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Averill joined the Seals in 1926, the year after Paul Waner left. The Seals team of his final season ranked #50 in a recent ranking of great minor league teams. Still looking for data from 1926 & 1927.

1928 San Franciso Seals

Two cents on Averill, here's a little comparison to his most similar HOM-eligible CFs (as I see them)

Win Shares prorated to 162 schedule

NAME.....3....5.....10....15....CAREER
AVERILL..98...154...282...295...295
=========================
SEYMORE..99...153...258...294...294
THOMAS...93...151...275...284...284
MILAN....92...140...241...285...285
F JONES..93...148...264...319...319
GRIFFIN..88...137...245...284...284

A couple future CFs for comparison

AVERILL..98...154...282...295...295
=========================
WYNN.....100..159...269...305...305
MURPHY...97...157...253...298...300
PUCKETT..92...147...258...292...292
CEDENO...93...146...237...293...293

Looking into the corner infielders and 1Bs for other matches....

AVERILL..98...154...282...295...295
=========================
Terry....98...157...272...292...292
Sisler...96...150...255...311...311
Thompsn..98...151...255...285...285
Cuyler...94...147...257...307...307
Manush...95...146...248...299...300
Tiernan..93...154...264...296...296
Burns....105..161...279...314...314
Veach....101..156...256...256...286


Looking ahead, some similar future candidates

AVERILL..98...154...282...295...295
=========================
HONDO....102..155...261...298...298
Singltn..101..157...266...310...310
Bonds(I).95...150...264...304...304
Mucher...101..147...245...279...279
Colavito.97...151...248...278...278
DxWalker.92...144...247...292...292
Cash.....93...140...241...312...316

This suggests to me that Averill's going to be right on the borderline, but that if it's found that the story behind his arriving at age 27 suggests we should extend him credit for his minor league play, he could be a very serious candidate indeed.

Had we decided that Al Simmons was eligible in 1946? That year is listed twice in the newly eligible thread. First without him, then some discussion, then with him.

Found Averill's stats with San Francisco 1926-1928 in a copy of Daguerrotypes:

Year Gms ABs Run Hit 2B 3B HR RBI BAvg Slg.
1926 188 679 131 236 49 06 23 119 .348 .539
1927 183 754 134 244 47 06 20 116 .324 .481
1928 189 763 178 270 53 11 36 173 .354 .594

He led the league in runs scored in 1928.

According to baseballlibrary, Averill played semi-pro ball until he signed with San Francisco for the 1926 season.

He was selected to the Major League All-Star team by the Baseball Writer's Assoc for 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936.

So did he just spring full-grown into the San Francisco Seals centerfield in 1926?
Nope...
From The Baseball Book 1992, Bill James, pg. 338:
Averill was born in 1902. He was a logger's son. His dad died when he was 2 and he worked through grammar and high school. After graduation, he played for the local team, the Snohomish Pilchuckers [wouldn't that be a great cap or jersey?]. He tried out for the Seattle Rainiers (PCL) but was not signed. He played semi-pro ball in Bellingham, WA and Anaconda, MT. After the 1925 regular season, he was spotted playing winter ball in California and signed by San Francisco.
The 1927 Seals included: Lefty O'Doul, Averill, Smead Jolley, Roy Johnson, Dolph Camilli, and Gus Suhr. They finished second.
He was sold to Cleveland for $50,000, of which he received $5,000.

Averill part 2.

