Here you go, Marc.

Thanks, John.

To me, the biggest gap in our knowledge right now is of the second tier NeL pitchers—“second tier” defined simply to mean those whom we have not already elected. I don’t have Holway or any other major source of info on the subject, but I have gone back through info already posted on HoM. Sorry, I don’t know who posted most of the info as I have long since cut and pasted it into a series of docs on to my desktop.

And, lacking the basic sources myself, I am proposing that this be a group effort, and I am sure it will be. I hope some of you share my sense of urgency to get these guys right, especially since right now they are all fading out of sight. Hopefully this exercise will build confidence that we know which of these guys was the best candidate(s) among them, and then we can slot them accordingly on (or off) our ballots.

Three analyses coming in a series of posts:

1. I have created a simple index and rated about 50 pitchers on that index. The index consists of two parts:

• Pct. of votes in HoF voting in Cool Papas (?)—avg. of the two votes by ex-players and “experts” divided by ten. Players already in the HoF rated at 100 percent (again, divided by ten). So this part of the index consists of a number from 0 to 10. This measure perhaps gives too much weight to pitchers who are in the Cooperstown HoF with an automatic 10 points, but you know who they are and how to adjust to your own taste. You might think of this as some sort of measure of “career value.”

• Number of times the player was (retroactively) awarded All-Star, MVP, George Stovey Award (GSA—i.e. best pitcher) status by Holway, and best pitcher status by Bill James. (No special weighting for MVP, etc., since presumably an MVP has already earned 1 point that year as All-Star and probably another as GSA, for potentially 3 points from Holway alone. Think of it as a “peak value rating” or a “big year bonus.”) This part of the index consists of a number from 0 to 14.5 (Smokey Joe Williams earned 14.5 on this measure).

• Simply add the two numbers together.

2. Then I looked at each of the top pitchers on an xls that includes Fib (it will be obvious to some who the originator of the spreadsheet was but I’m sorry I don’t remember).

3. Then I asked whether (from the first two sources) there were any other pitchers who didn’t score well in the indexing stage but who deserve more attention.

4. Then as a first step toward re-evaluating those who need to be re-evaluated, I reviewed info for those eligible NeL pitchers who have their own the threads: Brewer, D. Brown, Cooper, Donaldson, Mendez, Redding and Winters, several of whom are indeed among the top rated pitchers by method #1 above. (But there are other pitchers, to be sure, who need more attention.)

Again, all of this will be coming in a series of posts. Hope you find them helpful.

Here are the top rated NeL pitchers according to a simple index including (see above post #2 for more details):

• HoF voting history (0 to 10) +plus+
• All-star/MVP/GSA awards (0 to 14)

You will be pleased to know that thus far we have elected pretty much the right guys.

I say that, in part, knowing that the very early pitchers—e.g. Rube Foster—are underrated by this method. Other old-timers like Mendez and Donaldson and Whitworth are also underrated in that they were somewhat overlooked in the Cool Paps voting, and not as many points are available in the second half of the index.

I am not sure about the upcoming eligibility dates. I took them from a very early list and I think they have been fine-tuned since then. They should be close anyway.

Top Ten

1. Smokey Joe Williams 10 + 14.5 = 24.5 HoM
2. Big Bill Foster 10 + 11 = 21 HoM
3. Bullet Joe Rogan 10 + 11 = 21 HoM
4. Hilton Smith 10 + 7 = 17 eligible 1954?
5. Leon Day 10 + 5.5 = 15.5 eligible 1960?
6. Ray Brown 6.25 + 8 = 14.25 not in Cooperstown, eligible 1955?, #5T all-time in second half of index
7. Rube Foster 10 + 4 = 14 HoM
8. Dick Redding 6.5 + 7 = 13.5 not in Cooperstown
9. Satchel Paige 10 + 3 = 13 eligible 1959?
10. Nip Winters 1.35 + 11.5 = 12.85 not in Cooperstown, #2 in second half of index

11. Chet Brewer 6.9 + 4 = 10.9 all players in the second ten not in Cooperstown
12. Bill Byrd 3.4 + 7 = 10.4 eligible 1953?
13. Jose Mendez 4.15 + 6 = 10.15
14. Andy Cooper 1.5 + 8 = 9.5 #5T in second half of index
15. Ted Trent 1.45 + 8 = 9.45 #5T in second half of index, now eligible

(big drop-off)

16. Max Manning 2.25 + 4 = 6.25 eligible 1957?
17. Leroy Matlock 0.2 + 6 = 6.2 now eligible
18. John Donaldson 2.7 + 2.5 = 5.2
19. Booker McDaniel 0 + 4 = 4 eligible 1955?
20. Dick Whitworth 0 + 4 = 4 now eligible

I would suggest that anybody in the top ten ought to be looked at very very seriously, and perhaps anyone in the top 15 plus the old-timers (Donaldson, Whitworth) rated 16-20. That would cover everybody except Manning, Matlock and McDaniel and some of you might want to consider them anyway.

More specifically, how about a thread for the ones that are already eligible and don't already have a thread, meaning:

Ted Trent
Dick Whitworth

Thanks. (Though, again, I will say that I have nothing to put on their threads, just questions about who they are and what they did!)

Here is data that I have (thanks to….) for some of the pitchers who my “index” suggests ought to get looked at closer. My understanding is these are documented NeL records, I think from MacMillan but whoever posted them originally (thank you thank you) can clarify.

Caution is required with this data, of course, because the number of IP, decisions, etc., bear very little relationship to the length of career, etc. Rather it just reflects how much of the player’s career happens to have been documented and picked up in this particular source and that very much favors pitchers and players from the 1920s.

Also, WHIPs probably should not be compared across eras but are useful within eras.

Already and Currently Eligible (the number to the left is their ranking on the index shown in post #3)

8. Dick Redding (index 13.5) (1911-31) 69-54, .560, 8.2 WHIP, 3 K/9

10. Nip Winters (12.85) (1921-32) 95-54, .640, 9.4 WHIP, 3.1 K/9

11. Chet Brewer (10.9) (1925-48) 88-61, .590, 11.1 WHIP, 4.4 K/9

13. Jose Mendez (10.15) no data

14. Andy Cooper (9.5) (1920-30) 118-57, .670, 9.8 WHIP, 2.9 K/9

15. Ted Trent (9.45) (1927-39) 93-49, .650, 9.4 WHIP, 4 K/9

17. Leroy Matlock (6.2) no data

18. John Donaldson (5.2) no data

20. Dick Whitworth (4) no data

Soon to Be Eligible

5. Hilton Smith (17) (1933-48) 69-33, .680, 8.5 WHIP, 4.2 K/9

6. Leon Day (15.5) (1934-49) 67-29, .700, 7.6 WHIP, 3.5 K/9

7. Ray Brown (14.25) (1932-45) 101-30, .770, 8.4 WHIP, 2.4 K/9

9. Satchel Paige (13) (1927-50) 124-80, .610, 7.9 WHIP, 6.4 K/9

12. Bill Byrd (10) (1933-50) 116-78, .600, 9.8 WHIP, 3.7 K/9

16. Max Manning (6.25) (1939-49) 68-32, .680, 8.8 WHIP, 4.1 K/9

19. Booker McDaniel (4) no data

I would not draw any real conclusions from the McMillan data, at least not just yet.

But I would note some aggregate trends. The pitchers already eligible on paper look much less effective than the ones coming up.

Already eligible—mean: .622 WL Pct, 9.6 WHIP, 3.5 K/p

Upcoming—.667 WL Pct, 8.5 WHIP, 4.05 K/9

What does that mean? We saw in the Martin Dihigo thread that many many NeL stars played in Mexico in the ‘40s. Was the NeL less competitive? I think that it was less competitive in the ‘40s than in the ‘30s, and by that I mean that the quality of play was not as good and so the best pitchers dominated more. But that is just a hypothesis, and it kinda goes against the oral tradition that sees Gibson, Buck Leonard, Ray Dandridge, Satchel et al as the greatest NeL players.

Rating the pitchers of the ‘20s vs. those of the ‘40s will depend on a good answer to that question, as it will of course affect the ranking of, say, Leonard and Dandridge and maybe even Satchel and the other NeL stars yet to grace our stage.

Among the P, we can put this question another way. Are Hilton Smith, and Leon Day, and Ray Brown, and Satchel, and maybe Bill Byrd really all better than Dick Redding? Obviously the other part of the question is whether Redding really is the best of the earlier candidates.

Food for thought.

I am glad you brought this up because I am guilty when it comes to overlooking these guys. I do have Redding on my ballot and Mendez just off but I must admit that everyone else has dropped completely off my radar.

Some pitchers who do not score well in the index and are not discussed in previous posts:

William Bell got zero votes in the Cool Papas HoF voting and was a Holway all-star just one time (also GSA that one time, however). He appears to have pitched from 1923-32 or 1923-37 from two different sources, and according to the former source went 89-30, .750 which is the best W-L among about 20-25 pitchers on that xls. His WHIP of 8.8 is very competitive for that period as his K/9 of 3.6. In fact, not just competitive but better than his nearest contemporaries Andy Cooper and Nip Winters.

Frank Wickware pitched 1909-21 or 1911-21, and got just 7 and 8 percent votes in the Cool Papas voting. He was a Holway all-star one time and a GSA twice (?), but his WHIP and K/9 are an eye-popping 7.6 and 5.6. Compare that to his nearest contemporaries (all elected, except Redding, now the highest rated NeL P in HoM voting):

Wickware 7.6 5.6
R. Foster 9.2 4.2
Williams 7.2 3.3
Rogan 9.5 4.6
Redding 8.2 3

Jim LaMarque (1942-51) was a Holway all-star 3 times and GSA 2 times during the peak of Satchel and Ray Brown and Bill Byrd’s career.

Finally, Dave Brown has his own thread and there was a time I thought he was a serious candidate. Well, he was probably as dominant at his peak as any NeL pitcher (14-1, 2.42 in 1921. Also, 67-34 during his 1920-24 prime not as dominant as his ’21 season, of course, and not as good as Nip Winters 71-21 in 1924-26 or Jose Mendez 42-8 in 190811 (Cuba) or Mendez’ 40-14 overall in the NeL. But still one of the best primes I’ve seen so far. But he killed a man in a bar fight in 1925 and had to go underground, so his career is just 8 years. And this is not 8 “ML” years with some supporting years that might be converted to MLE or anything like that. This is everything there is, 8 years. So I am prepared to set Dave aside for the rest of this discussion.

These three cases illustrate a major problem for NeL pitchers--short careers. Not much shorter (if at all) than Dizzy Dean, of course, but 10ish years total, and there are a lot more of these 10ish year careers in the NeLs than the MLs. In a perfect world, we should know where these 10 year wonders came from and where they went, and why? And do some of them deserve X-credit for some of their pre- and post-(organized) NeL careers?

I especially wonder about Wickware, while it is entirely possible that LaMarque put in some MiL time after 1951.

My summary for today is that we already have threads on Redding, Mendez, Cooper, Winters, Dave Brown and Chet Brewer. My next step will be to look more closely at these 6 and as a start see if I can at least get these 6 into a rank order that makes sense. Having looked over the above and some other data, I can tell you it won't be easy. Redding and Mendez are getting votes. Are they the right guys?

I would not draw any real conclusions from the McMillan data, at least not just yet.

What disturbs me is the WHIP totals. About 1/2 those guys had fewer than 1 baserunner per inning, including a 7.6 and 7.9.

I ran a comparison vis-a-vis Redding. I searched for major league player seasons from 1911-1931 in which the player had between 2.5 and 3.5 strikeouts per 9 (.5 on either side of Redding's 3.0) and also had WHIP .90 to 1.0. For the WHIP range, I took Redding's reported H+W per 9 (8.2) increased by 5% (as a discount)and divided by 9 (for a traditional WHIP figure)...the range was +/- .05 of that.

Only 10 pitchers with win shares qualified under the search. Their average winning pct was .649. Redding's was only .560? Giving up less than a baserunner an inning? He must have played on some bad teams.

By the way, the searched set had approximately 1.37 pitching WS per win, .89 pitching WS per decision and .88 pitching WS per 9 IP.

Based on reported wins and decisions, that would give Redding between 95-109 WS based solely on his MacMillan record. Of course, the comparison set had a much better winning pct.

I ran the same search without the date limiter. That gave me 50 major league player seasons. Avg win pct? .640 again! 1.36 pitching WS per win, .87 pitching WS per decision and .85 pitching WS per 9 IP. Basically, the same numbers.

As far as I know, sunnyday2's list has identified the right pitchers to be considering, although I think there are a couple more pitchers, namely Bill Holland and Sam Streeter, who probably should be in the pool we're looking at.

Dr. Chaleeko is in the process of compiling Holway's pitching data in ways that will enable us to track the usage patterns of pitchers and to put their won-lost records into team contexts.

In addition to the obvious value of being able to see generally how the quality of teams affected pitcher w-l records, this data will, I hope, a) help identify the pitchers who were being used as top starters for longer periods of time and b) help indentify the effect of era on usage patterns.

That study isn't yet complete, but the good doctor is hard at work (I've been doing some consulting on the project), so I just wanted to let you know that more data that should prove helpful will be forthcoming.

Hopefully if Marc, Chris, Eric or whoever else finds a meritorious pitcher that we have overlooked (or failed to give their MLEs the proper weight prior to this thread), he won't be a victim of the timeline regardless.

To get some more data on the table, here are career w-l records, according to Holway, of the 20 pitchers sunnyday2 has identified, plus a few other notables.

Note that pitchers who played for league teams 1920-1931 had many more decisions per season against top black teams than pitchers who played for league teams in the 1932-1948, who in turn had many more than pitchers prior to 1920 or on non significant non-league teams throughout the era.

(#s in parentheses indicate rank all time in career wins and career wp, when either is in top 10)

Top Ten

1. Smokey Joe Williams, 1910-32, 125(9)-56, .691(7)
2. Big Bill Foster, 1924-39, 146(3)-66, .689(9)
3. Bullet Joe Rogan, 1920-28, 151(1)-65, .699(5)
4. Hilton Smith, 1937-47, 72-28, .720(3)
5. Leon Day, 1934-46, 68-30, .694(6)
6. Ray Brown, 1931-45, 146(3)-55, .726(2)
7. Rube Foster, 1904-14, 28-15, .651
8. Dick Redding, 1911-31, 89-63, .583
9. Satchel Paige, 1927-47, 147(2)-92, .630
10. Nip Winters, 1922-32, 126(8)-74, .630

11. Chet Brewer, 1923-46, 87-63, .589
12. Bill Byrd, 1931-48, 135(6)-93, .595
13. Jose Mendez, 1908-1925, 40-14 .741 (my total der. from Holway's seasonal data, wp would be #2 if listed)
14. Andy Cooper, 1921-38, 121(10)-54, .691(8)
15. Ted Trent, 1927-39, 109-56, .661

(big drop-off)

16. Max Manning, 1939-49, 70-32, .686
17. Leroy Matlock, 1929-38, 77-30, .757(1)
18. John Donaldson no data
19. Booker McDaniel, no data
20. Dick Whitworth, no data

Other notables
William Bell, 1923-36, 141(5)-57, .712(4)
Bill Holland, 1920-40, 127(7)-99, .562
Sam Streeter, 1921-36, 117-75, .568
Roosevelt Davis, 1924-45, 118(10)-77, .599
Dave Brown, 1920-24, 69-34, .663

What disturbs me is the WHIP totals. About 1/2 those guys had fewer than 1 baserunner per inning, including a 7.6 and 7.9.

I ran a comparison vis-a-vis Redding. I searched for major league player seasons from 1911-1931 in which the player had between 2.5 and 3.5 strikeouts per 9 (.5 on either side of Redding's 3.0) and also had WHIP .90 to 1.0. For the WHIP range, I took Redding's reported H+W per 9 (8.2) increased by 5% (as a discount)and divided by 9 (for a traditional WHIP figure)...the range was +/- .05 of that.

The Macmillan statistics are badly flawed when it comes to per-inning rates for pitchers; I believe this is frequently true of Holway, too. Strikeouts and walks, in particular, are often way too low. I'm not always certain why, since most of the time these data are readily available. Anyway, compare the Macmillan's line for Dick Redding's 1921 with what I've compiled:

Mac: 81 K in 213 IP, 3.42 per 9 inn.
Me: 120 K in 198.7 IP, 5.44 per 9 inn.

For Bullet Rogan:
Mac: 68 K, 172 IP, 3.56
Me: 118 K, 200.7 IP, 5.29

Reuben Currie:
Mac: 57 K, 140 IP, 3.66
Me: 97 K, 189 IP, 4.62

Bill Drake:
Mac: 123 K, 231 IP, 4.79
Me: 117 K, 195.3, 5.39

Dave Brown:
Mac: 88 K, 148 IP, 5.35
Me: 96 K, 137.3 IP, 6.29

Phil Cockrell:
Mac: 34 K, 87 IP, 3.52
Me: 63 K, 106.3 IP, 5.33

This isn't systematic, just the first people who came to mind...maybe I'll take a look at hits and walks, too.

Several of you have made the point, which I endorse, that some (or most) of the data posted here is questionable. By posting it, I do not mean to endorse it. It is what it is, which is: What we've got to work with.

Along with WHIPs and K/9s looking "funny," to me the biggest question is Dick Redding's decisions. His prime having been in the 1920s and having been active for 20 years, he should have a lot of decisions, but he does not. So any measure based on wins will see Redding as a weak candidate.

Re. his W-L, however, that is understandable. The data I have seen shows that he did indeed play for bad teams as a generalization. His WAT are pretty good.

Aside from Redding, however, the numbers of decisions and (to some degree) the wins and W-L shown by Chris (Holway) in #11 generally feel "right." That would suggest that the guys who are top ten on both wins and W-L pct. would seem to beg for very serious consideration. And yet, they are not necessarily the guys you'd think:

Ray Brown
Andy Cooper
William Bell (!!)

