Waner drops from 5th to 8th
Rose drops from 6 to 9
Sam Crawford drops from 7 to 11
King Kelly drops from 12 to 19

Kaline rises from 9 to 6
Clemente rises from 10 to 5

Sam Thompson is still in last place

I think the hierarchy has an even stronger consensus than in LF - it's pretty hard to group more than 3 guys together to creat a true cohort. There does seem to be a pretty clear line between the top half and the bottom half, that ends up looking a little muddled because we have some strong outliers on Gwynn and Heilmann pulling them down.

As far as who would get elected today - Thompson is a pretty clear no, but since Bonds is quite literally the last guy through the door at the moment, we can safely say that everyone else would make it in. I guess you could quibble with Keeler - I think there are a few HoM voters who are skeptical of that era pretty completely, so I think his climb would be tough, but Vic Willis still has decent support so who knows.

It is interesting to see Sosa about Vlad - both are recent electees, but Vlad has a lot easier time getting in than Sosa. But these results imply a fair swing in Sosa's favor. Perhaps it's just Vlad's fans didn't participate, but it's a distinction worth nothing... any thoughts here?

can I be so bold as to seek better formatting, so I can see the name on the left and the voting points on the right, on a single screen?

that said, gratitude to DL from MN and many others who for in some cases have contributed a lot more than my 20 years of HOM voting. it IS appreciated.

In addition to fixing the above results table formatting, I think there is a slight error in the above tallies. It looks like Enos Slaughter is listed as having received one 23rd place vote and no 24th place votes whereas in reality he received one 24th place vote and no 23rd place votes. Fixing Slaughter's placements would also wind up adjusting his point total down (162 to 161). Of course every slot should have 15 votes and the grand total points total should be a known number based upon the number of voters and number of players to be ranked (15*378=5670).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who participated and special thanks to DL for managing the process.

P.S. It took me several minutes of randomly clicking on links to finally be able to post in this thread. Does anybody know why this keeps happening? Is it only HOM threads that are subject to this??? Will this deleterious site behavior ever be fixed?????

Will this deleterious site behavior ever be fixed?????

I don't even know who to report it to.

It is interesting to see Sosa about Vlad - both are recent electees, but Vlad has a lot easier time getting in than Sosa. But these results imply a fair swing in Sosa's favor. Perhaps it's just Vlad's fans didn't participate, but it's a distinction worth nothing... any thoughts here?

Kiko hasn't been voting, but Vlad is ahead by a bit on his key stat.

Rank Player Key Stat pWins pLosses pWOPA pWORL eWins eLosses eWOPA eWORL
151 Vladimir Guerrero Sr. 116.3 293.8 245 33.4 61.4 291.9 246.9 30.1 58.1
186 Sammy Sosa 106.2 316.6 277.5 20.7 50.1 321 273.1 29.2 58.6

I'm not going to have time to re-format it but if someone else can I can copy/paste

Looks like Mel Ott's numbers should be moved one space to the right, and Roberto Clemente's one space to the left. That way the vertical columns add up to 15.

RE: #8 - Yes, the Ott and Clemente columns are wrong.

I did not vote on this project because, although I am very happy with ranking players according to their elite careers when considering them for the HoM, I am NOT happy with ranking players WITHIN a position by their entire careers. I would have even players like Ruth moved way down because they did not play entirely in RF. I would be astonished if anyone else had this quirk, and I didn't want to pollute the rankings with a constraint that every other voter would find wrong.

I am NOT happy with ranking players WITHIN a position by their entire careers.

That's a surprise for me considering how much respect you seem to have for the Bill James historical baseball abstract.

Hopefully our normal consensus scores people post here : ) (please!)

My only real outlier is Dave Winfield being higher, though it's a relatively close group from 13-21.

Winfield is getting a bonus for a strong Kiko score, a better road/relative hitter than home (rare for HOMers), and being neutral in clutch situations (where many power dominant guys are negative).

Right Fielders’ Election History

Overall, the election history of the right fielders is much simpler than left field, which makes that history actually a less useful guide to the relative quality of the players than the left fielder election history. On the other hand, the history reinforces the sense frequently conveyed in the comments on the rankings that virtually all of the right fielders continue to look like good choices for the Hall of Merit, with even the low-ranking players being over the current in-out lines of most voters. Over half of the right fielders were elected in their first year of eligibility, and all but four earned election by their fourth year on the ballot.

