Prelim ballot

1) Lou Gehrig - Pujols isn't eligible yet so I'm pretty sure Gehrig will win this election
2) Cap Anson - I really dislike this guy but his career is incredibly long and productive
3) Roger Connor - I will be re-assessing the ABC guys
4) Jimmie Foxx
5) Johnny Mize
6) Dan Brouthers
7) Hank Greenberg - gets WWII credit
8) Jeff Bagwell
9) Frank Thomas
10) Jim Thome
11) Buck Leonard
12) Joe Start - another who will get re-assessed
13) Eddie Murray
14) Mark McGwire
15) Willie McCovey
16) Jake Beckley
17) Dick Allen - I had him classified as a 3B but he was in the 1B election last time
18) Harmon Killebrew
19) Rafael Palmeiro
20) Keith Hernandez
21) Mule Suttles
Norm Cash
Ben Taylor
22) Will Clark - not PHoM yet
23) Bill Terry - below the line
24) Todd Helton
25) George Sisler

With the caveat that Negro Leaguers are provisional.

1) Lou Gehrig
(Albert Pujols)

2) Jimmie Foxx
3) Cap Anson
4) Roger Connor
5) Dan Brouthers
6) Johnny Mize - WWII credit

7) Buck Leonard
8) Jeff Bagwell
9) Hank Greenberg - WWII credit

(Miguel Cabrera)
10) Willie McCovey
11) Frank Thomas
12) Jim Thome

13) Eddie Murray
14) Mark McGwire
15) Harmon Killebrew
16) Dick Allen

(Joey Votto)
17) Mule Suttles
18) Joe Start

Low tier and little to differentiate this group:
(Paul Goldschmidt)
David Ortiz
19) Todd Helton
20) Keith Hernandez
21) Will Clark
(Freddie Freeman)
Jason Giambi
22) George Sisler
23) Rafael Palmeiro
24) Bill Terry

Borderline In:
Fred McGriff

Borderline Out:
Luke Easter
Tony Perez
Ben Taylor
Frank Chance
25) Jake Beckley
John Olerud

Prelim:

1. Lou Gehrig
2. Jimmie Foxx
3. Cap Anson
4. Buck Leonard
5. Roger Connor
6. Dan Brouthers
7. Johnny Mize
8. Hank Greenberg
9. Jeff Bagwell
10. Frank Thomas
11. Jim Thome
12. Mark McGwire
13. Eddie Murray
14. George Sisler
15. Willie McCovey
16. Dick Allen
17. Joe Start
18. Keith Hernandez
19. Bill Terry
20. Jake Beckley
21. Harmon Killebrew
22. Rafael Palmeiro
23. Mule Suttles
24. Todd Helton
25. Will Clark

Real have and have nots position here - I only rate two of these guys as true middle class HoMers. Kind of the opposite of shortstops.

1. Lou Gehrig
2. Jimmie Foxx
--. Albert Pujols - I feel like he should be ahead of Foxx, but the gap my system spits out is to wide for me to justify an intangible adjustment here.
3. Roger Connor
4. Cap Anson
5. Dan Brouthers - I feel like this trio is probably in need of a discussion - were they all really this good?
6. Hank Greenberg
7. Jeff Bagwell - I think he has a case as the most underrated player in history. To me, he's pretty clearly the best first basemen since integration not names Pujols, and I don't feel like he is perceived anywhere close to that.
8. Johnny Mize
9. Buck Leonard
10. Frank Thomas
11. Willie McCovey
--. Miguel Cabrera
12. Jim Thome - I don't actually have him ranked that high numerically, he's just the best of a very large group of lower end HoMers here.
13. Dick Allen
14. Eddie Murray
15. Harmon Killebrew
16. Todd Helton
17. Mark McGwire
18. Keith Hernandez
--. Joey Votto
19. Bill Terry - I think I'm probably higher on him than most.
20. Mule Suttles
--. Paul Goldschmidt
21. Rafael Palmeiro
22. Joe Start - Highly preliminary. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, but low and slow in the 19th century probably won't do well with me.
--. David Ortiz - Not a 1B but where else can you put him
--. Jason Giambi
23. Will Clark
24. George Sisler
--. John Olerud
--. Norm Cash
--. Dolph Camilli
--. Freddie Freeman
--. Frank Chance
--. Tony Perez
25. Jake Beckley - The only 'bad' selection by my standards (Clark and Sisler are probably not pHoM, but are close)