In summary, one thing I think I've learned already is:Redding, #1 among NeL pitchers in our voting at the moment, is clearly more of a career choice. And confirming whether Redding really had the most career value is job 1. No way does the data support that, other than the fact that he was active for 20 years. And if not Redding, then who?

If OTOH you are a peak voter, determining who really had the best peak would be job 1. It looks like Mendez to me (for now) but Nip Winters also has a case.

But in truth, it still seems like who *know* very very little about all of this.

Another pitcher who seems to fit the 10-and-out mold is Rats Henderson, who, depending on our source, was having big seasons in the mid 1920s before his arm came up lame late in the decade.

====

For a status report on our project...to be fair, Chris has underplayed his role. I'm compiling the data so Chris can figure out what to do with it!

Anyway, just so everyone knows what I'm up to, I'm compiling Holway's W-L data for each league, team, pitcher into an excel file for 1920-1948. [If anyone already has this data spreadsheated, please, please, please forward it to me. : ) ]. We're looking at pct of team's decisions for a typical NgL team's top few pitching slots to see how usage patterns differed from MLB and to see how this could impact MLEs. We're also recording winning pct and WAT; though their values don't correlate perfectly with effectiveness, it's better than nothing.

Anyway, I'm up to 1928 at this point, and I'm hoping to finish the compiling within a fortnight.

We're using Holway's numbers at this point, but if Gary or Gadfly or KJOK would be willing or able to share their yearbooks for 1921, 1923, 1928, or any other years that have been referenced in the various discussion threads, it would help improve the accuracy of our data tremendously.

Along with WHIPs and K/9s looking "funny," to me the biggest question is Dick Redding's decisions. His prime having been in the 1920s and having been active for 20 years, he should have a lot of decisions, but he does not.

Dick Redding's prime was more in the teens than in the 1920s: he had some great early years 1911-1914 mixed with some weaker ones, and then he was generally strong from 1915-1922 or so. He also has few decisions because, in the 1920s, he never pitched for teams that had a strong presence in either of the major leagues.

Ray Brown
Andy Cooper
William Bell (!!)

It will be very helpful to have wins-above-team data for these guys, because all three (especially Bell) pitched for good teams for a long time.

Of these three, I'm most impressed right now with Brown, because he put up his totals without having pitched in the decision-rich 1920s at all, and, if I recall correctly, his black/gray ink totals are more impressive. On the other hand, it was easier to get ink in the smaller leagues (and I believe somewhat weaker competition) 1937-1946 than during the prime years of the NNL and ECL and in the one-league years of the early 1930s.

Still by analogy, we have been very hard on Mackey and Bell. Their numbers don't seem to justify their reputation. Redding also seems to lack the numbers other than "seasons." It is true, of course, that he pitched for bad teams and so W-L is unfair to Redding.

That is the fundamental challenge here, isn't it? W-L is almost the only data here that we have confidence in. Ouch.

Here's another data point: Black and Gray Ink Totals, derived from Holway's League Leaders lists

Caveats: Completeness of lists varies by era -- sometimes top 1-2 listed, usually top 5, sometimes K leaders or TRA leaders not included at all. Data selected by Holway favors certain types of pitchers

Calculation Method:
Pitchers 4 pts for wins, TRA/ERA, K. 3 pts for winning%.

Pitcher Totals – Black Ink top 20

1. Satchel Paige 50
2. Bill Foster 49
3. Dick Redding 44
4. Joe Williams 35
4. Ray Brown 35
6. Hilton Smith 30
7. Bill Byrd 27
8. Joe Rogan 23
8. Nip Winters 23
10. Gentry Jessup 20
11. Dizzy Dismukes 16
11. Ted Trent 16
11. Leon Day 16
11. Jim Lamarque 16
15. Leroy Matlock 15
16. Connie Rector 14
17. Frank Wickware 12
17. Jose Mendez 12
17. Bill Lindsay 12
17. Bill Drake 12
17. Sug Cornelius 12
17. Dan Bankhead 12

Other players in the consideration set

23. William Bell 11
23. Dave Brown 11
23. Bill Holland 11
23. Max Manning 11
28. Chet Brewer 10
29. Dick Whitworth 8
36. Sam Streeter 7
42. Rube Foster 4
42. Andy Cooper 4
62. Roosevelt Davis 3
70. John Donaldson 0
Booker McDaniel – no data


Pitcher Totals Gray Ink Top 20

1. Joe Williams 130
2. Ray Brown 122
3. Satchel Paige 114
4. Bill Byrd 113
5. Joe Rogan 102
6. Bill Foster 97
7. Hilton Smith 84
8. Dick Redding 78
9. Leon Day 72
10. Ted Trent 68
11. William Bell 67
12. Eugene Bremer 66
13. Sug Cornelius 65
14. Andy Cooper 64
15. Phil Cockrell 61
16. Nip Winters 57
17. Bill Holland 54
18. Leroy Matlock 51
19. Dave Brown 48
19. Max Manning 48

Other players in the consideration set
21. Chet Brewer 46
22. Sam Streeter 45
29. Frank Wickware 39
33. Jim Lamarque 36
34. Dick Whitworth 35
34. Roosevelt Davis 35
40. Rube Foster 31
50. Jose Mendez 23
92. John Donaldson 4
Booker McDaniel – no data

Chris, interesting to say the least.

Ks is the only stat that is not team dependent, yet Ks does not nec. correlate with effectiveness (I say that not wishing to start a debate).

The one that I would like to know more about, anyway, is ERA/TRA. Could you post a list of those specific leaders?

But having said that...and noting that Gray is a fairer number than Black...

This is poiwerful evidence for R. Brown, Byrd, H. Smith, Redding and Day.

OTOH can you comment on some of the older guys like Cooper and Winters. Are they particularly disadvantaged by the years for which leaders (some leaders) are not listed?

To be fair about Ray Brown, IIRC, he was racking up wins for a dynastic Hilldale team throughout the late 30s and into the 40s. I think he's probably well deserving of his ranking as a top five or top ten NgL pitcher, but I think his WAT will be very instructive.

I'll get the TRA seasonal leaders posted this evening.

Nip Winters is, I believe, significantly disadvantaged here because he pitched in the ECL, for which the pitching stats especially are less well-reported. Here's the league-leader data _missing_ from the East 1922-28 (his prime)

1922 -- K
1923 -- K
1924 -- TRA, K
1925 -- all listed (Winters leads in K by a wide margin)
1926 -- K
1927 -- K
1928 -- TRA short-listed, K short-listed

I'd say that Winters loses at least 20 points of gray ink and probably 4 or 8 points of black ink from lack of reporting.

There are isolated lack of reporting elsewhere, but Winters is affected to an unusual degree, I think.

Both Cooper and Brewer were playing outside the leagues for a considerable period of time, esp. Brewer. However, while in the league, Cooper almost always fell behind Joe Rogan or some other dominant pitcher during the 1920s -- he was often among the leaders but perhaps only once the best pitcher, and that is accurately reflected in his low black ink score.

Byrd, Brown, and Smith played in the NeL straight through the MeL raiding years and WWII.

Day lost time to military service in WWII.

As I think about it, almost every player needs to have some caveat or other applied . . .

I'll try to do a bit of commentary on each in the next day or two.

Seasonal Total Run Average (TRA) Leaders -- Western Teams/Leagues, 1912-1932, 1937-1948

Since this includes both earned and unearned runs, there's still a strong team element here, as well as a big park factor. I'll highlight that a bit by giving the team of each leading pitcher.

1912 Bill Lindsey 2.07 CHI
1913 --
1914 Horace Jenkins 2.39 CHI
1915 Dizzy Dismukes 2.59 IND
1916 Frank Wickware 3.18 CHI
1917 Dick Redding 1.57 CHI
1918 Dick Whitworth 2.50 CHI
1919 Jose Mendez 2.61 DET
1920 Dave Brown 2.71 CHI
1921 Jack Marshall 1.91 CHI
1922 Dave Brown 3.04 CHI
1923 Jose Mendez 1.89 KC
1924 Juan Padrone 2.83 CHI
1925 Big Bill (Plunk) Drake 1.98 KC
1926 Big Bill Foster 2.03 CHI
1927 William Bell 2.27 KC
1928 Willie Powell 2.78 CHI
1929 Chet Brewer 2.86 KC
1930 Double Duty Radcliffe 2.80 STL
1931 Webster McDonald 1.78 CHI
1932 Putt Powell 1.99 CHI

1937 Hilton Smith 1.85 KC (or Ted Trent, 2.08 CHI -- Holway inconsistent here)
1938 Double Duty Radcliffe 2.31 MEM
1939 Smoky Owens 1.50 CLE
1940 Jack Matchett 1.32 KC
1941 Dan Bankhead 0.96 BIR
1942 Booker McDaniel 1.76 KC
1943 Gentry Jessup 1.99 CHI
1944 George Jefferson 1.99 CLE
1945 Jim LaMarque 2.00 KC
1946 Satchel Paige 1.20 KC
1947 Hilton Smith 2.00 KC
1948 Jim LaMarque 1.96 KC

Seasonal TRA Leaders, Eastern Teams/Leagues, 1911-1946

1911 Jose Mendez 3.65 CUB
1912 Frank Wickware 1.00 BKN
1913 Joe Williams 3.81 NY LIN
1914 --
1915 Dick Redding 2.55 NY Stars
1916 Bombin Pedroso 1.71 NY LIN
1917 Joe Williams 3.22 NY LIN
1918 Joe Williams 2.23 NY LIN
1919 Dick Redding 1.67 AC/BKN
1920 Dick Redding 3.87 BKN
1921 Connie Rector 2.76 HILL
1922 Dick Redding 1.65 AC
1923 Nip Winters 3.03 HILL
1924 --
1925 Joe Strong 3.08 BAL
1926 Zip Campbell 2.00 HILL
1927 Bob McClure 2.47 BAL
1928 Rats Henderson 3.13 AC
1929 Phil Cockrell 2.25 HILL
1930 Laymon Yokely 2.01 BAL
1931 Lefty Williams 2.05 HOM
1932 Harry Salmon 2.62 DET/PGH/HOME
1933 Ray Brown 2.87 HOM
1934 Satchel Paige 1.73 PGH
1935 Leroy Matlock 2.04 PGH
1936 --
1937 Roy Welmaker 1.67 HOM
1938 Ray Brown 2.25 HOM
1939 Jesse Brown 2.01 NWK (or Max Manning, 0.93 NWK -- Holway is inconsistent here)
1940 Ray Brown 2.27 HOM
1941 Ray Brown 1.77 (or Bill Byrd 1.97 NWK -- Holway is inconsistent here)
1942 Roy Parlow 1.36 HOM
1943 Johnny Wright 2.04 HOM
1944 -- (or Ray Brown 2.41 HOM -- Holway is inconsistent here)
1945 Bill Ricks 1.87 PHI
1946 Lemuel Hooker 2.12 NWK

Chris,

As you suggested, it's not surprising that vitually all the west leaders come from CAG or KC, teams that were dominant in the NNL.

And in the East it's the same with the gents from the dominant Hilldale, Pittsburgh, then Homestead teams.

It's partly a chicken-egg thing: these teams were well-managed and (relatively) wealthy, so they could afford top talent, but given that a number of pitchers of otherwise little reputation or lasting success win TRA titles with these teams, it's clear that fielding support and/or park factors had a significant role as well.

Differential usage of pitchers on a single team (see Bill Foster thread for evidence of this) also had significant, but largely undocumented, effects.

I don't know if this is constructive, but perhaps the pitchers should be seperated into bulk and peak performers.

In my opinion, Redding is currently the top bulk or career performer, though I don't think his peak was very shabby either. Ray Brown, when he's eligible, will be close behind.

As far as peak goes, Mendez and maybe Donaldson (except for Slim Jones, but that is just for one year, 1934) are at the top of my list, though Leon Day will be up there too.

On looking back over this thread, the one other thing that strikes me is the lack of Latins like Ramon Bragana, Manuel Garcia, and Oscar Levis.

Gadfly,

Interesting you mention the Latino pitchers. The thing that strikes me as I'm compiling team-by-team data is uniformly behind the curve the Cuban Stars teams were in terms of pitcher usage. Virtually every single season, they used fewer (and often many fewer) pitchers than any other team in their league. This is true for both the version of the club in the ECL/ANL/East and the NNL.

Whereas most clubs started moving from staffs of 5-8 to 7-10 in the early 1920s, the Cuban Stars teams steadfastly held to 4-8 pitchers, usually about 5 or 6. I think this may have put them at a competitive disadvantage, which is reflected by their usually poor showings in the league standings.

Does anyone know any specific reason why the Cuban Stars (in either league) would have been slower to expand their pitching staff? Did they have some kind of financial or travel/visa-based restrictions or something that other teams didn't have?

Perhaps it's a related phenomenon, but the Cuban Stars also have much more evenly distributed decisions, generally, than the other NeL teams. At least that's been my impression. Dr. Chaleeko's study should show that one way or the other.

Of the three pitchers gadfly mentioned, Oscar Levis is the only one who _appears_ to have enjoyed notable success in the NeL. He has black/gray ink of 0/17. Neither of the other two appear on Holway's leaderboards, but since the Cubans were seldom among the top teams in the league, that isn't terribly surprising.

I don't have a career w-l from Holway for Levis, but I could work one out fairly easily.

Regarding the dispersion of decisions for Cuban teams, here's what I've got through 1931.

CBSW = cuban stars west (NNL)
CBSE = cuban stars east (ECL/ANL/or independent)
CBH = cuban house of david

Source = Holway

Spelling = potentially unreliable

Pitchers ranked by % of team decisions

1920 cbsw
LeBlanc, Julio___38%
Hernandez, Jose__33%
Valdes, Tony_____23%
Baro, Bernardo___02%

1921 cbsw
leBlanci, Julio__42%
Suarez, Cheche___32%
Boada, lucas_____23%
Cueto, Manolo____04%

1922 cbsw
Boada, Lucas_______33%
silva, pedro_______22%
pedroso, bombin____22%
Rodriquez, Conrado_19%
pareda, pastor_____02%
leblanc, julio_____02%

1923 cbsw
Dibut, Pedro_______33%
Boada, Lucas_______31%
Padron, Luis_______29%
Montalvo, Estaban__04%
Pellas_____________02%

1923 cbse
Levis, Oscar_______32%
Fabre, isidro______20%
mirabal, juanelo___20%
lopez, vidal_______20%
padrone, juan______04%
hernandez__________04%

1924 cbsw
pedroso, bombin____25%
salazar, lazaro____21%
martinez, pasquel__21%
boada, lucas_______19%
alvarez, raul______06%
pastoria, jesus____04%
montalvo, estaban__04%

1924 cbse
mirabal, juanelo___33%
levis, oscar_______27%
fabre, isidro______13%
estrada, oscar_____12%
dihigo, martin_____10%
calderin___________04%
lopez______________02%

1925 cbsw
gomez, david_______31%
alvarez, raul______17%
dominguez__________17%
eckelson___________17%
montalvo, estaban__15%
almas______________04%

1925 cbse__________29%
levis, oscar_______21%
dihigo, martin_____21%
mirabal, juanelo___13%
fabre, isidro______08%
barao, bernardo____08%
gomez, sihgo_______06%
cline______________02%

1926 cbsw
diaz, yo yo________34%
gomez, david_______25%
rosell, basilio____23%
pedemonte, mario___18%

1926 cbse
levis, oscar_______30%
mirabal, juanelo___20%
san, eli___________15%
dihigo, martin_____10%
baro, bernardo_____10%
pedrosos, bombin___08%
fabre, isidro______08%
mesa, champion_____00%

1927 cbsw
diaz, yo yo________26%
rosselle, basilio__26%
gomez, david_______22%
garcia, manuel_____17%
alonso, rogelio____09%

1927 cbse
san ,eli___________37%
levis, oscar_______25%
fabre, isidro______12%
mirabal, juanelo___08%
alvarez, raul______08%
dihigo, matin______04%
rodriguez, conrado_04%
lau________________02%
baro, bernardo_____02%

1928 cbsw
diaz, yo-yo________34%
roselle, basilio___28%
garcia, cocaina____19%
alonso, rogelio____10%
martni, jose_______09%

1928 cbse (not enough data, only four reported decisions in Holway)

1929 cbsw
diaz, yo yo________31%
galvez, cuneo______27%
lorenzo, jesus_____20%
molina, agustin____10%
lopez, vidal_______08%
roque, battling____02%
alonzo, regelio____02%

1929 cbse
rossell, basilio___21%
levis, oscar_______19%
grier, red_________14%
gisentaner, willie_14%
sijo_______________12%
fabre, isidro______12%
mirabal, juanelo___07%

1930 cbsw
diaz yoyo__________34%
tiant, luis________34%
lorenzo, jesus_____21%
molina, agustin____11%

1930 cbse (not enough data reported in Holway)

1931 chd
tiant, luis________34%
richardson, henry__22%
stevens, frank_____16%
brown, barrney_____09%
alvarez, raul______09%
estrada, oscar_____03%
fabre, isidro______03%
dixon, johnny bob__03%

1931 cbse
alvarez, raul______26%
tiant, luis________17%
richradson, henry__17%
brown, barney______13%
garcia, cocaina____09%
stevenes, frank____09%
estrada, oscar_____04%
fabre, isidro______04%

Oscar Levis Data

I spent an interesting hour analyzing Oscar Levis:

Seasonal Data from Holway

1921 0-1 Cuban Stars (East) team 12-26, -0.32 WAT
1922 0-2 CSE, team 1-3 #1 in team decisions, -1.00 WAT
1923 6-2 CSE, team 16-9, #1 in team decisions, gray ink in wp, +1.29 WAT
1924 5-9 CSE, team 16-36, #2 in team decisions, +0.95 WAT
1925 11-4 CSE, team 22-30, #1 in team decisions, +6.54 WAT
1926 9-3 CSE, team 23-17, #1 in team decisions, gray ink in wins, wp, tra, +3.00 WAT
1927 9-4 CSE, team 26-26, #2 in team decisions, gray in in wp, +3.33 WAT
1928 no data
1929 3-5 CSE, team 16-26, #3 in team decisions, -0.06 WAT
1930 3-4 Hilldale, team 8-16, #1 in team decisions, +0.94 WAT
1931 8-7 Phil Stars, team 45-16, #1 in team decisions (tie), -4.06 WAT
1932 no data
1933 no data
1934 no data, listed with Cuban Stars, but no pitching decisions survive for team


In Cuba, from Holway
1922 8-9
1924 9-7
1925 6-5
1926 3-1
1927 7-2

NeL Career Statistics
54-41, .568
10.61 WAT

Peak Statistics
1925-27, 29-11, .725
12.87 WAT for a team that was, cumulatively, 71-73, 42-62 without Levis.

