Burleigh Grimes “Ol Stubblebeard”

Team: Pit 1916-17, Bro 1918-26, NYN 1927, Pit 1928-29, BosN 1930, StLN 1930-31, ChiN 1932-33, StLN 1933-34, Pit 1934, NYA 1934.
Record: 270-212 / 3.52 ERA, 4.41 RA, 3.79 LERA / 1.17 k/w / 12.29 WH9IP
Win Shares: career: 286
3 consecutive yrs: 72
7 non-consecutive yrs: 181
per 40 gs (start + .6(relief appearances): 20.1
20 in a season: 7
25: 4
30: 2
All-Stars: Win Shares league all star: 6 time (1918, 1920, 1921, 1924, 1928, 1929) with 1 time best in NL (1921). STATS league all star: 5 (1918, 1920, 1921, 1928, 1929)
Fibonacci Win Points: 209
ERA+: 107
Chris J.’s Tools: Run Support Index 106.67 (48th all-time out of 191), Defensive Win Shares Support 4.1 (108th / 191)
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 38/212
Bill James Rank: 62
Top 10s: ERA 6 times with 2 firsts. ERA+ 6 times with 1 first. Wins 11 times with 2 firsts. Win% 7 times with 1 first. Ks 8 times with 1 first. IP 10 times with 3 firsts. WHIP 5 times. H/9 5 times. K/9 8 times with 1 first.

Dolf Luque “The Pride of Havana”

Team: BosN 1914-15, Cin 1918-29, Bro 1930-31, NYN 1932-35.
Record: 193-179 / 3.24 ERA, 3.95 RA, 3.93 LERA / 1.23 k/w / 11.60 WH9IP
Win Shares: career: 241
3 consecutive yrs: 80
7 non-consecutive yrs: 154
per 40 gs (start + .6(relief appearances): 20.2
20 in a season: 3
25: 2
30: 1
All-Stars: Win Shares league all star: 3 times (1921, 1923, 1925) with 1 time best in NL (1923), 1 time best in Majors (1923). STATS league all star: 1 (1923)
Fibonacci Win Points: 114
ERA+: 117
Chris J.’s Tools: Run Support Index 91.81 (180th all-time out of 191), Defensive Win Shares Support 9.0 (51st / 191)
Black Ink/Grey Ink: 27/134
Bill James Rank: Not listed in top 100, I assume 100-200
Top 10s: ERA 6 times with 2 firsts. ERA+ 4 times with 2 firsts. Wins 3 times. Win% 4 times with 2 firsts. Ks 5 times with 1 first. IP 5 times. WHIP 7 times with 1 first. H/9 6 times with 3 firsts. K/9 3 times.

Here are the w-l records Holway has for Luque in Cuban Winter League play. There's a statistical encyclopedia of Cuban baseball out there, which probably has more complete and more reliable records, but this can give us something to start working on.

Dolf Luque Cuban Record, from Holway

1913 2-4
1914 7-4 in Winter league; 3-0 vs. NY Lincoln Stars
1915 12-5 in Winter League; 5-2 vs. ABCs
1916 4-4
1917 no data
1918 no data
1919 10-4; 6-3 vs. major-league competition
1920 4-2
1921 no data
1922 11-9
1923 4-2
1924 3-0
1925 3-4
1926 no data
1927 6-4
1928 8-2
1929 4-0
1930 no data
1931 no data
1932 2-2
1933 no data
1934 6-2
1935 4-2
1936 no data
1937 0-1

career 90-51 in Winter league play
104-56 with games vs. NeL and ML opponents added

Dolf Luque also played in 1912 for the Cuban Stars (West), which was classified as an independent Negro League team -- not a Cuban team. I don't have his record for that year, though. Maybe Chris Cobb does, since he listed the stats for Luque's teammate Pelayo Chacon in Chacon's thread.

After that, I believe he converted to Caucasian and started pitching for whites-only teams. He pitched for Long Branch in the NY/NJ league in 1912 and 1913. Baseball Library lists him at 22-5 for Long Branch in 1913.

Neither Holway nor Riley lists any record for Luque from his 1912 stint in black baseball.

What's Luque's story? Was he kept out of baseball by the color line at some point or not?

The text at BaseballLibrary.com:

One of the first Cubans to succeed in the majors, Luque came to the U.S. in 1912 to pitch for Long Branch (NY-NJ League) and was 22-5 in 1913. After a couple of unsuccessful trials with the Braves, he caught on with the Reds during WWI and stayed for 12 seasons.

Indicates that he was in the US playing minor league ball at an early age, but took a while to stick in MLB. Do we give him credit for both MLB & Cuban ball?

This is a conundrum of the first order. Luque, based solely on his ML record, is no more than about the 10th or 12th (or maybe even low, but I don't think any higher) best pitcher available.

But what, in this case to make of his Cuban record?

In Mendez' case, the Cuban record is the primary means of determining "what kind of player he was." His value (defined as ML value comparable to most other players) is not determinable. We have to settle for "what kind of player was he" and his Cuban record suggests that he was the kind of player who would have accumulated a fair amount of value in the MLs if given the chance.

And it suggests he was a better pitcher than Luque.

In Luque's case, his ML record seems to provide a clear pitcher of "what kind of player he was" as well as of his value in a ML environment.

So, does he get extra credit for his stellar work in Cuba? Unlike most cases of "extra credit" (Cravath, the WWI and II cases) here we're not talking about what he would have done if he had had the chance, we're talking about what he did in between those chances. Do we allow him to accumulate additional value in the winter? Or not?

I don't think we've ever had a case quite like this.

It is analogous to a player, like maybe D'Angelo Jiminez that plays in the Dominican in the offseason. I wouldn't give Jiminez any extra credit, were he anywhere near good enough of course, but Luque might be different. I guess I want to hear why we should give him full credit for this.

would we give extra credit to Eppa Rixey if he terrorized winter ball in the Ohio farmland?

BTW I should add the other obvious question. Isn't Luque "the missing link"? I mean between ML and NeL baseball? Except that of course you have to go through Mendez to get the whole link. But anyway:

Luque is somewhere in the 5th to 10th range for his era (say 1910-1940). Mendez was better in Cuba but in the same cluster. Mendez was perhaps not quite as good as Redding in the NeL but in the same range.

So given the chance to pitch a normal career in the MLs (of course, Luque did have that opportunity, give or take a year maybe), none is a NB. All are somewhere in the borderline cluster, but maybe not at the head of the borderline cluster.

I wonder if I have been overrating Mendez and Redding just by having them on my ballot, sometimes as high as 6-8 but more recently lower than that. Have I lowered them enough having them in 12-14 range?

And by this logic, Luque belongs where I had him before. No extra credit for pitching in the winter, and his success would suggest that Cuba wasn't as good as the MLs (well, we knew that), that a guy who dominated in Cuba was at best a borderline candidate for the HoM. And if he's not as good as Mendez, who's not as good as Redding, who may or may not deserve to rate as highly as 12th, then Luque cannot possibly make my ballot.

This is a hypothesis. How does it sound?

Isn't Luque "the missing link"? I mean between ML and NeL baseball?

Yes. I haven't had time to work on the implications as much as I'd like yet, and having team w-l records, IP, and ERA for Luque's Cuban career would help make conversions more reliable, but I think Luque does give us a good data point for judging ML pitchers against NeL pitchers.

