unworthy; I have him in the mid-20s) is the BP take on his defense. They have him as a very good 3Bman and a near-gold-glove 1Bman for most of his career; very different than contemp opinion or other def metrics. For those who use the Davenport/WARP/BP for most of their ratigs, Perez might be at half a win to one win per year worse than that metric expresses.

One of my other issues with Tony P (not that I think he is totally unworthy; I have him in the mid-20s) is the BP take on his defense. They have him as a very good 3Bman and a near-gold-glove 1Bman for most of his career; very different than contemp opinion or other def metrics. For those who use the Davenport/WARP/BP for most of their ratigs, Perez might be at half a win to one win per year worse than that metric expresses.

I agree with all of this, and I would add that Perez's top 2 seasons by WARP, 1969 and 1970, are treated very favorably in the difficulty adjustment from WARP1 to WARP2. This doesn't make sense to me, as I cannot imagine that many leagues have been easier to dominate than those since integration. They rank very near the top of the list in both projected and actual standard deviation. I believe that Perez is significantly overrated by WARP3, especially with regard to peak, due to its unusual impressions of his defense and league difficulty.

Well, Andre Dawson has about 4 years worth of worthless piling up of grey ink at the end. I'm not sure you're accounting for all of that.

BP has Tony Perez AS VALUABLE as Andre Dawson defensively over their careers (by FRAR). Most everybody would believe that that notion is silly.

I do give Dawson more credit for defense than some of the most-used metrics, which gets him on my ballot.

BP has Tony Perez AS VALUABLE as Andre Dawson defensively over their careers (by FRAR). Most everybody would believe that that notion is silly.

Yep.

I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate the repeated "b.s. detector" comments about the "newfangled" metrics.

It's not that they aren't quite useful at times, but occasionally it seems like someone is just 'going by the book' with them in making out a ballot, which is nutty.

Perez's position, I recall from watching him, was "hitter."

Here's my take on their best 12 years:

Perez (1967-78) hit OPS+ 131 (109/106/125), while averaging 152 games played (adjusting to 162 G schedule).

Smith (1967-75, 77-78, 80) hit OPS+ 140 (112/112/128), while averaging 138 games played.

So, one of the questions is how does an extra 9 points of OPS+ trade off with an extra 14 games per season. To me, that seems like a pretty even trade.

Defense -- Smith was a good/very good outfielder; during his 12-year prime he had 6 seasons in CF, 6 in RF. Perez had 5 seasons at 3B, 7 at 1B; average fielder. A modest edge goes to Smith.

Except there are a couple of other considerations that favor Perez. First, although I don't give him a lot of credit for his play outside his 12-year prime, he did accomplish more than Smith did outside his 12-year prime. (I didn't see much credit going to Smith for Japan, though I'm open to persuasion.) Second, Perez played entirely in the NL, whereas 7 of Smith's 12 prime seasons were in the AL, which was substantially weaker at that time. Those factors are enough for me to place Perez ahead of Smith and, at least in some elections, on my ballot. Smith's not a terrible choice, but I think Perez is ahead.

fopr the 12 years mentioned above, BP's translated stats (which include league strength adjustment) show


player AB .... H .. 2B 3B . HR BB HBP SB CS . BA . OBA . SA
Smith 5898 1708 392 41 360 732 33 116 64 0.290 0.371 0.553
Perez 6747 1945 417 40 414 658 42 . 42 24 0.288 0.355 0.546
diff .... 849 . 237 .25 -1 .. 54 -74 . 9 -74 -40 0.279 0.219 0.497

Perez had an extra 800 plate appearances, in which time he put up an OBA of .219 and a SLG of .497 (i.e., crappy for a hitter's position).

If you include one year of Japan credit, their accomplishments as hitters outside their best 12 years are pretty even; again, more time for Tony, more quality for Reggie.

I don't see Pérez and Smith as *close*...is no one giving Smith credit for playing corner OF when Pérez was playing 1B? That's a substantial difference, like 0.8 wins a year or something...

Maybe OCF could run us his league-contrext-adjusted RCAA for Perez and Smith? If the ###s come out differently than I think they will, I could even be persuaded that I am wrong.

CONTREXT: noun. to construct a string of words or text. Vintage 2007, when some dummy couldn't type very well and made up a new word. Sheesh.

