Michael Bass
I'm sure you know that, to be fair, you have to compare players to their contemporaries, and in that regard, as well as in just total stats, Sandy Koufax reigned supreme.
He tossed four no-hitters including a perfect game. There were a total of 14 no-hitters between 1961 and 1966 and only Sandy had more than one.
He struck out more than 300 batters three times. Only one other major league pitcher struck out more than 300 during the same time. And his .733 winning percentage is #1.
Sandy Koufax's statistics speak for themselves.

Sunnyday2
Thank you for your comments on the balloting and on how players are elected. I appreciate your explanation. As you know, I am new to this site and I don't even know what the jargon means, e.g. IOW, i9s, etc.
I think I should just read and not write

Dr. Chaleeko:
Obviously you didn't read my comments. I said Clemens was a great pitcherm but that he had a serious flaw. If he had been able to pitch more complete games, he might have been a 400 game winner. His bullpens lost many, many games for him. I know he could pitch haaaaad. He just could pitch more than 6 or 7 innings.

Brent
Thank you for your invitation to perhaps join your group but as you can see from my entries I have some serious philosophical differences with some of your voters. For instance:
* I believe in MLE's but only based on hard statistics. Theoretical comparisons tend, over time, to be proven to be invalid. My conversion formula for the Japanese leagues, which was done in 2000, has since been proven to be accurate by Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, and others. I also have conversion formulas for the Negro leagues, Cuban Winter League, Puerto Rican Winter League, California Winter League, and the AAA and AA leagues.
* I don't believe in winshares. They are theoretical and are based on a teams performance. When I asked Bill James to give me the winshares for JoeD for 1938 he said it would take him more than 8 hours to compute it. I don't believe winshares has any basis in fact for individual players.
* I believe in rating players on their skills only, not on their longevity. I don't believe the HOF is looking for people who played a long time. They are looking for the best players.
You may now withdraw your invitation for me to seek membership in your group.
Keep up the good work.

koufax,

I don't see where you're "philosophical" differences with "some" of our voters would disqualify you from voting. All the philosophical positions you mentioned are represented among those very same voters.

Though I do think you mis-state your own position when you say you rate players on skills and not longevity. Most voters would say we rate on value, not skills. And the opposite of career (longevity) is peak.

That is all semantics, of course. As a peak voter, I would certainly welcome another peak voter to the fold, assuming you are willing to post a preliminary ballot (or a ballot, preliminarily) for some feedback before posting it to this voting thread.

IOW means in other words. OTOH is on the other hand. i9s is a Web site that publishes hypothetical major league equivalencies (MLEs) for NeLers (Negro Leaguers). The shorthand will take a while but you'll get it.

Koufax,

The voters for the HoM have serious philosophical differences with each other. Some voters would agree with you on each of the above positions, some voters would not. Regardless of those differences, every voter here would accept your ballot if it were worked out based on the premises you describe.

Whether you decide to vote or to participate in discussions of candidates as a non-voter is up to you. The main issue is the extent to which you enjoy ongoing discussion and debate with people who are serious about honoring the most meritorious ballplayers throughout the history of baseball, who approach that process with strongly sabermetric inclinations, but who have a range of divergent views on what constitutes "merit" and who are not professional baseball researchers or analysts.

A couple of experts, Gary A. and Paul Wendt, have chosen to participate actively in our discussions but not to vote. Another expert, jonesy, participated for a while but found the process dissatisfying when the electorate did not fully accept his claims and left the discussion. Another expert, gadfly, participated in discussions for a long time, and recently became a voter.

The extent of your participation is up to you, but I'd appreciate learning more about your methods for working out MLEs for Negro-League players, having spent a good deal of time on that activity recently myself. I have read _Cool Papas and Double Duties_ and have recently ordered _Baseball's Other All-Stars_. That book may answer my questions about method, but I'd find a summary explanation very helpful.

I would like to refute taht Roger Clemens has not 'heart' or whatever other magical thing you want to call it.

The man is 41 (42?) and busts his ass every single day in order to try and win another title despite being a gazillionaire. You telling me that doesnt' take heart?

Pitcher simply don't throw complete games anymore so saying that he isn't as great as Koufax because he didnt' finish his postseason games is not using much perspective.

Had Mariano Reivera been abel to close out game seven of the 2001 series would you be saying aht Curt Schilling doesn't have 'heart'? Because he was on the hook to lose that game to all of people the heartless Clemens.

And to say that he begged otu of the game is espousing that macho attitude taht gets so many pitchers in trouble. He had a blister. With a blister you simply don't have the touch on the ball that you have otherwise. It is entirely possible that his pitches would have been a) mostly balls or b) a faster version of batting practice. Could it be possible that the sox manager (whose name escapes me right now) thought (with Clemens agreement) that it would be better to have one of their top relievers in there instead of a damaged Clemens?

I dont' want to discourage you from voting (especially if you are a peak voter, can I neterest you in Hughie Jennings?) but I jsut wanted to stick up for the Rocket.

I'm not the brightest bulb on this block, as everybody knows, and it took me about two years to figger out that BTF is essentially a RedSox-centric enterprise. Speaking as an outsider (a Twins fan, for chrissakes), whenever anybody says anything about Roger Clemens, I can only really process it if I know whether the speaker is a RedSoxfan or not ;-)

Both Clemens and Koufax are latter-day wimps compared with my pitching hero, Old Hoss Radbourn. Now THERE was a man who took pitching seriously :-))

Sunnyday2
I must confess to being a long time - I mean a long time - Dodger fan. Jackie Robinson and I began our relationship with the Dodgers the same year - 1946.
Being from Massachusetts however, I do root for the Red Sox to get in the World Series, hoping for another Sox-Dodger matchup, the first since Babe Ruth threw 13 consecutive scorelee innings at them. I want revenge.
I have seen and admired the hitting ability of both Ted Williams and Stan Musial, the base running ability of Robinson, and the pitching of Koufax, Bob Gibson, Bob Feller, and all the modern day pitchers, including Clemens.

answer to your Q, koufax:
If I get to choose a pitcher in their prime, I take Koufax over Rocket or Gibby to start in a W.S. game 7. Sandy's prime was just too good, and even if you adjust for different eras, his chance of pitching all 9 IP was a bit better. Yes, Gibson has great W.S. stats, but 9 games is an awfully small sample.

welcome to a great discussion group!

FWIW, I'm not a Clemens fan (I grew up with Mattingly as my idol), nor a Red-bleeding Sox fan (I don't really have much team affiliation at this point in my life), but I find it hard to believe that a pitcher whose
-117 complete games (through 2004) rank #1 among all active pitchers
-whose 46 shutouts (which are, by definition, complete games) also rank #1 among actives
-4493 innings rank #1 among actives
-639 games started rank #1 among actives
-seasonal innings totals have placed in the top ten in his league 12 times
-seasonal innings totals have been 200 in 14 of his 21 seasons (and in one of those seasons was 170 during a strike-shortened year, good for 9th in the league)
-328 wins (the stat that really tells you about hahhhhht) rank #1 among actives and number 10 all time.

Koufax, reasonable people disagree often, and we'll talk more in the 1971 or so ballot, but I think the main body of the evidence suggests rather strongly that Clemens had plenty of moxie for winning games and going a long way in those games in which he pitched.

And after all, Sandy Koufax didn't have enough heart to tough out an arthritic elbow and keep on pitching through the pain. That's what a real macho man woulda' done. ; )

whoops! shoulda completed this thought...


"...but I find it hard to believe that a pitcher whose stats look like this didn't have enough heart/moxie/pitcher-potion number 9 to be considered mentally tough:"

I am in no way a Red Sox fan, in fact I detest them. I am probably the most hated of all fans of all fans, the Yankee fan. If it helps any though, I am not from New York.

I am, however moving to new York starting in August for grad school.

Hate meat your leisure, I get tons of groans whenever someone finds out who I support.

Gro;-)n

Gotta admit they didn't look like no DamnYankees this weekend.
The starting pitching reeks.

(Signed) Twins fan

You act as if this weekend makes up for the previous two ALDS's ;-))

Well, out here in Minnesota we've learned to enjoy it while we can! (Like 1987 and 1991!)

TO ALL
I think I've achieved my objective - to get people talking.
Red Sox fans are talking to Yankee fans. Twins fans are talking to Dodger fans. Before long, Cubs fans will be talking to White Sox fans. And isn't that Dr. Cheleeko sitting in the corner contemplating his navel?