Averill was a extremely consistent outfielder.
Top 3 outfielders in AL by Win Shares starting in 1929.
1929: Simmons 34, Ruth 32, Averill 26
1930: Ruth 38, Simmons 36, Reynolds and Goslin 25
1931: Ruth 38, Simmons 34, Averill 30
1932: Ruth 36, Averill 30, Manush 28
1933: Ruth 29, Manush 27, Averill 26
1934: Averill 33, Simmons 23, Goslin and Bob Johnson 22
1935: Vosmik 28, Averill 22, Chapman and Fox 21
1936: Averill 27, J DiMaggio 25, Goslin 23
1937: DiMaggio 39, Averill 24, Kreevich 23
1938: DiMaggio 30, Averill 26, Heath and Bob Johnson 23
That is 9 times among the top 3 outfielders in the American League. In 1930, Averill was one win share from being an all-star, having 24. No other true centerfielder had as many win shares. Reynolds did play the most of his games at center, but that was only 54 games: LF 35, CF 54, RF 47. I believe he would be the All-Star AL centerfielder 1929-1936.
Averill was named to the All-Star game from 1933-1938.
In MVP voting, he finished: 4th in 1931, 1932, 3rd in 1936, 8th in 1938.

However, it should be mentioned Averill was only in the top 3 among major league outfielders 2 times, 1934 and 1938. In the 1930s, the National League had a stronger crop of outfielders compared to the AL, or the top performers put up bigger seasons at least.

Averill's career numbers.

He finished his career with the 57th best batting average .317, 75th best OBP .395, 42nd best SLG .534 and an adjusted OPS+ of 133.
He averaged 130 runs created per season. Along with 196 hits and 75 walks.

He rarely led the league in anything. Only games in 1934, AB in 1931, 3B and H in 1936 and HBP in 1932. But was consistently among the leaders in SLG, OPS, runs, hits, total bases, triples, homers, extrabase hits, and times on base and also had several apps in AVG, OBP, doubles, HBP, power-speed number, RBI and OPS+.

Averill was consistently excellent. He finished the 1930s with the 7th most win shares, 2nd most among outfielders to Mel Ott and tied with Paul Waner.
Ott and Gehrig 323
Foxx 324
Gehringer 270
Grove 262
Waner and Averill 253
(Wally Berger is 11th for the decade with 240)

Defensively, win shares sees him as an "A-" centerfielder and deserving 4 gold gloves: 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934. It sees him as the best outfielder defensively in baseball in 1933 and 34.
He was a very durable player. Playing at least 150 games in 7 of his first 9 years, 139 and 140 the other two.

Hope this helps form an idea about who he was.

Good stuff, Kelly!

With Averill, a key question will be that of whether to give any minor league credit. The fact that he couldn't get a regular gig until age 1926 counts against him in that regard. The fact that he crushed the ball for one of the minors top teams in 1926 and still played 2 more minor league years counts for him.

I'm open to thoughts. First glance: As 1926 was his first minor league year period, I'm disinclined to give extra credit for it (as discussed before, virtually everyone on our ballot has at least one implied outstanding minor league year). 1927 does not appear to have been good enough to make a significant difference in his case. So the question is 1928.

would 1928 alone be enough to get him over the line? It is only one year and one that might only translate to 20-22 Win Shares or so.

Right now, he'd be on the borderline of my ballot. Peak is not outstanding, but is still quite good. Career is basically all prime for 10 years. In the borderline cases like these, an extra 20 WS/6 WARP season could make a big difference.

----------------------

One thing to hash out. *Huge* difference of opinion between WS and WARP on his defense. Now, I realize that WS tosses all OF together and WARP does not, so there needs to be some adjusting.

Win Shares: A- (I think this would safely translate to a B among CF alone, give or take a half letter grade)

WARP1: -32 FRAA, including only 3 seasons above average, and only one season significantly above average. I would call this in the C-/D+ range, and that's generous.

"Averill had an off-year (.288) in 1935, largely because he burned his hand testing Fourth of July fireworks..."

So does Earl get a 'patriotism' credit a la the missing war years? ;)

1937: "...just before a June game, Averill suffered temporary paralysis in his legs. X-rays revealed a congenital spinal malformation which forced him to change his batting style."

"February 8, 1941: The Tigers release OF Earl Averill and sign OF Hoot Evers, out of the University of Illinois. Averill will be signed by the Boston Braves, then released April 29."