On giving Luque credit: My view is that he doesn't get credit for winter ball when he was playing in the majors, any more than Torriente was getting Cuban credit on top of NeL credit.

However, all that I have read suggests that Luque was slow catching on in the majors because he was Cuban. Teams were wary of signing him and held him to a higher standard. My conclusion from his Cuban record is that he was good enough to break into the majors in 1915, when he was 25, which would have given him 300-400 more ML IP.

On Luque vs. Mendez: Mendez at his best was definitely a better pitcher than Luque, but Luque had 20-year career as a pitcher.

So what do you think, about a season and a half worth of credit for him at a reasonably typical rate for his career?

FWIW, I 100% agree on his winter league ball not counting for him. Unless we're going to start giving credit to the major leaguers who barnstormed in their off time.

Here are a few quotes on Luque from The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria (pp. 144-45):

"Luque was born in Havana on August 4, 1890...He was also of modest extraction, so when the republican army was organized, he enlisted and became an artilleryman. He also became a baseball star as a hard-hitting third baseman on an army team. The Marqueses of the Vedado Tennis Club, the exclusive society that fielded one of the best amatuer teams in Cuba, recruited him. But Adolfo had such an arm that he became a pitcher, soon signed by Fe [a team in the Cuban League]..."

[discussion of his major league career]

"Luque became the toast of Cuba, where he was also having great seasons during the winters. Luque became the new Mendez but was as different from "The Black Diamond" as he was from Miguel Angel. Mendez was a polite, unassuming man. Luque was the opposite. He was a snarling, vulgar, cursing, aggressive pug, who, though small at five-seven, was always ready to fight. He was known as a headhunter, who mastered the art of pitching close to the batter...In the majors Luque endured being the butt of many racial epithets...to which he responded with murderous beanballs..."

"In the United States Luque was inevitably known as the 'Havana Perfecto' or 'The Pride of Havana,' after cigars. But in Cuba his nickname was "Papa Montero," after a legendary Afro-Cuban rumba dancer and pimp...celebrated in songs and poems."

Luque was prominent in Cuba and Mexico as a successful manager for many years after his retirement.

Gonzalez doesn't mention Luque playing with either of the Cuban Stars teams (East or West). He says, however, that the Cuban Stars occassionally fielded a white Cuban.

Gonzalez says the following about the Long Branch team (p. 141):

"...according to Peter C. Bjarkman, the Long Branch Cubans, organized by Dr. Antonio Hernandez Henriquez, a Cuban entrepreneur residing in New Jersey, played in the New Jersey-New York State League. Proximity to New York, and the fact that professional baseball was not played there on the Sabbath, allowed the Cuban players to showcase their talents before major league teams, who 'often supplemented sparse travel money by scheduling exhibition contests with the conveniently located Long Branch team on the available Sunday afternoon dates.' A chief beneficiary was Adolfo Luque, who was signed by the Boston Braves. Luque, in fact, went 22 and five with Long Branch in 1913, a year in which they received some coverage in Havana's Baseball Magazine, where...the team...was called an 'academy' for Cubans with major league ambitions. Long Branch won the championship of the New York-New Jersey League in 1913, with Juan Viola leading the league in hits with 131 and Luque in winning percentage with .815. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the following players performed with Long Branch during the two years in which the team seems to have been active: Jose Acosta, Angel Aragon, Tomas del Calvo, Migue Angel Gonzalez, Jose Maria Gutierrez, Fidel Hungo, Adolfo Luque, Luis Padron, Tomas Romanach, Ricardo Torres, and Juan Viola. This is a squad made up of stars, quite a few of them bound for the majors. Another common denominator is that they are all white."

In my view, non-major-league experience is good for determining the ability of the player. It is not, of course, as good as a full season of actual major league experience. From 1919 on, therefore, Cuban/ Negro League numbers don't actually get us any new information. It's like taking a small sample after doing the full count. If it confirms what we know from the majors, it is redundant, and if it contradicts it, well, it is too small of a sample to change our conclusions.

For the years 1912-1918, however, Dolf Luque had fewer than 100 major league innings. If you view "race" as a continuum rather than just (literal and metaphorical) "black and white", then it is clear to me that Luque was held to a 'higher standard', as Chris states above.

The fact that Luque was relatively swarthy, and has a large body of (incomplete) pre-1919 statistics from alternate leagues, clearly separates him from the "late bloomer" players like Sam Leever on the one hand or Joe McGinnity on the other.

In general, I am much more pursuaded by the alternate-league stats and impressions than I am by the low ERA+ numbers earned in the majors in 13 innings before 1918.

Apply a "racism factor", then I am adding 600 "lost-innings" at his career 117 ERA+. That is about 3 years worth of lost time over the 7 years from 1912 to 1918. I consider this a reasonable addition -- neither conservative, like I was in excluding all of Faber's minor league numbers, nor all-inclusive, as I am with Cravath's PCL/AA numbers.

Adding 600 innings gives Luque 3800 career IP -- fewer than either Rixey or Faber, and with an intermediate peak. Since I had Faber/Rixey 1/2 last year, I will probably have Luque a little lower -- in the 6 to 8 range, but safely "on ballot".

fwiw, I see Luque as having a major-league equivalent ERA+ of 97 for his 1913-16 Cuban play, so I don't think he would have hit his career-average quality until 1917 or 1918.

That's why the innings pitched credit I will be using is a bit lower than Phillybooster's, but I think it's pretty certain Luque ought to be getting credit for his Cuban play prior to breaking into the majors.

The Cuban years may place him on my ballot, since Luque is not that far off with just his major league career.

I have Luque's major league RA+-equivalent record as 203-154. By itself, that's not enough to put him on my ballot when I'm already not voting for Griffith (203-146), Cicotte (209-149), Adams (201-132, but needs defense adjustment) or Cooper (220-166). He's sort of a pitcher's parallel case to Sisler: his 1923 and 1925 seasons are great, but he doesn't have the #3-#8 seasons to really go along with that.

I'm hearing calls above to add maybe 450-600 innings to his record to account for twilight racism slowing his progress. That would be 50-67 more decisions. But how effective should we assume he was in those innings? Phillybooster said I am adding 600 "lost-innings" at his career 117 ERA+. The parallel in my system would be to assume the .568 equivalent winning percentage I have for his whole career. That seems too generous to me, since outside of his two great season his equivalent WP was .535. If I assume 450 innings at a .535 WP, that would bring him to 230-178. That would make a case for him, but not an overwhelming case, and certainly not enough to make him competitive with Rixie in my mind.

My relative ranking of "guys who had lots and lots of career IP":

Rixie > Willis > Powell > Quinn > Grimes

Sorry, Burleigh.

According to DERA, Grimes had crappy defenses behind him. That should be taken into account when ranking him.

fwiw, I see Luque as having a major-league equivalent ERA+ of 97 for his 1913-16 Cuban play, so I don't think he would have hit his career-average quality until 1917 or 1918.


Hmmm...that's going to make him a borderline candidate for my ballot. He may just miss it by a whisker.