Here’s a summary version of the position’s electoral history:

Unanimous First Ballot Electees 3 : Ruth (all #1), Aaron (all #1), Robinson (all #2)
First-Ballot Electees 15: Kelly (51.2% elect-me), Crawford (93.7%), Ruth (100%), Waner (92.4%), Ott (95%), Slaughter (30.4%), Clemente (89.1%), Kaline (78.8%), Aaron, (100%), Robinson (100%), R. Jackson (75.0%), Evans (21.6%), Winfield (85.0%), Gwynn (97.9%), Walker (56.4%)
Initial Top 10 placement 25: All First-Ballot Electees + Flick, Keeler, J. Jackson, Thompson, Heilmann, Rose, Sheffield, Guerrero, Abreu, Sosa
Started Outside Top 10 (2): Smith, Bonds

More than 10 years to election (4): Sosa (10: 2013-2022), Smith (21: 1988-2008), Thompson (28:1902-1929), Bonds (37: 1987-2023)

For those interested in more detail, here are the HoM Right Fielders in order of election, with basic information about the context of each player’s election.

King Kelly - 1899. First ballot electee.. #2 on this ballot behind Jim O’Rourke. In earning election, Kelly appeared on all 31 ballots and received 16 elect-me votes (4 1st and 12 2nd). First right fielder elected to the Hall of Merit, although it’s a position he occupies almost by default.
Elmer Flick - 1918. #1 on this ballot and sole electee. Receiving 6 elect-me (#1) votes and appearing on 44 of 45 ballots, he was followed in the top ten by Willie Keeler (#2), Kelley, J. Collins, Bennett, McGinnity, Caruthers, Sam Thompson (#8), Frank Grant, and Rube Waddell, all eventually elected. (More future HoMers were on the ballot farther down.) First eligible in 1916, Flick appeared on 40 of 44 ballots that year and received 4 elect-me votes, ending in 3rd place behind sole electee Harry Stovey and Joe Kelley, one spot ahead of newly eligible fellow rightfielder Willlie Keeler. Sam Thompson finished in 10th place in 1916.
Willie Keeler - 1919. #1 on this ballot, ahead of former teammate and fellow electee Joe Kelley. Keeler received 18 elect-me votes and appeared on 45 of 47 ballots. First eligible in 1916, when he placed 4th behind also-newly-eligible Elmer Flick.
Sam Crawford - 1923. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, finishing behind unanimous #1 choice Honus Wagner. He received 45 elect-me votes and appeared on all 48 ballots.
Joe Jackson - 1927. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electee Pete Hill. He received 24 elect-me votes and appeared on 45.5 of 49 ballots. First eligible in 1926, when he placed 10th, receiving 10 elect-me votes and appearing on 23 of 55 ballots. He was left off of ballots largely due to a first-year boycott. In 1926, he finished behind electees Frank Grant and Sherry Magee and future HoMers Wallace, McGinnity, Sheckard, Sam Thompson (6th), Caruthers, Pearce, and Pike. Jackson would leapfrog all of these players in 1927.
Sam Thompson - 1929. #2 on this ballot, trailing top finisher Bobby Wallace. He received 15 elect-me votes and appeared on 38 of 48 ballots. He placed ahead of future HoMers Sheckard, Caruthers, Pearce, Pike, Beckley, Griffith, R. Foster, Bresnahan, Childs, Jennings, Waddell, Browning, Jones, and McGraw. First eligible in 1902, he placed 9th on that ballot, trailing electees Dan Brouthers and Buck Ewing and future HoMers Glasscock, Radbourn, Richardson, Sutton, Start, and Spalding. He placed ahead of future HoMers Galvin, Stovey (11th), Bennett, Caruthers, McVey, Browning, Pike, Pearce, and Jones, a number of whom would reach election ahead of Thompson (though Charlie Jones would have another 101 elections ahead of him.)
Harry Heilmann - 1937. #1 on this ballot, narrowly ahead of fellow electee Cristobal Torriente. He received 39 elect-me votes and appeared on all 52 ballots. First eligible in 1936, he placed third on that ballot between Pete Alexander and Joe Williams.
Babe Ruth - 1941. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, receiving 53 of 53 first-place votes to place ahead of fellow unanimous electee Rogers Hornsby, who received 53 of 53 second-place votes.
Paul Waner - 1950 First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electee Martin Dihigo. Newly eligible Joe Cronin (3rd), Suttles, Beckwith, Averill, Rixey, Ferrell, Mackey, and Jennings rounded out the top 10, with another 16 future HoMers finishing further back. Received 49 elect-me votes and appeared on all 53 ballots.
Mel Ott - 1952. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, behind fellow electee Josh Gibson. Received 49 elect-me votes and appeared on all 50 ballots.
Enos Slaughter - 1965. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, behind fellow inductee Larry Doby. Slaughter received 14 elect-me votes and appeared on 38 of 46 ballots. He was ahead of top-10 finishers Medwick, Ruffing, Lemon, Mackey, Rixey, Griffith, Van Haltren (not a HoMer), and Bell. 21 future HoMers finished outside the top 10: Sisler, Moore, Beckley, W. Brown, Childs, Redding, Browning, Mendez, Sewell, Doerr, Kiner, Gordon, Oms, Waddell, Jones, Trouppe, Bresnahan, Roush, McGraw, Keller, and Lundy.
Roberto Clemente - 1978. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electee Hoyt Wilhelm. Received 34 first place votes, 41 elect-me votes, and appeared on 45 of 46 ballots.
Al Kaline - 1980. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electees Ron Santo and Juan Marichal. Received 35 first-place votes and 41 elect-me votes, appearing on 51 of 52 ballots.
Henry Aaron - 1982. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, received 56 out of 56 first place votes. Finished ahead of fellow unanimous first-ballot electee Frank Robinson.
Frank Robinson - 1982. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, behind Henry Aaron. Received 56 out of 56 second-place votes.