Levis’s record, while it doesn’t suggest that he is ballot-worthy or even top 50 material, though if there were evidence of a strong Cuban career accompanying the NeL career, he’d require a closer look, is instructive in a number of ways.

First, it reveals that he was surely one of the top pitchers in the NeL from 1925-27 and a good pitcher from 1923-1930.

Second, it shows the limitations of Holway’s statistics. Because the Cuban Stars a) didn’t play as many league games as other teams, b) distributed decisions fairly evenly, and c) were never all that good, Levis only makes a slight mark on the Black/Gray Ink register and doesn’t total up enough career wins to catch Holway’s attention (or the attention of the Macmillan editors – he’s not listed there). His 1925 season is frankly spectacular, and his 1926 and 1927 seasons are very very good, yet he got no Ink at all for 1925 and not all that much for 1926-27.

If we’re going to make sure that we’re finding and honoring the best NeL pitchers, making sure we’re not missing stretches of excellence like that shown by Oscar Levis will be crucial. Not that he’s a HoMer, but if, say, Chet Brewer, had put up a stretch like this pitching for mediocre to poor teams in the lightly documented 1930s following his run with the Monarchs in the 1920s, he’d have the makings of a real HoM case. It wouldn’t surprise me for a fuller study of NeL pitchers to turn up something of that sort.

At the very least, studying this next tier of pitchers will help us to identify more surely when somebody really rises above that level into serious contention.

P.S. -- Dr. Chaleeko, there's something weird with the 1925 cbse data.

Doc-

The Cuban Stars generally came to the States with smaller rosters than the other Negro League teams. Of course, because of the distances to Latin America for reinforcements, they also had trouble expanding or supplementing their rosters due to injuries or whatever too.

Just from research, I have always gotten the impression that the Cuban clubs really emphasised versatility because of this (Dihigo being the best, almost ridiculous, example for that), most of the Cuban players played all over the place.

This probaly was also behind Chris' observation about the uniformity of the Cubans' decisions.

I don't think that they especially had travel or visa problems, other than simply distance. But there were financial considerations, especially when the club operated co-op (i.e. less players means a bigger cut).

As for the Cuban club's usually poor showings in the Negro Leagues, the main cause seems to have been simply financial. The Cubans were mostly traveling clubs without a permanent home base and financially disadvantaged because of this.

The best Cuban talent usually played for other Negro League teams or stayed in Latin America and played there. Very rarely was the best Cuban-Latin talent concentrated in the Cuban Negro League teams.

One exception to that rule was the New York Cuban teams of 1935 and 1936. Pompez had a park and the money and he fielded a hell of a team.

Two of the pitchers mentioned above are both proof of this. Manuel Garcia was a great great pitcher - in Venezuela. Ramon Bragana was a great great pitcher - in Mexico.

Oscar Levis (real name Levy) is probably the oddest of these guys. He was from Panama but probably born in Jamaica. He was the greatest pitcher in Panama from 1911 to 1918 and came to the States in 1919. After playing semi-pro ball around NY from 1919 to 1921, he was a fantastic pitcher in the States and especially Cuba in the 1920s.

But he is simply forgotten now.

This is completely off the point, but all three of these guys (Levis, Garcia, and Bragana) could really hit, for a pitcher, too.

Thanks for the catch, the correct 1925 cbse data should read this way

1925 cbse
levis, oscar______29%
dihigo, martin____21%
mirabal, juanelo__21%
fabre, isidro_____13%
baro, bernardo____08%
gomez, sihgo______06%
cline_____________02%

Thanks for the catch, the correct 1925 cbse data should read this way

1925 cbse
levis, oscar______29%
dihigo, martin____21%
mirabal, juanelo__21%
fabre, isidro_____13%
baro, bernardo____08%
gomez, sihgo______06%
cline_____________02%

A guy I'm very insterested to learn more about is Harry Salmon. He's got a fantastic run of seasons by WAT beginning around 1923. His WAT totals from 1923 through 1931 rival any pitcher in any of the Negro Leagues during that same period. I was doing some preliminary WAT totals by hand this afternoon for that period, and this is what came out [in other words, subject to much revision when I get more data inputted and computed]:

NAME___________WAT 1920-1931*
=============================
Bill Foster____21.0
Nip Winters____20.8
Harry Salmon___20.4
Andy Cooper____20.2
Satchel Paige__19.5
William Bell___16.0
*Does not include eastern teams 1920-1922.

Some notes about this.
1) Who is Harry Salmon?!?!?!?!?!?!

2) Winters had 22.1 WAT in his best six-year stretch, while most of the rest took much longer to accumulate that total.

3) Paige did it in five years from 1927-1931---yeah, he's that good.

4) Connie Rector follows close after this list around 14-15 WAT. Rats Henderson has about 12, and Levis checks in at 11.5 or so. Also Dave Brown topped ten WAT from 1920-1925 when his career went poof. Rogan had "only" 9.1 WAT, however, his total is deflated by one really bad WAT season (1923) when he went 20-19 for a KC team that was 58-30 without him. That's the path to -5.7 WAT.

I stated that the New York Cubans of 1935 and 1936 were a hell of a team, so I went back to check:

NNL PUBLISHED LEAGUE STANDINGS

YEAR-1ST HALF-2ND HALF-TOT-PCT
1935 (10-16) (20-07) 30-23 .566
1936 (09-11) (13-12) 22-23 .489
BOTH (19-27) (33-19) 52-46 .531

They weren't so good in the first half of 1935 as Pompez got his talent together after being out of baseball since 1929.

The team was awesome in the second half of 1935.

In 1936, the Cubans struggled as Pompez was distracted by his legal problems. Of course, the Cubans withdrew from the NNL in 1937 when Pompez fled the country.

Of course, the Negro League talent in the NNL of 1935 and 1936 was extremely concentrated; but a better statement would have been that the New York Cubans were briefly an awesome team.

As for the Cuban club's usually poor showings in the Negro Leagues, the main cause seems to have been simply financial. The Cubans were mostly traveling clubs without a permanent home base and financially disadvantaged because of this.

A side note on something I've been working on for a while: Negro League teams generally enjoyed huge home field advantages, which I strongly suspect had to with the fact that home teams usually hired their own umpires. Since the Cuban teams usually didn't use a home field, they rarely hired the umpires, and suffered disproportionately for this.

Here are some data from my park factor project for 1921 (though uncorrected and not updated with the latest box score additions). Still, the pattern is pretty clear:

In 1921, the NeL home-team winning pct. was .642.

The Chicago American Giants hit .252 on the road but only .222 in Schorling Park, dropping 30 points. But opponents hit .291 on the road--and .192 in Chicago, a staggering drop of 99 points.

The St. Louis Giants were outhit .305-.261 in Giants' road games, but outhit opponents at home .299-.258.

The Kansas City Monarchs were barely outhit on the road .242-.241, but outhit opponents at home .303-.251.

The Cincinnati Cuban Stars (this happens to be the only year I'm aware of when the western Cubans used a home field) were outhit on the road .268-.245, but outhit opponents at home .265-.257.

The Columbus Buckeyes were outhit on the road .249-.224, but outhit opponents at home .272-.266.

The Detroit Stars were outhit on the road .291-.248, but outhit opponents at home .275-.251.

The Indianapolis ABCs were outhit on the road .269-.265, but outhit opponents at home .271-.261.

The Chicago Giants were a road team. They were easily the worst team in the league, at 13-38-2, but Detroit actually had a worse road record (11-24) and Columbus's road record was comparable (12-34).

Every team in the league with a home field was over .500 at home.

Rogan had "only" 9.1 WAT, however, his total is deflated by one really bad WAT season (1923) when he went 20-19 for a KC team that was 58-30 without him. That's the path to -5.7 WAT.

Holway is way off on this. Rogan really went 16-11 for a KC team that was 61-37 (his 16 wins led the league, btw). He's way off for the whole team; if you notice, his individual W-L records for the Monarchs add up to 78-49 (!), which would be the longest league season on record in the NeL--but he's got them at 57-33 in the standings, much closer to reality. He's got Currie at 23-11 (really 15-9), Mendez at 15-6 (really 12-4), Drake 15-9 (really 12-10). I'm guessing the explanation is that he either double-counted some games, or accidentally added in some games from another season.

Dr. Chaleeko,

These are my records for the Cuban Stars (W) in 1921:

LeBlanc 15-9
Suarez 5-12
Boada 6-8
Manela 4-7
Herrera 0-1
TEAM 30-37-2

For the 1928 Cuban Stars (E)

San 3-5
Mirabal 4-3
Levis 1-3
Ruiz 0-2
Fabre 0-2
Bragana 0-3
TEAM 8-18-3

The 1928 Cuban Stars (W)

Diaz 3-14
Rosell 5-9
Garcia 1-7
Martinez 1-2
Alonso 1-3
Montalvo 0-1
TEAM 11-36

And for good measure, the 1916 Cuban Stars (W):

J. Padron 6-10
Junco 8-6
Pedroso 1-7
Campos 0-2
Torriente 0-2
TEAM 15-27

Juan Padron may have been the best pitcher in the west that year, actually, despite his record. He struck out 107 in 132.3 innings, easily the most in the west (Wickware was second with 73 in 141 innings), and his TRA was 2.99, second only to Dick Whitworth (2.50), who played for Chicago and only pitched 86.3 innings. Padron was also borrowed by the Am Gts for one game, and tossed a shutout against the Lincoln Stars--and this isn't counted in his stats, as I don't have a box score for it.

And I forgot the 1923 Cuban Stars (W):

Boada 4-13
Dibut 7-8
J. Padron 7-8
Pedroso 5-3
Fernandez 1-2
Montalvo 3-0
Pellas 0-1
TEAM 27-35

Gary

(re post #38),

Thanks SO much for the info! To be sure that I've got the 1923 Monarchs correct, I'm wondering if you could fill in a couple of quick details. With your info the picture looks like this:

Rogan 16-11
Currie 15-9
Mendez 12-4
Drake 12-10
=============
Total 55-34

Team dec 61-37

Which leaves 6 wins and 3 losses to be filled in.

Holway has these others getting decisions for KC:

bell, william (3-1)
gisentaner, willie (2-1)
cooper, army (0-1)
crawford, sam (0-1)
================
Total 5-4

So Holway's got the total decisions correct, but he's one off on which side of the ledger they go.

Do you know what the correct disbursement of the remaining decisions is?

Thank you!

For accuracy's sake, once I recalculated Rogan's WAT with Gary's new data, he jumps from 9.1 to 14.1.

Gary,

Re post #39

Wow! Thank you so much, this is really helpful, and it's adding a lot of decisions to the mix that should help make the dataset more robust.

Just tying up a quick loose end:

For the 1921 cbsw
Holway lists Manolo Cueto as 0-2, but he's not on your list for that season. Was Holway confusing him with Manela whom you list as 4-7?

Thanks again!

Doc,

The remainder of the '21 Monarchs staff, from Patrick Rock:

W. Bell 3-1
Gisentaner 2-1
Crawford 1-1

About Cueto in '21: well, he's Manuel Cueto, a Cuban infielder who played in the majors. But to my knowledge the name "Cueto" never appears in a western Cuban Stars box score in 1921; the pitcher's name is usually "Manela," "Manella," or occasionally "Manolo." Jorge Figueredo lists a "C. Manela" who pitched in Cuba around the same time, so my assumption is it's that guy.

In 1921 Manuel Cueto spent most of the season with the Tesreau Bears, a NY-area white semipro team that played extensively against NeL teams.

Sorry, I meant the 1923 Monarchs staff, not 1921.

Btw, Patrick doesn't list a Cooper as pitching or playing for KC in 1923. A pitcher named Coley appeared for both Toledo and KC, but didn't have a decision with KC.

jmurphy post3
Here are the top rated NeL pitchers according to a simple index (see post #2)
early pitchers—e.g. Rube Foster—are underrated by this method.
...
1. Smokey Joe Williams
2. Big Bill Foster
3. Bullet Joe Rogan
4. Hilton Smith ....eligible 1954?
5. Leon Day .........eligible 1960?
6. Ray Brown ........eligible 1955?
7. Rube Foster
8. Dick Redding
9. Satchel Paige ...eligible 1959?
10. Nip Winters
..
This thread is good stuff; I needed to sort out the NeL hurlers in one spot.
We've elected Smokey Joe, Bullet Joe, and both Fosters. We will honor Satchel, which makes 5 (plus a bit of Dihigo).
While they aren't supposed to be competing against each other, I can't help but be interested in how Redding will look next to Ray Brown and Hilton Smith, about whom we should get more info in the next month.

Thanks again Gary!

Great stuff, though it is too much for me to feel like any of it is actionable just yet. So I think it is very helpful to consider Gad's suggestion (#25) that we get it square in our heads about which of these are career picks and which are peak picks. (I mentioned the same thing in passing in #13.)

And, as Gad says, it's very true that Redding is (not just "a" but) THE career candidate. And Mendez is (not just "a" but) THE peak candidate. I say this in reference to our actual voting, where Redding and Mendez are the only two NeL backlog pitchers getting any votes at all.

So, to narrow the questions a bit maybe therefore to hasten a resolution: As a practical matter the questions are:

• Is Redding really THE best career NeL pitcher available?

• Is Mendez really THE best peak NeL pitcher available? (Of course, his case is somewhat complicated by the fact that his peak actually occurred in the Cuban League, but conceptually I have no trouble with that. After all, there is pretty solid evidence that the Cuban League was superior to the NeL during that peak.)

So let's look at each of these in turn, using various surrogates as measures for career and peak values. These lists are limited to the already eligible + Bill Byrd who joins us in 1953.

CAREER

HoF voting (1st half of index, post #3): Brewer, Redding, Mendez, Byrd

Wins (post #11): Bell, Byrd, Holland, Winters, Cooper

W-L (post #11): Matlock, Bell, Cooper

Grey Ink (post #17): Byrd, Redding, Trent, Bell

WAT (not previously posted and not complete, only the pitchers mentioned were tested as far as i know): Cooper 21 Redding 20 Salmon ~20 Bell ~16 Winters 15

PEAK

All-star, MVP, etc., awards (2nd half of index, post #3): Winters, Cooper, Trent, Redding, Byrd

Black ink (post #17): Redding, Byrd, Winters

ERA leaders (post #21-22/I realize these are already in the Black ink): Redding 4, Mendez 3, D. Brown, Wickware 2 each

Putting all of this back together (noting again that these are all just surrogate measures), I would just note that Byrd, Redding and Winters are on both lists more than once, while Bell has the most mentions on the career list.

So Redding certainly seems to be at parity, at a minimum. Nobody can clearly knock him off his perch as the career candidate. Mendez, OTOH, is not well served by these particular numbers, but he pitched very early and a lot of his value was in Cuba. He is the tougher case. As of today I would expand my list of NeL pitchers who ought to be getting consideration from just the top two (below) to include some others:

1. Redding--on career and peak lists
2. Mendez--clearly peak
3. Byrd--on both lists
4. Winters--on both lists
5. Bell--career
6. Cooper--career
7. Brewer--career

But I (and I'm sure everybody) still needs to get some kind of mental image of these pitchers before voting for Redding or Mendez (if you're not already) or switching to somebody else (if you are) or voting for any of them (if you're not).

And of course it is premature to eliminate some others from contention. But this, in any event, is an attempt to summarize where we are.

Gadfly wrote:

On looking back over this thread, the one other thing that strikes me is the lack of Latins like Ramon Bragana, Manuel Garcia, and Oscar Levis.

I suggest adding Luis Tiant to this list.

Robert Griffith and Andrew Porter, both featured in Gary A.'s list of successful pitchers in the California League, look like they should be added to the consideration set for this thread.

Neither of these pitchers appeared in the lists of NeL candidates I compiled. Griffith will be eligible in 1959, Porter in 1956.

Harry Salmon, btw, is eligible now, and has been since 1941.

Griffith and Porter were both good pitchers for bad teams (as was Salmon), both spent time in Mexico (Porter spent five seasons there), both had the last part of their careers disrupted by the collapse of the NeL after integration, and Griffith missed time due to World War II.

Chris, is Andrew Porter the fellow Holway calls Pullman Porter?

I believe that Andrew Porter = Pullman Porter.

One pitcher I'm trying to find some more info on is Ted Trent. He's starting to look like the "Bert Blyleven" of the Negro Leagues (with a shorter career, of course) - a highly effective pitcher that, due to parks played in and team's played for, has never received a lot of publicity as a great pitcher. Plus, he's not really either a 'career' or a 'peak' pitcher per se, which probably also hurts him. He apparently had monster seasons in at least 1928 and 1937, plus some very good seasons in between those.