Before 2004, 29 pitchers in baseball history have pitched at least 3000 innings or had 200 support-neutral Wins fromtheir age-28 season onward. (I also added Dazzy Vance, who fell just short on both counts, giving us a group of 30 pitchers.)

Player      ERA+     snW      snL     snWPCT    RSAA      IP
Grove       149      249      111      .692     593     3223.0
Johnson     135      227      135      .627     276     3136.0
Alexander   136      283      149      .655     417     3851.0
Young       135      395      222      .640     551     5500.1
Keefe       129      212      132      .616     242     3068.2
Spahn       126      310      227      .577     266     4556.2
Gibson      128      207      121      .631     284     3022.0
LUQUE       123      209      153      .577     201     3124.0
Faber       121      221      163      .576     218     3400.2
Seaver      121      194      140      .581     220     3141.2
Perry       120      293      203      .591     307     4573.2
Radbourne   121      247      168      .595     205     3736.0
Plank       125      251      165      .603     223     3599.0
Rixey       116      211      167      .558     164     3328.0
Ryan        116      240      199      .547     154     3933.1
McGinnity   118      230      158      .593     238     3441.0
Sutton      114      207      177      .539     108     3524.2
Wynn        112      224      188      .544     120     3497.0
Quinn       113      230      173      .571     212     3406.0
John        110      200      173      .536     88      3331.2
Niekro      110      331      249      .571     320     5264.1
Hutchison   109      195      150      .565     156     3061.0
Carlton     109      223      174      .562     169     3606.0
Hough       107      216      187      .536     103     3548.2
Koosman     106      188      165      .533     145     3100.1
Newsom      104      192      173      .526     95      3244.1
Kaat        102      179      160      .528     59      3015.1
M. Brown    141      215      106      .670     260     2759.0
Hubbell     134      209      125      .626     288     2957.0
Vance       127      197      136      .592     258     2933.1

Out of this group of 30, Luque ranks 12th in ERA+ at 123. All 11 pitchers ahead of him are in the HOM or are first-ballot selections when they become eligible. The next eight pitchers on the list are in the HOM or will be serious candidates for induction when they become eligible. The ten closest to Luque in ERA+:

Tim Keefe* 129
Bob Gibson 128
Dazzy Vance 127
Warren Spahn 126
Eddie Plank* 125
DOLF LUQUE 123
Red Faber* 121
Tom Seaver 121
Gaylord Perry 120
Old Hoss Radbourne* 120
Joe McGinnity* 118

Out of this group of 30, Luque is tied with Carl Hubbell for 20th in snW. Sixteen of the 19 pitchers ahead of him are in the HOM or serious candidates for induction. The three who I have questions about are Jack Quinn, Early Wynn and Charlie Hough. Three of the next five behind Luque are first-ballot HOMers and the others are Don Sutton and Tommy John:

Red Faber* 221
Charlie Hough 216
T.F. Brown* 215
Tim Keefe* 212
Eppa Rixey 211
DOLF LUQUE 209
Carl Hubbell 209
Bab Gibson 207
Don Sutton 207
Dazzy Vance 200
Tommy John 200

Out of this group of 30, Luque is tied with Warren Spahn for 15th in snWPCT. The ten closest pitchers to Luque:

Joe McGinnity* .593
Dazzy Vance .592
Gaylord Perry .591
Tom Seaver .581
DOLF LUQUE .577
Warren Spahn .577
Red Faber* .576
Phil Niekro .571
Jack Quinn .571
Bill Hutchison .565
Steve Carlton .562

All statistics courtesy of The Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia.

James, who are you supporting this year? :-D

According to DERA, Grimes had crappy defenses behind him. That should be taken into account when ranking him.

True, but his DERA is still higher than that of any of the other serious pitcher candidates. For most pitchers, their DERA+ is not as good as their ERA+. For Grimes, the two are about equal:

ERA+ 107
DERA+ 106

Compare

Rixey
ERA+ 115
DERA+ 112

Luque
ERA+ 117
DERA+ 112

ERA+ 107
DERA+ 106

Chris, where are you getting the league average totals for DERA?

I'm hearing calls above to add maybe 450-600 innings to his record to account for twilight racism slowing his progress. That would be 50-67 more decisions. But how effective should we assume he was in those innings? Phillybooster said I am adding 600 "lost-innings" at his career 117 ERA+. The parallel in my system would be to assume the .568 equivalent winning percentage I have for his whole career. That seems too generous to me, since outside of his two great season his equivalent WP was .535. If I assume 450 innings at a .535 WP, that would bring him to 230-178. That would make a case for him, but not an overwhelming case, and certainly not enough to make him competitive with Rixie in my mind.

I agree. I gave Luque credit for several hundred additional innings, but when I do I roughly get...

JACK QUINN!

and that's probably not going to be enough to make my ballot.

Scratch that question, Chris: Is DERA adjusted for park?

ERA+ 107
DERA+ 106

So this is telling us that Grimes is basically the same pitcher regardless of defense in relation to the other pitchers in the league. Does that make sense? If Grimes had average defenses behind him (instead of the crap he actually had), wouldn't his ERA+ have been greater? Color me confused.

Color me confused.

It would appear that in Grimes' case ERA managed to compensate for the "crappiness" of the defenses behind them. (A low range defense will give up hits that should have been caught, hurting his ERA. A high range defense will catch balls that typically would have been hits, helping his ERA. An average range defense will give up an average amount of hits, and then ERA compensates appropriately for the errors, as long as they are randomly distributed.)

Chris, where are you getting the league average totals for DERA?

From the bp glossary. DERA is a normalized stat: average is always 4.50.

From the bp glossary. DERA is a normalized stat: average is always 4.50.

I realized it right after I made my post, Chris. That's why I asked you to forget about it in my next post. :-) Thanks, anyway!

(A low range defense will give up hits that should have been caught, hurting his ERA. A high range defense will catch balls that typically would have been hits, helping his ERA. An average range defense will give up an average amount of hits, and then ERA compensates appropriately for the errors, as long as they are randomly distributed.)

Maybe, but his normalized DERA is actually lower than his ERA+. That's hard for me to swallow.

Chris:

fwiw, I see Luque as having a major-league equivalent ERA+ of 97 for his 1913-16 Cuban play, so I don't think he would have hit his career-average quality until 1917 or 1918.


In the four years from 1913-1916, you have his Cuban Record at 25-17, and project an ERA+ of 97. In his peak, from 1922-1925, you have his Cuban record as 21-15, while we know his ERA+ in the majors was about 150. When all we have are Cuban numbers, it is likely the best we can do to try to project them onto the major leagues, but when we have 3000+ actual major league innings, isn't our sample size large enough to reasonably project back, and give us a more relevant answer than attempting to translate seven decisions per year into a MLE?

See below:

OCF:

But how effective should we assume he was in those innings? Phillybooster said I am adding 600 "lost-innings" at his career 117 ERA+. The parallel in my system would be to assume the .568 equivalent winning percentage I have for his whole career. That seems too generous to me, since outside of his two great season his equivalent WP was .535.

Of the 29 pitchers Mr. Newburg lists as having 3000 innings from their age 28 season, Luque ranks 27th in Major League innings pitched before his age 28 season (more than only Hutchison (17) and McGinnity (0).