Pete Rose - 1993. First eligible in 1992, he finished 3rd, behind unanimous, first-ballot electee Tom Seaver and first-ballot electee Bobby Grich. Rose received 7 first place votes and 33 elect-me votes, but a first-year boycott kept him off 16 ballots. Bobby Bonds placed 29th on this ballot, Reggie Smith 38th.
Reggie Jackson - 1993. First ballot electee. #3 on this ballot, behind Pete Rose and newly eligible Steve Carlton. Jackson received 39 elect-me votes and appeared on all 52 ballots cast.
Dwight Evans - 1997. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electees Nellie Fox and Edd Roush. Appeared on 34 of 51 ballots and received 11 elect-me votes. Reggie Smith finished 20th.
Dave Winfield - 2001. First ballot electee. #1 on this ballot, ahead of fellow electees, second basemen Lou Whitaker and Willie Randolph. Winfield received 40 elect-me votes and appeared on all 47 ballots. Reggie Smith finished 23rd. ahead of future HoMers Bobby Bonds (37th), Rick Reuschel (64th), and Dick Lundy (99th).
Tony Gwynn - 2007. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, behind unanimous electee Cal Ripken and ahead of fellow electee Mark McGwire. Gwynn appeared on 48 of 48 ballots and received 47 elect-me votes. Reggie Smith finished 5th.
Reggie Smith - 2009. #3 on this ballot, behind unanimous #1 Rickey Henderson and fellow backlogger John McGraw. Smith appeared on 20 of 40 ballots and received 7 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1988, he finished 33rd in that election, after which he placed 38th in 1989, ranking ahead of only one future HoMer, John McGraw. He appeared on 6 of 55 ballots and received no elect-me votes that year. Smith’s candidacy languished throughout the 1990s, ending the decade with a 33rd place finish in 1999, but he surged in the aughts. Smith jumped from 33rd to 21st in 2000, from 24th to 16th in 2003, and from 14th to 6th in 2005, from which point he rose gradually to election four years later. (Most of this reevaluation of Smith took place over eight months of real time, from May to December.)
Larry Walker - 2011. First ballot electee. #2 on this ballot, behind nearly unanimous #1 Jeff Bagwell and 1 point ahead of #3 finisher and fellow electee Kevin Brown. Walker received 22 elect-me votes (but no first-place votes) and appeared on 36 of 39 ballots cast. Bobby Bonds placed 17th in this election.
Gary Sheffield - 2016. #4 on this ballot, behind fellow electees Ken Griffey, Jr., Mike Mussina, and John Smoltz. Sheffield received 15 elect-me votes and appeared on 25 of 26 ballots cast. The top ten unelected candidates that year were Jim Edmonds, Sammy Sosa (#6), Jeff Kent, Kenny Lofton, Ben Taylor, Luis Tiant, Buddy Bell, Vic Willis, Bobby Bonds (#13), and Tommy Bridges. Sheffield was first eligible in 2015. He placed 6th on that ballot, behind five pitchers: electees Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Curt Schilling, as well as Mike Mussina and John Smoltz. Sosa finished one spot behind Sheffield in 2015, and Bobby Bonds was 14th.
Vladimir Guerrero - 2018. #4 on this ballot, behind fellow electees Jim Thome (unanimous #1), Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen. Guerrero received 3 elect-me votes and appeared on 21 of 30 ballots. Sammy Sosa placed 6th, Bobby Bonds 14th. Guerrero was first eligible in 2017, in which he also placed 4th, behind electees Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Edmonds. Sammy Sosa finished 5th, Bobby Bonds 10th.
Bobby Abreu - 2022. #2 on this ballot, behind fellow electee Alex Rodriguez and ahead of fellow electees Sammy Sosa and Andy Pettitte. Abreu received 10 elect-me votes and appeared on 21 of 29 ballots. Bobby Bonds placed 9th. Abreu was first eligible in 2020. He placed 10th in that election, behind Sosa, who placed 7th, but ahead of Bonds, who placed 13th.
Sammy Sosa - 2022. #3 on this ballot, behind Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu. Sosa received 7 elect-me votes and appeared on 22 of 29 ballots. He trailed Abreu by 12 points. First eligible in 2013, Sosa placed 6th, trailing the four electees—Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, and Craig Biggio (all first-ballot electees), and Curt Schilling, who was also on his first ballot. Sosa stayed in almost the exact same spot for five years while large numbers of first-ballot HoMers passed through to election, until 2019, when he dropped to 12th. 2020-21 found him back his former place, as he finished 7th and 5th in those years, from which he moved on to election in 2022.
Bobby Bonds - 2023. #3 on this ballot, behind fellow electees and outfielders Carlos Beltran and Lance Berkman. Bonds the elder received 3 elect-me votes and appeared on 17 of 26 ballots. First eligible in 1987, Bonds placed 26th in that election, ahead of only John McGraw among future HoMers. He appeared on 13 of 53 ballots, receiving one elect-me vote. Bonds stayed low in the rankings, spending twenty years mostly in the 30s, hitting a low of 38 in 1999 and 2007 before jumping all the way up to 22 in 2009, his highest finish ever, then breaking into the top 10 in 2010 by placing 19th. When his son Barry was elected as a unanimous #1 in 2013, Bobby placed 13th, his second year in the returning top 10, having placed 12th in 2012. He reached the actual top 10 for the first time in 2014, placing 10th. He would drop back to 20th in 2019, before bouncing back to 13th in 2020, followed by 10th and 9th place finishes in 2021 and 2022 and finally his leap to #3 and election in 2023, his 37th year on the ballot, the longest gap between eligibility and election for any elected right fielder.