First Base Preliminary Ranking

1. Lou Gehrig
(Albert Pujols)
2. Cap Anson
3. Jimmie Foxx
4. Roger Connor
5. Dan Brouthers – Although it seems odd having three nineteenth-century players in the top 5 first basemen, they are the three best position players of the nineteenth century. But it seems equally odd to have the other half of the top 6 all basically from the 1930s, at least until Pujols becomes eligible. First base is a very unevenly distributed position historically.
6. Johnny Mize - with war credit
7. Jeff Bagwell
8. Hank Greenberg - with war credit
(Miguel Cabrera)
9. Frank Thomas
10. Eddie Murray - The best first baseman between Johnny Mize and Frank Thomas, as I see it
(Joey Votto)
11. Jim Thome – The high end of what I would call the “middle tier” of the Hall of Merit
(Paul Goldschmidt)
12. Joe Start – Very preliminary placement, but being the best player of the 1860s is no small matter in my system. Probably adapted to more major rule changes than any other player in the history of the game.
13. Rafael Palmeiro
14. Willie McCovey
15. Mark McGwire
16. Keith Hernandez – The bottom of the “middle tier”
17. Dick Allen – A third baseman in my own positional rankings
18. Todd Helton
19. George Sisler
20. Harmon Killebrew – Also a third baseman in my own positional rankings
21. Buck Leonard – Likely to move up—I need to re-run his MLEs with updated conversion factors, but I still may have him lower than most.
(Freddie Freeman)
(Jason Giambi)
(John Olerud)
22. Bill Terry
23. Jake Beckley
(Fred McGriff)
--In-Out Line--
24. Will Clark -- A very small gap between McGriff and Clark, but that's where the in-out line falls in my system.
25. Mule Suttles – Likely to move up. As with Buck Leonard, I need to re-run his MLEs.

MMP scores for first basemen

Lou Gehrig 131.87
Albert Pujols 105.53
Jimmie Foxx 84.99
Frank Thomas 58.32
Hank Greenberg 51.08
Johnny Mize 50.63
Miguel Cabrera 44.21
Dick Allen 41.67
Jeff Bagwell 41.38
Willie McCovey 39.50
Joey Votto 38.16
Mark McGwire 36.84
Jason Giambi 36.75
George Sisler 32.50
Paul Goldschmidt 30.83
Will Clark 27.07
Eddie Murray 26.27
Todd Helton 24.96
Jim Thome 23.65
Freddie Freeman 23.43
Pedro Guerrero 22.20
Keith Hernandez 21.64
Harmon Killebrew 20.80
John Olerud 20.00
David Ortiz 18.28
Bill Terry 18.00
Mark Teixeira 17.62
Don Mattingly 15.98
Frank Chance 15.36
Fred McGriff 14.59
Buck Leonard 13.57
Norm Cash 13.44
Tony Perez 11.23
Ken Caminiti 11.00
Vlad Guerrero Jr 10.29
Adrian Gonzalez 10.24
Jose Abreu 9.63
Jack Clark 9.43
Rafael Palmeiro 9.05
Orlando Cepeda 8.90
Cecil Cooper 8.45
Cecil Fielder 8.00
Travis Hafner 7.84
Ryan Howard 7.80
Chris Davis 7.58
Mule Suttles 7.57
Carlos Pena 7.22
Ben Taylor 1.88
Jake Beckley 1.00

1. Lou Gehrig - prolly consensus here

2. Jimmie Foxx

3. Roger Connor
4. Cap Anson
5. Jeff Bagwell - Connor-Anson-Bagwell back-to-back-to-back. A different set of ABC. Case for the most underrated player of the last...whenever?
6. Johnny Mize - war credit
7. Dan Brouthers

