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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Tuesday, December 09, 2014Most Meritorious Player: 1901 DiscussionMost Meritorious Player: 1901 Discussion Going back to the first season of the American League because next year is the pre-integration committee vote. No World Series yet so no postseason consideration. I could use help locating Negro Leaguers to consider. 1901 was really sketchy for Negro League statistics and even consistent barnstorming teams. The Cuban X Giants and Chicago Union Giants were active. I believe Frank Grant, Charlie Grant, Grant Johnson and Rube Foster are from this era. Comments on league strength are welcomed. Player SH WS BBR WAR Napoleon Lajoie 41.4 8.4 Honus Wagner 36.0 7.1 Elmer Flick 30.4 6.6 Jimmy Collins 27.3 6.7 Jimmy Scheckard 33.0 6.4 Jesse Burkett 37.5 7.1 Ed Delahanty 32.4 6.6 Bobby Wallace 26.1 7.7 Jimmy Williams 21.5 4.1 Kid Elberfeld 22.7 3.8 Fred Clarke 28.0 5.0 Topsy Hartsell 27.6 5.6 Buck Freeman 22.5 4.8 Tom Daly 24.8 3.8 John McGraw 15.3 3.7 Lave Cross 18.2 3.6 Fred Hartman 19.2 3.8 John Anderson 19.7 4.4 Jake Beckley 18.1 3.9 George Davis 21.7 4.8 Bill Dahlen 18.0 3.6 Mike Donlin 20.6 4.3 Bill Bradley 19.2 3.2 Sam Crawford 23.5 4.8 Dummy Hoy 25.6 4.3 Emmet Heidrick 23.4 4.4 Ginger Beaumont 25.1 3.6 Roy Thomas 23.5 3.9 Tommy Leach 17.2 3.0 Jimmy Barrett 22.6 2.7 Socks Seybold 20.5 3.4 Freddy Parent 20.4 5.1 Fielder Jones 22.9 3.8 Chick Stahl 22.7 4.3 Bill Kiester 18.1 1.6 Heine Peitz 11.0 2.6 Boileryard Clarke 11.8 2.3 Pitcher Cy Young 42.0 12.6 Christy Mathewson 23.7 9.0 Noodles Hahn 26.0 7.5 Clark Griffith 26.6 7.2 Vic Willis 32.4 8.7 Roscoe Miller 27.7 7.0 Al Orth 28.1 7.4 Kid Nichols 30.8 7.1 Nixey Callahan 22.3 5.9 Joe McGinnity 28.0 7.2 Bill Dinneen 26.4 6.1 Jack Chesbro 23.6 5.6 Bill Donovan 25.7 5.7 Eddie Plank 20.0 5.0 Joe Yeager 20.1 5.0 Deacon Phillipe 25.2 5.1 Jesse Tannehill 22.3 5.0 Earl Moore 16.5 4.4 Red Donahue 25.4 5.5 Ed Siever 20.6 3.6
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1. DL from MN Posted: December 09, 2014 at 03:24 PM (#4857855)In general I have Home Run Johnson as a better player than Bobby Wallace but I have to acknowledge that this is Wallace's best season which makes it hard to project Johnson as better.
1) Napoleon Lajoie - AL
2) Cy Young - AL
3) Honus Wagner - NL
4) Elmer Flick - NL
5) Christy Mathewson - NL
6) Jimmy Collins - AL
7) Jimmy Scheckard - NL
8) Jesse Burkett - NL
9) Ed Delahanty - NL
10) Bobby Wallace - NL
11) Grant "Home Run" Johnson
12) Noodles Hahn - NL
13) Jimmy Williams - AL
14) Bill Monroe
15) Frank Grant
Clark Griffith (AL) and Vic Willis (NL) are my next pitchers and they're probably better than Rube Foster in 1901.
21-25) Tom Daly, Vic Willis, Roscoe Miller, John McGraw, Al Orth, John Anderson
1901 was really sketchy for the Negro Leagues in general. There were only 4 or 5 top barnstorming teams so there wasn't a lot of competition. Seamheads basically skipped over 1901- though I hope they'll eventually go back and fill it in.