RE: #10 - DL, you have a point. But you're missing one thing. I don't have vast respect for the New Historical because I think it is perfect. I have that respect because no one has even tried to build on it, so its innovations remain the state of the art, 20 years after the fact. The rankings of players within positions, with commentary on all of the top 100? Who else has done that? A ranking system that includes all of career, peak, prime, rate and subjective? No one else has even tried. JAWS? A complete joke, by comparison. WAR? Only includes regular season career.

Here's one of the funniest current ones. If you set your zero point at the average, as WAR does, it is mathematically impossible to evaluate the defensive position adjustment for DHs. Just impossible. If you try, you get a probability distribution fading off into negative infinity. And DHs do NOT have vale just a bit below the worst 1B. They have NO defensive value at all. I'm a 75-year-old man with a lung condition. If you put me and my Inogen machine out there at 1B, I'd have to stand on the bag. But, sooner or later, I'd catch a soft toss from an infielder. And that would be more than any DH would accomplish in the entire season. I am FAR worse than the worst possible MLB 1B. Try to compute an Offensive Spectrum and flip it to a Defensive Spectrum to get the DH adjustment? Doesn't work. DHs do not always even have the best hitting stats in the league, much less the best BY FAR, which is what you'd need. It all fails. But, in WS, the team makes a claim for Defensive WS through the team's defensive stats. The DHs contribute zero. The positions then make claims against the team's number. The DHs make no claim and receive no DWS. The individual DHs make claims against the DH number? Zero claim against zero number. So, the DHs are all at zero, which is correct. Win Shares has it right, has had it right since 2001, and no one will acknowledge it. Did you know that WS correlates better with salaries than WAR does? Why? Because the WS model is correct. The "margin" in WS is just the MLB minimum salary. And the DH defensive adjustment is correct. So, of course WS correlates better. WAR is the blind leading the blind.