8. Frank Thomas
9. Hank Greenberg - war credit
10. Buck Leonard

11. Mark McGwire
12. Jim Thome - back-to-back again with McGwire
13. Rafael Palmeiro
14. Dick Allen
15. Eddie Murray
16. Willie McCovey - a big ol' chunk of guys in this middle not really iffy but not actually 100% obvious HOM first basemen
17. Keith Hernandez
18. Bill Terry - back-to-back with Hernandez. I guess I'm higher than most on Terry?
19. Harmon Killebrew - I thought this would be lower than most but it's actually not. Was Killer pretty overrated?
20. George Sisler
21. Todd Helton - back-to-back with Sisler

-- John Olerud - I have Olerud and Suttles very close, they'd probably be another back-to-back if both were in
22. Mule Suttles
23. Will Clark

24. Jake Beckley
25. Joe Start - in the next couple of years, Suttles will go in my pHOM, and then all these elected 1B will be pHOM for me. There are five players below Start in my pHOM, and they represent a big dropoff from Start. I guess a roundabout way of saying Start is my pHOM line for guys who don't get in on massive luck of timing.

10. Eddie Murray - The best first baseman between Johnny Mize and Frank Thomas, as I see it

While I'm a Murray fan as well, I have to give the nod to Willie McCovey.

Stretch is only at 64.5 B-R WAR, but other pluses:
71.2 Gauge WAR
~75 Kiko WAR
+5.7 clutch wins
73.3 WPA 11th! all-time for games available
1101 OPS in 34 playoff PA

This gets him into Greenberg (depending on war credit and debiting for extra home/road splits), Thomas, Thome territory for me.
Murray does get a bump for clutch/situational hitting and home/park as well, it lifts him past McGwire/Killebrew at 13.

19. Harmon Killebrew - I thought this would be lower than most but it's actually not. Was Killer pretty overrated?

Killer could mash, it's a matter of how bad his defense was to offset the offensive goodness.

He looks pedestrian from a B-R WAR view at 60.4 and B-G 60.8.

However, Kiko has him at ~76 and WPA is at 59.5 and 24th all-time.

Going back to the last post, 2 of McCovey's peak years were with expansion (1969-1970), though he was a star in the strong 60s NL.
Killebrew benefited less, but enjoyed a big 1969 season as well, and has the demerit of being a star in the 60s AL.

Maybe I'm a little too bullish on Harmon, and he should drop to ~18, but the guys from 19 down all have flaws that I'm a bigger fan of Killebrew on.

18. Bill Terry - back-to-back with Hernandez. I guess I'm higher than most on Terry?

The 19-24 group for me is a tough draw, so 18 seems fine to me.

He was an elite defender (or appears to have been, did he benefit from the quirks of the Polo Grounds on defense), and a good enough hitter (an elite road one and situationally).

Come to think of it, I'll be planning to swap him and Sisler, bumping him to #22 and consider all the way up to #19, this group is close together.

21. Buck Leonard – Likely to move up—I need to re-run his MLEs with updated conversion factors, but I still may have him lower than most.

I'm very interested in what you uncover, Eric's MLEs have shot him up to ~3rd overall for Negro League position players, at 94 WAR / 62 WAA, clearly behind Charleston and Gibson, even with Willie Wells, and edging Turkey Stearnes, John Beckwith.

7. Jeff Bagwell - I think he has a case as the most underrated player in history. To me, he's pretty clearly the best first basemen since integration not names Pujols, and I don't feel like he is perceived anywhere close to that.

With making the HOF, and balloting well here, I think he's not extremely underrated by history, but he was in the sense that he was overlooked a bit in his time as a well rounded 1B.

Clear modern HOF guys like Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker, and Jim Edmonds that were one and dones on the BBWAA ballot take the cake for me.
If I take an old-timer, Pebbly Jack Glasscock.