If you do not think racism played a significant role in keeping him out of the majors, then that is fine and I can understand ranking Luque based solely on his Major League accomplishments. If you recognize that this racist "gray area" kept him out of the majors for some time, then the question has to be how much extra credit to give him, and at what level. The extra 600 innings that I proposed giving Luque moves him from 27th on James's list to only 19th.

As I said, I think this is very conservative. Six hundred additional innings brings him to 697 total pre-age-28 innings, and moves him over the following eight pitchers (innings, and appx. ERA+ for those innings in parentheses): Niekro (140 IP, 104 ERA+), Hough (252 IP, 107 ERA+), Brown (413 IP, 134 ERA+), Newsom (517 IP, 110 ERA+), Quinn (528 IP, 113 ERA+), Hubbell (634 IP, 127 ERA+), Faber (686 IP, 118 ERA+), and Spahn (686 IP, 132 ERA+).

Of these pitchers, only Niekro (104 v. 115) had a pre-age-28 ERA+ more than 5 points below his career ERA+. Spahn was well above his career number, and the rest were within a few points either year.

So, again, 600 innings keeps Luque well in the bottom half of pre-age-28 innings. A low-side estimate of the expected ERA+ in those innings would be Niekro's small sample, and could take you down as far as 106. More realistic, however, is that he'd fall on a standard bell curve and be just about at his career average.

I am therefore sticking to my analysis of 600 innings are a career-average ERA+. In my analysis, that is about one notch below Red Faber, and will debut in the 6-10 range.

BTW, I also disagree with OCF's "leave out the best two years" analysis in projecting back. Those years are part of his skill set. If you want to do that, the appropriate comparison would be to all the other players, minus their two best years. At this point in the election cycle, I don't think any player coudl survive that sort of career diminution.

Phillybooster,

I don't have time to write up a detailed explanation of my estimates, but here's a copy of my notes.

1913-1916 25-17, .595 winning percentage, assume .520 team, so 116 sn-ERA+
1919-29 53-27, .663 winning percentage. Assume.520 team, so 134 sn-ERA+
1932-37 12-7, .632 winning percentage

1919-29 in major leagues, 18.2 wins above an average pitcher
Actual record 148-149.
Avg. pitcher 148.5-148.5
Luque 166.7-130.3, .561 wp, 113 sn - ERA+

Estimate .84 conversion factor for Cuban play, (as opposed to .87 for Negro-league play)

1913-16, MLE sn-ERA+ 97.

Given the shortness of the Cuban seasons, I think it's unwise to hang an estimate of value on just a couple of seasons. Luque's performance across the 1920s indicates that he was a substantially better pitcher then (or played on better teams) than he did in the mid-teens. Luque's early ML performance shows that he was still improving as a pitcher, while his performance across the 1920s, except for his one huge season, was pretty steady.

My estimate of a 97 ERA+ for his early years may be slightly conservative, (he could have been at a 103 ERA+ or something like that), but I doubt he was signficantlly above average. I think projecting him for these years at his career average is a huge overestimate. If he'd been that good, I believe he'd have been pitching in the major leagues. Teams weren't willing to deal with the race issues for an average pitcher, but when Luque showed that he was a great pitcher, they figured it was worth it.

OPS+s for different pitchers who pitched around this time:



Grimes wasn't a first-tier hitter, but he's definately a best-of-the-rest'er

Just added comments to Burliegh Grimes. Some interesting stuff there, especially about his weird weird 1923 run support and comparing his run support with Vance's when they pitched together.

Also, long as I'm here, here's Dolf Luque.

Good stuff on Grimes, Chris!

Luque's minor league statistics from TSN 05/04/33:

1914- 2-10 with a 5.71 ERA in the International League

1915- 15-9 with a 1.18 ERA (which must be wrong if 290 H+BB in 225 IP is right).

Spent the next 3 seasons in the AA with sub-3.00 ERAs (if the numbers are accurate) but pitched 167 and 79 IP (and the 1917 ERA also looks unlikely with 109 H+BB). Put it all together in 1918 and went to the bigs to stay.

The article also notes he jumped to the BrookFeds after the 1915 season, just before the league collapsed.

Thanks, cblau. I hadn't realized that Luque had minor league American Association time as well. But, sure enough, there he is in the Louisville Colonels 1916 team picture -- the year Louisville won its first ever AA title. Coincidence?

http://memory.loc.gov/service/gc/spalding/00161/00160v.jpg

I haven't found any year-by-year stats yet, so any further info would be great.

So, does he get extra credit for his stellar work in Cuba? Unlike most cases of "extra credit" (Cravath, the WWI and II cases) here we're not talking about what he would have done if he had had the chance, we're talking about what he did in between those chances. Do we allow him to accumulate additional value in the winter? Or not?

A couple of arguments in favor:

- Unlike barnstorming, the Cuban League was an organized, completely independent league with a long history and traditional rivalries. These games really meant something. They were not analogous to modern minor league seasons. In fact, Luque and other Cuban players may have attached more emotional significance to their Cuban League pennant races than to the American major league races.

- We value pitchers in part by how much they work, how many innings they put in. Luque pitched in the majors until he was 44 years old, yet has "only" 3200 ML innings to show for it. In reality, though, he also had approximately 1300 additional innings of work in the Cuban League. Besides a late start in the majors, isn't it possible that by pitching winters in Cuba he was sacrificing some ML innings in order to put in innings in the Cuban league? Shouldn't he get some credit for those innings?

An argument against:

- The major leagues generally prohibited players other than native Cubans from participating in the Cuban League. Giving Luque extra credit for these innings would give him an unfair advantage relative to other major league players.

My opinion:

An analogy that seems relevant is post-season play. Like the World Series and other post-season championships, the games in the Cuban League were important and hard fought. On the one hand, it hardly seems fair to the participants not to give some credit for their accomplishments. On the other hand, giving them extra credit doesn't seems fair to those who through no fault don't have the opportunity to participate.

I'm sure some HOM voters give players credit for their post-season accomplishments and others do not. Personally, I think it's fair to give a modest "bonus" to players who do well in the post-season series - I work in units of win shares, so I assign a player 1 or 2 extra WS for a good performance in a World Series. I intend to give Luque similar small bonuses for his Cuban League play. However, since I can see both sides of this argument, I will not try to convince other voters to do likewise.

This group may have all the data published in Jorge Figueredo, _Who's Who in Cuban Baseball 1878-1961_, and more. Here is an overview.

Dolf Luque
All-Time List: 1st in Years Pitched (22), 2nd in Games Won (106)

seasons 1912 to 1944/45
10+ games pitched, 11 times '14/15 to '34/35.
Did not pitch '18/19, '21, '25/26, '30, '31/32
No season played '33/34

Totals 216 g, 113 cg, 106-71 W-L, .599

1916 Louisville AA pitching stats (10+ wins).

Team finished first with a 101-66 mark.

1. Middleton: 21-9, 2.01 ERA in 278 IP
2. Northrup: 16-13, 3.08 ERA in 222 IP
3. Perdue: 14-9, 2.35 ERA in 222 IP.
4. Luque: 13-8, 2.64 ERA in 167 IP.
5. Palmero: 11-6, 2.64 ERA in 153 IP

Luque's stats as listed in "The Historical Register" by Bob Hoie and Carlos Bauer.