Dr. Chaleeko
You are correct about Clemens statistics - but consider this.
When Warren Spahn (you remember him) won 363 games he actually WON the games. He was on the mound when the game started and he was on the mound when the game ended (382 complete games). When Bob Gibson won 251 games, he actually WON those games (255 complete games).
Roger Clemens didn't win 328+ games on his own. He had a lot of help winning them. What did he pitch in his victory a few days ago, five innings?
You are correct that it's a different game today.
It's not as good.
Roger Clemens is a great pitcher, but he has to be rated against his peers like Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. You can't rate him against complete pitchers like Spahn, Grove, or Alexander. Roger is a part-time pitcher. You would have to rate Roger and his bullpen against pitchers from other eras.

Koufax, Clemens had pitched 4493 innings to the end of 2004, which is well up among the good guys and about twice Koufax's entire career. Just as he gets undeserved decisions where he pitches only 5 innings, he also loses decisions where he holds a lead and the bullpen blow it (always a frequent occurrence during the Boston part of his career at least.) I'm not a great personal fan of Fat Hick Traitor, but I'm forced to admit he's up there with the biggies.

What all of this has to do with Dobie Moore I'm not sure...

But it is going to be interesting as we get into the "modern" era. I don't know what WARP does with pitchers of the past quarter century but WS is constrained by IP, so "modern" P don't accumulate a whole lot of WS compared to the guys koufax is touting.

My guess is that voters instinctively (and reflexively, perhaps) believe that pitchING is just as important as ever, even if individuals pitchERS are not. And will make whatever adjustments are needed to elect about the same number of pitchers as from earlier eras.

Of course the data right now suggests that we may not elect very many lively ball (1920-1945 or even just 1935-1940, not to mention 1895-1900) pitchers, so maybe we will in fact cut back on "modern" pitchers too.

And what about relievers?

E.g. maybe we should elect Ford AND Arroyo as a team? Or Clemens AND Rivera?

It is essentially the reverse of the 1870s when some voters believe that pitching was not very important--and yet individual pitchers were hugely important, pitching virtually all of their teams' innings. Now pitching is important but individual pitchers less so.

I would ask koufax why the game today is "not as good" when in fact ML teams are using their full rosters much more so than before? What is wrong with leveraging a ten-man pitching staff? Maybe Sandy Koufax would have pitched 4000 IP and won 300 G with today's philosophy. How bad is that?

Sunnyday2
You are correct. This is supposed to be a Dobie Moore site.
Maybe there should be a 'general' discussion site.
As for the quality of baseball today, the period from 1947 to 1960 was called 'The Golden Age of Baseball' with good reason. Integration was in full bloom, the population had more than doubled since the turn of the century, and there were still just 16 major league teams.
Since 1960 the population has increased by 68% but the number of major league teams has increased by 88%. And even more striking, pitching, with a 5-man rotation and an 11-man roster compared to a 4-man rotation and an 8-man roster prior to 1961, has increased a whopping 258% (30 teams at 11 pitchers per team vs 16 teams at 8 pitchers per team - a total of 330 pitchers vs 128).
Pete Palmer,one of the game's foremost historians, not only has said the same thing, but he and other historians have shown that since 1903 there has been no improvement in the number of runs teams score after the 6th inning, meaning that, as Palmer notes, teams are paying a pitcher millions of dollars a year to pitch 60 innings without seeing any improvement in the results.

I don't consider myself to be a baseball expert by any means, but I probably wouldn't vote for the HOM.
I am a baseball historian however. I have written more than a dozen baseball books including five on the Negro leagues. And I am a member of the Research and Authors Group that is presently completing a study on African-American Baseball History, 1860-1960, for the HOF. The study has uncovered more than 63,000 box scores from over 115 newspapers.
Personally I would not vote for any Negro league player whose career was prior to 1920 because there are no reliable statistics available. I know many people quote statistics from Jim Riley's 1994 book, 'The Biographical Encyclopedia of Negro League Baseball' but, I am sure Jim would tell you that those stats are now obsolete. The most reliable stats available today belong to John Holway, but even those will be obsolete when the HOF publishes the results of the study.

Koufax,

That's awesome that you're in the big research study! We've mentioned it numerous times in a "can't-wait-to-get-our-hands-on-those-numbers" kind of way. Do you have any sense of when they might publish? (as in before the HOM the catches up to the HOF in 2007? or after?).

Thanks!

koufax,

Ouch. We've had many debates here about how and whether to consider players for whom we have no or limited statistical evidence. You will probably not be pleased to know that we elected Dickey Pearce, though frankly I thought in the end that the statistical evidence was pretty good, just not in the form of modern statistics from modern box scores.

But the whole spirit of this project is that it is not (for example) Frank Grant's fault that we are somewhat lacking in statistical evidence concerning his case. So we elected him too, not out of sympathy or affirmative action but because evidence we do have, while limited, suggested that he was worthy.

Koufax,

Without offending you can I ask how old or roughly how old you are? Right now you seem like the guy who can'tg get past how great baseball was in his youth. I dont' really think that 1947-1960 was the golden era of baseball so much as it was the era when most baby boomers first got into the game. It was a pretty boring era (in terms of style of play) dominated by just a few teams. I personally don't think any era was 'golden' however, so you will have an uphill struggle with me on that one.

Except for the era of my youth! Go steroids era!

Dr. Cheleeko
I would be surprised to see any Negro league statistics available from the HOF before 2007. And that may be optimistic. Projects always seem to move more slowly than you think they should. And the HOF has all the rights to the statistics. The committee cannot us them without permission from the Hall.

Jschmeagol
As a wise man once said, 'Why is youth wasted on the young'?
As you should be able to tell from my statement that I started following the Dodgers the same year Jackie Robinson joined the team, that would be 60 years ago, which puts me at 73. For your information, Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play in the major leagues in the 20th century.
Defining the period from 1947 to 1960 as 'The Golden Age of Baseball' was not my idea. Many of the foremost baseball historians, such as Pete Palmer, consider it to be so. And if you check my population and pitching increase numbers it won't be difficlt to come to the conclusion that it is probably correct. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?
Keep up the good work. With luck, you'll get older and wiser.

Yeah... post-integration/pre-expansion => Golden Era. I've seen that argument before.

That argument certainly has its merits. I can't argue with the quality of stars (especially hitting) that were playing in the 50s. But it was indeed a NY-centric era and attendance numbers were surprisingly low considering how fondly everyone remembers these times. Everyone stayed at home and TV in the fifties.

Golden Ages are in the eye of the beholder. And not just in baseball. Sociologists have pretty much demonstrated that people's musical tastes are formed during their courtship years. You can probably work out the reasons, but regardless of the reasons, it is so. (As for me, that means give me Beatles and Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and Beach Boys, anybody that starts with B. Oh, except also give me Frank Zappa.)

My first baseball season that I remember was 1957 because here in Minnesota, pre-Twins, we were part of the Milwaukee Braves network. And of course the Braves won their first NL pennant that year and then beat the "hated" Yankees (I was too young to know that they were "hated" then).

Yet I had always heard of the Golden Age as being the 1920s, ditto the Golden Age of football (Red Grange and all of that), and of boxing (Dempsey-Tunney!).

Could that be because all of the sportswriters and TV announcers of my youth had come of age in the '20s? Meaning they had been born maybe 1900-1910 and so in 1958 were 48-58 years of age? Seems plausible.

I also think that baseball may have been Golden in New York in the 1947-60 era, but I'm not sure where else. That is not to say that Mickey, Willie and the Duke don't make a hell of a trio, they do.

And the HOF has all the rights to the statistics.

Very interesting. It's been my impression of copyright law that game statistics themselves are in the public domain (and perhaps certain formulations thereof, though I don't know where the line is drawn). So it's intriguing in a nerdy, I-work-in-a-publishing-house-and-sometimes-deal-with-rights-and-permissions-issues-kind of way that the HOF would literally retain the rights to the numbers themselves.

Doc, I would assume that the HoF owns "some" statistics collected in some specific format, but that it probably happens to be a particularly comprehensive collection so that the SABR people feel like they "need" them. I am sure that if you and I went to the raw sources (contemporary newspapers, whatever) and re-compiled them, no way could the HoF interfere. But now that we know they've got a more complete set of numbers than anybody else, well, who's going to duplicate the work?

When the time comes (sometime after 2007 unfortunately) it will be interesting to see what you and Chris and Gad and Gary and others who have knowledge of this sort of thing would say about "their" numbers.