Here's where I stand right now:

1. Lou Gehrig PHOM 1945
---Albert Pujols---
2. Jimmie Foxx PHOM 1951
3. Johnny Mize PHOM 1959
4. Buck Leonard PHOM 1958
5. Roger Connor PHOM 1903
6. Hank Greenberg PHOM 1953
7. Cap Anson PHOM 1903
8. Jeff Bagwell PHOM 2011
9. Dan Brouthers PHOM 1910
10. Frank Thomas PHOM 2015
11. Jim Thome PHOM 2018
12. Mark McGwire PHOM 2007
13. Willie McCovey PHOM 1986
---Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto---
14. Eddie Murray PHOM 2003
---Paul Goldschmidt---
15. Rafael Palmeiro PHOM 2011
16. Harmon Killebrew PHOM 1984
17. Keith Hernandez PHOM 1996
18. Mule Suttles PHOM 1967
---David Ortiz, PHOM 2023---
19. Bill Terry PHOM 1942
20. Will Clark PHOM 2006
---Luke Easter, PHOM 1972---
21. Joe Start PHOM 1902
---John Olerud, eventual PHOM---
22. Todd Helton
---In/Out Line bounces around here---
23. George Sisler
24. Jake Beckley PHOM 1913
25. Cal McVey

cookie, you ranked McVey instead of Dick Allen.

4. Buck Leonard PHOM 1958

I know the MLEs revisions look good for him, but when we did the MMP project he got hardly any votes. 7th in 1938, 8th in 1939, 14th in 1941, 16th in 1940, 17th in 1944. That's not an impressive enough peak to get him to 4th overall. His MMP points are similar to Fred McGriff. Either we messed up in our MMP voting or the new MLE's are too optimistic.

I've updated my MLEs for Buck Leonard, and that moves him up significantly in my rankings, as I expected, from 20 to 10, which is pretty similar to where he appears on a number of preliminary ballots so far. Here's his relative placement in my system, with the revised MLEs:

7. Jeff Bagwell
8. Hank Greenberg
9. Frank Thomas
10. Buck Leonard
11. Eddie Murray
12. Jim Thome

My MLEs for Leonard credit him with 69.5 career WAR. This is significantly lower than Dr. Chaleeko's MLEs, which credit him with 94.3 WAR. (69.5 WAR is a 10-WAR increase from my prior MLE assessment, though, which was using a conversion factor that was too low.)

There are two factors at work in the difference between my findingas and Dr. Chaleeko's. One is playing time. Dr. Chaleeko's project Leonard as having a 2236-game MLE career; I project him for 1986 games. The main reason for this difference is that Dr. C's MLEs project Leonard for a full 1933 season and for some playing time in 1949 and 1950. Since Leonard played only one NeL game in 1933, I don't credit him for any MLE value for that season, and I don't give him credit for the 1949 and 1950 seasons, either. If one removes 1933, 1949, and 1950 from Leonard's Dr. Chaleeko MLEs, that would drop his career WAR there to 84.5. Given Leonard's late arrival into the top level of NeL competition, there's definitely an argument for giving him some minor-league credit prior to 1934, but without any data at all for his prior play, that's more speculative than I am comfortable with.

The rest of the difference is due to differing competition adjustments. Because I am still using a multiplicative adjustment, it probably put a little too much downward pressure on Leonard's best seasons. I am working on an adjustment that combines a subtractive and a multiplicative adjustment to better adjust for high peaks, but I haven't implemented it yet. If I made that change, it might push Leonard above Thomas, but there's a big gap between Thomas and Greenberg that a fairly minor adjustment would not close.

It's still worth noting that Leonard was one of the most productive older first-basemen ever. Using my 69.5 WAR still gives Leonard the fourth-most WAR from his age 26 season to the end his career among first-basemen. Here's the list, according to baseball-reference WAR, of all the first-basemen with 60+ WAR age 26 and up.

1. Lou Gehrig -- 81.8 WAR
2. Cap Anson -- 78.9 WAR
3. Roger Connor -- 69.9 WAR
4. Buck Leonard -- 69.5 WAR
5. Dan Brouthers -- 65.5 WAR
6. Jeff Bagwell -- 65.0 WAR
7. Albert Pujols -- 64.0 WAR

With war credit, Johnny Mize would be around 71, Hank Greenberg around 65.

Now I need to work on Mule Suttles . . .

cookie, you ranked McVey instead of Dick Allen

Allen would be 14th, behind McCovey.