Had we decided that Al Simmons was eligible in 1946? That year is listed twice in the newly eligible thread. First without him, then some discussion, then with him.

Then I guess it's with him.

Had we decided that Al Simmons was eligible in 1946?

I thought that Simmons was eligible in 1946. Since John seems to have set up threads for the major new '46 eligibles, perhaps he should make one for Simmons, too, unless I'm mistaken about his eligibility.

I just ran Earl through the Win Shares portion of my system and he seems like a borderline ballot guy. I have him about even with Browning, Roush, and Veach who were 17-19 on last year's ballot. However, he may even be as good as Sisler at #14.

With a possible 4 new guyson the ballot (if Simmons is eligible) then I can safely say he won't be on the ballot but may in is subsequent years.

Earl Averill appears to be a WARP All-Star on the level of Bobby Veach. Via WS, I have him maybe a little below Edd Roush, 3rd or 4th best CFer. In WARP, he is the best and it really sint' that close. A few guys (Ryan, Roush, GVH) have more career WARP, but Averill wins comfortably in prime (over Hugh Duffy) and has a better peak than Hack Wilson.

Could there be any reason for this? This new info may bump him up over George Sisler, putting him on my ballot in most years. Is there any reason (league quality, etc.) that WARP would love Averill so much?

And for those of you who don't know my system for WARP is
1. Peak (WARP3 above 7.0)
2. Prime (WARP3 above 4.0)
3. Seasons at or above average (4.0)
4. Career WARP.

WARP sees 1920s and 1930s AL as substantially better than 1890-1930 NL, so in WARP3 that contributes significantly to Averill's advantage. Season-length also helps him a bit, since WARP3 doesn't fully adjust for short seasons. Roush's peak includes the WW1 short seasons, so he is affected there as well.

Incidentally, in the 1930s the NL catches up rapidly to the AL in league quality and is viewed by WARP as a slightly stronger league for most of the decade, I believe.

Incidentally, in the 1930s the NL catches up rapidly to the AL in league quality and is viewed by WARP as a slightly stronger league for most of the decade, I believe.

That was my impression from the WARP of two years ago. IMO, this can be attributed to the development of agriculture in the NL while the AL still retained the older hunter/gatherer method of finding talent.

Major league equivalents for Earl Averill (1926-28)

I start with the PCL stats shown by Kelly from SD in post # 5. I adjust them to a “major league average” team for each of the same seasons. The basic methodology is that used for my Buzz Arlett MLEs (Buzz Arlett thread # 21, 22, 49, 76).

- For quality of competition, I use the factors given by Bill James, 0.82 for runs, about 0.92 for AVG, and about 0.89 for SLG (note – the Bill James method separately adjusts each element of the batting line, so the adjustments for AVG and SLG are only approximate). Gadfly has recently argued that the quality of competition may have been higher during the 1920s. I am sympathetic to his argument, but am holding off on making any change to this factor until I can complete a small study of players who moved between the PCL and the majors during those years.

- For run environment, I do not have true park factors for the PCL (which would have to be calculated from the records of home and road games). As an alternative, I use an estimate of runs per game in the team’s game, which is taken as an average of the team’s runs scored per game (available from the Reach or Spalding Guides) and an estimate of the runs allowed per game, which is based on an “inverse Pythagorean” calculation – see Buzz Arlett # 49 for the formula. San Francisco appears to have been a hitter friendly park during 1926-28. The following table gives San Francisco’s runs scored, games played, W-L record, estimated run environment = (runs + est. runs allowed) / 2, and the run environment relative to the averages for the PCL and for the major leagues. For example, for 1926 I estimate the Seals run environment to have been 4.91 runs per game, which is 9.7 percent above the PCL average and 6.0 percent above the MLB average.