1912: 0-3 in 7 games for Fe in the Cuban League.

1913: 0-2 in 2 games for Fe in the Cuban League.
1913: 22-5 in 28 games, 189 IP for Long Branch in the NY-NJ League.

1914: 2-10 in 14 games at Jersey City in the International League.

1915: 15-9 in 31 games for Toronto in the International League.

1916: 13-8 for Louisville in the AA.

1917: 4-4 in 9 games for the Orientals i Cuban League.
1917: 2-4 in 19 games for Louisville AA.

1918: 11-2 in 18 games for Louisville AA.

Thanks, Paul Wendt and Jonesy!

This is really helpful data.

I was hoping for a little more discussion here.

You all must realize the potential disaster that was just averted here? Half of the posters here were on the verge of giving Luque extra credit because they believed he was unjustly held out of professional baseball due to racial issues when in fact he was in pro ball but unable to break through to the majors. His being stuck in the minors was just a fact of life of the era -- IE Lefty Grove.

Just because one cannot locate good minor league information via an internet search doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Additonal blunders like this will affect the credibility of all involved. Please look before you leap.

Same applies to Rogan. We should NOT elect him on the first ballot without a lot more information

Well, jonesy, a lot of us voters give little or no credit for 'what might have been', preferring instead to focus on what a player actually did - whether in the majors or in top Negro League ball.
And I don't think Luque was in danger of placing ahead of Rixey, for example, even with overdone extra credit.

Additonal blunders like this will affect the credibility of all involved. Please look before you leap.

Aren't we overreacting here? I don't see this big push for Luque.

FWIW, credit for his pre-major league years still (barely) leaves him off the end of my ballot.

John, "overreaction" is an understatement. "Disaster" was "just averted," but "additonal blunders like this" (I thought it was averted, if just) "will affect the credibility of all involved. Please look before you leap."

So apparently having had a discussion and having resolved it satisfactorily before the next round of balloting is still and nevertheless a blunder.

Well, I didn't see any ballots on the 1940 ballot discussion with Luque on it, maybe there were a couple, I don't know. But "disaster" and "blunder" don't seem to me to be from the same planet as the discussion I've been reading.

Now if we really want to blow our credibility, we could always elect Wes Ferrell.

he was unjustly held out of professional baseball due to racial issues when in fact he was in pro ball but unable to break through to the majors.

No one implied he was held out of professional baseball due to racial issues . . . rather that he was held out of major league baseball due to racial issues. Look at his numbers for Toronto in 1915 at age 24, and no one gives him a shot in 1916? Same thing the next year. "White" players with the same numbers get roster shots much more easily.

Meanwhile, I'm probably one of Luque's biggest fan so far -- and part of that is partially due to the fact that I am much more pro-pitcher than the general electorate and also give full credit to Cravath's minor league numbers -- and I've got Luque 6-8. I'd hardly call that a "potential disaster". Certainly no more than, say, whoever the worst shortstop of leftfielder is, or that Negro League inductee for whom dozens of 0-fer box scores are going to appear next year, lowering his career average to .216. As always, we do the best with the numbers we have, but I certainly don't change my position that we have to take best guesses with unknowns, and not write them off entirely.

The minor league numbers were useful in showing that Luque was certainly major-league capable in at least 3 or 4 years before he became a regular.

More info would also, of course, be helpful in the analysis, such as whether there was an injury that limited him in 1917, or why he didn't pitch the full season in Louisville.

I still see Luque as about the 10th best pitcher available, give or take 1 or 2 slots. I mean he was never regarded as being as good as Mendez in Cuba. But he is definitely consideration set-worthy, definitely top 50, and definitely a guy whose nationality complicated his route to the majors and our ability to evaluate.

Expanding on Jonesy's post:

1913: 22-5 in 28 games, 189 IP for Long Branch in the NY-NJ League.

134 H, 128 SO, 85 BB

1914: 2-10 in 14 games at Jersey City in the International League.

108 IP, 129 H, 69 R, 41 SO, 65 BB

1915: 15-9 in 31 games for Toronto in the International League.

225 IP, 190 H, 89 R, 133 SO, 100 BB

1916: 13-8 for Louisville in the AA.

38 G, 167 IP, 147 H, 49 ER, 100 SO, 68 BB, 2.64 ERA

1917: 4-4 in 9 games for the Orientals i Cuban League.
1917: 2-4 in 19 games for Louisville AA.

79 IP, 71 H, 37 R, 21 ER, 49 SO, 38 BB, 2.39 ERA

1918: 11-2 in 18 games for Louisville AA.

117 IP, 97 H, 35 R, 26 ER, 64 SO, 39 BB, 2.00 ERA

Then Cincinnati picked him up, presumably in July. The player shortage that year gave chances to a lot of guys who might have gone overlooked otherwise.

All of my information is from Jorge S. Figueredo, Who's Who in Cuban Basebal, 1878-1961 (McFarland 2003).

Someone asked whether Luque pitched winter ball in Cuba during his ML career. My interpretation is yes, he did, in more years than not. That is, the Cuban season was played (largely?) during the ML offseason and Luque usually participated.

Figueredo's record for Armando Marsans includes successive lines
1919-20 Almendares 21g . . .
1920-21 DID NOT PLAY
1921 DID NOT PLAY
1922-23 Almendares 34g

My interpretation is that the "1921" season was late in that year, completed before the end of the year.

The record for Jose Lopez includes
1929-30 DID NOT PLAY
1930 Habana 12ab . . .
1931-32 Regla 39ab . . .

So "1930" in Luque's record represents another season played late in the year and completed before the end of the year.

The records of Dolf Luque and a few others jointly show the following pattern of seasons completed before the New Year ("E": eg, 1921), opened after the New Year ("L": most of 1900 to 1913), overlapping the turn of the year ("O": most of 1913-14 to 1959-60), and not played ("_": eg, 1933-34)

Cuban baseball season in relation to New Year
'90s : O L O O O _ _ O E L = 1900
'00s : L L L L L L L L O L = 1910
'10s : O L L O O O ?_? O O = 1919-20
'20s : O E O O O O O O O O = 1929-30
'30s : E O O _ O O O O O O = 1939-40
'40s : O O O O O O O O O O = 1949-50
'50s : O O O O O O O O O O = 1959-60

The one juxtaposition "E L" indicates a calendar year without any games played, although no season was skipped (they played in late 1898 and early 1900). "?-?" indicates that a season was skipped but I don't know which one (they played 1915-16, sometime 1917, and 1918-19).

--
Luque's stats as listed in "The Historical Register" by Bob Hoie and Carlos Bauer.

1912: 0-3 in 7 games for Fe in the Cuban League.
1913: 0-2 in 2 games for Fe in the Cuban League.
1917: 4-4 in 9 games for the Orientals in Cuban League.

According to Figueredo, those are the only three seasons Luque played with Fe or Oriental. In the same layout as above, here are his games pitched by season.
Dolf Luque, games pitched in Cuba
'10s: __ _7 _2 _6 16 -?9?- 20 __ 15
'20s: 10 __ 23 11 ~9 __ 16 13 17 15
'30s: __ __ _6 __ 10 _7 _7 _1 _1 __
'40s: __ __ __ __ _1

Luque was a manager for 30 seasons in 37 "Winters" 1919-20 to 1955-56. Broadly, his workload in Cuba was heavy during his ML career.