It's not RCAA that's the issue--I can give you BWAA which is the same thing, just a more complete measure--it's RCAP. Or really RCARP, runs created above positional replacement. My numbers on Smith and Pérez are available (along with every other player's) in the Yahoo group. Pérez just wasn't producing at a level much above that of a freely available 1B in the latter years of his "prime" (mid-late 70s).

Smith, Perez and Molitor are very convenient topics, as they perplex me a bit in my analysis. I have quite similar batting credit for all three (Perez slightly behind), by my way of combining OPS+ and playing time. However, taking fielding into account, Smith comes out way ahead, especially over Perez. This has me questioning my valuation of 3B and 1B relative to the glove-oriented positions. I currently place the average 3B halfway between a corner outfielder and a CF. Does this seem reasonable to others?

Anyway, onto a prelim ballot. I tried this week to match my scores for pitchers and batters up on more objective grounds than before, though I'm not altogether happy with the results. I was trying to compare runs created numbers with runs saved as derived from ERA, which may be a bit dubious. However, I did conclude that I was giving batters more credit than pitchers for average seasons, which led me to alter a few things, so that I'm a bit more peak friendly to batters (just slightly). Meanwhile, I also refined my year-by-year fielding credit, and year-by-year innings pitched numbers, with some minor effects on order.

Preliminary ballot (previous):

1. Dennis Eckersley (N/A): Does extremely well in my new pitcher ratings. Probably better than I'd like in some of his relieving years. Safely on top, though.
2. Reggie Smith (3): Popular topic. I like him a lot.
3. Paul Molitor (N/A): As I was saying, Molitor gives me trouble. He comes out similar to Smith as a hitter. Okay, fine, as I said, I like Smith a lot. But he drops towards the bottom of my ballot when I add in fielding credit. That doesn't seem right to me and I'm pulling him up here for now.
4. Tommy Bridges (5): My favorite of the backlog pitchers
5. Dave Concepcion (4): Also stays in position
6. Pete Browning (21): Big winner this week. Only slight changes in assumptions would have put him on the ballot last week, and he moved up with every alteration I made during this one.
7. Ed Cicotte (14): Improves on IP adjust, and a very good hitter, it seems, moving him up over Joss.
8. Jimmy Ryan (12): Does a little better, with more time in CF than I'd had.
9. Bus Clarkson (11): I'm giving a bump to would-be-negro-leaguers from his era, using Monroe as my reference point. Others in line for that honor, in my system, are Williams, Estalella, and Howard, in that order.
10. Bill Monroe (8): My favorite remaining negro leaguer. Slight drop to others.
11. Roger Bresnehan (14): Peak credit cancelled by worse fielding score.
12. Phil Rizzuto (9): Drops only because others moved up. Still an excellent candidate, in my mind.
13. Andre Dawson (10): Biggest discrepency between career and peak on my ballot, using my measurements.
14. Addie Joss (6): Dropped slightly on innings adjustment, pitcher hitting
15. George Van Haltren (15): Good old George hangs on.

16. Wally Schang (big gain on fielding adjustment)
17. Dave Bancroft (another big gainer, more due to peak this time)
18. Bob Johnson (bumped but still strong)
19. Virgil Trucks
20. Bucky Walters (19)
21. Dick Redding (20-still lumped in here with my bunch'o'war pitchers)
22. Fred Lynn
23. Lefty Gomez
24. Gavy Cravath
25. Bruce Sutter
26. Johnny Pesky
27. Graig Nettles (another data point that I value 3B too little?)
28. Ben Taylor
29. Rabbit Maranville
30. Alejandro Oms

Kirby Puckett (48 to 35) Still a short career, but moving up.
Hugh Duffy (46 to 43) Same trend as Kirby, just less so.
Tony Perez (31 to 48) Big loser of the week. Not nearly so happy with the defensive value as I'd been, and of course fares badly with even a slight move toward peak value.

TomH asked for this, and Kenn's prelim ballot, with Molitor below Smith, cause me to add Molitor to it. It has been pointed out that Smith had very different in-season durability than Perez, so I'm adding the name of someone with extreme durability problems but who shows up fabulously well in RCAA: Frank Chance.