In the east, you had the Cuban X Giants and the (original) Genuine Cuban Giants. The Cuban X squad was clearly superior. They had two of the top players in Bill Monroe and Frank Grant. The two of them made up the double-play combo though I've seen conflicting reports as to who played SS and who played 2B. Considering that Grant played SS and Monroe 1B for the 1903 Philadelphia Giants, I think it's more likely that Grant played SS in '01 at the ripe old age of 36 and Monroe played 2B. However, at 23, Monroe was clearly better with the bat. His average OPS+ over his surrounding seasons was 174 (small sample size warning applies all around). Grant's surrounding seasons average 103. Grant was still considered the best position player in the east but that may have had more to do with leadership and seniority than superior defense.
In the west, the two Chicago teams merged as the Chicago Union Giants. It made them a better team but left them with even less competition than in the east. They were also built upon a classic double play combo with Grant Johnson and Charlie Grant. Johnson was 28 and played SS (he turned 29 at the end of the season). He also hit well- his four surrounding seasons average to 150 OPS+. C. Grant was 23 and played 2B. He was more of a glove-first player at this point in his career- his surrounding seasons come out to a 59 OPS+. This is also the season in which Grant nearly broke the color barrier as McGraw tried to sneak him onto the roster as a Native American.
There was also a significant barnstorming team in the south, the Norfolk Red Stockings, though I don't know if they had any major players on the roster (Peterson's "Only the Ball was White").
For pitchers, you already discovered that Rube Foster didn't play on a major team until 1902 so he's out for this season. However, there was at least one pitching star before Foster. Harry Buckner was a HoVG level pitcher who was in the prime of his career at 28 years old. He was the ace for the Chicago Union Giants though we only have one recorded game for each of 1900 and 1902 (and none for 1901). On the bright side, he threw a complete game shutout in '00 and only gave up two runs in another complete game in '02.
One other player to consider is Chappie Johnson. He was the catcher for the Chicago Unions and was in the midst of a stellar peak. His average OPS+ over the 4 surrounding seasons was 170- second only to Bill Monroe. He would have been 24 in 1901, though he fell off a cliff as a hitter at the age of 28.
Lajoie hit .426/.463/.643
"When the Opening Day rosters were set for 1901, nearly two-thirds of all American Leaguers were NL veterans." http://www.thisgreatgame.com/1901-baseball-history.html
The NL was probably still better but both leagues were weakened.
At least some of them (Dummy Hoy comes to mind) had lost their roster positions in the 1899-1900 contraction. Whereas some of the stars (like Cy Young and Jesse Burkett) were available to the AL because of the general disgust about how they'd been shipped around by the corrupt syndicate ownership in the AL.
I just had to check on something - Kid Nichols. I see he was still in the majors in 1901, and is listed in the header to this thread. His detour as a minor league star and gate attraction happened in 1902-1903.
This. On the 1901 Pirates BB-Ref page, Wagner isn't listed as a starter for the Pirates because even though he played in every game that season, he didn't lead the Pirates in games played at any single position.
It was only in 1903 that the best SS in MLB history really took over SS, at the tender young age of 29, hitting triple digits (111) games played there. The next time he played less than 100 at shortstop he was 42, and then the slacker only played 92.
Wagner was a crazysauce player, pretty much unique in history
Also, This is going to be one weird ballot if no one has any real, serious way of comparing the league strengths. My guess is that the 1901 AL was probably about as strong as the mid-1880s AA - the AA at its best. After all, Ban Johnson had been planning this since 1893, and had the big city ballparks and the saved-up salary money to make it pay off. He was probably a couple of years ahead of the AA in acquiring talent. And he also was able to buy up a few no-doubt superstars. But, by the mid-1880s, the AA, while not long on superstars, was pretty close to the NL. My guess is that the 1901 AL was not very far behind that. The AL did win the first World Series, in 1903, although there are some asterisks regarding the Pittsburgh pitching staff that year. The odd thing is that we're supposed to rank the stars, which is the hardest part. The 1901 AL, while it did have many NL-quality players, had a lot of them at the beginnings or ends of their careers. Prime-career stars were a lot fewer, and so they are going to look absurdly dominant. Cy Young is the poster boy for this. He was great, but not THAT great in a mature major league. And then, there's my ongoing problem with thinking that WAR overrates pitchers, but that has nothing to do with 1901, except that I could get the order of pitchers wrong, because I would not be making enough adjustment for the league.