Year Runs Gms W-Loss REnv PCL MLB
1926 0917 203 84-116 4.91 109.7 106.0
1927 1123 198 106-90 5.45 110.4 114.7
1928 1129 191 120-71 5.23 107.8 110.5

- The formulas for converting minor league statistics to MLB equivalents are from the Bill James 1985 Baseball Abstract and are listed in Buzz Arlett # 21.

- The PCL apparently did not keep statistics on batters walks. I use the following method to estimate walks: start with his walk rates for his first three major league seasons (1929-31), then adjust them for (a) age, using the age profile shown on Tango Tiger’s Web site (TT shows that batter walk rates tend to increase throughout a player’s career), and (b) changes in the ML average walk rate.

- The PCL, of course, had much longer seasons than the major leagues. I adjusted each season’s statistics to 154 games. Because the PCL did not follow a balanced schedule, I am not sure how many games were scheduled in each year. Therefore, I adjusted for schedule length from the number of decisions by the team with the maximum number of decisions each season (1926 – 203, 1927 – 196, 1928 – 192).

- For runs created, I have switched to a formula given in the Bill James Handbook 2005. I believe that this formula, which places “the individual hitter in a ‘neutral solution’ of eight ordinary hitters,” effectively eliminates the upward bias of my WS estimates for high-performing seasons that Chris Cobb noted in my earlier Arlett MLEs.

- I believe Averill returned to the PCL briefly in 1941 at the end of his MLB career. I have ignored this season.

- For fielding, I have used his major league rate of 3.99 fWS / 1000 innings, as shown in Win Shares.

Here are Averill’s MLE batting statistics.

Year Age Gms ABs Rns Hits 2B 3B HR RBIs BB BAvg OBA SLG OPS+ RC
1926 24 143 0490 077 154 033 03 14 070 049 .314 .377 .480 134 090
1927 25 144 0560 075 159 031 03 11 065 055 .284 .348 .409 106 085
1928 26 152 0578 106 183 037 06 21 103 060 .317 .381 .510 140 113
Total xx 439 1628 258 496 101 12 46 238 164 .305 .368 .466 127 288

And here are his MLE batting, fielding, and total win shares:

Year BWS fWS WS
1926 19.8 05.1 25
1927 15.7 05.2 21
1928 24.9 05.5 30
Total 60.3 15.8 76

Averill's defensive WS/1000 innings is 3.99 which is an A PLUS, not A Minus!

BP rates him only as a 98 CF, which is below average.

Brent-

Interesting stuff. In the MLE thread, I ran some numbers on Buzz Arlett and came up with a .96 BA conversion for the PCL in the 20s and 30s.

I have adopted a .95 BA/.90 SA for my Triple-A conversions and it is interesting to compare those rates to your .92 BA/approx.89 SA rates.

Using your MLEs:

Averill (PCL 26-28, AL 29 on)
YEAR-AGE-BA-SA
1926 24 .314 .480
1927 25 .284 .409
1928 26 .317 .510
1929 27 .331 .535
1930 28 .339 .537
1931 29 .333 .576
1932 30 .314 .569
1933 31 .301 .474
1934 32 .313 .569
1935 33 .288 .496
1936 34 .378 .627
1937 35 .299 .493
1938 36 .330 .535

Averill came up at 24 in 1926, immediately hit well, slumped at 25 in 1927, and then returned to his 1926 level at 26 in 1928.

I would assume that this pattern follows a typical career path of a good fastball hitter. First season does well, second season gets a lot of breaking pitches, third season adjusts.

At 27-28, Averill established a .335-.535 level of talent in the Major Leagues. At 29, Averill jumped up to .330-.570 and maintained this level from 29 to 33, though he had off years at 31 (reasons unknown) and 33 (firecracker blows up in his hand).

At 34 in 1936, Averill had his peak season (.378-.627). Interestingly, Averill, like most players who begin their career late, also had a late peak (Just more evidence of adjustment phase).

At 35, Averill was having an even greater year (.394 BA at the time of injury) but suffered the back injury that pretty much brought his career to an earlier than should be perfect world conclusion.