Taking off from the premise that it would help to be able to evaluate peaks and careers, I am going to take a quick look at peaks. (Careers are much more complex.)

Also in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that for MLers I use 3-5 years for peak ratings. Here I am sometimes forced to consider even one year as a peak because of the extreme difficulty of measuring a NeL peak--i.e. we often do not have complete data across a 3-5 year period. So for NeLers a 1-year peak is sometimes used as a surrogate for "peak" rating.

I have data for Brewer, D. Brown, Cooper, Donaldson, Mendez, Redding and Winters (the already eligibles who have their own threads) that gives me some confidence in ranking their peaks. That does not mean, of course, that additional info could not change the results. Other pitchers may have had peaks that are just as good, or not. Here's how I see it based on what I've seen so far.

1. Jose Mendez

40-14 NeL (6 year career), 2-0, 1.43 in 1924 Negro WS
74-25 in Cuban Lg (13 years), 42-8 1908-11
8-7-1 in Cuba vs. barnstorming ML first-division and all-star teams
44-2 barnstorming 1909

2. Nip Winters 71-21, approx. 3.00 with Phil Hilldales 1924-26, 4-1, est. 1.53 in NeL WS

3. Dave Brown 14-1, 2.42 (or 11-3, 2.18) in 1921, and 67-34 over 5 years (1920-24) with the Chicago American Giants.

4. Chet Brewer 17-3 in 1929, 58-33 with KC Monarchs in 1926-30.

5. Andy Cooper 15-7, 3.69 TRA with Detroit Stars 1923; 27-8 barnstorming with KC Monarchs 1936

6. Dick Redding 14-5, 1.57 TRA Chicago American Giants 1917

And the rest of the career contenders not yet elected looks to me to be:

1. R. Brown
2. Trent
3. H. Smith
4. Byrd
5. Matlock
6. Day

But I don't know enough about this group yet to be comfortable with this order, or with how they would integrate into the group already eligible and discussed in the previous post. But there are 12 peaks, not BTW including Satchel Paige because I regard him as as good as already being in the category with Foster-Foster-Williams-Rogan (already elected).

And then you've got career considerations as a separate discussion.

OK, the big project is near enough to done that I can offer a few choice tidbits. Hopefully the data that Chris now has in his hands will help him feel more comfortable as he begins working through MLEs for the NgL pitcher backlog. Here's the trends I found by using three-year rolling averages that combine all leagues or regions that Holway reports (with information supplmented as above by Gary A---thanks, Gary!).
The data covers 1920-1948.

NgL #1 starters of the early 20s captured almost 40% of their team's decisions. In a 154-game schedule, this would mean about 60 decisions. As the two-league system took hold, that rate went down so that until 1934, they got the equivalent of 45-48 decisions a year in a 154 schedule. Then they jump up in 1935 to the equivalent of 52-57 decisions. But that's nothing. In the early 1940s, they start raking in about 50% of all team decisions. Finally, they level out around 50 for the last several years of the league era. #1 guys in MLB, by contrast consistently saw their decisions dropping from 35ish in 1920 to 30ish by 1948.

The story of NgL #2 starters is kind of interesting. From 1920-1934, their workload represented about 35 decisions a year in a 154 game schedule. Then for the remainder of the NgL era, it jumps up to 40 decisions and back down to 35 every few years. During the same period, however, NL starters saw their decisions steadily drop from about 28 in 1920 to about 24 by 1948.

#3 starters in the NgLs consistently picked up decisions at a rate of about 25-27 per 154 games from 1920 through 1934. Then, like #2 starters, their number of decisions increases a bit, edging over 30 a year in the 1940s before tailing back down the 25-27 range. In the NL, pitchers dropped from about 25 decisions a year to about 22 by 1948.

#4 pitchers in the NgLs: 15-20 decisions a year with a jump to 25 in the early 40s and then back to normal levels by 1948. NL hurlers dropped from 20 to 17 over the NgL period.

#5 pitchers: Went hovered around 12 decisions a year in the NgL with a small jump in the early 40s. MLB #5s slide from 17 to 15 from 1920-1948.

#6 pitchers: NgL: 5-8 decisions a year; NL: about 12 a year.

So the story is that the top three guys get a much larger slice of the NgL decisions pie than their whiteball counterparts, while #4s get around the same number and numbers 5, 6, and beyond get increasingly fewer decisions than the white players did.

I think we probably all knew this, but it's at least confirmation of what we know. The reasons for the concentration are many and varied, and I didn't look into them.

In terms of what it means to generating MLEs, I suspect the value of this information is in building adjustments. Knowing the typical number of decisions in the NgLs and MLB, we can, perhaps, adjust our idea of how many innings a man threw with a little more precision by comparing his actual ratio of decisions/team decisions, comparing to the league average to see how he was being used relative to his league (that is, was he a #1, 2, 3,etc starter). Finally we could apply the ratio of his dec/tem vs. the NgL average dec/team to the MLB average as a beginning step toward estimating an innings total.

I'll be right back with something much less dry: leaderboards!

These leader boards are a bit preliminary because I've still have got a few identity questions to resolve and some data-neatening to do (they look pretty rough, I know), but I think I'm close enough along that it won't make a tremendous difference. Also, I don't know if I'll finish it by Monday, so I figured better to post now. If/when any of these change, I'll repost.

Remember, everything is based on Holway's data except where Gary has kindly supplied new data. That means only U.S. league and regional data is supplied for the years 1920-1948. (I may return to the pre-league years in the near future, no promises). This also includes data for the 1931 Negro Southern League because a) Holway supplied complete W-L data and b) a lot of top players were in the league that year. Holway's published career data often conflicts with itself (as Chris and Gary have recently pointed out), and I'm basing % of team decisions strictly on the sum of individual pitchers' wins and losses.

Top 25ish totals are shown for each leaderboard.

PRELIMINARY CAREER LEADER-BOARD LISTS

WINS
brown, ray …………………158
paige, satchel ………154
bell, william …………145
foster, bill ……………144
rogan, bullet …………144
byrd, bill …………………133
cooper, andy ……………130
winters, nip ……………127
holland, bill …………118
mcdonald, webster 117
davis, roosevelt …114
trent, ted …………………112
streeter, sam …………105
brewer, chet ……………104
currie, rube ……………96
drake, bill …………………96
hensley, slap ……………90
salmon, harry ……………90
cockrell, phil …………87
henderson, rats ………81
strong, joe …………………81
matlock, leroy …………77
cooper, daltie …………74
smith, hilton ……………70
mchenry, henry …………69
Powell, willie……………69
Yokely, laymon……………69
Day,leon……………………………68
Brown, dave……………………68

LOSSES
holland, bill ……………105
mcdonald, webster …96
paige, satchel …………93
byrd, bill ……………………84
yokely, laymon …………80
winters, nip ………………79
cockrell, phil …………79
cornelius, sug …………77
stanley, neck ……………77
davis, roosevelt ……75
brewer, chet ………………73
streeter, sam ……………72
strong, joe …………………71
foster, bill ………………70
currie, rube ……………69
bell, william ……………66
drake, bill …………………64
salmon, harry ……………64
bell, cliff …………………64
brown, barney ……………62
trent, ted ……………………61
cooper, andy ………………59
rogan, bullet ……………57
diaz, yo-yo …………………57
brown, ray ……………………56
poindexter, bob ………56

WIN PCT (MINIMUM 50 DEC)
[NOTE: The total win% for all the seasons inputted was around .531.]
Army cooper………………….789
Jim Lemarque……………….741
Ray Brown……………………….738
Bertrum Hunter………….733
Bullet Rogan……………….716
Hilton Smith……………….714
LeRoy Matlock…………….713
Johnny Wright…………….698
Andy Cooper………………….688
William Bell……………….687
Max Manning………………….684
Huck Rile……………………….673
Bill Foster………………….672
Leon Day ……………………….667
Dave Brown…………………….663
Joe Williams……………….663
John Williams…………….661
Gene Bremer………………….656
Porter Charleston….654
Slap Hensley……………….647
Ted Trent……………………….647
Jonas Gaines……………….636
Dave Barnhill…………….634
Ted Shaw………………………….627
Satchel Paige…………….623
Percy Miller……………….620

DECISIONS
paige, satchel ………247
holland, bill …………223
byrd, bill …………………217
brown, ray …………………214
foster, bill ……………214
mcdonald, webster 213
bell, william …………211
winters, nip ……………206
rogan, bullet …………201
cooper, andy ……………189
davis, roosevelt …189
streeter, sam …………177
brewer, chet ……………177
trent, ted …………………173
cockrell, phil ………166
currie, rube …………165
drake, bill ………………160
salmon, harry …………154
strong, joe ………………152
yokely, laymon ………149
cornelius, sug ………142
hensley, slap …………139
henderson, rats ……133
cooper, daltie ………124
powell, willie ………124

% OF TEAM DECISIONS (minimum 50 decisions)
Dave Brown……………………28.8%
Dick Redding………………28.7%
Verdell Mathis…………28.7%
Max Manning…………………28.0%
Jim Lemarque………………27.2%
Ray Brown………………………26.6%
Bill Byrd………………………26.6%
Lucas Boada…………………25.1%
Basillio Roselle……25.0%
Leon Day…………………………24.6%
Henry McHenry……………24.0%
Porter Moss…………………23.9%
Rats Henderson…………23.8%
Connie Rector……………23.0%
Jimmy Newberry…………22.9%
Gene Bremer…………………22.3%
Bill Holland………………22.3%
Joe Williams………………21.7%
Laymon Yokely……………21.7%
Sug Cornelius……………20.9%
Hilton Smith………………20.2%
Bob McClure…………………20.2%
Luis Tiant……………………20.1%
Pud Flournoy………………20.0%
Red Grier………………………19.8%

WAT
brown, ray …………………32.75639
cooper, andy ……………21.75161
salmon, harry …………21.63823
byrd, bill …………………18.98093
foster, bill ……………18.9751
winters, nip ……………18.1168
paige, satchel ………17.75274
mchenry, henry ………16.07841
rogan, bullet …………13.7111
rector, connie ………13.63975
barnhill, dave ………13.60113
rile, huck …………………12.98447
jessup, gentry ………12.76546
charleston, porter12.35478
henderson, rats ……12.30428
bremer, gene ……………11.34842
day, leon ……………………11.16076
brown, dave ………………10.85625
streeter, sam …………10.45674
levis, oscar ……………10.33544
matlock, leroy ………9.704514
trent, ted …………………9.684171
gomez, david ……………9.310013
hunter, bertrum ……9.287178
fields, wilmer ………8.503415

WAT PER DECISION (minimum 50 decisions)
Dave Barnhill…………….192
Porter Charleston….158
Ray Brown……………………….153
Harry Salmon……………….141
Gentry Jessup…………….136
Henry McHenry…………….135
Huck Rile……………………….132
Connie Rector…………….126
Gene Bremer………………….122
Andy Cooper………………….115
Army Cooper………………….111
Pullman Porter………….110
Leon Day………………………….109
Bertrum Hunter………….108
Dave Brown…………………….107
Red Grier……………………….105
Oscar Levis………………….104
Rats Henderson………….093
Leroy Matlock…………….090
Bill Foster………………….089
Jim Lemarque……………….088
Nip Winters………………….088
Bill Byrd……………………….087
Joe Williams……………….085
Dick Redding……………….082
Max Manning………………….082
Carl Glass…………………….082

One thing I'd like to point out about these leaderboards is that they may be slightly misleading because

a) they don't include pre-1920 totals, meaning Dick Redding, Joe Williams, and their generation get short shrift.
b) they don't contain any post-1948 totals, meaning that guys like Max Manning, Dave Barnhill, and Luis Tiant get short shrift.
c) thus: the guys who do well are the ones whose careers go from around 1920 through the end of the war.

Dr. Chaleeko, thanks!

This is totally awesome data!

There's _a ton_ of work to do on these guys, figuring out seasonal values based on workload, team quality, and wins above team, but this is a tremendous step forward.

The only big conclusion that I draw from this data is that the nature of case for Ray Brown has changed: we now need to be considering if there are reasons he's _not_ a HoMer, because the evidence here is that he is the best of the group, durable and dominant. Wow!

Ray Brown is also # 2 in winning percentage on the Cuban League all-time list:

Jose Mendez .731
Ray Brown .696
Carlos Royer .677
Martin Dihigo .656
Camilo Pascual .644
Conrado Marrero .600
Adolfo Luque .599
Juan M. Pastoriza .596
Pedro Ramos .595
Orlando Pena .592

For wins, the Cuban League leaders are:

Martin Dihigo 107
Adolfo Luque 106
Carlos Royer 90
Adrian Zabala 90
Manuel Garcia 85
Jose Munoz 82
Jose Mendez 76
Tomas de la Cruz 71
Miguel Fornieles 70
Conrado Marrero 69
Agapito Mayor 68

Gary, Gadfly, David, Chris, Anyone!,

Are Juan Padrone and Luis Padron the same person?

Thanks!

According to Figueredo, Luis Padron pitched in the Cuban League from 1900-19. Figueredo doesn't list a Juan Padrone, but from the dates shown above (1923, 1924), it seems doubtful that he was the same person.

Brent, we're caught in the dreaded NgL-Researcher Crossfire...Riley's entry for Juan Luis Padrone says to see Luis Padron. Oy.

Doc:

There is an exchange in the Beckwith thread between Gary A. and Gadfly around post 140 that clears up the Padrón confusion. They are not the same person.

Thanks, Esteban!

To everyone,

Sorry if it seems like I'm blog-clogging in other threads, I just figured that I would post information on individual NgL pitcher threads about where each finishes on my "finalized" career leaderboards. I'll be posting top-X career lists for the NgL pitchers here in a little while, but I'm going to put the individual pitchers' information onto their threads first just to be sure all the backlog guys we're talking about here get their due.

No apology needed, Doc. We appreciate all of your work.

I second that Doc, this is great stuff and good work.

One thing to remember when comparing Negro League pitchers is that star Negro League pitchers very often were 'featured' against one another. In other words, their teams would publicize match-ups between the best pitchers to build the gate.

The probably best known example of this is when they actually stopped the Championship Series one year just to promote a Satchel Paige-Slim Jones match-up.

The obvious point of this being that, if a star pitcher pitches mostly against other star pitchers, his winning percentage (WP) will not truly represent his talent.

[Of course, in the Majors, star pitcher match-ups, because of pitching rotations and a much lesser need for publicity, are much rarer. However, a good example is the famous Walter Johnson-Joe Wood match-up in 1912.]

When I first started studying the Negro Leagues, I was surprised to find that Satchel Paige's WP did not seem all that great. But then I slowly came to realize that Paige was pretty much just pitching against the other team's aces.

Basically, Paige was pitching .650 ball against .650 pitchers from 1932 on.

There is a book about the Homestead Grays (In the shadow of the Senators) which details how Paige pitched again and again against the Homestead Grays one year. He pitched fantastically, drew enormous crowds, but couldn't buy a victory.

Of course, the Grays were the Negro League's answer to that generation's New York Yankees.

This 'star pitcher' effect obviously hurts Paige more than anyone, but is also noticable in quite a number of other pitcher's careers (Slim Jones, Willie Foster, Rogan, Joe Williams, Mendez, etc.)

Of course, pre-1920 star caliber pitchers have an additional type of 'star pitcher' problem. Basically their teams were only playing the cream of the other Negro League teams.

Mendez is a good example of this. In 1911, Mendez pitched 38 games total for the barnstorming Cuban Stars. He won 33, lost 3, and 2 games ended tied. He threw a total of 14 shutouts.

Against colored teams, Mendez pitched 14 games, winning 12 and losing just 1 (His no decision was the famous 12 inning 2-2 tie versus Rube Foster). Mendez shut out 3 Negro teams.

In those 14 games, Mendez piched one game against the Cuban Giants, one game against the Philadelphia Giants, and one game against the All Cubans.

The other 11 games were all against the absolute cream of the Negro teams (American Giants 5, Brooklyn Royal Giants 4, Lincoln Giants 2). With the quality of his competition taken into consideration, Mendez' record of 12-1 actually understates how good he was (which seems, now that I'm writing it, kind of unbelievable).

Of course, this simply makes deducing greatness even harder; but it is an effect to be aware of.

Gadfly,

That's really interesting to hear, and I think we should remember it when we deal with guys like Ray Brown who had long careers with dynastic teams. (Then again Brown had a lot of WAT too...).

A couple other phenomenon that I'd like to make everyone aware of are
a) these lists are only for the league era
b) the reported results do not appear to indicate the teams played a balanced schedule
c) some players' teams may be more thoroughly documented than others'
d) the number of league games played is inconsistent from year to year and era to era.

I'd love some feedback from everyone for a way to counteract these last three effects by prorating all pitcher and team seasons to some common threshold or number of decisions (or at least those team seasons in which it's reasonable to do so).

By doing so we could level out some of the inequalities of reporting and scheduling so that we're not comparing apples to oranges. Actually, I guess it would be much like prorating WS to 154 or 162.

I've got the man-by-man data laid out in a spreadsheet, so this kind of adjustment could be made very granularly.

For an example of the distorting effects that I mentioned in my previous post, please see posts #12 and 13 on the Nip Winters thread.

Rankings of various current backlog pitcher candidates on the career NgL leaderboards

All information is from Holway's Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues except for the information Gary has share above in this thread.