Also, everyone should be at least a little cautious about the Milwaukee Creams. They were in the AL for only this one year, moving in 1902 to St. Louis to become the Browns. But, in the process of working up Gavvy Cravath for the HoM, I happened upon a book that had dimensions for every ballpark ever used in a major league - including the Milwaukee park, because it had been used in 1901. It turns out that the dimensions of this park were EXACTLY the same as those of the Baker Bowl. There is probably not ten feet of difference in any dimension. So pitchers there are going to look horrible, and hitters are going to look overblown, and there's only one year's worth of data to deal with. - Brock Hanke
No discount has yet been applied to the AL.
I haven't researched top Negro League players yet in 1901.
1 a Young, Cy 9959
2 a Lajoie, Nap 9124
3 n Burkett, Jesse 7633
4 n Wagner, Honus 7503
5 n Sheckard, Jimmy 7002
6 n Delahanty, Ed 6561
7 n Flick, Elmer 6464
8 n Willis, Vic 6433
9 a Collins, Jimmy 6042
10 n Wallace, Bobby 6005
11 a Griffith, Clark 5892
12 n Orth, Al 5854
13 n Nichols, Kid 5797
14 n Hahn, Noodles 5741
15 a Miller, Roscoe 5616
for the sketchy NeL data.
1. Cy Young
2. Nap Lajoie
3. Honus Wagner
4. Jesse Burkett
5. Elmer Flick
6. Vic Willis
7. Jimmy Sheckard
8. Ed Delahanty
9. Jimmy Collins
10. Christy Mathewson
11. Roscoe Miller
12. Buck Freeman
13. Al Orth
14. Bobby Wallace
15-17. Griffith, McGinnity, Hahn
My numbers (again, no league adjustment and only NL and AL considered so far) have Mathewson 18th.
He does really well with baseball-reference WAR (2nd best pitcher) but in the other systems I'm using he doesn't fare as well.
I expect he will move up some once I discount the AL numbers but not enough to make my ballot.
Unlike many of you who are/have participated in the Hall of Merit discussion, I have very little even name recognition of the players in these early years (with the exception of a few obvious ones of course)
Just a few random comments (some of which are very obvious and well known)
1. the % of earned runs in 1901 is significantly less than in the present: about 70% (NL) and 67% (AL) as compared to 92% today. (I'm sure the gloves have nothing to do with that :-))
2. more pitchers hit well enough to play other positions then they do today
3. pitchers complete a much higher % of their games today Duh!!!
4. far fewer home runs and strikeouts
5. One thing I discovered which I had not previously known was that the "first two foul ball for strikes rule" did not take effect until 1903 in the AL; being at least part of the reason for the high scoring in the AL in 1901.
I am sure this only scratches the surface of the differences between the two eras.
Even with these differences, I am have used the same procedure to evaluate players (with the exception of when information is not available in this era) giving me the following all star teams. Checkto see if it passes the sniff test.