Of course, the interesting question is whether the .92-.89 conversions are consistent with Averill's career path. The PCL conversions from 1926 to 1928 are obviously lower than Averill's actual 1929 and 1930 Major League statisitcs.

Of course, Averill could have had 1) a career year or peak season at 27 in 1929 or 2) a spike in his talent level from 26 to 27 that made him a better player.

As far as the peak season theory goes, the answer is obviously no. At 27, Averill did not have a career year. He simply established his level of talent in the Majors.

As for having a spike in his talent level at 27, this is a possibility. Averill was a very steady and consistent player who, at two other points of his career, elevated his talent level. He may have simply been a better player at 27 than 26.

But, if you ask me, I don't think Averill was any better at 27 in 1929 during his first season in the Majors than he was at 26 in 1928 during his third season in the PCL simply because of the adjustment phase factor.

And, if that is true, it is obvious that the .92-.89 conversion factors are too low.

Gadfly,

One thing that needs to be noted is that my MLEs are intended to represent a neutral major league team for each season; they are not intended to be comparable to any particular team or ball park. League Park in Cleveland was a hitter’s park, so if Averill’s MLB record were adjusted to a neutral setting, his PCL statistics wouldn’t look so out of line.

Nevertheless, your point is a good one. I agree that it is very possible that my conversion factor for the 1920s PCL may be too low. I don’t think it can be proved one way or the other from looking just at Arlett and Averill, but with a little larger study I think we can figure it out. I’ve had a small study in the works but haven’t quite had time to finish it; I hope to do so in the next week or so.

About Averill and PCL credit.

Here's some WS scenarios with all WS adjusted to 162 (including the MLEs listed above).

SCENARIO 1 = Averill with no PCL credit
SCENARIO 2 = Averill with credit for his age 26 season in the PCL
SCENARIO 3 = Averill with credit for his age 25 and age 26 seasons.

All peak/prime listings are non-consecutive.

SCEN #....3YR....5YR....10YR....15YR....CAREER
SCEN 1....98.....154....282.....295.....295
SCEN 2....98.....158....290.....326.....326
SCEN 3....98.....158....290.....348.....348

Right now, Averill's not quite on my ballot, floating just off of it.

Under Scenario 2, Averill starts comping a little higher up on the pecking order, reducing the distance between himself and some popular candidates.

SCEN 2....98.....158....290.....326.....326
LEACH.....94.....150....265.....339.....352
ROUSH.....102....158....264.....322.....330
DUFFY.....106....166....289.....336.....337
BURNS.....105....161....279.....314.....314

This would put him somewhere around 10-12 on my ballot.

Under scenario 3, he may counter balance the peak advantage of some of these guys with a longer career, and the longer career value brings him closer to some other HOMers.

SCEN 3....98.....158....290.....348.....348
LEACH.....94.....150....265.....339.....352
ROUSH.....102....158....264.....322.....330
DUFFY.....106....166....289.....336.....337
BURNS.....105....161....279.....314.....314
GOSLIN....98.....154....276.....368.....373
KEELER....99.....155....280.....366.....375
SHECKARD..104....159....275.....355.....363

This would put him somewhere around 8-10 on my ballot.

One final thought....

SCEN1....98.....154....282.....295.....295
TERRY....98.....157....272.....292.....292

If you voted for Terry, a first baseman, you should think very seriously about whether Earl Averill, playing a more demanding position, should be on your ballot regardless of whether you choose to give him PCL credit or not.

I'm going with scenario 2 at this point: Averill's 1928 season was a great season, regardless of where he was playing, so he should get credit for it. I can't predict when he _would have made_ the majors in a modern talent-movement system, so I'm not comfortable giving him credit for his earlier seasons that look like they were slightly above major-league average.

That puts him in the 12-15 range on my ballot.