FYI, here is the same record for Armando Marsans, whose ML career was entirely in the 1910s.

Armando Marsans, games played in Cuba
'00s: __ __ __ __ 26 24 30 35 41 _9
'10s: 26 17 23 29 33 25 -15?- __ 21
'20s: __ __ 34 33 _4 _8 21 _1

Should Grimes be getting any military service credit?

All Time Cuban League Leaders, Wins

From Jorge Figueredo's _Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History_ and _Who's Who in Cuban Baseball_:

1. Martin Dihigo 107-56, .656 (1922-47)
2. Adolfo Luque 106-71, .599 (1912-45)
3t. Carlos Royer 90-43, .677 (1892-1911)
3t. Adrian Zabala 90-83, .520 (1935-55)
5. Manuel "Cocaina" Garcia 85-61, .582 (1926-48)
6. Jose Munoz 82-60, .577 (1900-14)
7. Jose Mendez 76-28, .731* (1908-27)
8. Tomas de la Cruz 71-78, .477 (1934-47)
9. Miguel Fornieles 70-63, .526 (1952-61)
10. Conrado "Connie" Marrero 69-46, .600 (1946-58)

*-Mendez is the all-time leader in winning pct.

On the 1960 Ballot Philly Booster wrote the following on his Luque comment:
“The stat I wish existed would be the opposite of the "Most Similar by Age" list, where you can now see that at 28, Luque was "Most Similar" to Otis Lambeth, a career 11-9 pitcher who pitched his final 7 innings at age 28. Thank you very much, I learned a lot. My new stat would be "Most Similar FROM Age", so that instead of looking at Luque's career from birt to age 28, you could look at it from Age 28 onward only.”

With Wins Shares you can look at value patterns, so I it might be interesting to see who had similar value patterns to Luque. All the lists below are pitchers only, though they include hitting win shares.

Luque had 4 Win Shares before age 28, from 28 on he had 237. That ties him for 24th all time with Nolan Ryan. Cy Young was 1st with 480, 42 players had 200 or more.

Here is the list with 200 or more, you can tell me how many of these guys are HOM worthy.


So who has a similar value pattern?

Just eyeballing it, Red Faber is a pretty good match. He had 50 WS before the age of 28, and had 51 more in his career than Dolph.

Dazzy Vance is also similar, but his peak start is even later than Luque’s.

Bunning, Coveleski, General Crowder and School Master Sam look similar too. You could make a nice Bucky Walters or Walter Johnson comparison too.

By the pattern I mean, big seasons sprinkled with average seasons. Eppa Rixey for instance at that age was 22, 23, 26, 21, 26. That is not really the same thing.


Who are the players close to him on both lists combined? Guys with between 150 and 106 Win Shares ages 30 to 34, and 200 to 260 Win Shares after the age of 28.


Carl Hubbell, Bob Gibson, Bucky Walters, Tony Mullane, Tim Keefe, Dolph Luque, Eppa Rixey, Red Faber, Greg Maddux, Red Ruffing, Stan Coveleski, Early Wynn and Tom Seaver



So, there is the info. And I suppose people will read into it what they want.

thanks John

Cool typesetting problem?

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test

Yes, this is definitely a first! One for the HoM history.

It's a conspiracy by Castro's people to keep Luque, an icon of pre-Communist Cuba, out of the HOM!

Looking at the top 50 in RSAA after age 26:


AGE > 26
INNINGS PITCHED displayed only--not a sorting criteria

RSAA                           RSAA      IP     
1    Cy Young                    639   5909     
2    Lefty Grove                 613   3485     
3    Randy Johnson               518   2961.2   
4    Roger Clemens               470   3208.1   
5    Greg Maddux                 469   2739.1   
6    Grover C Alexander          436   4206     
7    Walter Johnson              325   3472.2   
8    Gaylord Perry               320   4829.1   
9    Phil Niekro                 317   5314.2   
10   Carl Hubbell                312   3199     
11   Kevin Brown                 309   2573     
12   Curt Schilling              305   2206     
13   Pedro Martinez              300   1150     
14   Stan Coveleski              297   2840     
15   Tim Keefe                   294   3551.1   
16   Bob Gibson                  289   3277     
17   Hoyt Wilhelm                282   2253     
18   Three Finger Brown          279   2971.1   
19   Warren Spahn                271   4813.2   
20   Tom Glavine                 261   2622.2   
21   Dazzy Vance                 255   2935.2   
22   Old Hoss Radbourn           251   4210     
23   Eddie Plank                 249   3935     
24   Kid Nichols                 245   2170.2   
25   Red Faber                   240   3606     
26   Tommy Bridges               239   2182     
27   Joe McGinnity               238   3441     
28   Whitey Ford                 237   2387     
29   John Clarkson               236   2298.1   
30   Tom Seaver                  230   3403.2   
T31  Red Ruffing                 223   3023     
T31  Steve Carlton               223   3952.1   
33   Ted Lyons                   218   3068     
T34  Urban Shocker               215   2148     
T34  Christy Mathewson           215   2479.2   
36   Jack Quinn                  213   3580.2   
37   David Cone                  212   2325.2   
38   Jim Palmer                  210   2556.1   
39   Harry Brecheen              209   1902     
T40  Dizzy Trout                 195   2311.1   
T40  Dutch Leonard               195   2858     
T42  John Smoltz                 194   1476.1   
T42  Ed Walsh                    194   2017     
44   Dolf Luque                  191   3207     
45   Chuck Finley                185   2666.1   
46   Eddie Cicotte               183   2587.2   
T47  Juan Marichal               174   2387     
T47  Bob Lemon                   174   2588     
T49  Sandy Koufax                173   1193     
T49  Mel Parnell                 173   1489     
T49  Rick Reuschel               173   2707.2

John, the typeface I can live with but the text running off the right hand side of the page is not good.

At least it is doing so above, testing, testing, testing, testing testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing

Can anybody figure out how to fix this?

Here are Adolfo Luque’s Cuban League pitching statistics.

Adding up the seasonal data, there are some small discrepancies with the career statistics that Figueredo reports in his appendix; the sum of the seasons shows 107 career complete games, while the appendix says 113 (4th all-time). So I may have made some transcription errors.

Luque's 106 wins is 2nd all-time (behind Dihigo with 107), and his 71 losses is 3rd.