NL All Star teams
C Ed McFarland neither league had a catcher with great offwnsive numbers
1B Jake Beckley
2B Tom Daly
3B Tommy Leach
SS Bobby Wallace
OF Jesse Burkett Most of the high offense players in the NL were OF (exceptions being Wallace and Wagner)
OF Elmer Flick
OF Jimmy Sheckard
SP (including hitting)
Kid Nichols very good hitter; would not be on the list with his pitching
Vic Willis
Christy Mathewson
Al Orth
Noodles Hahn and Bill Dineen would replace Nichols and Orth if hitting was ignored
AL All Stars
C Bob Wood
1B John Anderson
2B Nap Lajoie
3B Jimmy Collins
SS Freddy Parent
OF Mike Donlin
OF Chick Stahl
OF Ollie Pickering
With the exception of Lajoie and Collins, I'm not sure if there are any truly "stand out" all stars
SP (with hitting)
Cy Young
Clark Griffith Excellent hitter as well as solid pitcher
Roscoe Miller
Jimmy Callahan Excellent hitter
Eddie Plank would replace Callahan if hitting was ignored
It has been an interesting task to evaluate players that I do not know in an era so different from today.
Dan R's league adjustment is .915 for the AL and .91 for the NL.
NL average offense .267/.321/.348 .669 OPS
AL average offense .277/.333/.371 .704 OPS
1900 NL average offense .279/.339/.366 .705 OPS
Preliminary
Batters: start with RAA (using custom linear weights), adjust for park, position and defense (using DRA) Convert adjusted RAA to wins. Add 60% of normal Runs above replacement to get WARR (wins above reduced replacement)
Pitchers: Calculate RAA using a pitchers FIP and calculate RAA using a pitcher's RA9.
Calculate RAA, using a blend of RA9 and FIP from above, adjust for quality of opposition and park. Convert adjusted RAA to wins. Add 60% of normal runs above replacement to get WARR (wins above reduced replacement). Add Hitter WARR for overall WARR. As well, a few pitchers have fielding numbers as position players which I take into account.
1. Cy Young 9.69 WARR
2. Nap Lajoie 7.50 WARR
3. Jesse Burkett 7.19 WARR
4. Bobby Wallace 6.90 WARR
5. Elmer Flick 6.73 WARR
6. Jimmy Sheckard 6.49 WARR
7. Kid Nichols 6.27 WARR Not only a solid pitcher, but also an excellent hitter
8. Vic Willis 6.16 WARR
9. Christy Mathewson 5.85 WARR
10. Honus Wagner 5.83 WARR
Rest of the top 20
Jimmy Collins
Al Orth
Clark Griffith
Bill Dinneen
Topsy Hartsell
Ed Delahanty
Noodles Hahn
Jesse Tannehill
Fred Clarke
Roscoe Miller
2) Nap Lajoie
3) Jesse Burkett
4) Honus Wagner
5) Vic Willis
6) Jimmy Sheckard
7) Al Orth
8) Ed Delahanty
9) Kid Nichols
10) Elmer Flick
Why would it be unfair? Bud Selig won the inaugural Bud Selig Award. :)
1. Cy Young, P, Boston Americans: 219 ERA+ is 72 points better than second best; 371 IP is second in the AL
2. Nap Lajoie, 2B, Philadelphia Athletics: 198 OPS+ is 43 points better than second best; 158 RC is 55; the AL may have been a weaker league but Cy and Nap absolutely dominated
3. Jesse Burkett, LF, St. Louis Cardinals: 1st in OPS+ and RC with 181 and 132
4. Vic Willis, P, Boston Braves: NL-leading 154 ERA+ in 305 innings
5. Noodles Hahn, P, Cincinnati Reds: NL-leading 375 innings to go with a 119 ERA+
6. Christy Mathewson, P, New York Giants: the best combination of quality (138 ERA+) and quantity (336 IP)
7. Honus Wagner, SS, Pittsburgh Pirates: 159 OPS+ and 111 Runs Created; I think that WAR overrates supersubs like Tony Phillips and Ben Zobrist; Wagner was valuable (+4 fielding runs) but his positional adjustment is lower than if he had played SS fulltime
8. Joe McGinnity, P, Baltimore Orioles: 108 ERA+ in league-leading 382 innings
9. Ed Delahanty, LF/1B, Philadelphia Phillies: 174 OPS+ and 121 RC
10. Bill Donovan, P, Brooklyn Superbas: 121 ERA+ and 351 innings
11. Deacon Philippe, P, Pittsburgh Pirates: 148 ERA+ in 296 innings
12. Roscoe Miller, P, Detroit Tigers: 130 ERA+ in 332 innings
13. Jimmy Sheckard, LF, Brooklyn Superbas
14. Fred Clarke, LF, Pittsburgh Pirates
15. Al Orth, P, Philadelphia Phillies
16. Bobby Wallace, SS, St. Louis Cardinals
With a league adjustment for both of them, though, I think Burkett and Wagner were close. Truly great seasons, at any rate.