It is too bad that we're unlikely to see better stats for the Negro Leagues until we've caught up to the present, but it could make several of the annual elections after 2007 considerably more interesting if we have the opportunity to undertake a complete reevaluation of the remaining NeL candidates in light of more complete statistics.

I would like to apolgize to everyone. This site is supposed to be for comments about Dobie Moore and I turned it into a general discussion group. Hereafter I will restrict my comments to Dobie.
With that in mind, I would like to present my case for rating Dobie Moore the top shortstop in Negro league history.
The Negro league statistics for the top four, based on 550 at-bats, follow.
D T HR BA
Moore 35 15 16 .355
Lloyd 26 6 7 .337
Lundy 21 5 12 .314
Wells 33 8 20 .328

Dobie was by far the greatest hitter of the four as well as the best power hitter, followed closely by Wells

The MLE's for the four, by my calculations are:

HR BA
Moore 20 .307
Lloyd 5 .289
Lundy 9 .266
Wells 25 .280

Dobie confirmed his dominance on offense by outhitting the other three in both Cuba and California.
Cuba California
HR BA HR BA
Moore 3 .353 19 .385
Lloyd 2 .329
Lundy 5 .341
Wells 8 .320 11 .301

On defense, Dobie Moore was as good or better than his counterparts as best can be determined. According to Tweed Webb, one of the Negro league's foremost historians, who saw all four play, 'Dobie had a great arm and large range at ss'. And Willie Wells weak arm put him at a disadvantage compared to the other three.

You know, I think what makes HOM voters most upset is when a new participant (voting or otherwise) immediately begins criticizing long-voting members and/or our voting process with an attitude that seems to imply that the new participant's methods are the only correct methods.

We don't mind differences of opinion, in fact we invite them. We don't mind criticism, in fact we invite it.

Comments like:

For your information, Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play in the major leagues in the 20th century.

are totally uncalled for.

koufax, I have read many of your works and greatly admire and enjoy your historical research.

I suggest before making comments such as the one quoted above that you research our voting history and threads back through 1898. If you do you will surely find that we carefully craft our arguments, have wide differences of opinion, and attempt to argue for our position, generally in a respectful manner.

For example, we have all heard about the population/demographic argument before. In fact, voter karlmagnus is probably an expert on the subject. Many voters will respectfully disagree with your (and Pete Palmer's) assertion that 1947-1960 was a "Golden age" for baseball for two primary reasons:

1. Your population figures seem to be US-based. If international baseball playing is factored into the equation, it may be that we have too few teams now.

2. Your pitching comments could be equally applied to previous eras, in reverse. Was 19th century baseball better from a pitching perspective than 1947-1960 because such 19th century teams had much smaller pitching staffs?

Please remember that when we question your theories, we are not questioning you personally. However, with 50 voters, you generally are not going to get 100% agreement with any statement. Blanket statements like "The 60's were the Golden Age of baseball" or "Dobie Moore is the greatest shortstop in Negro League history" or "I would not vote for any Negro League player whose career was prior to 1920 because there are no reliable statistics available" are each going to get serious scrutiny from this group. The best thing to do to convince this group would be to present statistical evidence backing up these claims, and address concerns in a reasoned non-defensive manner.

I suggest that all participants, new, established, voting, and nonvoting carefully present opinion as just that, opinion. Simply preface blanket opinion statements with "I think" or "Its my opinion that" and you will make this process more enjoyable for everyone.

So, Ron, is koufax Dr. Hogan or Mr. Clark? Or should we just call him Deep Throat?

BTW I didn't find koufax' comments out of order but then I'm the Nasty Boy. I guess it's a problem with us old farts.

Ron Wargo
Thank you for your comments. I accept your honest criticism, and will carefully consider my remarks in the future.
I believe I did preface my comments on Dobie Moore's rating by saying I was presenting my case. And as for using Negro league statistics prior to 1920, I said that personally I would not use them.
As for the population numbers I used, they were not U.S. numbers. They included the U.S., Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, who are the primary suppliers of baseball players to the major leagues at the present time.

What is your MLE system Koufax? By the looks of it your MLE BA's seem a bit low, or I guess I shoudl say lower than what I remember Chris Cobb coming up with.

The problem with using the per 550 AB approach is that you are taking into account the decline phase of Lloyd, Lundy, and Wells while leaving out such a period for Dobie because of his unfortunate choice of extra curricular activites.

What are you MLE's for the best six years of Lloyd, Lundy, and Wells and how do they stack up to Moore? I would guess that Lloyd is close to Moore, or at least close enough that the extra 14 or so seasons he played would push him ahead.

I have Moore rated at #3 in that group, but am open to putting him above Wells.

I believe that Robinson comment was directed at me and was a poke at my age, seeing as how I am only 24. So I just wanted to express my amazement that a man of your age is internet literate, let alone can even spell the word computer! ;-) Please beguile us with stories of when you first saw a TV!

So, Ron, is koufax Dr. Hogan or Mr. Clark? Or should we just call him Deep Throat?

I think he's left enough clues that we can safely call him Mr. McNeil, alias Koufax...

Dobie Moore MLEs

First, here are the old estimates I made in August, 2004 and posted to the Dobie Moore thread. These include a half season of military service credit for 1920, a 10% bonus to fielding win shares, and are adjusted to 162 game-seasons

1920 24
1921 34
1922 36
1923 26
1924 31
1925 28
1926 15 (part season)

194 total

Here are the new MLEs. The main differences from the old ones are that I examined the discrepancies between the Macmillan and the Holway data more critically, I used the BB data provided by Gary A. systematically, I made more nuanced estimates of playing time, and I used conservative park factors, also derived from Gary A’s invaluable data.

These MLEs are also _not_ projected out to 162 games, do not include military service credit in 1920, and do not include a 10% bonus to fielding win shares.



*Half season. Moore was released from military service in the summer and joined the Monarchs mid-season.

Overall, the projections are a little bit lower, but not a lot. Moore didn’t take many walks, so factoring walks into his projection brought him down a little bit. Using Gary A.’s more reliable data for 1921 brought that year down quite a bit, but conversely, the more reliable data for 1923 bring it up a bit. 1920’s win shares are much lower only because the new estimates are for half a season; 1926’s win shares are lower because the data suggest that Moore was injured about a quarter of the way through the year, rather than halfway through, as I had assumed in the earlier estimate. He was playing great ball when his leg was broken.

Regression did not have much effect on Moore’s full seasons: his records include 70-80 games in each of these seasons, and at that sample size regression raises or lowers OPS+ maybe 3 or 4 points. His first season is raised a bit by regression: that seems appropriate, as he would have made adjustments and gotten better had he played more games.

I don’t think the new projections change Moore’s profile dramatically, but I think they lower it a little bit.

Since I haven’t posted Major-League-Equivalent projections for a Negro-League player in quite some time, I should briefly review the basics of the translations.

1) The MLEs are an attempt to show the probable level of performance of the player if he had played in the major leagues instead of the Negro Leagues during his career, so the projections are keyed to the offensive level of the major leagues for each season of the player’s career. For the 1920s, I alternate AL in odd years and NL in even years. From 1930 on, all projections are into a National League context.

1) They are based on the available raw data of Negro-League play. The main sources for this are the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedias, 8th & 10th editions and Holway’s _Complete Book of the Negro Leagues_.

2) Unless I note specifically, the MLEs do not include winter league play in Cuba or Puerto Rico.

3) The basic translation factor is .90 BA/.82 SA, a factor based on a study of comparative performances of all the players who played at least one season full time in the Negro Leagues and in the Major Leagues. This factor almost certainly underrates NeL players during the 1930s contraction era. This translation factor is modified by park factors when available and by league offense levels, which I have ascertained for the NeL to the best of my ability.

4) The projections are regressed to a five-season baseline.

5) Batting win shares are estimated by comparison to major-league comparables, identified by OPS+. I try to find the 5 closest matches, calculate their rate of win shares per game, and select a rate within that range that seems reasonable for the NeL player.

6) Fielding win shares are based on reputation and raw fielding data where available. I usually pick a major-league comp and follow that player’s pattern, according to age. Dobie Moore’s fielding stats, what we have of them, are _outstanding_, as is his reputation, so I have worked out his fielding win shares at a rate 5% below Everett Scott, who was the top defensive shortstop of this era, and who was close to Moore in age.