First, the chart the way I've always run it:



Now let me switch to a different mode: instead of RCAA, I'll use RC above 75% of average. Note that this is absolutely not what DanR would do - no allowance for position, no allowance for league strength, no allowance for the spread of results in that league. Each of these four played a combination of positions; it's a different combination of positions for each. Make your own allowances. In any case, "above 75% of average" tilts things just a smidge in favor of those who could stay in the lineup.



I'm not sure how much this will convince anyone of anything. However, referring back to TomH's post #51: is it really Molitor that's his "PM"? Are you adequately crediting his prime-shoulder seasons?

I don't think it is right to drop Molitor in terms of fielding credit. He played a lot of 3B and 2B. I also think your fielding credit is incorrect. 3B is much closer to CF than it is to corner OF - halfway underrates 3B.

Kenn, if you look at my chart of replacement levels over time in the StDevs and Rep Levels.xls file in the Rosenheck WARP Data.zip file in the Hall of Merit Yahoo group, you'll see that replacement for 3B and CF runs roughly even from about 1950 to the present.

I think that's right. I classify 3B and CF as "hybrids," as distinguished from "hitters" (1B, LF, RF, DH) and "gloves" (C, SS, 2B). (Before about 1920 I have the 2B as the hybrids and the 3B as the gloves.)

Anyway, WS has Reggie2 at 52 career defensive WS and Paulie at 46. That seems about right, which is to say that as an order of magnitude, they're pretty much equal. Paulie gets more credit for 2B and 3B than Reggie gets for CF, but even a RF gets more defensive credit than a DH. So it balances out. Not to say that 6 WS is 6 WS, but again, to me they're pretty even.

Add in the offense and in total Paulie has (I'm guessing, with Japan credit for Reggie) about a 60-70 career WS edge PLUS a slightly higher peak (30-30-29 vs. 29-29-25). Those then add up to a not insignificant edge in Paul's favor, though I too have had Reggie on my ballot in the past.

It's not RCAA that's the issue--I can give you BWAA which is the same thing, just a more complete measure

Dan, that sounds a bit huffy, altho I doubt you meant it that way. I don't see a full explanation of BWAA on the DanR WARP thread. Can you explain BWAA? OCF's adjusted RCAA is RCAA from Sinins, adjusted for league R/G context, if I understand it correctly.

From a Stats, Inc. Handbook, not Sinins - the numbers are a little different with the different source.

I certainly didn't mean to come across that way, sorry. BWAA is simply batting wins above average (including things like double play avoidance, sac flies, etc.), straight line adjusted for sesaon length and with no DH or position adjustment. I calculate it simply by setting SB, CS, EqBR, and FRAA to zero and seeing how many games an otherwise league-average team would win by adding that player. The methodology for that calculation is described at the very beginning of the thread on my WARP, although I'd be happy to rehash it for you if that would be useful.

Okay, re-read it, understand. So basically, BWAA + baserunning AA approx = adjusted RCAA, if the RCAA were re-denominated in wins.

Except without a DH adjustment.

Kenn
This has me questioning my valuation of 3B and 1B relative to the glove-oriented positions. I currently place the average 3B halfway between a corner outfielder and a CF. Does this seem reasonable to others?

I like CF but I believe this overrates CF or underrates 3B even in modern times.

Equally important, the difference between CF and LF or RF is a matter of great disagreement here, especially if you seek a single best adjustment for all-time purpose. So it may not be easy to interpret answers to this question. There is more consistent opinion on 1B (all but deadball era) or on 2B (modern). What does your premium for CF over 3B mean in terms of the premium for each over 1B, or under 2B?

Anyway, onto a prelim ballot. I tried this week to match my scores for pitchers and batters up on more objective grounds than before, though I'm not altogether happy with the results. I was trying to compare runs created numbers with runs saved as derived from ERA, which may be a bit dubious. However, I did conclude that I was giving batters more credit than pitchers for average seasons,
[emphasis mine]

Because you are a newcomer, I guess that you have discovered this by focusing on recent players. No relative accounting for pitcher runs and batter runs that is uniform for all time can be fair to pitchers and batters. I doubt that any one can be fair for even half of mlb history.

TomH:
When looking at our composite voter then, what we wind up with is that a player’s best years (1 thru 5-to-8) are counted about equally at a higher rate, while his middle-to-lesser years (6-to-9 thru end) are counted equally at a lower rate; and, depending on voter’s system, poor years may be discounted entirely.