So, it's not that I think WS is perfect; it's that I think the alternatives are garbage. Like OPS, with or without funny additives (+, t, s). It doesn't measure anything. It actually ignores, according to WAR's own rBat,r Rbaser and rDP, 46% (!!!) of Lou Brock's offense, because it ignores all baserunning. No wonder the OPS+ addicts think that Lou should be run out of the HoF, and not elected into the HoM at all. FORTY-SIX PERCENT! Now you see why I get cranky about his not getting into the HoM. And writers and organizations refer to it all the time. Me? I'll take Offensive Win Shares, thank you.

On the same subject. I did a thorough comparison of Bobby Abreu to Lou Brock a year ago. Abreu is nowhere NEAR Lou Brock by anything other that career regular season WAR. Why? Because Lou Brock was a first-rate baserunner, and Bobby Abreu was not, and WAR does not take base running seriously enough, much less such concerns as postseason, Black Ink (Lou has more than Bobby WITHOUT base stealing), All-Star appearances, MVP votes (and Lou had to compete with Billy Williams and Willie Stargell). Lou's comparable players are better, despite Lou hitting in the 1960s, so his comps should be worse hitters. Nothing you do, other than regular-season WAR, will put Bobby ahead. The surprise, of course, is that base running could be worth so much. But, it is. I'm still disgusted with Abreu being in while Lou is out.

Brock was a first-ballot Hall of Famer based on the utterly inaccurate consensus of voters.
His basestealing was believed to have far more value than it actually did.
Brock led the league in SB 9 times - and in CS 7 times.
His career SB percentage of 75.3% is solid but not otherworldly.

as it happens, the first Bill James essay I remember reading was on SBs.
he noted that virtually every offensive category correlated well to team wins - even triples, to an extent.

but somehow, the number of SBs a team had was pretty random vs its win totals.
the belief had been that all that "dancing around first base" was distracting to a pitcher.
so that would make your team better. we now know that it can be at least as distracting to the HITTER.
Brock was tremendous in three 7-game World Series, and he deserves credit for that.

(note that I kept all lines short, so no need to weave left and right - at least on this desktop computer.
might be an idea for other replies)

(note that I kept all lines short, so no need to weave left and right - at least on this desktop computer.
might be an idea for other replies)

Using Mozilla Firefox, I shrunk the zoom to 90% and it is contained without scrolling : )

Baserunning: Brock +78 runs, Abreu +16. That's a very large advantage, as far as baserunning goes. You are welcome to explain why you think it should be larger.

Black ink (non-basestealing edition): Abreu doubles once, triples once, games played twice.
Except as a bonus, he led MLB in walks in 2006, but gets no black ink credit because he was traded between leagues at midseason.
Brock: Doubles once, triples once, AB once, PA twice.

Postseason: Yes, Brock was outstanding, but it's not like Abreu's playoff record is bad (.810 OPS in 20 games).

To go back to the new historical abstract, the Darrell Evans entry is relevant here, in which the characteristics of overrated and underrated players are discussed.
The primary characteristic is that players who do one or two things well are always overrated; players who do everything pretty well without standing out in a single aspect are underrated.
That might have something to do with why everyone was impressed with Brock, and nobody seemed to notice Abreu.

Also, as a fun bonus note: According to this tool on Bill James Online (you know, the guy who came up with Win Shares):
Bobby Abreu 356
Lou Brock 348

Bonds stayed low in the rankings, spending twenty years mostly in the 30s, hitting a low of 38 in 1999 and 2007 before jumping all the way up to 22 in 2009, his highest finish ever, then breaking into the top 10 in 2010 by placing 19th. When his son Barry was elected as a unanimous #1 in 2013, Bobby placed 13th, his second year in the returning top 10, having placed 12th in 2012. He reached the actual top 10 for the first time in 2014, placing 10th. He would drop back to 20th in 2019, before bouncing back to 13th in 2020, followed by 10th and 9th place finishes in 2021 and 2022 and finally his leap to #3 and election in 2023, his 37th year on the ballot, the longest gap between eligibility and election for any elected right fielder.

The jump in 2009 represented the final year before the HOM went annual, Dan Rosenheck had been posting his WARP for a year, and Baseball-Reference WAR (Baseball Projection) was in it's infancy around this time. The shift from Win Shares to WAR was in swing. Sometime not too long after, Baseball Gauge went live with Michael Humphreys DRA based defensive measures. After DRA took hold, Kiko released his player win-loss records.

The newer metrics are favorable to Bonds:
Sys - WAR/WAA
B-R - 57.8/31.9
B-G - 64.3/33.5
T-T - ~55/~29

9 out of 15 voters had Bonds in the bottom 3, with a mix and match of the data we have available, Bonds feels like a high floor/low ceiling selection.