I’d be happy to answer questions about the projection methodology.

I don’t think the new projections change Moore’s profile dramatically, but I think they lower it a little bit.

Might be enough to knock him off my ballot, however. I'll have to go over his numbers sometime this week to verify that impression.

Great work, Chris, as usual!

A couple of notes on Moore:

1.Here are the player cohorts again from 1916-1925 at shortsop:

1916-1920

SS R Hornsby (’17-18), JH Lloyd (’16, ’18)

1921-1925

SS J Beckwith (‘23), R Mackey (’24)

Joe Sewell WS, 1921-5

26, 21, 29, 22, 24

Rabbit Maranville WS, 1921-5

23, 22, 16, 15, 4

Dobie Moore projected WS, 1921-5

23, 31, 32, 33, 25


Moore was the best shortstop in baseball between 1922-5. If you give him credit for just two years with the Wreckers, and assume he was somewhere in the vicinity of his ’21-25 talent level, then he was the best shortstop in baseball from 1919-25 (with the exception of ’21, when he is still reasonably close). And he may well deserve more than two years of credit.

2.Is it just me, or does Moore have the best peak of any shortstop between Arky Vaughan (elected in ’54) and Robin Yount (eligible ’98), with the possible exception of Ernie Banks? Yes, I know it’s ’76 and I’m not really supposed to say that, but I feel I have to make the point: With *maybe* one exception, Moore has the best peak we’ll see BY FAR on a ballot at shortstop in a FORTY-FOUR YEAR PERIOD.

Moore was going to be at #1 on my ballot before Chris’ projections; they only confirm that choice.

with the possible exception of Ernie Banks?

yeah, if a guy averages 115 RBI a year for 6 years, in a VERY tough integrated-but-not-expanded league (1955-60), winning a couple of MVPs for a cellar dwellar, that MIGHT be an exception.

oh, and Arky played AFTER Dobie, so Dobie has to fit between Honus and Arky.

yeah, if a guy averages 115 RBI a year for 6 years, in a VERY tough integrated-but-not-expanded league (1955-60), winning a couple of MVPs for a cellar dwellar, that MIGHT be an exception.


Dobie Moore projected WS, 1921-5

23, 31, 32, 33, 25

Ernie Banks WS, 1955-61

32, 22, 28, 31, 33, 29, 19

In terms of three-year peak, they look about the same. In terms of seven year prime, it depends on how much credit you give Moore in '19-20 with the Wreckers. In terms of career, Banks is better, although that's because he played seven years at 1B when his high OPS+ was 118.

RBIs? How many RBIS do you think Moore would have had playing in the majors in 1923?

Your point about league quality is well taken. In their seven-year primes, I would give Banks the edge over Moore, but--at least according to WS--it's close.


oh, and Arky played AFTER Dobie, so Dobie has to fit between Honus and Arky.

Yes, I know. My points were that a) Moore was the dominant shorstop of his time and b) he is the best shorstop on the ballot, and--at least in terms of peak--has been so since 1954, and will remain so in the future, except when Banks arrives. And he's close to Banks in peak and prime.

Moore is not a contemporary of Wagner, but OK, let's look at peak since 1920, when we start having data for Moore. It's 1976; which shorstops have had better peaks in the past fifty-six years? Vaughan for sure, Cronin, probably Wells and Beckwith(don't have their data in front of me). Boudreau maybe, although two of Lou's big years came in '43 and '44. So in the past fifty-five years, there are four or five guys with better peaks than Moore, all of them in the Hall of Merit.

The cut to the chase takeaway I see here is Dobie Moore = 6 years of Ernie Banks. I'll run the numbers again but that's probably not enough to sniff the ballot.

CAVEAT

Chris mentions it but just barely. These MLEs are for Moore's time in the NeLs only, a total of 6 years.

But of course anyone who gives WWI or WWII credit to anybody has got to adjust 1920 to a full season, which makes 1920 a 25-26 WS season rather than a 9 WS season.

Then there is the fact of his play with the Wreckers, an elite black army ball club that, we are told, played competitive games with PCL teams. Moore played 4, maybe 4.5 years with the Wreckers. We've had this debate before, and more than once: But I can't imagine giving him zero credit for that. Some have said, well, he chose to play army ball rather than NeL ball, just like Sam Leever chose to teach school. Well, the whole point of having MLEs at all, and of trying to give black ballplayers a fair shake, is to ask, What would he have done if he had been able to play MLB? If Dobie Moore had been able to play ML or high MiL baseball, he would not have played for the Wreckers.

But add to that the fact that *he played ball* during those seasons whereas Sam Leever did not.

One can legitimately ask whether Moore should get MLE credit for his entire career with the Wreckers, or only for the latter couple-three years. But his entire stint with the Wreckers cannot be a big fat zero. So what you end up with is Dobie Moore = 9-10 years of Ernie Banks, not just 6.

Moore 33-32-31-25-25*-23-21*-19*-17*-8
Banks (SS) 33-32-31-29-28-22-19-15-2

Moore (10 years) 234 (any 3) 96 (5 cons.) 143 (per year) 23.4
Banks (SS--9 yrs) 211 (any 3) 96 (5 cons.) 146 (per year) 23.4

Of course Banks went on to play another 10 years while this is the sum total of Moore's career. Of course Banks' 10 years at 1B don't add much to his case:

Banks (1B) 18-18-17-15-14-14-11-9-5
Sisler (post-injury) 19-16-15-13-11-11-8

Not that this has much to do with Dobie Moore. Or does it? I mean, if Ernie Banks is a HoMer (and he is) it is based on his time at SS. And during his time at SS, he was approx. the player that Dobie Moore was. Which raises the question of how Moore and the pre-injury Sisler look.

Banks (SS) 33-32-31-29-28-22-19-15-2
Moore 33-32-31-25-25*-23-21*-19*-17*-8
Sisler 33-29-29-28-27-26-25-10

I mean, there's a thought. For all intents and purposes, Ernie Banks = George Sisler, and Dobie Moore = the better half of each.

Moore has been as high as #1 on my ballot. In fact last year he was #1 and Sisler was #4. Right now I think that relationship holds, and he will stay where he is, #1 among the backlog. A couple WS here and a couple there doesn't change his profile. Now, for those who don't give any extra WWII credit to Charley Keller or Joe Gordon or Phil Rizutto, then maybe it's fair to not give Moore any credit for his time in the military--except the for inconvenient little fact that he WAS playing ball. What is the point of pretending he didn't?

Assuming Dobie Moore was born in 1895

Using Chris Cobb’s Estimates, only doubling 1920 since he was in the Army for ½ a season.

From Ages 25-31 Moore had 171 Win Shares.

Through the 2004 season, 104 Hitters (non-pitchers) earned 171 Win Shares from age 25-31. 149 earned had 171 or more.

The list of players between 173 and 169 Win Shares

Brock, Lou
Bonds, Bobby
McGriff, Fred
Bench, Johnny
Manush, Heinie
Cash, Norm
Howard, Frank
Colavito, Rocky
Moore, Dobie
Brett, George
Hodges, Gil
Frisch, Frankie
Palmeiro, Rafael
Rosen, Al
Griffey Jr., Ken
Abreu, Bobby
Gwynn, Tony
Herman, Billy
Keeler, Willie
Jennings, Hughie
Wilson, Hack
Sheffield, Gary
Milan, Clyde
Torre, Joe

From Age 27-29 Moore tallied 96 Win Shares, 27th on the list, tied with Dale Murphy and Ken Griffey Jr.

1200 Batters have earned at least 100 career Win Shares, 506 of those had less than 20 Win Shares before age 25.

Of those 506, 110 had less than 20 Win Shares after age 32.

Of the 110, 3 others had a Peak from age 27-29 similar to Moore, they are Al Rosen, 96 WS, George Stone 92, and Todd Helton 87. Hopefully Helton’s current illness doesn’t actually turn him into a member of this group.

Al Rosen’s value pattern looks very similar to me Moore’s.

Age 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Career
Rosen 0 29 25 31 42 27 16 15 185
Moore 19 23 31 32 33 25 8 0 171
Stone 0 0 27 38 27 26 11 17 146

Feel free to ask if you have questions.

Through the 2004 season, 104 Hitters (non-pitchers) earned 171 Win Shares from age 25-31. 149 earned had 171 or more.


Correction:
Through the 2004 season, 104 Hitters (non-pitchers) earned 171 Win Shares from age 25-31. 149 earned had 161 or more.