HARRY SALMON
WINS t-17th with 90 wins

LOSSES t-17th with 64 losses

DECISIONS 18th with 154 decisions

WINNING PCT .584
(50 decisions minimum) 46th
(25 decisions minimum) 69th
(10 decisions minimum) 107th

ADJ PCT OF TEAM DECISIONS 23.3%
(50 decisions minimum) 27th
(25 decisions minimum) 38th
(10 decisions minimum) 60th

WAT 3rd with 21.6

WAT PER DECISION .141
(50 decisions minimum) 5th
(25 decisions minimum) 12th
(10 decisions minimum) 28th
============================

TED TRENT

WINS 12th with 112

LOSSES 22nd with 61

DECISIONS 14th with 173

WINNING PCT .647
(50 decisions minimum) 21st
(25 decisions minimum) 33rd
(10 decisions minimum) 68th

ADJ PCT OF TEAM DEC 25%
(50 decisions minimum) 17th
(25 decisions minimum) 25th
(10 decisions minimum) 41st

WAT 22nd with 9.7

WAT PER DECISION .056
(50 decisions minimum) 43rd
(25 decisions minimum) 64th
(10 decisions minimum) 100th
==============================

WILLIAM BELL

WINS 3rd with 145

LOSSES 16th with 66

DECISIONS 7th with 211

WINNING PCT .687
(50 decisions minimum) 11th
(25 decisions minimum) 20th
(10 decisions minimum) 35th

ADJ PCT OF TEAM DECISIONS 17.6%
(50 decisions minimum) 71st
(25 decisions minimum) 94th
(10 decisions minimum) 134th

WAT 50th with 4.5

WAT PER DECISION .021
(50 decisions minimum) 61st
(25 decisions minimum) 88th
(10 decisions minimum) 137th
===============================

TOM WILLIAMS (career began before 1920)

WINS t-50th with 49

LOSSES t-180th with 14

DECISIONS 88th with 63

WINNING PCT .778
(50 decisions minimum) 2nd
(25 decisions minimum) 2nd
(10 decisions minimum) 6th

ADJ PCT OF TEAM DECISIONS 16.1%
(50 decisions minimum) 82nd
(25 decisions minimum) 111th
(10 decisions minimum) 162nd

WAT 22 with 9.1

WAT/DEC .144
(50 decisions minimum) 4th
(25 decisions minimum) 11th
(10 decisions minimum) 26th
=============================

LEROY MATLOCK

WINS 22nd with 77

LOSSES 82nd with 31

DECISIONS t-33rd with 108

WINNING PCT .713
(50 decisions minimum) 8th
(25 decisions minimum) 14th
(10 decisions minimum) 27th

ADJ PCT OF TEAM DECISIONS .164
(50 decisions minimum) 80th
(25 decisions minimum) 108th
(10 decisions minimum) 157th

WAT 21st with 9.7

WAT PER DECISION .090
(50 decisions minimum) 20th
(25 decisions minimum) 36th
(10 decisions minimum) 63rd

If there's anyone else you'd like me to break out for you, I'll be happy to!

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARD

WINS

RANK NAME               WINS
1    brown, ray          158
2    paige, satchel      154
3    bell, william       145
4    foster, bill        144
4    rogan, bullet       144
6    byrd, bill          133
7    cooper, andy        130
8    winters, nip        127
9    holland, bill       118
10   mcdonald, webster   117
11   davis, roosevelt    114
12   trent, ted          112
13   streeter, sam       105
14   brewer, chet        104
15   currie,  rube        96
15   drake, bill          96
17   hensley, slap        90
17   salmon, harry        90
19   cockrell, phil       87
20   henderson, rats      81
20   strong, joe          81
22   matlock, leroy       77
23   cooper, daltie       74
24   smith, hilton        70
25   mchenry, henry       69
25   powell, willie       69
25   yokely, laymon       69
28   day, leon            68
29   brown, dave          67
29   manning, max         67
29   mcclure, bob         67
32   rile, huck           66
33   britt, george        65
33   cornelius, sug       65
33   rector, connie       65
33   ryan, red            65
37   hunter, bertrum      63
38   force, bill          62
39   bremer, gene         61
40   mcduffie, terris     59
41   ferrell, Red         57
41   williams, joe        57
43   levis, oscar         55
44   gisentaner, willie   54
45   charleston, porter   51
45   radcliffe, ted       51
47   dean, nelson         50
47   jessup, gentry       50
47   mathis, verdell      50
50   morris, yellowhorse  49
50   williams, tom        49
52   bell, cliff          48
52   flournoy, pud        48
54   harney, george       47
55   grier, red           46
55   tiant, luis          46
55   walker, edsall       46
58   barnhill, dave       45
58   glass, carl          45
58   porter, pullman      45
61   hampton, lewis       44
61   williams, john       44
63   brown, barney        43
63   lamarque, jim        43
65   gardner, ping        42
65   redding, dick        42
65   stanley, neck        42
68   bell, fred           41
68   cooper, army         41
70   evans, bob           40
70   lee, scrip           40
72   crawford, sam        38
72   jeffries, jim        38
74   johnson, dicta       37
74   poindexter, bob      37
74   ross, william        37
74   willis, jim          37
74   wright, johnny       37
79   corbett, charles     36
79   griffith, bob        36
79   marshall, jack       36
82   gaines, jonas        35
82   jones, slim          35
82   mitchell, george     35
82   thompson, sad sam    35
86   dismukes, dizzy      34
86   hooker, lemuel       34
88   welmaker, roy        33
89   carter, cliff        32
89   hill, jimmy          32
89   kenyon, harry        32
89   newberry, jimmy      32
89   padrone, juan        32
89   parker, tom          32
89   shaw, ted            32
96   adams, ace           31
96   diaz, yo-yo          31
96   miller, percy        31
96   morris, barney       31
96   partlow, roy         31
101  gatewood, bill       30
101  mitchell, hooks      30

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

LOSSES

RANKNAMELOSSES
1  holland, bill       105
2  mcdonald, webster    96
3  paige, satchel       93
4  byrd, bill           84
5  yokely, laymon       80
6  cockrell, phil       79
6  winters, nip         79
8  cornelius, sug       77
8  stanley, neck        77
10 davis, roosevelt     75
11 brewer, chet         73
12 streeter, sam        72
13 strong, joe          71
14 foster, bill         70
15 currie,  rube        69
16 bell, william        66
17 bell, cliff          64
17 drake, bill          64
17 salmon, harry        64
20 brown, barney        62
20 ferrell, Red         62
22 trent, ted           61
23 cooper, andy         59
24 diaz, yo-yo          57
24 rogan, bullet        57
26 brown, ray           56
26 poindexter, bob      56
28 dean, nelson         55
28 powell, willie       55
30 britt, george        54
30 mcclure, bob         54
32 ryan, red            53
33 flournoy, pud        52
33 gisentaner, willie   52
33 glass, carl          52
33 henderson, rats      52
37 mathis, verdell      51
38 cooper, daltie       50
38 mchenry, henry       50
38 mitchell, hooks      50
41 hensley, slap        49
41 jeffries, jim        49
43 mccall, bill         48
44 willis, jim          46
45 evans, bob           45
45 force, bill          45
47 jessup, gentry       44
47 levis, oscar         44
47 mitchell, george     44
47 tiant, luis          44
51 rector, connie       43
51 redding, dick        43
53 gardner, ping        42
53 lee, scrip           42
55 griffith, bob        40
55 mcduffie, terris     40
55 ross, william        40
55 stevens, frank       40
59 boada, lucas         39
60 roberts, roy         38
61 kenyon, harry        37
61 roselle, basilio     37
61 tyler, bill          37
64 bell, fred           35
64 hampton, lewis       35
66 brown, dave          34
66 carter, cliff        34
66 day, leon            34
66 grier, red           34
66 thompson, sad sam    34
71 morris, yellowhorse  33
71 wright, red          33
73 bremer, gene         32
73 curry, goose         32
73 parker, tom          32
73 radcliffe, ted       32
73 rile, huck           32
78 bell, julian         31
78 hooker, lemuel       31
78 johnson, dicta       31
78 manning, max         31
78 matlock, leroy       31
78 walker, edsall       31
84 carter, spoon        30
84 dismukes, dizzy      30
84 marshall, jack       30
84 mirabal, juanelo     30
84 spearman, bill       30
84 treadwell, harold    30
84 vance, columbus      30
91 alexander, buck      29
91 crawford, sam        29
91 harney, george       29
91 porter, pullman      29
91 Starks, otis         29
91 williams, joe        29
97 moore, square        28
97 smith, hilton        28
99 black, joe           27
99 charleston, porter   27
99 davis, albert        27
99 fabre, isidro        27
99 finner, john         27
99 hubbard, jesse       27
99 newberry, jimmy      27
99 williams, john       27

This 'star pitcher' effect obviously hurts Paige more than anyone, but is also noticable in quite a number of other pitcher's careers (Slim Jones, Willie Foster, Rogan, Joe Williams, Mendez, etc.)

Gary A.'s 1928 data shows this effect at work in Willie Foster's season at the team level: Foster was used highly disproportionately against the other top teams in the league. I don't remember that Gary posted info on particular matchups: he may have.

Obviously, we don't have the data to analyze these effects directly, (we'd need the sort of data Chris J. has compiled for ML pitchers) but one way in which it shows up indirectly in the data, I believe, is in the apparent disconnect between star pitchers' usage patterns and their wins above team. Foster, for example, has a couple of early seasons where his wins are way above team, but he's third or fourth in team decisions. Then his percentage of team decisions jumps, clearly indicating that he's become the staff ace, and his WAT goes down. Obviously, teams aren't using these pitchers more when they get worse, so it's clear that they were facing better opponents.

Given that star pitchers tended to be used this way, I don't think that it will affect the ranking of these pitchers against each other much, but it could have significant effects on their MLEs; I'm not sure how best to account for it without RSI/opponent-record data, but in creating/assessing MLEs we should keep this effect in mind.

What's anybody know about Tom Williams?

This guy looks like a true short-career stud. In addition to a an outstanding League-era record of 49-14 (.778 pct), Holway lists his first four seasons (1916-1919) as being a combined 17-6 against top competition, including 12-0 in 1917 for a ten-year career total of 66-23 (.742). And that's before you look at his very good WAT and great WAT/decision rankings.

Is he, like Wes Ferrell? 8-10 years of big, juicy prime with nothing else?

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

DECISONS

RANK NAME                  DECISIONS
1    paige, satchel        247
2    holland, bill         223
3    byrd, bill            217
4    brown, ray            214
4    foster, bill          214
6    mcdonald, webster     213
7    bell, william         211
8    winters, nip          206
9    rogan, bullet         201
10   cooper, andy          189
10   davis, roosevelt      189
12   brewer, chet          177
12   streeter, sam         177
14   trent, ted            173
15   cockrell, phil        166
16   currie,  rube         165
17   drake, bill           160
18   salmon, harry         154
19   strong, joe           152
20   yokely, laymon        149
21   cornelius, sug        142
22   hensley, slap         139
23   henderson, rats       133
24   cooper, daltie        124
24   powell, willie        124
26   mcclure, bob          121
27   britt, george         119
27   ferrell, Red          119
27   mchenry, henry        119
27   stanley, neck         119
31   ryan, red             118
32   bell, cliff           112
33   matlock, leroy        108
33   rector, connie        108
35   force, bill           107
36   gisentaner, willie    106
37   brown, barney         105
37   dean, nelson          105
39   day, leon             102
40   brown, dave           101
40   mathis, verdell       101
42   flournoy, pud         100
43   levis, oscar           99
43   mcduffie, terris       99
45   manning, max           98
45   rile, huck             98
45   smith, hilton          98
48   glass, carl            97
49   jessup, gentry         94
50   bremer, gene           93
50   poindexter, bob        93
52   tiant, luis            90
53   diaz, yo-yo            88
54   jeffries, jim          87
55   hunter, bertrum        86
55   williams, joe          86
57   evans, bob             85
57   redding, dick          85
59   gardner, ping          84
60   radcliffe, ted         83
60   willis, jim            83
62   lee, scrip             82
62   morris, yellowhorse    82
64   grier, red             80
64   mitchell, hooks        80
66   hampton, lewis         79
66   mitchell, george       79
68   charleston, porter     78
69   ross, william          77
69   walker, edsall         77
71   bell, fred             76
71   griffith, bob          76
71   harney, george         76
74   porter, pullman        74
75   barnhill, dave         71
75   williams, john         71
77   kenyon, harry          69
77   mccall, bill           69
77   thompson, sad sam      69
80   johnson, dicta         68
81   crawford, sam          67
81   roberts, roy           67
83   carter, cliff          66
83   marshall, jack         66
85   hooker, lemuel         65
86   dismukes, dizzy        64
86   parker, tom            64
88   williams, tom          63
89   tyler, bill            62
89   wright, red            62
91   jones, slim            61
92   corbett, charles       60
93   boada, lucas           59
93   newberry, jimmy        59
95   carter, spoon          58
95   curry, goose           58
95   lamarque, jim          58
98   partlow, roy           57
98   stevens, frank         57
100  adams, ace             56
100  vance, columbus        56

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

WAT

RANK NAME                 WAT
1    brown, ray           32.8
2    cooper, andy         21.8
3    salmon, harry        21.6
4    byrd, bill           19.0
5    foster, bill         19.0
6    winters, nip         18.1
7    paige, satchel       17.8
8    mchenry, henry       16.1
9    rogan, bullet        13.7
10   rector, connie       13.6
11   barnhill, dave       13.6
12   rile, huck           13.0
13   jessup, gentry       12.8
14   charleston, porter   12.4
15   henderson, rats      12.3
16   bremer, gene         11.3
17   day, leon            11.2
18   brown, dave          10.9
19   streeter, sam        10.5
20   levis, oscar         10.3
21   matlock, leroy        9.7
22   trent, ted            9.7
23   gomez, david          9.3
24   hunter, bertrum       9.3
25   williams, tom         9.1
26   fields, wilmer        8.5
27   grier, red            8.4
28   porter, pullman       8.2
29   manning, max          8.0
30   glass, carl           7.9
31   williams, joe         7.3
32   diaz, yo-yo           7.2
33   mcdaniel, booker      7.1
34   redding, dick         7.0
35   ruiz, silvino         6.7
36   bankhead, dan         6.4
37   tiant, luis           6.2
38   mcduffie, terris      6.0
39   cooper, army          5.8
40   leblanc, julio        5.7
41   williams, johnny      5.5
42   hampton, lewis        5.5
43   smith, hilton         5.1
44   lamarque, jim         5.1
45   meyers, deacon        5.1
46   cooper, daltie        4.8
47   jefferson, george     4.7
48   mahoney, tony         4.7
49   evans, chin           4.5
50   bell, william         4.5
51   wright, red           4.4
52   bowe, bob             4.3
53   mcclure, bob          4.2
54   mcdonald, webster     4.2
55   padron, luis          4.1
56   gaines, jonas         3.8
57   jones, slim           3.8
58   miller, henry         3.8
59   taylor, johnny        3.8
60   williams, roy         3.8
61   harper, john          3.7
62   miller, percy         3.7
63   oldham, jimmy         3.6
64   nelson, everett       3.6
65   mungin, j             3.5
66   sykes, doc            3.5
67   shaw, ted             3.5
68   mendez, jose          3.5
69   torriente, cristobal  3.4
70   thompson, sad sam     3.4
71   miller, dimp          3.4
72   wright, johnny        3.2
73   mirabal, juanelo      3.2
74   johnson, dicta        3.1
75   welmaker, roy         3.0
76   saylor, alfred        3.0
77   holland, bill         2.9
78   corbett, charles      2.9
79   craig, homer          2.9
80   curry, goose          2.9
81   taylor, red           2.9
82   madison, bob          2.8
83   force, bill           2.8
84   walker, george        2.8
85   heard, jehosie        2.8
86   colzie, jim           2.5
87   roberts, specs        2.5
88   gisentaner, willie    2.4
89   houston, jess         2.4
90   williams3             2.3
91   mathis, verdell       2.3
92   dihigo, martin        2.2
93   williams, john        2.2
94   matchett, jack        2.2
95   ruiz, antonio         2.1
96   terrell, lawrence     2.1
97   williams, graham      2.1
98   newcombe, don         2.0
99   richardson, henry     2.0
100  sunkett, pete         1.9

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

WINNING PERCENTAGE*+
[*I don’t know how what number of minimum decisions is appropriate to assess Negro League candidates in rate categories. My gut says 50, but I’m not certain so I’ve gone with three different minimum thresholds]

[+The reported data show over 18,000 decisions, but are not balanced at .500. Instead the aggregate WIN PCT is about .531. Here’s a quick chart of relative winning percentages that shows what a given WIN PCT at a .531 base is compared to the more customary .500 base.]