18. Eric J can SABER all he wants to Posted: March 04, 2023 at 02:31 PM (#6119501)
Baserunning: Brock +78 runs, Abreu +16. That's a very large advantage, as far as baserunning goes. You are welcome to explain why you think it should be larger.

Kiko's analysis reaches a similar result.

Abreu was a 20+ better wRC+ hitter than Brock and at least marginal better on defense, I don't see where Brock's baserunning and post-season exploits overcome this gap.

Jaack mentions some surprise at Sosa finishing ahead of Guerrero: Guererro was definitely ahead of Sosa when he was elected in 2018, so there's a reversal there.

But there's also a reversal with Sosa finishing ahead of Abreu, who placed ahead of Sosa just two elections ago, when both were elected in 2022.

It seems like Sosa's stock has risen a bit.

I find the foursome of Abreu, Sosa, Guerrero, and Winfield to be pretty much interchangeable. Ordering them is a bit of a shuffling of deck chairs dilemna. But looking at the balloting, it seems clear that at least some voters view Sosa and/or Winfield as being a cut above the others, whereas there don't seem to be any voters who think that Abreu or Vlad are substantially ahead of that group. Or at least those voters aren't apparent from the results.

RE: #16, #!8 ns #20. I started out by saying that regular season WAR was the one thing that was to Abreu's vantage. You start by pointing out things about regular season performance, and two of you #16 and #20) just stopped there as well. At least Eric J (#18) then proceeded to move into things that are NOT a part of regular season performance. So, to address what he wrote, since #16 and #20 are irrelevant to countering what I wrote...

With your bonus, which I was unaware of, it's true that Abreu pulls even with Brock on black ink - WITHOUT paying any attention to SB. With SB, Brock is from the planet Krypton compared to Abreu.

As to your postseason comment, OPS, with or without +, t, s or any other funny additives, is garbage, and should never be used by anyone. It does not actually measure anything; for example, a point of OBP is worth more than a point of SLG just to start with. Adding them together discriminates against OBP guys in favor of SLG guys. One more reason that OPS is garbage is that it IGNORES ALL BASERUNNING. To use OPS to compare Abreu to Book in any stretch of games, including the postseason, is absolutely wrong to do. In reality Lou Brock's postseason record is one of the very best in MLB history, up there with Eddie Collins and players like that. Bobby Abreu's postseason performance just looks like his performance at any other time. It is anything but historic. And, even if you just want to look at the regular season, if you look at Lou's rBat, rBaser and rDP over on BB-Ref, and add them up for just Brock's regular season career, the two base running categories contain FORTY-SIX PERCENT of Brock's offensive value. That's not a bad stat, that's complete garbage. Yes, Brock's OPS+ looks horrible. But it's missing FORTY-SIX PERCENT of his offensive value. Baserunning counts for a lot, it turns out. And OPS is garbage.

One reason that the people of his time thought that Lou Brock was more valuable than we think of him now is that, at the time, people were aware that Lou was playing in one of the worst hitting environments ever, the 1960s. Abreu played in a high offense period. So, of course, Abreu's raw stats look better than Brocks. Lou would have hit .300 in any reasonable environment, and he would have been in the HoM years ago if he had hit 300. This also applies to Lou's base stealing. Base stealing is a one-run strategy. It is of most use in low-scoring environments. Lou played in a VERY low-scoring environment, the 1960s and also the 1970s to a weaker extent. Expressing Lou's stolen base value in runs is completely misleading. It didn't take many of those runs to make up a win, and one run is much more likely to make the difference is a 1960s game than it would have in Abreu's time. Technically, this means that the break-even point for SB success was LOWER in Brock's time than in almost any other time. Looking at his SB success rate without realizing that it needs to be compared to a lower break-even point than normal SB success rates are is a mistake that, once again, serves to underrate Lou Brock.

As for the last point, I conceded regular season career performance at the beginning of what I wrote. Why bring up that WS sees that the same was a WAR does? The New Historical Abstract puts it in a context of Peak, Prime, Rate and Subjective (which includes postseason). The WAR gang offers up JAWS, which is absurd as JAWS wants to set a player's peak at SEVEN SEASONS, ignoring Prime, Rate and Postseason altogether. That is why I like the 20-year-old Bill James method the best. It at least TRIES to make sense of everything that goes on in a player's career. The WAR gang doesn't even try..