Chris,

On the MLEs, what are the league averages (AVG/OBP/SLG) for each season?

The new translations do make Moore's NeL peak a little less impressive. He seems to go from Hughie Jennings to George Sisler if Sisler had not come back from his sinus infections. I was thinking of dropping him but it won't be more than a spot or two. He was #6 in 1975 and he may stay there with Ralph Kiner jumping over him to #5.

Still, Sunny is right. Banks and Sisler won't make the HOM based on the ends of theri respective careers,it is the top 7,8 years that are going to get them there. Any peak/prime voter, like myself, shouldn't be giving them too much credit for those years anyway. Moore's NeL/WWI time is roughly as long and as good as the peak/prime years of these two players. I see no reason why he should't be ranked in at least a similar way. AND if you give him decent credit fo rhi time with teh Wreckers, I think he pushs ahead of at least Sisler. I am not sure he is #1. Charlie Keller had 5-6 (depeding on war and MiL credit) years as an MVP level paleyr and a few years just below. Not sure why a peak voter wouldn't have him above Moore with these new MLE's.

On the MLEs, what are the league averages (AVG/OBP/SLG) for each season?

They are the pitchers removed averages for 1920-26, drawn originally, I think, from Lee Sinins' Sabermetric Encyclopedia. I have them by way of a spreadsheet from Dr. Chaleeko, who compiled them. As I mentioned above, even years are NL, odd years are AL.

I used pitchers-removed OPS+ scores so that the ones I generate will be scaled the same as the ones in baseball-reference, so that a) one can make eyeball comparisons with them and b) I can use them more systematically to produce win-share estimates.

I don't have the batting average column handy, but here are the OBP/SLG averages I used for each of Moore's seasons:

1920 .330 / .368
1921 .365 / .421
1922 .359 / .419
1923 .360 / .401
1924 .345 / .404
1925 .370 / .420
1926 .347 / .398

While I'm posting, I should mention that I give Moore credit for 3.5 MLE seasons with the Wreckers (1917 through first half of 1920). I don't post those seasons as part of his MLEs because my totals for those seasons are not derived from actual data. The posted MLEs seek to show what can be derived from the extant statistical record.

Mike W. - could answer me this . . .

Of the players who had 165-175 WS from age 25-31, what did they average from age 21-24? Also, could you give the average they had at 21, 22, 23 and 24 individually? That would help me immensely with figuring out fair credit for Moore's years with the wreckers.

For me, that 6-year peak is not enough. He's going to need credit for those years with the Wreckers to get on my ballot.

Thanks!

One other thing, if you could specifically list any SS in that wider group (Jennings is the only one listed above) that would also help . . . thanks!

I was going through William F. McNeil's California Winter League and found Dobie Moore's career in the CA Winter League:

Years    G   AB   H  2B 3B  HR   AVG   SLG
1920-21 34  139  46   7  6   1  .331  .489
1921-22 22   80  22   4  3   0  .275  .400
1922-23 Didn't Play
1923-24 Cuba
1924-25 40  158  77  17  4  12  .487  .873
career  96  377 145  28 13  13  .385  .631

Bolds are league leading totals.

I hope the formatting works...

Ok the formatting didn't work, but it looks understandable.

Is it lower case pre tags?

For comparison's sake, I have the stats for Turkey Stearnes, Mule Suttles, Wild Bill Wright, Bullet Joe Rogan, Biz Mackey, Rap Dixon, Cool Papa Bell, Tank Carr, Newt Allen, Earl Averill, Wally Berger, Ping Bodie, Bibb Falk, Fred Haney, Babe Herman, Smead Jolley, Ernest Lee, Heinie Manush, Irish Meusel, Bob Meusel, and Jigger Statz. Numerous other major leaguers played in 1 to 5 games here and there.

For me, that 6-year peak is not enough. He's going to need credit for those years with the Wreckers to get on my ballot.

Without the Wreckers, he would have never made my ballot in the first place. He doesn't really belong in the group that Mike compiled.

There are 50 players with between 165 and 176 Win Shares from age 25 to 31 (I expanded your selection to 176 Joe because there is only one player that had 176, Ernie Banks).

They averaged 48 Win Shares between the ages of 21-24, the high being Cal Ripken’s 120, and Al Rosen, Kiki Cuyler and Tommy Holmes earning none.

The 50 averaged :


Shortstop in the 176 to 165 Win Shares from age 25 to 31, with their age 21 to 24, 25 to 31,after age 31 Win Shares

Cal Ripken – 120 – 174 -133
Hughie Jennings – 28 – 169 - 17
Alan Trammel – 64 - 168 - 72
Barry Larkin – 45 – 165 - 137
Ernie Banks – 49 – 176 – 107
Dobie Moore – 0 – 171 - 0


I’ll throw in the Second basemen as long as I have the spreadsheet out.

Nellie Fox – 55 – 175 – 74
Frankie Frisch – 100 – 171 - 95
Bobby Grich – 55 –167 - 107
Billy Herman – 61 –170 - 61
Robby Alomar – 123 – 165 - 88

And another couple guys:
Tommy Leach – 60 – 168 - 100
Ken Boyer – 14 –167 – 98
Ron Cey – 2 – 165 – 113
Al Rosen – 0 – 170 - 15

Who’s value pattern is most similar to Dobie Moore’s if he would have been about the same as the average player with his career from age 25 to 31? (Meaning had he earned about 48 Win Share before age 25)

Damn few of these guys broke their leg so bad jumping out a window that they never played past age 31.

Name – Age 21-24, 25 to 31, 32+, Total


Not quite the peak of Dobie, but just for fun.

Give Moore that average and he looks more and more like Ernie Banks all the time.

Ernie Banks – 49 – 176 – 107
Dobie Moore – 48 – 171 - 0

And keep in mind that "giving" Moore 48 WS is not manna from heaven. It is merely MLE credit for baseball that he was in fact playing at the time, more like giving Averill credit for a PCL year.

Of course Banks played 10 more years but as a below average 1B.

Overall, however, Moore looks more like Jennings than Banks, which means tht career voters are not impressed. As a peak voter, if he is like Jennings or like Banks-the-SS, that is very very good.

Prorating Ernie Banks bumped up Dobie Moore. I'm using a slight discount from Banks to give Banks the credit he deserves for 100% certainty in the numbers. Anyway, Dobie Moore just jumped up to 18 on my ballot.

WARP doesn't think Banks' 1B years were below average. It thinks more like solidly average. Those years have value.

Yes, they do have value.

Banks (1B) 18-18-17-15-14-14-11-9-5
Sisler (post-injury) 19-16-15-13-11-11-8

Banks (SS) 33-32-31-29-28-22-19-15-2
Sisler (pre) 33-29-29-28-27-26-25-10

Banks has the advantage of 14 WS over 7 common years, plus 2 years worth 14 WS, "after," though these are 162 game seasons for Banks vs. 154 game seasons for Sisler. IOW it is almost a wash, maybe a very very slight edge to Banks.

During the respective primes Banks is +2 WS over the common 9 years, and Sisler has a 10 WS year left over. These now are mostly 154 game seasons for both, so again, a wash.

Yes, Banks' declining years have value. As do Sisler's.

There will be voters who have Banks #1 and Sisler #40, but I don't know why.

Speaking as a peak voter, Banks, Moore and Sisler are interchangeable. Speaking as a career voter, Banks and Sisler are almost interchangeable.

WARP doesn't think Banks' 1B years were below average. It thinks more like solidly average. Those years have value.

106 OPS+ in 5000 PA. Is that average for 1B from 1962-71? Its better than Sisler's post-injury 97 OPS+.

Sunny's been beating me to the punch all week. :-)

Sunny in post 61 wrote:

And keep in mind that "giving" Moore 48 WS is not manna from heaven. It is merely MLE credit for baseball that he was in fact playing at the time, more like giving Averill credit for a PCL year.

John Murphy in post 58 wrote:

Without the Wreckers, he would have never made my ballot in the first place. He doesn't really belong in the group that Mike compiled.

I've been trying to just sort the spreadsheets, and put out lists.

But I have to say, all of the guys that have listed were "in fact playing at the time."

I think you could make a very strong arguement that all of the guys listed above were playing against competition that was as good or better than the competition Moore and the Wrecker's played against. Usually with a bigger N too to smooth out the numbers.

The key is that Moore has Zero value after his injury.