Base  Base
.531  .500
====  ====
.800  .753
.750  .706
.700  .659
.650  .612
.600  .565
.550  .518
.531  .500
.500  .471
.450  .424
.400  .377

Minimum 50 decisions

RANK NAMEWIN PCT
1    cooper, army         0.788
2    williams, tom        0.778
3    lamarque, jim        0.741
4    brown, ray           0.738
5    hunter, bertrum      0.733
6    rogan, bullet        0.716
7    smith, hilton        0.714
8    matlock, leroy       0.713
9    wright, johnny       0.698
10   cooper, andy         0.688
11   bell, william        0.687
12   manning, max         0.684
13   rile, huck           0.673
14   foster, bill         0.673
15   day, leon            0.667
16   brown, dave          0.663
17   williams, joe        0.663
18   bremer, gene         0.656
19   charleston, porter   0.654
20   hensley, slap        0.647
21   trent, ted           0.647
22   gaines, jonas        0.636
23   barnhill, dave       0.634
24   shaw, ted            0.627
25   paige, satchel       0.623
26   miller, percy        0.620
27   williams, john       0.620
28   harney, george       0.618
29   winters, nip         0.617
30   radcliffe, ted       0.614
31   byrd, bill           0.613
32   henderson, rats      0.609
33   porter, pullman      0.608
34   davis, roosevelt     0.603
35   rector, connie       0.602
36   drake, bill          0.600
36   corbett, charles     0.600
38   morris, yellowhorse  0.598
39   walker, edsall       0.597
40   cooper, daltie       0.597
41   mcduffie, terris     0.596
42   streeter, sam        0.593
43   hill, jimmy          0.593
43   padrone, juan        0.593
45   brewer, chet         0.588
46   salmon, harry        0.584
47   currie,  rube        0.582
48   mchenry, henry       0.580
49   force, bill          0.579
50   grier, red           0.575
51   jones, slim          0.574
52   crawford, sam        0.567
53   morris, barney       0.564
54   lockhart, hubert     0.560
55   hampton, lewis       0.557
56   powell, willie       0.556
57   levis, oscar         0.556
57   gatewood, bill       0.556
59   mcclure, bob         0.554
60   adams, ace           0.554
61   ryan, red            0.551
62   mcdonald, webster    0.549
63   britt, george        0.546
64   marshall, jack       0.545
65   johnson, dicta       0.544
66   partlow, roy         0.544
67   newberry, jimmy      0.542
68   bell, fred           0.539
69   strong, joe          0.533
70   jessup, gentry       0.532
71   dismukes, dizzy      0.531
72   holland, bill        0.529
73   moss, porter         0.528
74   dihigo, martin       0.527
75   cockrell, phil       0.524
76   hooker, lemuel       0.523
77   jefferson, willie    0.520
78   tiant, luis          0.511
79   gisentaner, willie   0.509
80   thompson, sad sam    0.507
81   gardner, ping        0.500
81   parker, tom          0.500
81   davis, albert        0.500
84   mathis, verdell      0.495
85   redding, dick        0.494
86   black, joe           0.491
87   lee, scrip           0.488
88   carter, cliff        0.485
89   carter, spoon        0.483
90   hubbard, jesse       0.481
91   ross, william        0.481
92   flournoy, pud        0.480
93   ferrell, Red         0.479
94   dean, nelson         0.476
95   griffith, bob        0.474
96   evans, bob           0.471
96   finner, john         0.471
98   wright, red          0.468
99   vance, columbus      0.464
100  glass, carl          0.464

Minimum 25 decisions

RANK NAMEWIN PCT
1    cooper, army         0.788
2    williams, tom        0.778
3    jefferson, george    0.750
4    fields, wilmer       0.743
4    mendez, jose         0.743
6    lamarque, jim        0.741
7    brown, ray           0.738
8    williams, lefty      0.737
9    hunter, bertrum      0.733
10   rogan, bullet        0.716
11   smith, hilton        0.714
11   mcdaniel, booker     0.714
11   bankhead, dan        0.714
14   matlock, leroy       0.713
15   welmaker, roy        0.702
16   wright, johnny       0.698
17   johnson, connie      0.692
18   cooper, andy         0.688
19   bradley, frank       0.688
20   bell, william        0.687
21   manning, max         0.684
22   lewis, rufus         0.675
23   rile, huck           0.673
24   foster, bill         0.673
25   day, leon            0.667
25   mahoney, tony        0.667
27   brown, dave          0.663
28   williams, joe        0.663
29   bremer, gene         0.656
30   matchett, jack       0.655
31   charleston, porter   0.654
32   hensley, slap        0.647
33   trent, ted           0.647
34   mcdonald, luther     0.644
35   kranson, floyd       0.640
36   gaines, jonas        0.636
36   powell, putt         0.636
38   barnhill, dave       0.634
39   oldham, jimmy        0.632
40   harper, john         0.630
41   shaw, ted            0.627
42   carter, paul         0.625
43   paige, satchel       0.623
44   miller, percy        0.620
45   williams, john       0.620
46   harney, george       0.618
47   powell, bill         0.618
48   winters, nip         0.617
49   radcliffe, ted       0.614
50   byrd, bill           0.613
51   henderson, rats      0.609
52   porter, pullman      0.608
53   davis, roosevelt     0.603
54   rector, connie       0.602
55   drake, bill          0.600
55   corbett, charles     0.600
57   morris, yellowhorse  0.598
58   walker, edsall       0.597
59   cooper, daltie       0.597
60   mcduffie, terris     0.596
61   miller, henry        0.594
61   owens, aubrey        0.594
63   streeter, sam        0.593
64   hill, jimmy          0.593
64   padrone, juan        0.593
64   huber, john          0.593
67   brewer, chet         0.588
68   meyers, deacon       0.586
69   salmon, harry        0.584
70   currie,  rube        0.582
71   mchenry, henry       0.580
72   force, bill          0.579
73   clarke, webbo        0.579
73   williams, roy        0.579
75   taylor, johnny       0.578
76   grier, red           0.575
77   jones, slim          0.574
78   crawford, sam        0.567
79   romby, bob           0.567
79   sykes, doc           0.567
81   markham, john        0.565
82   morris, barney       0.564
83   lockhart, hubert     0.560
84   hampton, lewis       0.557
85   powell, willie       0.556
86   levis, oscar         0.556
86   gatewood, bill       0.556
88   mcclure, bob         0.554
89   adams, ace           0.554
90   ryan, red            0.551
91   mcdonald, webster    0.549
92   scantlebury, pat     0.548
93   britt, george        0.546
94   marshall, jack       0.545
94   holsey, frog         0.545
96   johnson, dicta       0.544
97   partlow, roy         0.544
98   whitworth, dick      0.543
99   miller, buck         0.543
99   padron, luis         0.543

Minimum 10 decisions

RANK NAMEWIN PCT
1    blair, garnet        0.909
2    evans, chin          0.800
2    heard, jehosie       0.800
2    donoso, lino         0.800
5    cooper, army         0.788
6    williams, tom        0.778
6    owens, smoky         0.778
8    walker, george       0.765
9    williams, johnny     0.762
10   jefferson, george    0.750
10   torriente, cristobal 0.750
12   fields, wilmer       0.743
12   mendez, jose         0.743
14   lamarque, jim        0.741
15   brown, ray           0.738
16   williams, lefty      0.737
16   mungin, j            0.737
16   saylor, alfred       0.737
19   walker, r.t.         0.733
20   hunter, bertrum      0.733
21   rogan, bullet        0.716
22   smith, hilton        0.714
22   mcdaniel, booker     0.714
22   bankhead, dan        0.714
22   dirreaux, jimmy      0.714
22   ruiz, antonio        0.714
27   matlock, leroy       0.713
28   welmaker, roy        0.702
29   colzie, jim          0.700
30   wright, johnny       0.698
31   johnson, connie      0.692
31   collins, gene        0.692
33   cooper, andy         0.688
34   bradley, frank       0.688
35   bell, william        0.687
36   perry, alonzo        0.684
37   manning, max         0.684
38   lewis, rufus         0.675
39   rile, huck           0.673
40   foster, bill         0.673
41   day, leon            0.667
41   mahoney, tony        0.667
41   Johnson, Tom         0.667
41   barnes, ed           0.667
41   bowe, bob            0.667
41   hamilton, j.c.       0.667
41   williams, graham     0.667
41   peace, warren        0.667
49   brown, dave          0.663
50   williams, joe        0.663
51   bremer, gene         0.656
52   matchett, jack       0.655
53   charleston, porter   0.654
54   taylor, red          0.652
55   houston, jess        0.650
55   terrell, lawrence    0.650
57   hensley, slap        0.647
58   trent, ted           0.647
59   brown, g             0.647
60   mcdonald, luther     0.644
61   hubert, bubber       0.643
62   kranson, floyd       0.640
63   gaines, jonas        0.636
63   powell, putt         0.636
63   craig, homer         0.636
63   davis, steel arm     0.636
63   Donaldson, John      0.636
63   williams, cotton     0.636
69   barnhill, dave       0.634
70   oldham, jimmy        0.632
71   harper, john         0.630
72   shaw, ted            0.627
73   carter, paul         0.625
74   paige, satchel       0.623
75   miller, percy        0.620
76   williams, john       0.620
77   bailey, bill         0.619
77   boone, alonzo        0.619
79   harney, george       0.618
80   powell, bill         0.618
81   winters, nip         0.617
82   newcombe, don        0.615
83   radcliffe, ted       0.614
84   byrd, bill           0.613
85   cooper, sam          0.611
86   henderson, rats      0.609
87   garcia, angel        0.609
88   porter, pullman      0.608
89   davis, roosevelt     0.603
90   rector, connie       0.602
91   drake, bill          0.600
91   corbett, charles     0.600
91   ruiz, silvino        0.600
91   greason, bill        0.600
95   morris, yellowhorse  0.598
96   walker, edsall       0.597
97   cooper, daltie       0.597
98   mcduffie, terris     0.596
99   miller, henry        0.594
99   owens, aubrey        0.594

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

ADJUSTED PERCENTAGE OF TEAM DECISIONS*+
[*I don’t know how what number of minimum decisions is appropriate to assess Negro League candidates in rate categories. My gut says 50, but I’m not certain so I’ve gone with three different minimum thresholds]

[+As I noted elsewhere, this number represents a proxy for innings and/or rotation slot as we determine usage levels. The adjustment comes in for situations when a pitcher changes teams within a season. I performed the adjustment this way:
1) figure his total decisions
2) figure the total decisions of the teams he was on
3) for first team, divide pitcher's decisions with first team by his total decisions, then multiply by team's total decisions
4) repeat for second team
5) add results of steps three and four to figure his adjusted team decisions
6) divide his total decisions into adjusted team decisions.]

Minimum 50 decisions

RANK NAME               ADJ PCT OF TEAM DEC
1    mathis, verdell     0.340
2    jessup, gentry      0.337
3    brown, ray          0.299
4    barnhill, dave      0.290
5    brown, dave         0.288
6    redding, dick       0.287
7    holland, bill       0.285
8    winters, nip        0.285
9    byrd, bill          0.282
10   manning, max        0.279
11   lamarque, jim       0.272
12   cornelius, sug      0.267
13   brown, barney       0.258
14   mchenry, henry      0.252
15   boada, lucas        0.251
16   roselle, basilio    0.250
17   trent, ted          0.250
18   rogan, bullet       0.248
19   day, leon           0.246
20   bremer, gene        0.240
21   diaz, yo-yo         0.240
22   moss, porter        0.239
23   wright, red         0.238
24   levis, oscar        0.238
25   henderson, rats     0.238
26   willis, jim         0.236
27   salmon, harry       0.233
28   grier, red          0.230
29   rector, connie      0.230
30   williams, joe       0.230
31   newberry, jimmy     0.229
32   paige, satchel      0.228
33   stanley, neck       0.223
34   mccall, bill        0.221
35   yokely, laymon      0.221
36   foster, bill        0.221
37   glass, carl         0.212
38   johnson, dicta      0.210
39   drake, bill         0.205
40   dean, nelson        0.204
41   hunter, bertrum     0.203
42   brewer, chet        0.202
43   morris, barney      0.202
44   smith, hilton       0.202
45   mcclure, bob        0.202
46   tiant, luis         0.201
47   flournoy, pud       0.200
48   mcdonald, webster   0.197
49   ferrell, Red        0.196
50   mcduffie, terris    0.196
51   padrone, juan       0.196
52   poindexter, bob     0.193
53   cockrell, phil      0.192
54   jefferson, willie   0.192
55   hooker, lemuel      0.192
56   shaw, ted           0.192
57   carter, cliff       0.191
58   mirabal, juanelo    0.190
59   currie,  rube       0.190
60   hill, jimmy         0.187
61   gardner, ping       0.187
62   walker, edsall      0.184
63   bell, cliff         0.184
64   spearman, bill      0.183
65   cooper, daltie      0.182
66   cooper, army        0.179
67   cooper, andy        0.178
68   vance, columbus     0.178
69   evans, bob          0.178
70   force, bill         0.177
71   bell, william       0.176
72   black, joe          0.175
73   adams, ace          0.173
74   streeter, sam       0.173
75   williams, john      0.173
76   strong, joe         0.170
77   davis, roosevelt    0.168
78   thompson, sad sam   0.167
79   charleston, porter  0.166
80   matlock, leroy      0.164
81   gaines, jonas       0.164
82   williams, tom       0.161
83   ryan, red           0.160
84   ross, william       0.159
85   britt, george       0.158
86   corbett, charles    0.157
87   hensley, slap       0.157
88   powell, willie      0.156
89   bell, fred          0.153
90   griffith, bob       0.151
91   curry, goose        0.151
92   wright, johnny      0.150
93   mitchell, george    0.147
94   tyler, bill         0.146
95   parker, tom         0.145
96   porter, pullman     0.142
97   hubbard, jesse      0.140
98   jones, slim         0.139
99   hampton, lewis      0.136
100  radcliffe, ted      0.136

Minimum 25 decisions

RANK NAME               ADJ PCT OF TEAM DEC
1    suarez, cheche      0.648
2    clarke, webbo       0.376
3    san ,eli            0.346
4    mathis, verdell     0.340
5    jessup, gentry      0.337
6    brown, ray          0.299
7    ricks, bill         0.293
8    barnhill, dave      0.290
9    brown, dave         0.288
10   redding, dick       0.287
11   holland, bill       0.285
12   winters, nip        0.285
13   byrd, bill          0.282
14   manning, max        0.279
15   lamarque, jim       0.272
16   cornelius, sug      0.267
17   powell, bill        0.262
18   mckinnis, lefty     0.259
19   brown, barney       0.258
20   gomez, david        0.257
21   leblanc, julio      0.256
22   mchenry, henry      0.252
23   boada, lucas        0.251
24   roselle, basilio    0.250
25   trent, ted          0.250
26   rogan, bullet       0.248
27   smith, gene         0.247
28   day, leon           0.246
29   bankhead, dan       0.243
30   bremer, gene        0.240
31   diaz, yo-yo         0.240
32   moss, porter        0.239
33   wright, red         0.238
34   levis, oscar        0.238
35   henderson, rats     0.238
36   willis, jim         0.236
37   chambers, rube      0.235
38   salmon, harry       0.233
39   jefferson, george   0.231
40   grier, red          0.230
41   rector, connie      0.230
42   williams, joe       0.230
43   newberry, jimmy     0.229
44   paige, satchel      0.228
45   johnson, tommy      0.223
46   stanley, neck       0.223
47   mccall, bill        0.221
48   yokely, laymon      0.221
49   foster, bill        0.221
50   henry, preacher     0.219
51   cunningham, harry   0.219
52   gipson, alvin       0.213
53   glass, carl         0.212
54   johnson, dicta      0.210
55   taylor, johnny      0.209
56   smith, theolic      0.206
57   drake, bill         0.205
58   dean, nelson        0.204
59   hunter, bertrum     0.203
60   brewer, chet        0.202
61   morris, barney      0.202
62   smith, hilton       0.202
63   mcclure, bob        0.202
64   tiant, luis         0.201
65   scantlebury, pat    0.201
66   flournoy, pud       0.200
67   mcdonald, webster   0.197
68   ferrell, Red        0.196
69   mcduffie, terris    0.196
70   padrone, juan       0.196
71   poindexter, bob     0.193
72   cockrell, phil      0.192
73   jefferson, willie   0.192
74   hooker, lemuel      0.192
75   shaw, ted           0.192
76   barbee, bud         0.191
77   carter, cliff       0.191
78   mirabal, juanelo    0.190
79   currie,  rube       0.190
80   hill, jimmy         0.187
81   gardner, ping       0.187
82   padron, luis        0.185
83   walker, edsall      0.184
84   bell, cliff         0.184
85   sykes, doc          0.183
86   spearman, bill      0.183
87   cooper, daltie      0.182
88   cooper, army        0.179
89   cooper, andy        0.178
90   vance, columbus     0.178
91   evans, bob          0.178
92   force, bill         0.177
93   harper, john        0.176
94   bell, william       0.176
95   bradley, frank      0.176
96   black, joe          0.175
97   adams, ace          0.173
98   streeter, sam       0.173
99   williams, john      0.173
100  strong, joe         0.170

Minimum 10 decisions

RANK NAME               ADJ PCT OF TEAM DEC
1    suarez, cheche      0.648
2    Taylor, Steel Arm   0.523
3    strong, fulton      0.419
4    bowe, bob           0.405
5    jones, sad sam      0.404
6    clarke, webbo       0.376
7    san ,eli            0.346
8    dixon, eddie        0.344
9    mathis, verdell     0.340
10   jessup, gentry      0.337
11   mcallister, chip    0.324
12   saylor, alfred      0.306
13   hannibal, leo       0.306
14   brown, ray          0.299
15   williams7           0.298
16   williams, graham    0.294
17   bailey, bill        0.294
18   ricks, bill         0.293
19   owens, smoky        0.290
20   barnhill, dave      0.290
21   brown, dave         0.288
22   redding, dick       0.287
23   holland, bill       0.285
24   winters, nip        0.285
25   byrd, bill          0.282
26   manning, max        0.279
27   lamarque, jim       0.272
28   cornelius, sug      0.267
29   powell, bill        0.262
30   nelson, everett     0.261
31   mckinnis, lefty     0.259
32   holmes, eddie       0.259
33   brown, barney       0.258
34   gomez, david        0.257
35   leblanc, julio      0.256
36   ruiz, antonio       0.255
37   mchenry, henry      0.252
38   boada, lucas        0.251
39   roselle, basilio    0.250
40   Hernandez, Jose     0.250
41   trent, ted          0.250
42   rogan, bullet       0.248
43   smith, gene         0.247
44   day, leon           0.246
45   gilmore, speed      0.245
46   bankhead, dan       0.243
47   Dibut, Pedro        0.242
48   medina, lazarus     0.241
49   bremer, gene        0.240
50   diaz, yo-yo         0.240
51   moss, porter        0.239
52   wright, red         0.238
53   levis, oscar        0.238
54   henderson, rats     0.238
55   willis, jim         0.236
56   mathews, dick       0.235
57   garcia, angel       0.235
58   chambers, rube      0.235
59   Valdes, Tony        0.234
60   salmon, harry       0.233
61   hooker, lemeul      0.233
62   taylor, red         0.232
63   jefferson, george   0.231
64   grier, red          0.230
65   rector, connie      0.230
66   williams, joe       0.230
67   newberry, jimmy     0.229
68   paige, satchel      0.228
69   pope, willie        0.228
70   johnson, tommy      0.223
71   stanley, neck       0.223
72   newkirk, alex       0.222
73   mccall, bill        0.221
74   yokely, laymon      0.221
75   foster, bill        0.221
76   henry, preacher     0.219
77   cunningham, harry   0.219
78   capers, lefty       0.217
79   gipson, alvin       0.213
80   glass, carl         0.212
81   johnson, dicta      0.210
82   taylor, johnny      0.209
83   smith, theolic      0.206
84   lorenzo, jesus      0.206
85   drake, bill         0.205
86   dean, nelson        0.204
87   branigan, george    0.203
88   hunter, bertrum     0.203
89   brewer, chet        0.202
90   morris, barney      0.202
91   smith, hilton       0.202
92   mcclure, bob        0.202
93   tiant, luis         0.201
94   scantlebury, pat    0.201
95   flournoy, pud       0.200
96   mcdonald, webster   0.197
97   houston, jess       0.196
98   ferrell, Red        0.196
99   mcduffie, terris    0.196
100  padrone, juan       0.196

Pursuant to the question about opportunity I raised in post #69 on this thread, I've been monkeying around with something I call OPP+.