Baserunning: Brock +78 runs, Abreu +16

This is only SB, CS, WP, PB baserunning events. Actual baserunning value which includes advancements on hits and all other baserunning plays has Brock +75, Abreu +35. +75 is a very good number, BTW, Brock was an excellent baserunner. But...it all amounts to a 4 win edge on Abreu via baserunning (who was a very good baserunner himself, with very nice but not historic SB totals).

Like OPS, with or without funny additives (+, t, s). It doesn't measure anything. It actually ignores, according to WAR's own rBat,r Rbaser and rDP, 46% (!!!) of Lou Brock's offense, because it ignores all baserunning.

Is there a HOM voter who has ever used OPS as the standard for value, like, without defense, position, baserunning, or anything else considered? Feels strawman-y. BTW, baserunning makes up 17% of Lou Brock's value (according to bWAR), not 46%. Or at least, I'm not sure where you're getting that 46% figure from. I agree with you that OPS (with or without funny additives) is not a particularly good metric.

if you look at Lou's rBat, rBaser and rDP over on BB-Ref, and add them up for just Brock's regular season career, the two base running categories contain FORTY-SIX PERCENT of his offensive value.

Ah, this is where you're getting 46%. Without quibbling over whether rDP is a baserunning metric (it's largely not), did you notice that Abreu's rBat alone is worth more than Brocks' entire offense from everything combined, by 146 runs, or an extra 65% of Brock's all-encompassing offense runs? That seems like a pretty monumental gap to make up by any means that can be thought of, since they played the same position, and especially since Abreu was solid in postseason play himself.

I'd like to see the argument for Brock laid out, built on a foundation of runs (however you want to calculate it). Show me the accounting of where Brock's "runs created" come from all the various sources - offense, defense, baserunning, postseason bonus, everything that is desired to be included. And the same for Abreu. For example, you say baserunning runs underestimates Brock because SB were worth more in his low-scoring environment. How much more? I'm willing to be convinced.

There's a lot to unpack from your comments Brock, where it appears you are coming from a point of vitriol for how Lou Brock has been treated and for those of us who use WAR as an evaluation tool, I'll try to share some counterpoints.

Baserunning counts for a lot, it turns out. And OPS is garbage/quote]
Baserunning does count for a lot, and OPS isn't garbage, it just doesn't include baserunning.

One reason that the people of his time thought that Lou Brock was more valuable than we think of him now is that, at the time, people were aware that Lou was playing in one of the worst hitting environments ever, the 1960s. Abreu played in a high offense period. So, of course, Abreu's raw stats look better than Brocks

...so wRC+ adjusts for environment, so no need to worry about a raw stats comparison.
Abreu was a 129 wRC+ hitter, Brock a 109 wRC+.

Expressing Lou's stolen base value in runs is completely misleading. It didn't take many of those runs to make up a win, and one run is much more likely to make the difference is a 1960s game than it would have in Abreu's time.

WPA adjusts for context (as a solid tool for offensive value), Abreu leads 49.0 to 26.4.

The WAR gang offers up JAWS, which is absurd as JAWS wants to set a player's peak at SEVEN SEASONS, ignoring Prime, Rate and Postseason altogether. That is why I like the 20-year-old Bill James method the best. It at least TRIES to make sense of everything that goes on in a player's career. The WAR gang doesn't even try..

JAWS is a tool by Jay Jaffe to analyze peak, nothing more, nothing less, you can ignore this and instead leverage WAR for an entire players career.


I AGREE that Brock was quite valuable with his baserunning and post-season play, but Abreu was a substantially better hitter, and was at least marginally better on defense, I don't see an argument for Brock > Abreu.

RE: #16, #!8 ns #20. I started out by saying that regular season WAR was the one thing that was to Abreu's vantage. You start by pointing out things about regular season performance, and two of you #16 and #20) just stopped there as well. At least Eric J (#18) then proceeded to move into things that are NOT a part of regular season performance. So, to address what he wrote, since #16 and #20 are irrelevant to countering what I wrote...

actual line from my Post 16:

Brock was tremendous in three 7-game World Series, and he deserves credit for that.

It seems like Sosa's stock has risen a bit.

It's entirely due to the people involved in this voting versus the other. We had one voter who refused to vote for Sosa because he didn't like him.

Fixed the voting totals and the column alignment, don't have time to re-space the columns.

This is only SB, CS, WP, PB baserunning events.