I believe there is enough variety in notions of peak that the composite voter gives declining weight to a player's nth best seasons all the way down at least from 2 to 10. That is at the "2" end, some voters rate 200-200-140 significantly better than 180-180-180. Maybe no difference between 9 and 10 but some count a 10-year prime so there is a significant decline from 10 to 11.

I have no problem with a superstar year being much more value than year 12. Nor do I have heartache with those who count them equally (which brings to mind St. Pauls’ quote in the letter to the Romans dealing with debates among the early Christians: “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”). My issue is THIS: those players with long, strong primes are hosed either way. Guys who were just as good in <u>years 7 thru 13</u> as they ever were do not get bonus credit for a few great seasons, AND they do not get bonus credit for longer primes, as very few voters I’ve seen count <u>years around 10 to 12</u> any more than year 16 or 20.
[emphasis mine]

. . . so I suspect the latter is true of years 11 to 13 but not even 10 to 12, much less 7 to 13!

Elmer Flick, 10-year prime. (Too good to be a telling case here?)
Jackie Robinson, 8 plus some extra credit. (Also too good?)

If Charley Jones and Earl Averill have been elected only by some voters granting them credit for 1881-82 and 1928 or more, then they are examples of crucial 11-12 year primes.
Larry Doby has a crucial 10-1/2 year without extra credit.

13-year prime?
There is Bob Johnson (who should be the paradigm case for TomH, eh?)
plus Averill and Doby (no longer candidates) in the estimation of their most generous interpreters.

I currently place the average 3B halfway between a corner outfielder and a CF.

It does to Bill James.

IIRC, the fielding weights used by Win Shares in the modern era have 3B at 12 and OF at 29 (collectively). He also states elsewhere that he expects CF to get at least half the OF shares, which puts that at roughtly 15 for CF and 7 apiece for LF/RF. With corner OF at 7, 3B at 12, and CF at 15, then 3B is just north of halfway between (which would be 11).

What I think of this allocation is a separate issue.

Paul, jimd, and others,

Thanks a lot for the feedback on 3B and outfield. Moving 3B up would certainly bring me more in line with concensus, and I appreciate hearing the different ways people come to their conclusions. When I first tried to weight positions, I did it by my best guess of where a good 2B would fall as a SS, a good RF or LF as a CF, etc., then tweaked those numbers until the positional balance seemed reasonable. I started out relative values of:

1B-RF/LF-3B-CF-2B-SS
10 - 20 - 25 - 30 - 40 - 50

Above average or below average fielding I then adjusted relative to those values within about 15 points above or below (RF vs. LF becoming part of that adjustment, though I keep them pretty close). The best 2B would then be a slightly above average SS, the best corner outfielder a slightly above average CF, etc. This seemed generous to fielding positions, but I am a bit biased that direction to begin with.

This week, I decided to scale most of this down, primarily because Molitor did implausibly badly when receiving 0 credit for DH time. A new scale, with 3B upgraded, would be

1B-RF/LF-3B-CF-2B-SS
5-10-20-20-32-42

Still, this is all pretty subjective. What's more, these values will change over time, as will (as Paul mentioned) pitching. I have some of the big shifts (i.e. early 2B-3B) taken into account, but not much more. One way to be more rigorous would be to take positional average hitting performances by year, and see that my combined fielding and hitting scores would give similar grades across positions. I've been a bit reluctant to use hitting differences as a direct proxy for fielding worth, though. I'd also like to look at the number of plays fielded by position over time, and see if that adds any insight. Pitching-wise, I have some ideas, but my first attempt fell flat.

In general, I'm certain that uberstats and more involved studies will be more precise than what I try to do. However, I really prefer to know exactly what is counted in my calculations of worth, and at this point need to evaluate a large number of players relatively quickly. I definitely appreciate comments. Thanks!

A really good hit/no field 1B or corner OF might earn as little as 10 percent of their WS on defense, 90 percent on offense.

A really good field/no hit SS or occasionally 2B might earn as much as 40 or 50 percent of their WS on defense.

A better test might be a guy who does both well.