It's an index that I hope measures the level of opportunity that a Negro League pitcher had. I'm thinking about it because of Ray Brown who we've clearly identified as an exceptional pitcher, but who we must also remember had three things going for him:
1) He pitched all or virtually all of his years stateside
2) His career is well documented
3) His teams were very stable.

By dividing Brown's team's adjusted decisions (decisions = sum of decisions for pitchers on team as reported by Holway---not W-L record--- adjustment by me as reported in the post listing ADJ % of TEAM DEC) into the league average for each season of his career, we can see how much opportunity he had relative to his peers.

Brown's teams are credited with 717 adjusted decisions. The sum of the average decisions for the teams in his leagues was 648. (Brown's teams are included in the calculation of league-average team decisions).

717 / 648 * 100 = an OPP+ of 110.

So Brown may have received a fairly substantial opportunity bump from his team context relative to his peers.

Taking this a step further, I compared his teams' total decisions against the historical team average of decisions, which turns out to be about 51 per year (I'm happy to explain if anyone wants to know how I got that number).

Brown's teams' = 717 decisions
Historical average = 51* 15 seasons = 765

717 / 765 * 100 = 94 h0PP+ (historical OPP+...yes, I know that's kind of corny.)

So Brown, relative to his historical peers may have been a bit shortchanged in terms of opportunity. This is a reasonable finding because the NNL's and ECL's average team decisions were often more than twice as long as those of teams in the 1930s and 1940s.

Somewhere in this thread, I mentioned Nip Winters as a guy who benefited tremendously from his team/league context. His OPP+ is 112 724 team decisions vs. 646 league-average team decisions), close to Brown's. But Winter's hOPP+ is 129 (724 team decisions vs. 561 historically average team decisions), indicating that he benefited 35% more from his league/team context than Brown did in terms of the opportunity to accumulate decisions.

Or to put it another way, Winters' career decisions applied to Brown's context would be something more like 134 instead of the 206 he got---which, at his career win% would mean 82 wins instead of 127.

Or yet another way, Brown's career decisions would number 289 instead of the 214 credited to him if he were plopped into Winters's context---which would mean 213 wins at his career win% instead of 158.

I haven't run anyone else through this yet, but I will begin doing so for upcoming candidates and important backlog candidates as I'm able to.

If anyone can suggest any ideas for improving this admittedly ad hoc "metric," let me know.

NEGRO LEAGUE CAREER PITCHING LEADERBOARDS

WAT PER DECISION*
[*I don’t know how what number of minimum decisions is appropriate to assess Negro League candidates in rate categories. My gut says 50, but I’m not certain so I’ve gone with three different minimum thresholds]


Minimum 50 decisions

RANK NAME                 WAT/DECISION
1    barnhill, dave       0.192
2    charleston, porter   0.158
3    brown, ray           0.153
4    williams, tom        0.144
5    salmon, harry        0.141
6    jessup, gentry       0.136
7    mchenry, henry       0.135
8    rile, huck           0.132
9    rector, connie       0.126
10   bremer, gene         0.122
11   cooper, andy         0.115
12   cooper, army         0.111
13   porter, pullman      0.110
14   day, leon            0.109
15   hunter, bertrum      0.108
16   brown, dave          0.107
17   grier, red           0.105
18   levis, oscar         0.104
19   henderson, rats      0.093
20   matlock, leroy       0.090
21   foster, bill         0.089
22   lamarque, jim        0.088
23   winters, nip         0.088
24   byrd, bill           0.087
25   williams, joe        0.085
26   redding, dick        0.082
27   manning, max         0.082
28   glass, carl          0.082
29   diaz, yo-yo          0.081
30   miller, percy        0.073
31   paige, satchel       0.072
32   wright, red          0.070
33   gaines, jonas        0.070
34   hampton, lewis       0.070
35   tiant, luis          0.069
36   shaw, ted            0.069
37   rogan, bullet        0.068
38   jones, slim          0.063
39   mcduffie, terris     0.060
40   wright, johnny       0.060
41   streeter, sam        0.059
42   mirabal, juanelo     0.057
43   trent, ted           0.056
44   smith, hilton        0.052
45   curry, goose         0.051
46   thompson, sad sam    0.049
46   corbett, charles     0.049
48   johnson, dicta       0.046
49   dihigo, martin       0.040
50   cooper, daltie       0.039
51   mcclure, bob         0.035
52   lockhart, hubert     0.035
53   hill, jimmy          0.035
54   gatewood, bill       0.034
55   williams, john       0.031
56   dismukes, dizzy      0.028
57   force, bill          0.026
58   gisentaner, willie   0.023
59   mathis, verdell      0.022
60   morris, yellowhorse  0.022
61   bell, william        0.021
62   mcdonald, webster    0.020
63   holland, bill        0.013
64   hensley, slap        0.011
65   crawford, sam        0.010
66   moss, porter         0.008
67   willis, jim          0.006
68   morris, barney       0.004
69   roselle, basilio     0.003
70   harney, george       0.003
71   griffith, bob        0.001
72   radcliffe, ted       0.001
73   flournoy, pud       -0.001
74   dean, nelson        -0.006
75   bell, fred          -0.010
76   stanley, neck       -0.011
77   hubbard, jesse      -0.011
78   cockrell, phil      -0.013
79   padrone, juan       -0.015
80   powell, willie      -0.016
81   davis, roosevelt    -0.017
82   drake, bill         -0.018
83   britt, george       -0.018
84   yokely, laymon      -0.019
85   ferrell, Red        -0.020
86   hooker, lemuel      -0.021
87   evans, bob          -0.027
88   tyler, bill         -0.028
89   cornelius, sug      -0.030
90   brewer, chet        -0.035
91   ryan, red           -0.039
92   adams, ace          -0.040
93   spearman, bill      -0.041
94   carter, cliff       -0.043
95   boada, lucas        -0.044
96   finner, john        -0.050
97   strong, joe         -0.054
98   bell, cliff         -0.054
99   davis, albert       -0.057
100  carter, spoon       -0.059

Minimum 25 decisions

RANK NAME                 WAT/DECISION
1    fields, wilmer          0.243
2    bankhead, dan        0.229
3    gomez, david         0.217
4    mcdaniel, booker     0.201
5    barnhill, dave       0.192
6    meyers, deacon       0.176
7    mahoney, tony        0.174
8    jefferson, george    0.169
9    charleston, porter   0.158
10   brown, ray           0.153
11   williams, tom        0.144
12   salmon, harry        0.141
13   jessup, gentry       0.136
14   harper, john         0.136
15   mchenry, henry       0.135
16   rile, huck           0.132
17   leblanc, julio       0.132
18   rector, connie       0.126
19   bremer, gene         0.122
20   miller, henry        0.120
21   sykes, doc           0.118
22   padron, luis         0.117
23   miller, dimp         0.117
24   cooper, andy         0.115
25   cooper, army         0.111
26   porter, pullman      0.110
27   day, leon            0.109
28   hunter, bertrum      0.108
29   brown, dave          0.107
30   grier, red           0.105
31   levis, oscar         0.104
32   mendez, jose         0.099
33   williams, roy        0.099
34   oldham, jimmy        0.095
35   henderson, rats      0.093
36   matlock, leroy       0.090
37   foster, bill         0.089
38   lamarque, jim        0.088
39   winters, nip         0.088
40   byrd, bill           0.087
41   williams, joe        0.085
42   taylor, johnny       0.085
43   redding, dick        0.082
44   manning, max         0.082
45   glass, carl          0.082
46   diaz, yo-yo          0.081
47   matchett, jack       0.076
48   miller, percy        0.073
49   paige, satchel       0.072
50   wright, red          0.070
51   gaines, jonas        0.070
52   hampton, lewis       0.070
53   tiant, luis          0.069
54   shaw, ted            0.069
55   rogan, bullet        0.068
56   welmaker, roy        0.065
57   huber, john          0.065
58   jones, slim          0.063
59   mcduffie, terris     0.060
60   wright, johnny       0.060
61   streeter, sam        0.059
62   san ,eli             0.058
63   mirabal, juanelo     0.057
64   trent, ted           0.056
65   smith, hilton        0.052
66   curry, goose         0.051
67   richardson, henry    0.049
68   thompson, sad sam    0.049
69   corbett, charles     0.049
70   williams, lefty      0.047
71   johnson, dicta       0.046
72   cannon, dick         0.042
73   dihigo, martin       0.040
74   cooper, daltie       0.039
75   powell, putt         0.035
76   mcclure, bob         0.035
77   lockhart, hubert     0.035
78   hill, jimmy          0.035
79   gatewood, bill       0.034
80   carr, wayne          0.034
81   lewis, rufus         0.032
82   williams, john       0.031
83   dismukes, dizzy      0.028
84   force, bill          0.026
85   gisentaner, willie   0.023
86   mathis, verdell      0.022
87   morris, yellowhorse  0.022
88   bell, william        0.021
89   beverly, charley     0.020
90   mcdonald, webster    0.020
91   hayes, bun           0.018
92   holland, bill        0.013
93   mcdonald, luther     0.012
94   holsey, frog         0.012
95   hensley, slap        0.011
96   crawford, sam        0.010
97   buchanan, chester    0.008
98   moss, porter         0.008
99   willis, jim          0.006
100  morris, barney       0.004

Minimum 10 decisions

RANK NAMEWAT/DECISION
1    ruiz, silvino         0.335
2    evans, chin           0.300
3    nelson, Everett       0.299
4    bowe, bob             0.287
5    craig, homer          0.267
6    williams, Johnny      0.264
7    colzie, jim           0.255
8    fields, wilmer        0.243
9    bankhead, dan         0.229
10   gomez, david          0.217
11   roberts, specs        0.208
12   mcdaniel, booker      0.201
13   barnhill, dave        0.192
14   mungin, j             0.186
15   heard, jehosie        0.184
16   meyers, deacon        0.176
17   mahoney, tony         0.174
18   jefferson, george     0.169
19   walker, george        0.163
20   charleston, porter    0.158
21   saylor, Alfred        0.155
22   ruiz, Antonio         0.153
23   brown, ray            0.153
24   newcombe, don         0.152
25   williams, tom         0.144
26   torriente, cristobal  0.142
27   salmon, harry         0.141
28   williams, graham      0.139
29   jessup, gentry        0.136
30   harper, john          0.136
31   mchenry, henry        0.135
32   dirreaux, jimmy       0.135
33   rile, huck            0.132
34   leblanc, Julio        0.132
35   rector, connie        0.126
36   taylor, red           0.126
37   rodriguez, conrado    0.125
38   bremer, gene          0.122
39   miller, henry         0.120
40   houston, jess         0.118
41   sykes, doc            0.118
42   padron, luis          0.117
43   miller, dimp          0.117
44   cooper, andy          0.115
45   blair, garnet         0.115
46   montalvo, estaban     0.113
47   cooper, army          0.111
48   porter, Pullman       0.110
49   day, leon             0.109
50   hunter, bertrum       0.108
51   brown, dave           0.107
52   walker, r.t.          0.107
53   terrell, Lawrence     0.107
54   smith, p              0.107
55   grier, red            0.105
56   levis, oscar          0.104
57   mendez, jose          0.099
58   williams, roy         0.099
59   oldham, jimmy         0.095
60   henderson, rats       0.093
61   donoso, lino          0.092
62   matlock, Leroy        0.090
63   foster, bill          0.089
64   lamarque, jim         0.088
65   winters, nip          0.088
66   pipkins, lefty        0.088
67   byrd, bill            0.087
68   fillmore, joe         0.086
69   williams, joe         0.085
70   taylor, Johnny        0.085
71   redding, dick         0.082
72   manning, max          0.082
73   glass, carl           0.082
74   diaz, yo-yo           0.081
75   capers, lefty         0.077
76   matchett, jack        0.076
77   miller, percy         0.073
78   paige, satchel        0.072
79   wright, red           0.070
80   gaines, jonas         0.070
81   hampton, lewis        0.070
82   tiant, luis           0.069
83   shaw, ted             0.069
84   rogan, bullet         0.068
85   nuttal, bill          0.068
86   garcia, angel         0.065
87   welmaker, roy         0.065
88   huber, john           0.065
89   williams, cotton      0.064
90   jones, slim           0.063
91   owens, smoky          0.061
92   mcduffie, terries     0.060
93   wright, Johnny        0.060
94   streeter, sam         0.059
95   bailey, bill          0.058
96   san ,eli              0.058
97   mirabal, juanelo      0.057
98   branigan, george      0.057
99   trent, ted            0.056
100  hernandez, jose       0.054

Hey, everyone,

Chris pointed out to me that Bill Foster's 1932 Holway data contains a possible inconsistency whereby Holway appears to have missed a digit, crediting Foster with 1 instead of 12 wins in the team-by-team listings. This has an effect on several of the seasonal and career caluculations I've made, but the big picture is that Foster is now #2 career in WAT, wins, and decisions and moves up a few slots in other categories as well.

the other effected pitchers are W. Powell, P. Powell, J Lillard, and S Cornelius. The effects are not large.

I think it's likely that as more data filters in more changes could come, so I'll forebear on reposting career leaderboards until there's lots of changes to make.

Having suggested this thread inthe first place, I think all of the info is really great.

However, I am hoping that by 1953 there will be some synthesis. Right now the info is overwhelming. It would be great if the folks who know this info from the inside (Eric! Chris!) could tell us what you think it means.

Specifically who are the best of the remaining candidates aside from Satchel?????

Ray Brown? Redding? Mendez? How to the holdovers Redding and Mendez compare to Brown and /or Hilton and/or Byrd and/or whomever else belongs at or near the top of the list. If we cannot determine who really is the best of the rest, then we will elect Satchel and we will be done with the NeL pitchers, and personally I'm pretty sure that would leave us 2-3 short of where we ought to be.

Sunnyday,

I'm actually still working on a lot of info (season-by-season league leaders and single-season records), but I think at this point I've personally sorted the candidates this way...

CURRENTLY ELEGIBLE CANDIDATES
TIER 1--Candidates whose records seem to indicate a need for immediate re-evaluation. Every one of these guys appears to have a very strong case based on the little information we have at our disposal. I've also grouped them by bulk v. peak where appropriate.

Bulk
=====
Bell, William
Redding, Dick

Peak
=====
Henderson, Rats
Levis, Oscar
Mendez, Jose
Williams, Tom
Winters, Nip
Rile, Huck (Rile appears to have been an outstanding pitcher for a short time before converting to 1B for the remainder of his career. May have a Dihigo/Rogan profile.)
Brown, Dave

Bulk/Peak
======
Byrd, Bill
Cooper, Andy
Jessup, Gentry
Matlock, Leroy
Rector, Connie
Salmon, Harry
Streeter, Sam
Trent, Ted

TIER 2--Guys I'd like to know more about, but whose reevaluation isn't likely to make a big difference
Brewer, Chet
McDuffie, Terris
Charleston, Porter
Diaz, YoYo
Glass, Carl
Grier, Red
Hampton, Lewis
Holland, Bill
Hunter, Bertram
Jones, Slim
McDonald, Webster
Ruiz, Silvio
Williams, Roy
Wright, Red


FUTURE CANDIDATES
TIER 1--Guys whose record suggests close scrutiny is imperative (name, followed by year eligible)
Smith, Hilton 54
Bremer, Gene 54
Brown, Ray 55
McDaniel, Booker 55
LeMarque, Jim 57
Barnhill, Dave 59
Paige, Satchel 59
Day, Leon 60
Newcombe, Don 66
Fields, Wilmer 64
Manning, Max 57
McDaniel, Booker 55
McHenry, Henry 56
Porter, Pullman 56
Tiant, Luis Sr. 52 (At this point, I'm not well convinced by his case. His numbers stateside are OK, but his Cuban numbers hurt rather than help him.)

TIER 2--Guys who could emerge as candidates with some research; they all have some obstacle.
Bankhead, Dan 57
Evans, Chin 55
Gaines, Jonas 60
Mathis, Verdell 56
Taylor, Johnny 52
Williams, Johnny 59
Wright, Johnny 54

I'll try to offer more thoughts on individual guys later this weekend.