1-Young
2-Burkett
3-Wagner
4-Lajoie-He and Honus are tied but I'm putting Wagner first for league strength.
5-Wallace
6-Big Ed Del
7-Willis
8-Sheckard
9-Flick
10-Matty
BOTR, in order: Hahn, Orth, Collins, Mcginnity, Nichols
In general, 1901 is in a period that I call the "sweet spot for pitching." In the 1880s, it became clear that pitchers could not pitch whole schedules any more, but no one knew how many IP they could handle. The number seemed to keep changing, which it was, because possible workloads have steadily decreased since 1871. By the 1890s, the concept of having a pitching rotation, with multiple "starters" was in place. However, sometime in that decade, baseball people realized that the possible workload was decreasing just through time, not because of some odd rule or something. So they responded by adding pitcher after pitcher. There were 5-man rotations in MLB in the early 1900s. This resulted in pitchers handling much smaller workloads than they could actually have handled. The results were two: 1) really great fastball / change up pitchers, like Johnson, Young, and Nichols, could pitch a LOT of innings, and 2) aside from those guys, everyone threw one or more curves. The reason for all the curves, I am pretty confident, is that, while throwing curves does wear out your arm harder than fastballs or changes do, pitchers were handling light workloads, so they could afford to be curve ball specialists without destroying their arms. Pittsburgh, especially, specialized in curve ball pitchers. Their best starters - Phillippe, Leever, Willis, Tannehill - were curve ball artists, as was Babe Adams at the end of the decade. Frank Selee built the Cubs' rotation around Three-Finger Brown, who threw a truly wicked curve, because he was missing a finger. The result of this was a lot of ground balls and bunts. Jimmy Collins made, and deserved, his huge reputation by figuring out how to counter the bunts (he was the guy who invented playing 3B in front of the bag with a bunter at the plate). Still, the best hitters were the guys who could drive hard liners past the infield and to the walls for doubles and triples, like Donlin and Delahanty. - Brock
It wasn't really a year off. Hoy lost his NL job in the 1899-1900 contraction. Caught up in the Louisville-Pittsburgh consolidation, he had to compete with Ginger Beaumont, and Beaumont wound up with the Pirate CF job. But Hoy played baseball in 1900, and he played for the exact same team in the exact same league as he would in 1901 - except that in 1900, that league wasn't called the AL and didn't claim to be a major league. There's talk of this on Hoy's discussion thread here (I think); our statistical coverage of the 1900 Western League isn't as good as our coverage of the majors, so it's harder to determine his value.
1901 Prelim
1. Cy Young
2. Nap Lajoie
3. Honus Wagner
4. Jesse Burkett
5. Jimmy Shekard
6. Vic Willis
7. Elmer Flick
8. Ed Delahanty
9. Kid Nichols
10. Christy Mathewson
11. Al Orth
12. Bobby Wallace
13. Fred Clarke
14. Roscoe Miller
15. Clarke Griffith
If you see anything interesting please post it.
1. Jesse Burkett
2. Nap Lajoie
3. Cy Young
I guess my AL-penalty is slightly stronger than some other voters, since I get Burkett ahead of the two AL stars.
4. Honus Wagner
5. Jimmy Sheckard
6. Noodles Hahn - best NL pitcher
7. Bobby Wallace
8. Elmer Flick
9. Ed Delahanty
10. Ginger Beaumont
11. Christy Mathewson
12. Tom Daly
13. Claude Ritchey
14. Roy Thomas
15. Jimmy Collins
I'm going with 90% myself.
So, take that for what it's worth.
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