Either we messed up in our MMP voting or the new MLE's are too optimistic

I think it's probably both. I assume the MMP voting was pre-new MLEs, and that would impact his votes if we run it again. I always assume the MLEs are a bit optimistic, and build in a reduction factor into my own rankings. Even with it, he's pushed up this high for me

chiming in from the outside; and I know I've said this before, but I'd like to state it again here; if I had to make an all-time team, my first basemen would no doubt be... Stan Musial. Yes, yes, I know, he's an outfielder, but he DID play more games at 1B than LF!
(and Pujols would be #2. Gehrig would be #1 as a hero of a person tho)

DL - I agree with your placement of Mize, but you don't list him as deserving WWII credit, whereas he deserves three prime years, in the middle of his streak of season where he kept leading his league in important categories. Did you just forget to put the not in?

I'm going to try this category this time, because my endurance has gone up. I'm starting out:

Gehrig
Foxx
Anson
Mize
Bagwell
McGwire
Leonard
Connor
Murray
Brouthers

I haven't gotten any further than that.

For Tom H - I understand your opinion of Musial, but the seasons he played 1B were mainly late seasons, when he had lost his OF speed. I wouldn't put him at 1B for the same reason I wouldn't put Ernie Banks at 1B.

I'm giving Mize war credit, just forgot to mention it.

#4 No. Connor, Anson and Brouthers were not actually that good. Top hitters in very weak leagues are tricky to evaluate.

bjh - I wouldn't put Banks at 1B because he isn't that great among 1Bmen :) But obviously Musial *could* have played 1B most of his career if his team needed him too; he was full time there at age 25.

Anson-Connor-Brouthers:

Anson has the bulk. Brouthers has the prime; (by WAR) the best position player 5 times, and top four 6 more times. Connor is in between on prime & career value. They were all very good. But Gehrig/Foxx/Greenberg were at least as good, at a time when there were 16 MLB teams and other great Negro Leguaers.

#4 No. Connor, Anson and Brouthers were not actually that good. Top hitters in very weak leagues are tricky to evaluate.

Was there a more difficult league they should have joined?

Evaluating great players from long-ago is always a challenge. There is a fine line between considering "league quality" issues (which is certainly appropriate) and "timelining" (which is essentially prohibited in the HOM).

The Anson-Brouthers-Connor trio are great examples of this challenge. As you can tell from my prelim ballot I have ranked them very very high. They dominated the best leagues of their day and it could be argued that the best players were typically first basemen in that era due to the way the game was played.

I may bump them down a slot or two but this trio will remain very high on my final ballot.

#24 That snide attitude is a primary reason that I don't participate much here.

The NA was generally not of AA strength. Anybody who says otherwise is just not paying attention. Leagues would get progressively stronger but not quickly, with Anson himself in his management role being one of the key players in funneling top talent to the major leagues. They had to build the structures to get the top talent to the majors and didn't have anything approaching all of the best players in the majors. The misevaluation of Anson, Connor and Brouthers starts with the false assumption that the major leagues were made up of most of the best players -- with scouting networks already in place.

The NA was generally not of AA strength. Anybody who says otherwise is just not paying attention.

Double-A compared to what? If you're comparing to the 1890s National League, sure but that didn't exist in 1870. You're essentially saying that a pennant in 1870 isn't worth as much as a pennant in 1890. I don't know where that rabbit hole ends.

#27 The NA features town teams. More, they're town teams from places that weren't particularly large. Take the absolute best team you can can field from a small midwest town. How do they do against an average AAA team? Not very well I submit.

The point you fail to acknowledge is that many of the best players simply weren't playing in organized leagues (or at least not organized leagues that Chadwick was able to follow). The few major league talents that made the top organized leagues particularly in the 1870s but still into the 1890s (becoming progressively less common every year and still far from uncommon even as long as the PCL was mostly independent) were playing against very inferior competition. That's easy to see if you just look at the 1878 Buffalo team which is no weaker than the 3rd best team in the NL (they'd actually likely have finished 3rd. Maybe higher. Galvin went 5-5 in exhibitions against Boston and Cincinnati. Galvin pitched a startling amount in 1878) but whose players don't count (check out Pud Galvin's stats that year).