Season   Team         G  CG   W  L Tm W* Tm L* Pennant WAT %tmdec
12w      Fe           7   3   0  4   14    18         -2.0    13%
13w      Fe           2   0   0  2   21    11     *   -1.4     6%
13-14    Habana       6   3   2  4    8    24          0.6    19%
14-15    Almendares  16   -   7  4   22    11         -0.5    33%
15-16    Almendares  20  11  12  5   28    12     *    0.2    43%
17w      Orientals    9   6   4  4    8     6     *   -1.3    57%
19-20    Almendares  15   9  10  4   18     5     *   -2.4    61%
20-21    Almendares  10   6   4  2   13    12          1.2    24%
22-23    Habana      23  12  11  9   20    22          2.8    48%
23-24    Habana      11   5   7  2   25    23          2.8    19%
24w(S)   Habana       -   -   3  1   13    13          1.2    15%
24-25    Almendares   3   3   3  0   33    16     *    1.0     6%
26-27(T) Alacranes   16  13  10  6   22    15     *    0.9    43%
27-28    Almendares  13   6   6  4   17    15          1.0    31%
28-29    Cuba        15   8   8  2   17    22          4.9    26%
28-29    Habana       2   1   1  0   30    12     *    0.3     2%
28-29    Total       17   9   9  2    -     -          5.2     -
29-30    Habana      15   7   4  8   20    30         -1.1    24%
32-33    Almendares   6   2   2  2   13     9   *-tie -0.4    18%
34-35    Almendares  10   6   6  2   18     9     *    0.9    30%
35-36    Almendares   7   5   4  2   28    20          0.6    13%
36-37    Almendares   7   1   2  2   31    35          0.1     6%
37-38    Almendares   1   0   0  1   35    23         -0.6     2%
38-39    Almendares   1   0   0  1   20    34         -0.4     2%
44-45    Cienfuegos   1   0   0  0   24    24            -     -  
Totals              216 107 106 71                     8.4 

* Excludes games won/lost by forfeit: 1912w (6-L), 1915-16 (2-W), 1919-20 (3-W), 1922-23 (12-W), 1927-28 (8-L); 1928-29 Cuba (13-L); Habana (13-W); 1937-38 (5-W).

Notes:
1913-14 - No North American players.
1914-15 - Led league in hits allowed (100). Allowed 48 runs, 100 hits, 47 SO, and 39 BB in 107 IP. (These type of pitching stats not available most years.)
1915-16 - Led league in wins (12).
1917w - Led league in batting avg (.355), games pitched (9), shutouts (2); tied for lead in doubles hit (3), complete games (6), wins (4), and losses (4). Alternative league (regular league didn't play); games played in Oriental Park; no North American players.
1918-19 - Played for an independent league in the province of Oriente
1919-20 - Led league in wins (10), tied for lead in games pitched (15). Manager – Luque would continue to manage Cuban League teams for most of the next 35 years.
1920-21 - Led league in shutouts (3).
1922-23 - Set Cuban League all-time record for most consecutive strikeouts by a pitcher (7). Led league in games pitched (23), complete games (12), wins (11), and losses (9).
1924w(S) - Special season after regular season ended early due to Santa Clara's runaway pennant.
1926-27(T) - Independent league that played for one season. Led league in complete games (13) and wins (6).
1928-29 - Led league in pct. (.818); tied for lead in wins (9). Cuba withdrew from league without finishing schedule.
1932-33 - Tied for lead in shutouts (1).
1934-35 Pitched 71 innings. Led league in ERA (1.27; one of the few seasons for which ERA is listed by Figueredo); tied for lead in wins (6).

My take on Luque’s Cuban League record is that his pre-1918 record (25-23, -4.4 WAT) suggests that he developed late as a pitcher. His 1915-16 season was probably the first one that merits MLE credit.

For the seasons when Luque's Cuban League play overlaps with his major league play, a comparison of the two records reinforces the evidence on the Alejandro Oms thread that the quality of Cuban League play was quite high, approaching the major league level of quality during the mid-to-late 1920s.

Until display is fixed, two tips:

1) If you want to see text that has run
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It would be nice if we could get the
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Oh well.

I agree with Brent, btw, that the CWL
record suggests that Luque
developed late as a pitcher. I must
check my records to see if I have
given him credit in my rankings
starting in 1915-16 or no.

Wanted to post this here so I could find it in the future if I needed it:

Dolph BTW is my Luke Easter - the guy that so much is missing and so much is there that it is easy to dream up a HOM worthy career.

The 1st Latinos in Major League Baseball
TEAM PLAYER BIRTHPLACE DEBUT
Boston Braves, Mike Gonzalez, Cuba, 1912
Boston Red Sox, Eusebio Gonzalez, Cuba, 1918
Brooklyn Dodgers, Adolfo Luque, Cuba, 1930
Chicago Cubs, Chick Pedro, Cuba, 1902
Chicago White Sox, Jose Acosta, Cuba, 1922
Cincinnati Reds, Armando Marsans, Cuba, 1911
Cleveland Indians, Minnie Minoso, Cuba, 1949
Detroit Tigers, Ozzie Virgil, Sr., Dom. Rep, 1958
N.Y. Giants, Emilio Palmero, Cuba, 1915
N.Y. Yankees, Angel Aragon, Cuba, 1914
Philadelphia A’s, Luis Castro, Columbia, 1902
Philadelphia Phillies, Chili Gomez, Mexico, 1935
Pittsburgh Pirates, Tony Ordenana, Cuba, 1943
St. Louis Browns, Oscar Estrada, Cuba, 1929
St. Louis Cardinals, Oscar Tuero, Cuba, 1918
Washington Senators, Merito Acosta, Cuba, 1913

Troy Haymakers (and NAPBBP and pro league baseball), Esteban Bellan, Cuba, 1871
Steve Bellan at baseball-reference

Bellan played earlier for the Haymakers (nee Union of Lansingburgh), NABBP, and for the Rose Hill Base Ball Club, Fordham College.
Esteban Bellan at Fordham University

Bellan may be the first Latino player in major league baseball or college baseball, depending on definitions.

Mike,
You have listed no one in the 19th century (or FL 1913-14) and thus no one for any of the defunct clubs. I am not sure what you intend.
At baseball-reference, using SABR Biog data (maybe lacking some of that), Bellan is the only player born in Cuba with debut before 1902.

Fordham is or was a Jesuit(?) college in the Bronx. When and how commonly did wealthy Cubans send their sons to US American colleges? For al I know there may have been others active in the NABBP or in college baseball.

Mike,

Yes.

Luque
Estalella
Easter
Avila
Newcombe
E. Howard

Guys whose ML career provides the illusion of being a complete story. But we know several chapters are missing from all. And of course there are others.

Some may be interested in mlb players who learned the game in Latin America rather than in the United States.
Bellan presumably learned the game at Fordham College in the Bronx, attended 1863-68.

> So, does he get extra credit for his stellar work in Cuba?
38. Brent Posted: November 24, 2004 at 11:41 PM (#981749)
<i>> Unlike most cases of "extra credit" (Cravath, the WWI and II cases) here we're not talking about
> what he would have done if he had had the chance, we're talking about what he did in between those chances.
> Do we allow him to accumulate additional value in the winter? Or not?

[deleted: pro and con]

My opinion:

An analogy that seems relevant is post-season play. Like the World Series and other post-season championships, the games in the Cuban League were important and hard fought. On the one hand, it hardly seems fair to the participants not to give some credit for their accomplishments. On the other hand, giving them extra credit doesn't seems fair to those who through no fault don't have the opportunity to participate.

I'm sure some HOM voters give players credit for their post-season accomplishments and others do not. Personally, I think it's fair to give a modest "bonus" to players who do well in the post-season series - I work in units of win shares, so I assign a player 1 or 2 extra WS for a good performance in a World Series. I intend to give Luque similar small bonuses for his Cuban League play. However, since I can see both sides of this argument, I will not try to convince other voters to do likewise.

I agree.