Cal Ripken B+ glove, 113 OPS+ with a peak of 164-146-145 is 32 percent defense
Arky Vaughan B+, 136 OPS+ with a peak of 187-148-146 is 23 percent defense (the O just overwhelms the D)
Lou Boudreau A+, 121 OPS+ with peak of 166-131-129* is 32 percent (OPS+ adj due to WWII and a 97 game 133 is rejected)

Keith Hernandez A-, 129 (152-47-45) is 11 percent defense
Don Mattingly A-, 128 (163-59-59) is is also 11 percent defense
Bill Terry A+, 137 (159-58-50) is 12 percent defense

Ken Griffey Jr A- glove, 16 percent
Hugh Duffy A+, 20 percent
Willie Mays A+, 16 percent
Kirby Puckett A+, 21 percent

sd2, thanks for the comparison. Of those players on hand, I only have Kirby and Mattingly on hand, but for them I have:

Kirby Puckett: 21%
Don Mattingly: 12%

Ok, that's pretty cool. And my favorite not entirely no-hit SS, Dave Concepcion, is at 35%. I imagine an even worse hitter would rise to the 40-50% area.

On the other hand:

Pete Browning (poor corner): 4%
Eddie Murray (average? 1B): 4%

The really good hit, low fielding positions still seem to get penalized, at least relative to WS. I already suspected a problem based on Murray and Molitor's surprisingly low scores, but even my revised scale doesn't eliminate it.

Huh?? If I'm not mistaken, the consensus is that WS *under* rates gloves relative to bats...

I'm only having a couple problems getting things adjusted to use DanR's numbers entirely. One is catcher bonus - I can't seem to get it right by trial and error. Should I be adjusting WARP up or BWAR or both? The other is getting CF to better match consensus - they're consistently showing up low on my positional balance. This conversation is helping.

Dan R,

WS underrates gloves in which way? Bat positions get more credit relative to fielding positions, or fielding gets less credit across the board? I used a lower hitting baseline than I normally do in the comparison above, specifically to look more like WS, because I'm mostly interested in relative positional values at this point (even so, I'm suprised by how similar some of those cases turned out). If your criticism is the latter, then the higher baseline I normally use explains why fielders still do quite well on my ballot.

My theory, though, is that 1B and corner outfield should probably be a bit higher on the scale I use, whether it is weighted like WS or not relative to batting. The results above are one reason, and the relatively poor showings of Murray (still on top of the ballot, but much closer to the pack than for most people) and Molitor (bottom half of ballot if I don't make a subjective adjustment) are what have me worried about this in the first place. If your criticism of WS is that it is too friendly to hitting-oriented positions, then you'd be saying that the examples above are not evidence of this. Which interpretation are you aiming for?

WS weights defensive excellence at all positions less than other metrics like WARP or TPR. But still much more than MVP voters :)

DL from MN--I'd definitely make an adjustment to the final WARP2 number. The size and form of the catcher bonus is still wide open for me. I did a quick study showing that C careers are about 80% as long (measured in years as a team's starter) as those of other position players, and that they played about 75% as many games per season as other position players during the deadball era, just under 85% from 1920-70 and then again in the 2000s, and close to 90% from 1970-2000. Interestingly, this jives with my finding that C rep level was at its all time high from 1970-2000 and has fallen a lot in this decade. Make of that data what you will. There is no "one right answer" to this issue.

CF are given a flat 0.5 stdev-adjusted wins per 162 games boost relative to corner OF in my system. My all-time rankings (by salary) are chock full of CF, for whatever that's worth--Cobb/Speaker/Mays are 5/6/7, Mantle 11, DiMaggio 24...those are pretty close to consensus views, no? Which CF do you think are being underrated relative to consensus? Mention some specific examples to me so I can get a better sense of where you're coming from.

Kenn--just see how many SS are in the top 50/100/150 using BP WARP on the one hand vs WS on the other. For example, Concepción has more WARP3 than Willie Stargell, but 27% fewer WS.

WS underrates gloves in which way?

I believe WS underrates gloves going backwards in history relative to the weight/credit given to pitchers for preventing runs.

Bancroft is a great example - I think I used this in the Molitor Thread:

Win Shares:
Molitor - 414
Bancroft - 269

WARP1
Molitor - 112
Bancroft - 111

I do have Bancroft ahead of Molitor, but be careful using WARP1 for pre-WWII middle infielders. The FRAR numbers they get are batty. Tommy Corcoran is Exhibit A.