And that before considering all of the Cap Ansons in the 1870s who didn't happen to play an exhibition game against a top tier team. It was sheer luck making the majors -- there was nothing approaching a scouting pipeline (as I mentioned, Anson was one of the key players in getting this set up and it didn't spring forth fully formed)

I have the advantage of having been in a sport (Society for Creative Anachronism stick fighting) from very early in its history. I got to see what happens in leagues that are just developing, just getting started. I came to the conclusion that you really should judge a player by who he was relative to the best league out there at the time. It's important to realize, though, that
the margin of supremacy in an immature league will be greater than in a more developed one. A, B, and C were dominant in the best league of their time. But their margins of supremacy, expressed badly by OPS, need to be damped down. How much damping is needed is, unfortunately, more of an art than a science. I always just say to do the best you can.

#22 - I see your point, but Musial's career was very weird, due to oddities in who was available in which year during WWII. Musial played 1B at age 25. He also played CF. He finished his career as a LF, because the Cardinals had Bill White. When he played 1B, the reason was that the Cards had three other starting OF who were better in the OF than he was - that year. But the bulk of his 1B play occurred in the last years of his career, when he slowed down. It's no t monolithic, but it's there. Calling him a 1B in the earlier years isn't really true. It's just that the Cards had a lot of OF in those Rickey-farm-system-fueled days. Sometimes, there were three who were better than Stan. Sometimes, not.

Stan was the starting CF for the 1952 Cards. Terry Moore had been gone for four years, and the team had Stan, Peanuts Lowrey, Enos Slaughter, and Dick Sisler. Lowrey had played CF in 1951, but the team apparently concluded that Stan was better. Sometimes, where Stan played makes not much sense. When he first came up, he was probably the second-best CF on the team, but the #1 was Moore, and they had Enos in RF, so Stan played LF. That's as much of why he played LF more than any other position than anything else is.

#27 The NA features town teams. More, they're town teams from places that weren't particularly large. Take the absolute best team you can can field from a small midwest town. How do they do against an average AAA team? Not very well I submit.

The point you fail to acknowledge is that many of the best players simply weren't playing in organized leagues (or at least not organized leagues that Chadwick was able to follow). The few major league talents that made the top organized leagues particularly in the 1870s but still into the 1890s (becoming progressively less common every year and still far from uncommon even as long as the PCL was mostly independent) were playing against very inferior competition. That's easy to see if you just look at the 1878 Buffalo team which is no weaker than the 3rd best team in the NL (they'd actually likely have finished 3rd. Maybe higher. Galvin went 5-5 in exhibitions against Boston and Cincinnati. Galvin pitched a startling amount in 1878) but whose players don't count (check out Pud Galvin's stats that year).

And that before considering all of the Cap Ansons in the 1870s who didn't happen to play an exhibition game against a top tier team. It was sheer luck making the majors -- there was nothing approaching a scouting pipeline (as I mentioned, Anson was one of the key players in getting this set up and it didn't spring forth fully formed)

I don't know about this line of thinking at all. We have to base evaluation from somewhere, and I don't see a credible argument that the best place to base it from in this period is the NL. I think we can say with a fair amount of confidence that even if the NL was not the end-all-be-all league until the 1890s, it was the strongest level of competition available. The example of the Buffalo in 1878 sort of proves that - the very next year they joined the NL as opposed to staying in the International Association. Good players obviously existed outside the league structure, and even good teams could - but I think that the NL can still fairly be established as the locus of baseball talent. As the strongest level of competition, it is a fair standard by which to judge players.

Furthermore, speculating on hypothetical elite players outside the league structure is just that - speculation. A player who is not attested in the record and had no interaction with organized baseball can't reasonably considered in the evaluation set. I don't see any way to account for them at all - functionally, they are no different from elite athletes who elect to play other sports. If there is reasonable attestation, then they are fair game - Frank Grant is a HoMer after all.

To bring this back to the players in question - Anson, Brouthers, and Connor were the best three hitters of their era. I don't think there is much of a question there. What I do find more difficult is the positional adjustment - currently both fWAR and bWAR use a neutral adjustment for 1B in this period. The position is so strong offensively, even beyond ABC, that I find that a bit of a hard sell. My lazy adjustment is to just use the deadball positional adjustment instead, but that isn't exactly clean (or accurate necessarily - you'd have to make up the 5 run difference somewhere). That makes Brouther in particular look a fair bit more mortal to me, although still in the top half of the position.

And that before considering all of the Cap Ansons in the 1870s who didn't happen to play an exhibition game against a top tier team. It was sheer luck making the majors -- there was nothing approaching a scouting pipeline.