Averill's similarity to Terry suggests to me that our election of Terry was very premature if not a genuine mistake; however, I would add that WARP prefers Terry to Averill. Terry as a historically great defensive first baseman is more valuable, defensively, than Averill as a slightly below average centerfielder, and WARP also prefers Terry as a hitter. So voter who prefers WARP to win shares will correctly prefer Terry to Averill, at least until Averill begins to received PCL credit.

Averill compared to his league:

Earl Averill year by year
1929: 26, 8th best position player in AL. Simmons and Foxx 34, Ruth and Gehrig 32, Lazzeri 30, Cochrane and Gehringer 27. 14th best in Majors
1930: 24, 11th best position player in AL. 23rd best in Majors
1931: 30, 5th best position player in AL and Majors. Ruth 38, Gehrig 36, Cronin 35, Simmons 34.
1932: 30, Tied for 5th best position player in AL. Foxx 40, Gehrig 38, Ruth 36, Cronin 31, tied w/ Cochrane. 10th best in Majors. Ott and O’Doul 33, Terry and P Waner 32, Klein 31.
1933: 26, Tied for 7th best position player in AL. Foxx 41, Gehrig 36, Cronin 34, Ruth 29, Gehringer 28, Manush 27, tied w/ Cochrane, Kuhel. 13th in Majors.
1934: 33, 3rd best position player in AL. Gehrig 41, Gehringer 37. Tied for 6th in Majors. Ott 38, Vaughan 36, tied with Berger.
1935: 22, tied for 10th position player in AL. Gehrig, Greenberg 34, Myer 33, Gehringer 31, Foxx 30, Vosmik 28, Cochrane and Appling 24, Rogell 23, tied w/ Rolfe. Tied for 21st in Majors.
1936: 27, 4th best position player in AL. Gehrig 38, Gehringer 34, Appling 29. 9th in Majors. Medwick and Ott 36, Vaughan 35, P Waner 32, Billy Herman 29.
1937: 24, Tied for 7th best position player in AL. DiMaggio 39, Gehrig 36, Dickey and Greenberg 33, Gehringer 30, Appling 28, tied w/ Cronin. Tied for 18th in Majors.
1938: 26, 8th best position player in AL. Foxx and Greenberg 34, Cronin and DiMaggio 30, Dickey, York, and Gehringer 27. 13th best in Majors.
1939: 11, not in top 15
1940: 1
1941: 0

Just about every player ahead of him is a HoMer (or will be). That does not mean he is a HoMer, but to be at that level for 10 straight years among those players does not hurt his campaign.

Best in his league: Never.
Top 5 in league: 4 times, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936
Top 10 in league: 9 times, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938
Places in Top 10: 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10

So... Peak is definitely the weakest of Simmons and Berger as he never was the best player in his league in any year. Extended Prime of 9 years out of 10 among the top 10 players in his league (and one year at 11th). Total win shares during his prime: 268.

OK, here's the challenge. Earl Averill and Wes Ferrell are duking it out for the 15th spot on my ballot. I'm currently giving EA credit for his age 26 PCL season (scenario 1 as I listed above).

So, FOEA and FOWF (excluding Jonesy---no offense, but I can't say you're particularly objective on all matters Ferrell), give me your best arguments why one or the other should make my ballott and the other should not.

Averill will need help from his minor league seasons for him to make my ballot. He's not that far off, so it's probable he will make it eventually.

OK, here's the challenge. Earl Averill and Wes Ferrell are duking it out

Unsolicited advice:
In the mid 1940s, give this degree of attention to ballot positions 2-3-4 (if I recall the system correctly) and to ballot positions 15-16-17 if you have Suttles or Beckwith there.

The lighter side:
i like names that end in 'l' (2 points) and names that begin or end with a vowel, not the silent type (1 point).

Earl Averill, 6 points
Wes Ferrell, 2 (3 points for Wesley Ferrell)
Paul Wendt, 2
Dr. Chaleeko, 1

Ferrell's middle name was 'Cheek' so you should favor him, Dr. Chaleeko, as I favor 'Earl' :-)

I like Earl Averill and Dick Thompson and I wonder whether Averill and Ferrell liked each other.