Per the WAR explanation on B-R:

Baserunning runs come from two places:

Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing runs as calculated above for wRAA (see above for a link to an explanation of this), and
Non-Basestealing baserunning which includes items like 1st to 3rd on singles, outs on the bases, tagging up on fly balls, scoring from third on a ground ball, etc...

As to your postseason comment, OPS, with or without +, t, s or any other funny additives, is garbage, and should never be used by anyone.

I was not using it for anything more rigorous than saying "Abreu was fine in the postseason."

Advanced stats applied to the postseason are few and far between, and I wasn't inclined to dive too deeply into a category that Brock obviously wins over Abreu no matter how you look at it.

As for the last point, I conceded regular season career performance at the beginning of what I wrote. Why bring up that WS sees that the same was a WAR does?

You conceded regular-season WAR and then proceeded to describe WAR as a garbage stat. I brought up Win Shares because you prefer them to WAR.

The WAR gang offers up JAWS, which is absurd as JAWS wants to set a player's peak at SEVEN SEASONS, ignoring Prime, Rate and Postseason altogether.

The WAR gang, as you put it, is not monolithic. I think JAWS is kind of dumb; when I'm using WAR to look at a player's whole career, I do something different that accounts for peak/prime/postseason, etc. I believe most participants here do the same.

A ranking system that includes all of career, peak, prime, rate and subjective? No one else has even tried.

Lots of people have tried everything except the "subjective" part of that. Kiko's done a great job in my opinion.

I'll try to grab a couple of things mentioned in comments. I'm short of time to get to all of it.

The 46% is calculated as (rBaser + Rdp) / (Rbaser + Rdp + Rbat). Usually, when people don't see the 46%,they've not included Rdp, which is certainly base running. Is that what happened to you?

I was not aware that anything on BB-Ref included era adjustments.Thanks for the info. It does make a difference. I want to check it out. Do you know where i can find the formulas used to do that?

I apologize for missing the last sentence is #16. You do indeed mention Brock's World Series career.

RE: OPS - I mentioned the fact that points of OBP are worth more than points of SLG, as well as that it does not see Rbaser or Rdp. The imbalance of OBP and SLG strikes me as a serious flaw. Ignoring base running becomes a much bigger thing when you find out that it can be 46% of a HoF career. You should see what it does to, say, Vince Coleman, a lesser player. There is also this - if you don't mind ignoring base running, you can get a quick and dirty estimate of Runs Created by the formula OBP x SLG x AB, which is multiplication, not addition. In other words, even if you ignore base running, OBP and SLG work when they are multiplied togather, not added.

I object to a definition of peak that is SEVEN years, not necessarily consecutive. Seven is way too many for a peak. If the seven were consecutive, they might make for a good prime. But they are not consecutive. So, I consider Jaffe to have come up with a lousy formula. I do have, in general, respect for Jaffe. I just think he could have done better there. The New Historical defines peak as best three, not consecutive, and prime as best five consecutive. I think you need both, and I think that 3 and 5 are good choices. I would not object to 4 and 7, though. I just think you need both peak (seasons that can carry a team to a pennant if they are good enough) and prime (best stretch of seasons where you can think with some confidence that you're going to get about this value from this guy). I think you need both concepts.

I was not aware that anyone had tried a robust evaluation formula other than Bill, 20 years ago. I would be very happy to see Kiko's work. Do you know where i can find it?

I have problems with Win Probability because it treats all players as having the same opportunities to compile win probability. That's not true. In particular, WP underrates leadoff men, because at least once a game, the leadoff guy can't do any better than a solo homer. He can't move baserunners around, because there aren't any. I would like to see a win probability guy try to deal with that. There's always something that messes up a straight Markov Chain, which is what I assume that Win Probability uses.

OK, I'm out of time.

I was not aware that anything on BB-Ref included era adjustments.Thanks for the info. It does make a difference. I want to check it out. Do you know where i can find the formulas used to do that?

Here is bbref's explainer on the runs-to-win calculation, which is one of the main places era adjustment occurs. Another handy guid is fangraphs' Guts page, where they keep their constants (BBRef has a bit of link rot, but their constants are pretty similar).

I was not aware that anyone had tried a robust evaluation formula other than Bill, 20 years ago. I would be very happy to see Kiko's work. Do you know where i can find it?

Here is Kiko's site!

Sigh. Right now, I'm frustrated. This is a good conversation about Brock (an Abreu), and I'd like to continue it, but there is only so long that I can ask people to keep checking this thread about ranking RFs. Anyone know of a way to continue this thread with it having th same front-page visibility as the RF thread has?