While this explanation refers to events that happened, I think that using this story to assert that making the majors "sheer luck" in the early days is a misreading of the actual situation. To call the game Anson played in an "exhibition game" suggests that it was kind of accidental, unserious game that a top-tier team happened to play. Because the hierarchy of baseball leagues in the early game was still in formation in the 1870s, the way that top teams established themselves as top teams was by playing other teams that were out there and beating them. The neat division between a "league game" and an "exhibition game" that we now make was by no means so distinct, and teams of various levels of quality in variously organized groups were playing a lot of games against each other. We focus exclusively now on the "league games" as the ones that counted, but in the early NA, there were likely more non-league games played than league games. There multiple teams in large cities that played each other, teams from neighboring towns played each other, teams within states played each other, and the major professional teams toured around and played against this competition as well. It wasn't as if players were hidden away in some separate league that seldom or never came into contact with "top tier" teams. It was a much more fluid situation that gave players on lesser teams opportunities to demonstrate their skill in direct competition against top teams and get recruited by those teams.

In addition, before the reserve clause, players were very free to move from team to team, and towns that became invested in having a strong team could and did go out and recruit players, who could and did change teams when offered better pay. It was an imperfect system for concentrating talent, but the great success of early team-builders like Harry Wright or the investors who put together the 1878 Buffalo Bisons demonstrates that it was quite possible to find and collect talent, if you were willing to pay high salaries to recruit top players.

The fact that the Bisons were very deliberately assembled and were probably the last really strong team to be created outside the context of the major leagues shows that the consolidation of talent in the top professional leagues was quite far advanced by the late 1870s. The fact that the Bisons moved into the National League after their great 1878 season was another step in talent consolidation.

Overall, making the majors was far from "sheer luck." There were significant economic and competitive incentives for teams to find top players and for those players to join top-tier teams that would pay high salaries. It was a market-driven system, and I think the evidence of the dominance that professional teams gained over amateur teams makes it clear that the best players were mostly playing in the major leagues--otherwise the major-league teams wouldn't have come to dominate other competition.

There was less financial incentive, however, for both teams and players to raise the floor on the weakest players, and so "replacement level" was significantly lower across the 19th century, less sophisticated talent identification likely played a role as well. It's harder to tell a 1-WAR player from a 0.5-WAR player than it is to tell a 5-WAR player from a 2-WAR player. It looks to me like the evidence shows that the top players were being identified and recruited to the top teams, but that making the majors as a marginal player was more a matter of being in the right place at the right time or being willing to play for a modest level of pay than of being just a bit more talented than the next available player.

What is interesting about Anson is he played through the entire period of identifying and consolidating talent and he actually seemed to get better into his 30s. His talent isn't a weak league illusion. The closest comparison I have is Ted Williams. Ted played before and after integration of black players and he consistently outperformed everyone.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no league context (and therfore no pennant to win) before 1871 so I have trouble giving anyone credit before then. That's going to drop Joe Start down on my list.

A lot of the following comes from my grandad, who played town ball in the early 1900s. That's not the same time period, but I bet the most of the comments applied back then too.

The pro teams used their non-league tours not just as a way to make immediate money, but also as recruiting tools. The Negro Leagues also did this. They would ask around, when they came in, as to who were the best players they were going to see, and pay attention. Also, the towns were willing to cooperate in promoting the best player within 5 counties, so that if that player didn't play for the only team the pros were going to meet, he would suddenly sign a one-game contract, so he could show his stuff, and then return to his original town team. That makes for a LOT better coverage than even Chris Cobb implies. Whole counties would be proud of themselves if one of their boys made it with a pro team.

Also, in those days, the best player on almost every team was the pitcher, who started every game. So, if the pro team paid attention to the opposing pitcher, which they would, they were likely paying attention to the best baseball player in the whole five county area. Who might well be there on the one-day contract.

Basically, what my grandad said was that you have to focus not just on what the pro team is doing trying to scout players, but what the rural counties are doing to try to get their best players right in front of those pro eyes. And the rural counties could do a lot to showcase their best.

Here is my preliminary ballot. For now I have Connor and Brouthers lower than others, but I am open to convincing.