Seriously:
Why doesn't the HOM point system tail off 5,4,3,2,1 like the weekly college basketball poll?

I believe that Ferrell had the better peak so I will have Ferrell at #6 and Averill at #16. the difference between these two is extremely small, however.

Paul,

I think it was in order to make the difference between on and off ballot decisions important. that way everyone is thinking about who does and does not make their ballots instead of just sloppily putting otgether those last few spots.

I’m re-doing my Averill MLEs in response to helpful comments and criticism that appeared on the Buzz Arlett thread. I discuss the reason for these changes in another post on the Arlett thread (# 97).

1. As Gadfly noted, my AB estimates were low. I’ve now restored the missing AB, which raises Averill’s assumed plate appearances by about 5.5 percent.

2. Daryn questioned whether my WS estimates were consistent with the MLE batting statistics. I’ve decided that the short-form batting WS estimates need to be reduced about 5 percent to be consistent with the WS of comparable hitters.

These two adjustments are essentially offsetting, so you will see little change in the estimated WS.

Here is version 2 of Averill’s MLE batting statistics.

Year Age Gms ABs Rns Hits 2B 3B HR RBIs BB BAvg OBA SLG RC
1926 24 143 0518 081 163 035 03 14 074 051 .315 .376 .475 095
1927 25 144 0589 079 167 033 03 12 069 058 .284 .348 .411 090
1928 26 152 0611 112 193 039 06 23 109 064 .316 .381 .512 120
Total xx 439 1718 272 523 107 12 49 252 173 .304 .368 .466 305

And here are his revised batting, fielding, and total win shares:

Year BWS fWS WS
1926 19.8 05.1 25
1927 15.9 05.2 21
1928 25.1 05.5 31
Total 60.8 15.8 77

Earl's son, also Earl (but not Jr.), also packed quite a wallop in his day - in the Jose Offerman brawling sense:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/mariners/mlb/story/136381.html


Good "kicker" - last sentence...

I'd like to take the opportunity to bash another player whose induction into the HoM I find questionable, Earl Averill. Here's Averill in my WARP, using Brent's MLE's (assuming his SB/CS were league-average for the missing years):



3-year peak: 18.6
7-year prime: 37.9
Career: 56.6
Salary: $150,920,606, rrrright on the HoM borderline. Superior to mistakes like Roush, to be sure, but was he really any better than Kiki Cuyler?

We over-inducted the 30's because we treated them like the Negro Leagues were a separate major league. Earl probably would have been squeezed out if we had "integrated" the leagues.

Actually, he looks a lot like Jimmy Wynn. We probably would have inducted him by now but it would have taken longer.

I'd like to take the opportunity to bash another player whose induction into the HoM I find questionable, Earl Averill. . . rrrright on the HoM borderline. Superior to mistakes like Roush, to be sure, but was he really any better than Kiki Cuyler?

DanR

Chris, Have you followed Dan Rosenheck's work? I gave him no credit for Bashing this term. If he were a young student with nothing to show but a little promise, I would have passed him with pointers on how to do better, but he knows that as well as you and I do. --Paul

Errl Averrl

Bill James grades him A+ in CF, which is one extreme in one of the big differences among sabermetricians. Maybe we had other opinions than James and Davenport, but I have no other handy.

Clay Davenport rates him below average over his ten "every day" seasons in CF, 1929-38.

95 97 95 93 102 113 102 92 87 94 ==> career rate 97

Seven poor seasons I call that, not credible in company of the other three, and vice versa. But I may be wrong. Do players have fielding peaks like that, anywhere but at the beginnings of their careers? He played 150 games a year at CF for seven seasons centered on those three.

DRA has Averill below average from 1929-32, excellent in 33 and 34, and putrid in 36 and 37, for -19 overall.