In the following table, the top twenty or so eligible candidates plus our three NgL HOM pitchers are listed. What I’ve done is adjusted each pitcher in two ways
1)Each pitcher’s individual seasons are adjusted to their league’s average-length schedule.
2)Then those average-length schedules are adjusted to an historically average schedule of 51 games.

I should note that in some cases where small samples caused massive distortions I just went with the published total unadjusted (esp for pitchers from BRK).

That helps level some of the opportunity issues we were seeing and also helps clarify what a bulk or peak candidate from the NgLs looks like.

name              dec  w   l wat pct   wat/dec
byrd, bill        268 169 99  33 0.632 0.12
williams, joe*    176 115 60  19 0.656 0.11
trent, ted        173 103 70   6 0.594 0.03
rector, connie    168  93 75  17 0.555 0.10
foster, bill      166 115 52  15 0.690 0.09
winters, nip      160  92 67   9 0.577 0.06
streeter, sam     156 103 58  17 0.657 0.11
bell, william     142  96 46   4 0.676 0.03
smith, hilton     138  99 39   6 0.717 0.04
cooper, andy      131  94 36  13 0.722 0.10
tiant, luis sr    130  65 65  14 0.500 0.11
levis, oscar*     121  67 54  14 0.553 0.11
rogan, bullet     120  89 31   9 0.738 0.07
jessup, gentry    119  59 61  11 0.492 0.09
redding, dick*    118  56 62  10 0.476 0.08
salmon, harry     113  68 45  18 0.603 0.16
henderson, rats    95  58 37  10 0.614 0.10
matlock, leroy     82  56 27   5 0.677 0.06
rile, huck         61  41 20   9 0.675 0.14
williams, tom*     44  34 10   6 0.778 0.14
mendez, jose*      19  14  5   2 0.741 0.10

* = does not include seasons prior to 1920.

I’m on the way out to dinner right now, so I can’t say much else, but I hope this helps touch off a conversation about these guys.

If you take the chart I just posted and rank the pitchers roto style, you get this order of candidates. Obviously there's lots of problems with that way of doing things, but it's a start.

name rank
williams, joe 1
byrd, bill 2
foster, bill 3
streeter, sam 4
cooper, andy 4
salmon, harry 6
williams, tom 7
rogan, bullet 8
smith, hilton 9
rector, connie 10
rile, huck 10
levis, oscar 12
henderson, rats 13
bell, william 14
tiant, luis sr 15
trent, ted 16
mendez, jose 16
winters, nip 18
matlock, leroy 19
jessup, gentry 20
redding, dick 21

OK, I'm a moron, what is roto style?

Like rotisserie scoring where you get ranked within each category from best to worst (so from 21 down to 1) then your scores in each category are tabulated to create a final total. So Byrd, by virtue of leading all comers in wins, decisions, and WAT scores very highly, while mendez, with his very few decisions after 1920 onward scores poorly.

Here's some notes about the kinds of information we need to know to complete the picture of these guys as well as how I'm currently looking at them.

byrd, bill: Competition discounts for 1940-1941 and WW2 years; was in VZ in 1940, Holway gives no stats; 1932, Holway has no stats for Byrd's year in Columbus. seems to have both career and peak, but peak falls in the war and MxL years, so there's some possibility of mixed messages in the record.

streeter, sam: The record is pretty clear, though he has only one decision in 1925 with BIR which seems a little puzzling. appears to be a good career candidate with high effectiveness.

cooper, andy: The record through 1931 is very clear, but 1932-1936 is not documented because KC was independent, however, Cooper was still active with the team. good career guy, but also highly effective.

salmon, harry: pretty clear record, though we don't have anything on his last couple of years with homestead. he's kind of unsung and with 18 opp adj WAT appears to be a very effective pitcher.

williams, tom: I haven't added the pre-1920 non-league seasons to my database, but williams appears to have been as effective in this time as he was during the league era. he's a short-career candidate with a very high level of effectiveness and may be well liked by the ferrellites.

smith, hilton: 1933-1936 is a little murky. his career when adjusted for opp looks a little longer. may not be as effective as he looks, WAT and WAT/dec are very low, however his teams were very good.

rector, connie: record seems pretty clear in Holway through 1932, then things are very sparse through the mid forties. career candidate who played for many weak teams, but who WAT says was much better than they were.

rile, huck: hybrid candidate with extremely effective pitching career of about five-six years in the twenties, then another five-six years as a pretty good hitter (though we'd need MLEs to prove that). dihigo fans might like him a lot.

levis, oscar: played for weak teams and several undocumented years in the early 1930s. on the other hand dominant pitcher as WAT/dec shows.

henderson, rats: short but fairly dominant career.

bell, william: career candidate with great win pct but very little WAT, due in part to playing with KC and the Crawfords. he's very well documented, so i think what you see is what you get. i'm thinking more like sad sam jones or jack powell here.

tiant, luis sr: he did rise about some poor teammates, but on the other hand, his cuban performances weren't very good at all. poorly documented with nothing in holway for stateside performance in 1933, 1934, 1937, 1938, 1940-1942 though there is some limited foreign data.

trent, ted: lots of career, not much peak. appears to be well documented.

mendez, jose: the 1920s numbers do support that mendez was very effective, though one wonders who he pitched against as the fifth-sixth guy. like T Williams, needs pre-1920s data to complete the picture.

winters, nip: well documented pitcher. extremely effective for a short period, but otherwise, often ineffective over the other half of his career. before OPP adjustment, his career WAT was 18.1. Afterwards just nine. This shows how much impact the longer schedule of the mid-late 20s has on his career record. i'm now officially skeptical.

matlock, leroy: in santo domingo in 1937, VZ in 1939, Mexican League in 1940-1941. Holway only gives records for SD and Mex, but doesn't offer team data. Otherwise, he's got a great win pct but very little WAT. I see him and Hilton Smith as potentially similar in value, though I'd like to see matlock's foreign data in a wider context before officially endorsing that position.

jessup, gentry: limited or no data in Holway for 1940-1942 and 1948-1949. Played in the Mandak/Canadian league in the early 1950s but no data on that available to me at this time. Anyone got it? looks like he had bad taste in teammates but was good at pitching above them. with more data, we'd have a better sense of him.

redding, dick: half his career is outside of the dataset I've compiled, and probably the better half. he's a bulk candidate for certain; he pitched with terrible teams, his 1920-1922 years aren't well documented, nor 1929-1931. In addition, his BRK teams in the 1920s didn't play quite so many league games as other teams did, making his data sample smaller. he's tough to reckon because his early career takes place in a non-league setting. i can see either view on him: as being as great as reputed, a kind of Nolan Ryan type figure with a little more peak; or else the ultimate bulk candidate with less absolute effectiveness than his reputation might imply.

Doc, is it your conscious contention that Dick Redding has been overrated???

SHORT ANSWER: No, not at all. It's my current contention that he could either be a very strong candidate or an historically overrated figure, but that I just don't know yet.

LONG ANSWER: Because I haven't gone far into Holway's data for the pre-league period, and I don't have anything on Redding's peak. During this period, however, Holway sometimes reports on as few as three teams or reports less than 10-15 team decisions for several teams and tons of decisions for two or three. So far all I know is that Redding owned a 40-20 record in games against high-level black compeitition. (Just for comparison, S.J. Williams was 57-24 in this period, Mendez was 10-2, Wickware was 30-28, Stringbean Williams was 17-17, Gatewood was 18-25, Pedroso was 23-39, Diskmukes was 38-28, T Johnson was 25-13, L Padron 11-26, and Whitworth was 20-7.)

Compounding all of this is the fact that in the 1920s Redding pitched for bad teams (thus his .500ish record in the 1920s) and those teams had very scattershot participation in league or league-quality games. For instance, here's his number of team decisions against high-quality opponents in post 1919 play:

192015
192126
192215
19235
19246
19253
19263
19277
19282
19302
19311

This doesn't give us much to work with, because it does not reflect a career dropoff, just an absence of league-quality games for his teams. Those first three years, by the way, are seasons with WATs of 2.4, 1.3, and 2.9, and with a very good accrual rate of .12 WAT per decision.

On the other hand, his Cuban performance wasn't so great.

In addition, Chris pegged Cannonball for a lower ERA+ and WS total than Redding's historical repuatation might suggest, which has probably influenced my trepidation a bit.

So although I've got more work to do on him, right this second, I see a Nolan-Ryan-type career with tons of innings and Ks and a strong reputation based on them, but with a little less flashiness in the ERA+ area.

As you all know, however, I'm not afraid to change my mind in the face of new data, so I'll make Redding's pre-1920 performance a priority over the next couple days and report back with WAT and rotation slot information and see if I can't make up my mind.

OK, this morning I put together notes on Redding's first decade from Holway.

Over this time, he went 40-20 for teams with a record of 105-76, good for 3.1 WAT, accrued at a rate of about .05 WAT/decision. (He's got almost no data in 1913, if anyone knows what happened that year, I'd love to know.)

He did serve about a year in WW1 (looks like spring 1918 through mid-summer 1919). Here's his numbers for this entire time

1911 1.4 WAT on 6 decisions
1912 -0.2 WAT on 4 decisons
1913 ????
1914 0.0 WAT on 8 decisions
1915 1.8 WAT on 8 decisions
1916 1.4 WAT on 5 decisions
1917 -1.4 WAT on 19 decisions
1918 0.7 WAT on 2 decisons
1919 -0.6 WAT on 8 decisions

If I adjusted this to the historically normal 51 game average of the league period the way I did the rest of his career, his WAT would be about 13.1 for the eight year period, accured at .8 WAT/dec, and his record would be 105-59 for a .638 win PCT.

If you sum this with his OPP adjusted totals from the league period, you get

161-115, .583, 24.2 WAT, and a rate of .09 WAT/decision.

With war credit, he might gain another 15 to 25 decisions.

Anyway, I think based on this information, that Redding and Byrd are very comparable bulk-oriented candidates with pretty good but not all-world peaks. Byrd pitched for better teams in a slightly more organized period, which helps us understand him a little better. Of course, this is all dependent on whether you choose to follow the interpretation I've provided.

I think the Nolan Ryan comparison is apt for Redding: pitched a long time (20 or so years) for some not-so-great clubs, with a winning percentage that's not superb, but had lots of counting stats, especially wins, decisions, and Ks (and WAT).

Anyone agree or disagree out there?

A little more information to share, this time about Matlock and Tiant in Mexico.

Matlock played in Mexico City from 1940-1942. Here are his totals from the rest of his team and his totals from the period for comparison (rest of team may include partial seasons with other clubs, the MxL encyclopedia is not that specific):

1940
     TEAM   MATLOCK
ERA  6.34   3.27
K/9  4.55   3.98
BB/9 4.16   1.85
K/BB 1.09   2.15
PCT  .600   .600 (0 WAT)

1941
ERA  4.93   3.99
K/9  3.45   3.94
BB/9 4.56   3.13
K/BB 0.76   1.26
PCT  .493   .625 (3.17 WAT)

1942
ERA  4.77   5.37
K/9  3.11   3.66
BB/9 5.04   4.88
K/BB 0.62   0.75
PCT  .460   .409 (-1.49 WAT)

Matlock looks very good in comparison to his teammates each season in the rates, and I think got a little unlucky in 1942 ERAwise. On the whole, as career-ending runs go, it doesn't really help too much nor hurt a lot.

Luis Tiant pitched 1941 in Aguila and split 1948 between Monterrey and San Luis Potiso. Since I don't have his splits between the two 1948 teams, I'll just present both of them.

1941 Aguila
     TEAM   TIANT
ERA  5.57   5.05
K/9  4.23   3.29
BB/9 5.02   4.94
K/BB 0.84   0.67
PCT  .446   .400 (-1.13 WAT)

1948 Monterrey
ERA  3.56   5.55
K/9  2.94   3.39
BB/9 4.29   3.85
K/BB 0.68   0.88
PCT  .597   .500 (-.779 WAT)

1948 San Luis
ERA  5.01   5.55
K/9  4.10   3.39
BB/9 4.33   3.85
K/BB 0.95   0.88
PCT  .313   .500 (1.49 WAT)

These numbers don't help Tiant's case in the least as far as I'm concerned.

Chris asked for Day's and Manning's numbers in Mexico. Here they are. I'll post team data when I can cull it from the encyclopedia, that'll take a little while.

=======================
Leon Day
1940: VERACRUZ
6-0, 9 G, 4 CG, 67 INN, 61 H, 29 K, 26 BB, 3.22 ERA

1947: MEXICO CITY
10-11, 28 G, 26 GS, 15 CG, 1 SHO, 178.67 INN 169 H, 2 HPB, 81 K, 131 BB, 4.13 ERA

1948: MEXICO CITY
8-9, 23 g, 20 gs, 9 CG, 1 SHO, 132.67, 133 H 3 HPB, 31 K, 46 BB

=========================
MAX MANNING
1951: JALISCO
2-4, 10 G, 4 CG, 59.67 INN, 49 H, 22 K, 30 BB

1953: TORREON
3-5, 13 G, 2 CG, 71.67 69 H, 47 R, 34 ER, 4 HPB, 49 K, 36 BB

A note on the Day and Manning Mexican League statistics:

Day hurt his arm in 1946 and was never the same pitcher after that year (In 1941 Day joined the Mexican League after the Venezuelan League fell apart. In Venezuela, Day went 13-2).

Manning hurt his arm in 1948 and was never the same pitcher again after that year. His Mexican League stats in 1951 and 1953 are past prime.

Hey, Gadfly or Gary,

Do you know anything about

a) Andy Cooper prior to 1920?

b) Huck Rile's career after 1929? (Riley says he played with the BRK Royal Giants from 1930 - 1936, during which period Holway has no data for the team.)

Thank you!

TEAM DATA FOR LEON DAY (some notes to follow)

1940: Veracruz (61-30)

   INN     H  ER  BB   K
940.68  1110 476 425 589

 ERA   K/9   BB/9   K/BB    H/9
4.55  5.64   4.07   1.39  10.62

1947: Mexico City (65-45)

 INN     H  ER  BB   K
1258  1333 538 562 486

 ERA   K/9  BB/9  K/BB   H/9
3.85  3.48  4.02  0.86  9.54

1948: Mexico City (44-44)

    INN     H  ER  BB   K
1214.32  1242 550 475 443

 ERA   K/9  BB/9  K/BB   H/9
4.07  3.28  3.52  0.93  9.18

Notes:
1. These team stats are inclusive of Day's totals.
2. They also include the full-season totals of players who changed teams during the year because splits are not provided in the Mexican League Encyclopedia. This is not a problem for 1940, but in 1947 and 1948, it represents a possible excess of 300 innings for Day's teams in each season.
3. Team records courtesy of Juan Fernando Rivera Pernia as downloaded from www.Baseball1.com.
4. None of these stats are confirmed by any third-party source, I've just culled them out of the Cinsneros book by hand, so they are subject to error.

I know it's different years, and circumstances change from year to year, but it's still a little startling in post #97 to see a higher ERA for Veracruz (altitude approximately sea level) than for Mexico City (up where there isn't much air to breathe).

OCF,

Agreed, and I suspect, though I can't yet prove it, that those Mexico City ERAs are an artifact of the 300 extra innings for both the 1947 and 1948 Mexico City teams that I can't really account for because of the lack of splits. I'm hoping to get fuller leaguewide data for all the years we will be evaluating players from, but it's manual work, so it might be a while. Once I've got that, I might be able to get a better idea of how much time players spent with each team during years where they appeared on two or more clubs.

OK, here's my stab at the entire 1940 Mexican League.

Something's a little bit fishy in Cisnero's totals because they don't jibe at all with the Pernia team W-L records posted on www.baseball1.com. Also, there's teams Cisneros cites that aren't on Pernia's standings at all! I don't know if there was instability and team folding or what.

Anyway, so here's a league and team-by-team breakdown of 1940. As always, I'm doing this by hand, so there's much room for error. Fourteen players changed teams at least once during the 1940 season. I tried to allocate players as best I could, assigning half-seasons, trying to align as I was able with Pernia's reports. But it's like shooting fish in an ocean, so the team-by-teams are really unverified estimates.

MEXICAN LEAGUE 1940

LEAGUE TOTALS
=============
W    282
L    278
G    904
CG   303  
SHO   24  
INN 4804.67   
H   5383 
ER  2526  
BB  2155   
K   2499 

ERA    4.73
K/9    4.68
BB/9   4.04
K/BB   1.15
H/9   10.08

TEAM TOTALS
      TAM  MON  VER   CHI   MEX TOR   NUE   SAN 
===============================================
W      14   40   62    11    63  39    41    12  
L      20   35   47    30    28  39    50    29 
G      34   75  109    41    91  78    91    41 
CG     22   40   57     5    64  41    59    15 
SHO     1    3    7     1     4   3     4     1
INN   309  668  793.7 359.7 840 716.7 792.7 325
H     304  734  956   494   896 768   800   431
ER    129  329  390   237   402 408   393   238
BB    134  263  352   136   304 389   397   180
K     153  268  525   178   403 313   475   184
 
ERA  3.76 4.43  4.42  5.93 4.31 5.12 4.46  6.59
K/9  4.46 3.61  5.95  4.45 4.32 3.93 5.39  5.10
BB/9 3.90 3.54  3.99  3.40 3.26 4.89 4.51  4.98
K/BB 1.14 1.02  1.49  1.31 1.33 0.80 1.20  1.02
H/9  8.85 9.89 10.84 12.36 9.60 9.64 9.08 11.94 

TEAMS:
TAM = Tampico
MON = Monterrey
VER = Veracruz
CHI = Chihuahua
MEX = Mexico City
TOR = Torreon
NUE = Nuevo Laredo
SAN = Santa Rosa

Given some of the altitudes, I am, as OCF previously was, quite surprised at the seeming lack of offense.

I'll report on subsequent years as I finish them off. 1941 is about half-finished, so I'll try to post it by EOW.