While I'm basically agnostic on the question of whether to treat 19th century stats as lesser, I do think pre-integration and post-integration are meaningful distinctions, which is why I have Bagwell above B and C and was tempted to bump Thomas a little higher as well. And then Mize and Greenberg might be, along with Ted Williams, the biggest beneficiaries of war credit in this entire exercise, enough to easily put them in that elite class.

1. Lou Gehrig
2. Jimmie Foxx
3. Cap Anson
4. Johnny Mize
5. Jeff Bagwell
6. Roger Connor
7. Hank Greenberg
8. Dan Brouthers
9. Frank Thomas
10. Buck Leonard
11. Jim Thome
12. Rafael Palmeiro
13. Willie McCovey
14. Todd Helton
15. Eddie Murray
16. Mark McGwire
17. George Sisler
18. Dick Allen
19. Mule Suttles
20. Harmon Killebrew
21. Bill Terry
22. Keith Hernandez
23. Jake Beckley
24. Will Clark
25. Joe Start

A couple of odd notes abut Roger Connor, that I would while looking him over for this project:

1. Probably all of you know that Roger Connor held the record for most career homers before Ruth, and that Ernest Lanigan, who researched the subject, missed him and so got the wrong answer. But WHY did Erie miss Roger? I think I may know. Take a look at Roger's career. He idd hit homers, but he NEVER led his league for even one season. I'll bet that Ernie started his research by listing everyone who had ever led their league and then looking all those guys up. Given what HIS sources looked like, wouldn't you do the same? And suer, enough, if you do that, you miss Roger.

2. Roger Connor, at the age of 30, reinvented himself as a hitter, even more strongly than Stan Musial in 1948. You can argue, I imagine, that Roger became the first Three True Outcomes hitter. Here are his age 29-30 stats in a select few categories:

STAT AGE 29 AGE 30
HR 7 17
BB 41 75
SO 15 50
AVG .355 .285

His numbers before age 29 are al like age 29; afterwards, they are all like age 30. He did not change teams or anything, so no ballpark effect that I know of. Did he invent the uppercut long before Ruth? I don't know.

from Conner's SABR bio: "In 1887 the National League lengthened the pitching distance to 55½ feet and instituted a short-lived scoring change. For this one year, a walk would be deemed a base hit for batting-average purposes. The 75 passes accumulated by the strike-zone-savvy Connor was not only the second most received by a National League player that season. It also inflated his official batting average to a career-high .383."

only a partial answer, alas.

Howie - You're right about the specific year 1887, of course. But my point was that Connor's whole career changed shape. His seasons after 1887 look like 1887, not those before that year.

preliminary ballot:

(Sadaharu Oh)
1. Lou Gehrig
2. Albert Pujols
3. Jimmie Foxx
4. Cap Anson
5. Dan Brouthers
6. Roger Connor (The 19th century ABC boys are not only back-to-back-to-back in my 1b rankings, but also in my overall rankings)
7. Buck Leonard
8. Johnny Mize
9. Frank Thomas
10. Jeff Bagwell
11. Mark McGwire
12. Jim Thome
13. Hank Greenberg
14. Willie McCovey
(Miguel Cabrera)
(Joey Votto)
(Paul Goldschmidt)
15. Eddie Murray
16. Keith Hernandez
(Jason Giambi)
17. Mule Suttles
18. George Sisler
19. Todd Helton
(Freddie Freeman)
20. Rafael Palmeiro
21. Will Clark
22. Harmon Killebrew
23. Joe Start
(Frank Chance)
(Luke Easter)
-----PHoM line-----
(John Olerud)
24. Bill Terry
(Tony Perez)
(Carlos Delgado)
(Fred McGriff)
(Ben Taylor)
(Gil Hodges)
25. Jake Beckley - easily one the worst HoM choices; being slightly above average, but never any higher, for a long time doesn't make a player great

40. Michael J. Binkley's anxiety closet Posted: June 07, 2023 at 01:24 PM (#6131816)
preliminary ballot:

2. Albert Pujols

A heads up, Pujols isn't eligible yet, Dick Allen is listed in 1B to rank.

Thanks - I normally put Allen with the 3b. He would slot in right after McCovey.