I still think he looks like Rosen, which is an opinion, but I didn't say where that should place him on your ballot. He's better than Stone, but I still think he is similar.

When you compare great/unique players, you don't have many to compare them to, check out Al Rosen's similarity scores. Chavez, Glaus, Carlos Lee, Adrian Beltre are on the list, if any of those guys back goes out today, those are good comps, but if not, in five years they will no longer be on the list.

So, make a good arguement why I shouldn't consider his value to be similar to Chuck Klein's or Hack Wilson's or Al Rosen's.

Can someone lead me to the post that has a description of the competition Moore faced with the Wreckers?

I think you could make a very strong arguement that all of the guys listed above were playing against competition that was as good or better than the competition Moore and the Wrecker's played against. Usually with a bigger N too to smooth out the numbers.

But the bottom line is whether or not Moore would have been an above-average player if he had played in the ML during the 1910's. IMO, I think he was superior to Rosen, Stone, etc. at the same age, which helps him in my system. Of course, I may come to a different conclusion after I reevaluate Moore's numbers sometime this week.

All I've ever claimed is that Moore deserves 10 years of credit for actively playing the game of baseball--not just 6 or 6.5.

Oh, OK, I've also said he was probably the best peak player available out of the backlog, taking peak to mean up to 5 years or so. I think where his value outstrips Klein or Wilson, or Rosen for that matter, is that he hit like they did while, apparently, playing an extremely good brand of defense at the SS position. I think one could argue that the only SS who was ever better on both offense AND defense was Honus Wagner. That's not to say he is the #2 SS, but nevertheless the few other SSs who hit as good or better than Moore are not as good defensively.

Sunny,

I think that the new MLE indicate that Moore's peak is not the best on the board. You may discount the WS peak of someone like Hugh Duffy, I do a little and he is still going to be #3 for me) but I can't see how Moore's peak is better than either Keller or Kiner's. He still has an impressive peak and I must sa that I think that these WS estimates are underrating him a little (of course i have no evidence on that, just a hunch) but I dont' see it as the best peak.

Also,

Would incorporating the California Winter League data into the MLE's be valid or helpful? It would augment whatever data we have and we have done the same with other NeL players. Something tells me that with all the black ink that he has in a league that included some HOM players it would end up helping him a little.

The problem with the California Winter League data is that we don't have a competition level for it. To estimate a competition level, we would need at least basic league wide data and data for a number of players who also played in the majors or in the Negro Leagues. If we have that data, then competition levels could be calculated and the data would be a perfectly valid addition to the MLEs. I have generally stuck to NeL data myself because I trust the competition level estimates for those leagues more those of others, although I think some of the CubanWL competition levels we've calculated are nearly as reliable.

Dr. Chaleeko has incorporated data from other leagues more freely than I have, so he might do a better job wranging the CalifWL data into MLEs than I would.

One of the nice things with the CA Winter League is that White Major Leaguers also played in it. There is one problem in that not all the games are reported so league totals may not be correct. There should be many data points available for comparison though.

1920-21:
LA White Sox:
Tank Carr
Hurley McNair
Bullet Joe Rogan
Dobie Moore
Rube Currie

Pirrone's All Stars:
Max Carey
Johnny Bassler
Bob Meusel
Lu Blue
Irish Meusel

Fisher's All Stars:
Truck Hannah

1921-22:
Colored All Stars:
Oscar Charleston
Biz Mackey
Tank Carr
Hurley McNair
Bob Fagan
Dobie Moore
Jose Mendez (SS)

Other players:
Lu Blue
Irish Meusel
Bob Meusel

1922-23:
LA White Sox:
Jose Mendez SS
Tank Carr
Biz Mackey

Pirrone's All Stars:
Heinie Manush
Babe Herman

St. Louis All Stars: (No W-L published, but their batting numbers were)
Cool Papa Bell
Turkey Stearnes

1923-24:
St. Louis Stars:
Turkey Stearnes
Connie Day
Bill Riggins
Henry Blackman
Cool Papa Bell

Pirrone's All Stars:
Larry Doyle
Babe Herman

1924-25:
LA White Sox:
Bob Fagan
Lem Hawkins
Dobie Moore
Hurley McNair
Connie Day
Tank Carr

Pirrone's All Stars:
Ping Bodie
Babe Herman

White Kings:
Bib Falk
Buzz Arlett
Doc Crandall

Vernon Tigers:
I haven't heard of any of them

Others:
Mule Haas


These are just the players from the Dobie Moore era. For all these players, the book lists G / AB / H / D / T / HR / BA. Slugging is easy to figure. No walk totals though. The 1924-25 season kicked off a 10-year "Renaissance" period. Biz Mackey, Joe Rogan, Newt Allen, Rap Dixon, Jigger Statz, Babe Herman, Fred Haney, Casey Stengal, Charlie Root, Doc Crandall, Turkey Stearnes, and Mule Suttles all played in this period. Let me know if this helps.

Kelly - if I'm reading that correctly, the league was integrated but the teams weren't. Is that a correct impression? That all-black teams played against all-white teams?

Again while I am not the one to do this (at least not until we get to the 1977 Ballot Discussion when I am done with finals) is there any way to get the numbers into a spreadsheet? I hate to give more work to Chris and Doc but these numbers may help us with a very viable candidate.

So, make a good arguement why I shouldn't consider his value to be similar to Chuck Klein's or Hack Wilson's or Al Rosen's.

I think the ke argument here can't be about anything other than position. How many SS available are as good as Moore? Probably none, or very few. But RF is a position where Moore's career wouldn't look nearly as special. I'm (nowadays) an advocate for positional balance, not for favoring up-the-middle-guys or anything like that. So I look and see that Moore's better than Sewell and Rizzuto. But he's not, to my mind, better than someone like Trouppe or Bresnahan is in comparison to Schang, Schalk, and Lollar.

Chris,

You asked about competition levels. The short answer is that I don't have a great universal system for it as I'd like to. I combine whatever info the group has calculated (for instance the Cuban QoP numbers) with whatever anecdotal information we have about the classification of a league. In my own mind I'm trying to work with the A/AA/AAA framework. If league is known to be as good as AAA, then I run it at 93% of MLB or so. 87% for AA. And down the line. Wish had a more scientific answer for you.

jschmeagol,

just cut an paste or hand-enter the data and you'll be fine. if what you mean to do is reverse engineer the MLE WS, use James's short-form formula and adjust it for position based on games played or defensive reputation. if there's some particular aspect of it you'd like to see, let me know by email. i won't see it this weekend (the p'rents are visiting), but I'll get in touch as soon as I can.

Problem is I don't have the numbers, Kelly does.

I'm not sure what stats would be the most helpful. But here are Rogan's, Mackey's, Stearnes', Suttles', Bell's, and both Meusel's. The writer states that the peak talent years for the league were 1924-25 to the mid-30s. Also, the stats for some black teams are more sparse than others.

The year refers to start of the playing season.
Cool Papa Bell
year Gm ABs H D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 03 06 04 0 0 01 .667 1.167
1923 07 17 03 0 0 02 .176 .528
1924 30 120 48 2 0 01 .400 .442
1930 11 31 08 0 0 01 .258 .355
1931 09 41 17 1 0 00 .415 .439
1933 43 163 59 15 4 6 .362 .613
1934 24 98 30 06 05 1 .306 .500

Biz Mackey
year Gm ABs Hs

I'm not sure what stats would be the most helpful. But here are Rogan's, Mackey's, Stearnes', Suttles', Bell's, and both Meusel's. The writer states that the peak talent years for the league were 1924-25 to the mid-30s. Also, the stats for some black teams are more sparse than others. I tried to post lines for hitters with NL or AL time in the 20s to mid-30s to aid translations.

The year refers to start of the playing season.
Cool Papa Bell
year Gm ABs H D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 03 06 04 0 0 01 .667 1.167
1923 07 17 03 0 0 02 .176 .528
1924 30 120 48 2 0 01 .400 .442
1930 11 31 08 0 0 01 .258 .355
1931 09 41 17 1 0 00 .415 .439
1933 43 163 59 15 4 6 .362 .613
1934 24 98 30 06 05 1 .306 .500
Bell also played in 36, 37, 40, 43, and 44.