--
Luque is

Here are three versions of Dolf Luque in the 1920s, his ten full seasons with Cincinnati, age 30.8-39.2. The first is his actual record measured by ERA+; the second levels his six-year peak at his average rate during that team; the third levels his four-year peak.

ERA+
121 133 121 - 1920
105 133 105
120 133 146 - 1922
201 133 146 - 1923
120 133 146 - 1924
156 133 146 - 1925
108 108 108
119 119 119
110 110 110
102 102 102 - 1929

Can I request proper MLE's for Luque's pre-MLB career?

His minor league statistics are available from the SABR minor league database. My perusal of his minor league record and his Cuban League record (post # 62 above) suggests that his pre-1918 value is not sufficient to make him a viable HoM candidate.

Well, his 1923 is so sublime that I might look at him for the '09 ballot even without the extra help--remember that I was voting for Doc Gooden on similar grounds. Not only was Luque second in the league in innings (5 off the lead) with a 201 ERA+, but he did so in an era of historically low standard deviations--his teammate Eppa Rixey finished second in the NL at 139. (This is why I suspect I will be Dazzy Vance's best friend on the starting pitchers' ballot). My starting pitcher WARP are still a work in progress, but I tentatively have Luque's '23 as the sixth-greatest pitching season since 1893 (and one of the superior ones is Maddux's strike season, straight-line-adjusted and unregressed). For a voter like me, who values each marginal win above replacement in a given season more than the last, anyone who can do that for even a single year is close to my consideration set.

(The width problems this page is having seem to come from Mike Webber's post #54. Can Joe or John edit that post?)

Straight RA+ PythPat equivalent record strongly rewards seasons with a very high number of IP.
If I sort the single seasons I have by equivalent FWP from that, I get a huge pileup of 1890s and 19-aughts years
with names like Chesbro, McGinnity, and Coombs appearing. If I arbitrarily ignore everything from 1910 or earlier, I get:

Johnson 1913: 32-6
Johnson 1912: 32-9
Alexander 1915: 31-11
Gibson 1968: 27-7
Gooden 1985: 25-6
Johnson 1914: 29-12
Carlton 1972: 28-10
Luque 1923: 27-9
Cicotte 1917: 28-11
Faber 1921: 27-10
Johnson 1915: 27-10
Clemens 1997: 24-6
Grove 1931: 25-7
Alexander 1916: 30-13
Perry 1972: 27-11
Hubbell 1937: 26-8
Martinez 2000: 21-3
Wood 1912: 27-11
Hubbell 1933: 26-9
Alexander 1920: 28-12
Walsh 1912: 30-14
Koufax 1966: 26-10
Johnson 1918: 26-10
Guidry 1978: 24-7
Seaver 1971: 24-8
Chance 1964: 23-7 (The worse career pitcher on this list?)
The next few names after that: Grove, Newhouser, Maddux, Gomez, Grove, Koufax, Blue, Leonard, Alexander, Newhouser, Vance, Walters.

This really takes the luster off Alexander's 1915-17! Not all in the top 30 while Johnson has a four-year run in the top 11.


<i>Chance 1964: 23-7 (The worse career pitcher on this list?)<i>

certainly the worst batter, maybe the worst ever in the major leagues

By some measures Joe Wood may be the worst career pitcher and best career batter.
Others will disqualify him and recognize Walter Johnson as best, best.

By the way, has anyone here ever heard (not that anyone here is olde enough) or seen a pronunciation of Luque's name? And not just a French or Spanish pronunciation, but how it was also prounounced by his MLB contemporaries? I presume it may have been altered to help him avoid racial suspicions. This is a question I've been playing with since 1961, when I first got his Fleer Hall of Fame card.

In Spanish it'd be LOO-kay, if that's remotely helpful.

Year League Clubs W-L PCT GP IP H R ER BB ERA
1913 NYNJ Long Branch 22-5 .815 28 189.0 134 85
1914 IL Jersey City 2-10 .167 14 107.2 129 69 48 65 4.01
1915 IL Toronto 15-9 .625 31 225.1 190 89 74 100 2.96
1916 AA Louisville 13-8 .619 38 167.0 147 49 68 2.64
1917 AA Louisville 2-4 .333 19 79.0 71 37 21 38 2.39
1918 AA Louisville 11-2 .846 18 117.0 97 35 26 39 2.00

Dolf Luque is high within my consideration set, and Dan R mentioned that he would like to see MLE's for Luque's pre-MLB days.
I will attempt to calculate the league averages in the next posting for each league Luque played, in the hopes that this would be beneficial in an expert, ala, Chris Cobb / Dr. Chaleeko in performing proper MLE's.

Here are the "Top 10" pitchers from the 1918 American Association:

Not all data is complete from the SABR minor league database that I took information from, with some pitchers appearing in less than three games including no data.

For what I have, the league R/G is around 3.71, and I might bump that higher due to the guys missing data.
I would guess the players missing are more likely to have pitched poorly, but that's just an educated guess.

On to the stats:
W L GP IP H R ER BB WHIP ERA H/9 First Last Tm
14 03 19 167 122 45 31 29 0.90 1.67 6.6 Babe Adams Kansas City
08 06 18 132 099 40 27 52 1.14 1.84 6.8 Paul Sherman Columbus
07 05 19 127 103 48 39 28 1.03 2.76 7.3 Sailor Stroud Louisville
11 09 28 148 122 55 35 53 1.18 2.13 7.4 Lefty George Columbus
11 02 18 117 097 35 26 39 1.16 2.00 7.5 Dolf Luque Louisville
15 08 25 189 159 54 39 38 1.04 1.86 7.6 Charley Hall St. Paul
13 03 18 161 141 48 35 34 1.09 1.96 7.9 Jake Northrop Indianapolis
17 07 28 207 183 77 47 48 1.12 2.04 8.0 Dickie Kerr Milwaukee
10 10 20 161 150 67 47 39 1.17 2.63 8.4 Cy Falkenberg Indianapolis
08 11 27 151 144 60 40 46 1.26 2.38 8.6 R Williams Minneapolis

A good season for Luque, but does it warrant a solid MLE season?

MLE's would have to include the Cuban League stats as well as the minor league ones, no?

Adolfo Luque stats at Seamheads

Luque's minor league numbers at BB REF

I thought Luque was a person who played in both the Negro Leagues and majors pre-Jackie, but I don't see any actual Negro League stats on the Seamhead site.

I thought Luque was a person who played in both the Negro Leagues and majors pre-Jackie, but I don't see any actual Negro League stats on the Seamhead site.

As far as I know, Luque never competed in the organized (post-1920) Negro Leagues, as by then he had caught on in the majors. He did play for what would have been considered a Negro team though, on at least one occasion. The Long Branch team in BB REF's minor league numbers was a Cuban (and mostly black) team that competed in an otherwise white minor league. It was also mentioned up thread that he might have played for the Cuban Stars (an independent black team) the year before, but I don't think any stats have ever surfaced of that.

When the Long Branch Cubans played in the affiliated minor leagues during 1913-14, they were an all-white team (see Roberto González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana, p. 141). In 1916 (and I think 1915 also, though I haven't confirmed it) they played in unaffiliated leagues and I believe they may have included some non-white players during that period. Luque played on many integrated teams in Cuba, but I'm not aware that he ever played on an integrated team in the United States.

Ah. My mistake, then.