Connie Day
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 09 038 04 0 0 00 .105
1923 13 052 11 1 0 01 .212
1924 39 147 47 5 4 08 .320
1925 34 132 37 10 0 03 .280
1927 12 044 09 2 1 00 .205
1928 29 119 31 6 1 01 .261

Sammy Hughes
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1934 30 105 39 8 1 03 .371
1935 17 069 27 3 2 06 .391
1936 03 012 06 0 0 02 .500
1937 10 046 20 3 1 00 .435
1938 01 015 06 1 0 02 .400
1940 10 038 12 2 1 04 .316
1941 02 009 03 0 0 00 .333

Heavy Johnson
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 11 046 16 2 1 01 .340

Biz Mackey
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 25 081 40 8 5 00 .494
1921 33 130 51 8 6 04 .392
1922 13 050 17 3 1 00 .340
1925 38 146 48 9 2 06 .329
1926 28 095 30 4 0 05 .316
1927 18 065 25 5 0 03 .385
1928 29 111 51 10 1 05 .459
1929 23 091 32 7 1 05 .352
1930 14 043 18 4 1 00 .419
1935 12 037 09 1 0 00 .243
Mackey also played in 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44

Jose Mendez
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1921 26 090 23 3 3 02 .256
1922 14 050 12 1 0 00 .240

Spots Poles
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 19 074 27 3 5 01 .365

Joe Rogan
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 30 106 39 3 4 05 .368
1925 30 089 30 8 0 02 .326
1926 23 057 17 2 0 00 .298
1928 28 106 43 5 1 04 .406
1929 19 076 28 8 0 04 .368

Turkey Stearnes
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 09 037 12 2 1 03 .324
1923 08 032 11 0 1 02 .344
1926 27 101 38 4 2 06 .376
1927 12 053 20 3 0 07 .377
1928 30 113 42 2 4 07 .372
1930 37 137 53 9 3 05 .387
1933 39 121 40 10 2 05 .331
1934 26 097 41 2 1 16 .423
1935 19 063 24 7 2 05 .381

Mule Suttles
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1930 11 038 18 6 0 07 .474
1931 08 029 17 1 0 02 .586
1933 42 157 51 11 0 14 .325
1934 26 096 33 7 0 16 .344
1935 19 057 17 1 0 11 .298
1937 10 037 18 2 0 07 .429
1938 05 018 08 1 0 06 .444
1939 05 018 08 0 0 07 .444

Willie Wells
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1924 09 032 10 1 0 01 .313
1926 33 105 19 6 1 00 .181
1927 14 048 15 3 0 00 .313
1930 13 057 17 2 2 02 .275
1931 06 024 10 0 0 00 .417
1933 41 158 56 19 1 06 .355
1934 27 094 28 9 2 02 .319
Wells also played in 1944.

NeL Pitchers
Chet Brewster - 1926, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44
George Britt - 1925
Andy Cooper - 1922, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30
Willie Foster - 1926, 30, 31
Jess Hubbard - 1920, 25, 27
Satchel Paige - 1931, 32, 33, 34, 35, 43, 45, 46, 47
Joe Rogan - 1917, 1920, 2, 26, 28, 29
Joe Williams - 1909, 1910, 15


Wally Berger
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1930 13 047 20 2 0 10 .426
1935 01 004 02 1 1 00 .500

Lu Blue
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 10 033 08 1 0 00 .242
1921 17 058 16 3 2 02 .276

Ping Bodie
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 05 019 07 2 1 00 .368
1923 01 004 01 0 0 00 .250
1924 22 087 29 7 2 04 .333
1926 25 081 23 2 0 02 .284
1927 10 040 11 0 0 01 .275
1932 08 008 03 0 0 00 .375

Tony Boeckel
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 13 055 15 1 0 00 .273
1921 17 064 22 3 3 00 .344

Dick Cox
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 01 004 02 0 0 01 .500
1923 02 008 05 1 2 01 .625
1924 21 081 30 7 1 01 .370
1925 14 061 20 1 0 02 .328
1926 17 057 17 1 0 01 .298
1927 03 013 04 0 0 00 .308
1928 11 049 16 0 0 01 .327
1929 13 047 13 4 0 00 .277
1930 05 010 02 1 0 00 .200

Bibb Falk
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1923 02 008 02 0 1 00 .250
1924 12 041 11 0 0 00 .268
1926 01 004 01 0 0 00 .250
1929 11 042 10 1 0 02 .238

Lew Fonseca
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1926 16 051 15 5 0 00 .275

Fred Haney
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1927 14 055 20 2 2 00 .364
1928 15 055 14 1 1 00 .255
1929 17 069 22 2 2 00 .319
1930 13 047 13 1 0 00 .277
Haney also played 1 to 5 games in many other years

Chicken Hawks
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1925 30 108 31 7 0 00 .287

Babe Herman
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1921 02 008 03 1 0 00 .375
1922 06 024 09 4 1 00 .375
1923 09 038 10 4 1 01 .290
1924 17 066 26 6 1 02 .394
1925 15 061 21 1 0 00 .344
1926 01 004 03 0 1 01 .750
1927 05 019 07 1 0 02 .368
Herman played several years with 1 game a year.

Heinie Manush
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1922 6 23 7 3 0 0 .304
1923 5 18 5 3 0 0 .278
1924 2 7 2 0 0 0 .287

Irish Meusel
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 08 034 08 1 4 00 .235
1921 10 040 17 1 1 01 .425
1926 15 052 10 4 1 00 .192
1927 09 037 14 3 0 02 .378
1928 17 063 17 1 0 03 .270
1929 14 049 17 3 1 02 .347
1930 03 014 06 1 0 01 .375

Bob Meusel
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1920 12 049 14 1 2 00 .286
1921 09 039 12 2 2 02 .308
1927 05 020 06 1 0 01 .300
Bob also had several years with 1 to 3 games played

Johnny Rawlings
year Gm ABs Hs D T HR AVG. SLG.
1921 09 035 11 1 2 00 .314
1926 20 066 16 2 0 00 .242
1930 09 032 12 1 0 00 .375

Pitchers with major league experience include:
Clyde Barfoot - 1925, 26, 28
George Blaeholder - 1926
Howard Ehmke - 1914, 17, 18
Bob Feller - 1939, 45, 46, 47
Larry French - 1930, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36
Walter Johnson - 1907-1909 - 24 GS, 24 CG, 18-3, 219 IP, 321 K, 12 BB
Lou Koupol - 1926-28, 1930-31, 34, 36
Bobo Newsom - 1933, 1943
Red Oldham - 1920, 21, 22, 25, 26
Bill Pertica - 1920, 1921, 1924
Herman Pillette - 1926, 28, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38
Charlie Root - 1925
Lefty Williams - 1923, 25, 27

eyeballing those stats and names, it looks like the Negro Leaguers had a higher caliber of player participating than did the white guys.
However, all had highish offensive stats.
Were these games played in good hitting atmospheres?
The Big Train looked great (go figure), but none of the hitters mentioned played in the same seasons as he did.

I decided to calculate cumulative stats for the MLB players who played in the Cal. Winter League. The seasons included are only those in which the player played in the MLB the previous season (ex.: if a player played in the 1921-22 CWL season and the 1921 MLB season, those two batting lines are added as data points). They also had to have some significant playing time in the CWL (the cutoff point was Babe Herman, 1927 (19 AB) and Heinie Manush, 1923 (18 AB).

These are the players covered in the studay: Lu Blue, Tony Boeckel, Dick Cox, Bibb Falk, Fred Haney, Chicken Hawks, Babe Herman, Heinie Manush, Irish Meusel, Bob Meusel, Johnny Rawlings.

CUMULATIVE CWL STATS
1019 AB / 304 H / 41 2B / 21 3B / 15 HR / .298 AVG / .424 SLG

CUMULATIVE MLB STATS
8671 AB / 2676 H / 497 2B / 146 3B / 151 HR / .309 AVG / .452 SLG

League stats, if such a thing could be found, would be extremely helpful. However, a reasonable estimate would seem to have the CWL in Dr. Chaleeko's AA-AAA range (.87-.93 conversion rate).

I'll add the other "shoulder season" (ex.: if a player plays in the 1921-22 Winter season, I'll include both the 1921 and 1922 seasons if he played in MLB).

I meant to say that I'll add the other "shoulder season" in to the MLB cumulative stats to see if that affects things.

I forgot to add in Wally Berger's 1930 seasons. This changes the cumulative rate stats to the following:

CWL: .304 / .454
MLB: .309 / .462

Adding in "shoulder seasons" keeps the MLB averages at .309 / .462.

Did the California Winter League season begin after the eastern season or, later, after the Pacific Coast League season? If the latter, mayhap many PCL'ers played in the winter league. At one remove, that would increase the sample for the CWL:MLB quality estimate.

--
Banks (playing 1B) 18-18-17-15-14-14-11-9-5
Sisler (post-injury) 19-16-15-13-11-11-8

Banks (SS) 33-32-31-29-28-22-19-15-2
Sisler (pre) 33-29-29-28-27-26-25-10

Banks has the advantage of 14 WS over 7 common years, plus 2 years worth 14 WS, "after," though these are 162 game seasons for Banks vs. 154 game seasons for Sisler. IOW it is almost a wash, maybe a very very slight edge to Banks.

Prorating Sisler, the 7-year sums are 107 and 98,
65 and 56 above replacement?-level 6,
44 and 35 above replacement?-level 9.
Anyway, it's about one game every two years.

So, Moore's new batting win shares line reads:

828 G, 109.6 bWS, 21.4 bWS/162g

That is fantastic for a shortstop. Only two other shortstops (Wagner and Vaughan) had better rates, but of course many shortstops had better career bWS.

I looked for other hitters with similar rates, for comparison. Moore definitely fits with the corner outfielders and first basemen as a hitter, but not with standout corner outfielders and first basemen. (21.1 - Fred Dunlap, Edd Roush, Roberto Clemente, Chick Stahl, George J Burns, Ken Singleton; 21.2 - Minnie Minoso, Mickey Cochrane, Mike Griffin, Patsy Dougherty; 21.4 - Billy Williams, Danny Green; 21.5 - Roger Maris, Babe Herman; 21.6 - Orlando Cepeda, Goose Goslin.)

Besides UA Dunlap and Mickey Cochrane, the nearest fielders to Moore's 21.4 number are Charlie Gehringer (20.6), Larry Doyle (21.8), and Hardy Richardson (22.0). We've obviously elected Gehringer and Richardson but Doyle is not close.

I'm still a bit taken aback by Doyle's lack of support, and can only really explain it by the WARP teens NL adjustment. Middle infielders just do not hit like Larry Doyle. Even Dobie Moore at his best had the same rate that Doyle did for his 1766 career games over twice the number of MLE games we have for Doyle). Plus, adding a couple of years at the beginning of Moore's career likely brings his rate down a bit further.

Earlier, Howie said that he couldn't understand how someone would vote for Moore over Gordon. With Gordon on the verge of election, I submit that I don't understand how other lesser hitting second basemen are leapfrogging Laughing Larry. Yes, he played in a weaker league, but sometimes it seems that the teens NL are being treated as a lesser league than the Negro Leagues, the AA, or Gavy Cravath's aught's PCL.

In light of these new Moore numbers, take another look at Doyle, who is truly a rare player that deserves enshrinement.

That is (over twice the number of MLE games we have for Moore)

Stupid nonediting.

Still, look at Doyle this backlog week.

I'm still a bit taken aback by Doyle's lack of support, and can only really explain it by the WARP teens NL adjustment. Middle infielders just do not hit like Larry Doyle.

Well, there's the matter that Doyle was at best indifferent and at worst terrible defensively.

And middle infielders do hit like Larry Doyle. Win shares loves his offense, setting him apart from other middle infielders, but if you look at his offense in terms of OPS+ or EQA, he doesn't stand out above the pack.

Among second basemen, I don't see any way to rate Doyle ahead of Gordon or Childs.

Middle infielders {do [Chris Cobb]}/{do not [Ron Wargo]} hit like Larry Doyle.

Just to indicate where I stand (and it's where I've stood for decades), I'm siding with Ron on this particular point.

if you look at his offense in terms of OPS+ or EQA, he doesn't stand out above the pack.

His 126 OPS+ is greater than Gordon (121) or Childs (119). His .294 EQA is just behind Childs (.295) and ahead of Gordon (.288).

The league quality adjustment for WARP3 is mainly in (FRAR-FRAA) which is conceptually the most wacko place to expect a difference in league quality -- but pragmatically, its the easiest place to hide one.

I'm Doyle's best friend, and I'm similarly perplexed. Is it the fact that because his glove was mediocre, he gets lumped in with guys like Lazzeri (121/.293)?

Yeah, defense is important at 2B and Gordon was fantastic at it while Doyle was certainly not. Add in a competition discount (he does desrve some) and I can see about 20-25 spots between them, which I will admit is fewer than I have. Maybe Doyle should be getting more votes, but as the backlog gets weaker in one respect it gets much much deeper, making competition for votes much higher.

One question I do have...How important was 2B defense in Doyle day exactly? Would this mitigate his inability to field in a value context (as opposed to ability?)

I will take another look at Doyle, but it seems that his defense is more than enough to offset his offense in comparison to Gordon with the competition discount icing on the cake.

David,

126/294 is not that much better than 121/288, 119/295 or 121/293. It better but not that much better. I would think that Gordon's fielding advantage would make up the difference betweent them.

By the way, Childs, the one with the higher Eqa, is my top 2B and not Gordon.

126/294 is not that much better than 121/288, 119/295 or 121/293.

The difference between 126 career OPS+ and 120 OPS+ is about one hit per month over the career. If he missed one play per month (error or lack of range), it's balanced out.

Doyle averaged 3 more errors per season than the average 2b-man of his era. That's half of the "one-play-per-month" difference. He also averaged almost 5 plays per month less than average. There are many reasons why that could be unfairly low (discretionary plays, LR pitching balance, overall quality of the team, etc.) but that's a LOT to explain away.

For you Win Shares fans:

Doyle 295*/33-29-28-27-25-22*-21-20-19-18-17-16-16* (*WWI season length adj)
Gordon 290*/31-26-26-25-25*-25*-25*-24-24-19-19-12 (*WWII credit [2 yrs] and discount [1 year])

These number presumably have defense already factored in. Doyle had 13 years of ?10 WS, Gordon had 12 though one could argue that his horrible 9 WS season in 1946 was war-related and offer some adjustment there (I don't). But add in that 9 WS season and both had 13 seasons of ?9 WS. Just taken grossly, I don't see a lot of difference. Inject a "timeline" (1910s NL discount) and you can land wherever you want.

As for Doyle's defense, I've heard it called indifferent. This is the first I've heard that it was horrible. He's a C+, same as Glenn Beckert, Chuck Knoblauch (who did have trouble throwing the ball the second half or maybe the final third of his career), Bobby Richardson and Pete Rose. And better than Rogers Hornsby, Tony Lazzeri, Rod Carew, Jeff Kent, JOE MORGAN (YES, THAT JOE MORGAN)....

Carew is an interesting comp. 131 OPS+ to Doyle's 126, Doyle possibly a better fielder, of course Carew more than 10,000 PAs to Doyle's 7,000+ (add another 500 or so for season length, both from 154 to 162 and for the short WWI years). (Hell, Carl Yastrzemski ended up at 128. Was he a more valuable fielder than an "indifferent" 2B?)

The one I really want to hear about is when Joe Morgan becomes eligible, who is gonna say that his defense was somewhere between indifferent and horrible?

(IOW Yaz gets one hit every 3 months over his career more than Larry Doyle. There, the case against Yaz!)

As for Doyle's defense, I've heard it called indifferent. This is the first I've heard that it was horrible.

Surely you've heard WARP's assessment before . . .

But to recap their view in comparison to the indifferent 2B crew that WS pegs, here's their career FRAA in WARP1:

Carew 1 FRAA (-17 FRAA at second base)
Morgan -37 FRAA
Hornsby -45 FRAA (includes play at 3rd & short)
Lazzeri -47 FRAA
Doyle -143 FRAA

In this view, Doyle is horrible defensively.

But is this because HE was horrible? Or because WARP is horrible?

Seriously, I am skeptical of all things WARP because of the WARPed all-time adjustment that makes no sense either logically or tactically.

I'm not questioning that WARP apparently thinks he's horrible. I'm just asking what if anything this has to do with his actual defensive performance.

What, e.g., are the FRARs in question? Does Doyle still stand out among the indifferent?

Well then what does WS feidling performance have to do with anything then sunny? I dont' think that there is any real reason why one would be trustworthy and the other crap.

What is crappy is the conversion to the all-time context. Doesn't make any sense. The FRARs appear to be OK, but the FRAAs, well, I guess I just don't understand what they are for. WS takes value more or less at, well, face value.

The same applies to the BRAAs, too, BTW.