SS Prelim

1) Honus Wagner - this is not close
2) Alex Rodriguez
3) John Henry Lloyd - Rodriguez and Lloyd are very close
4) Cal Ripken Jr
5) Willie Wells
6) Arky Vaughan
7) Luke Appling
8) Ozzie Smith
9) Bill Dahlen
10) Barry Larkin
11) George Davis
12) Alan Trammell
13) Robin Yount
14) Joe Cronin
15) Pee Wee Reese
16) George Wright
17) Lou Boudreau
18) Derek Jeter - the defense is that bad
19) Jack Glasscock
20) Monte Ward - pitching credit makes him harder to evaluate
21) Bobby Wallace
22) Ernie Banks
23) Grant Johnson
24) Joe Sewell
25) Dickey Pearce
26) Dobie Moore
Phil Rizzuto
Bert Campaneris
Dave Bancroft
27) Dick Lundy
Johnny Pesky
Dave Concepcion (not PHoM but close)
28) Hughie Jennings

Everyone elected is PHoM

Alex Rodriguez, Barry Larkin and Derek Jeter are the three new names

1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Pop Lloyd
4. Cal Ripken Jr.
5. Willie Wells
6. Arky Vaughan
7. Pee Wee Reese
8. George Davis
9. Luke Appling
10. Barry Larkin
11. Bill Dahlen
12. Lou Boudreau
13. Alan Trammell
14. Ozzie Smith
15. Joe Cronin
16. Robin Yount
17. John Ward
18. Bobby Wallace
19. Derek Jeter
20. Grant Johnson
21. Dick Lundy
22. Dobie Moore

---Joe Tinker---

23. Ernie Banks
24. Jack Glasscock

---Rizzuto (PHOM), Fletcher(PHOM), IN/OUT LINE, Stephens, Clarkson, Campaneris---

25. George Wright (PHOM)
26. Joe Sewell
27. Dickey Pearce
28. Hughie Jennings

Shocked to see Ernie Banks listed so low on the first two prelim ballots. JAWS has him at 8th. Yeah, take some credit off for his late career 1B seasons sure, but kind of hard to beat that peak.

Agreed that Banks has a great peak, but the competition here is tough indeed.

I see Banks's 5-year peak as about 11th among HoM shortstops, trailing (in rough order) Wagner, Wright, Rodriguez, Vaughan, Jennings, Lloyd, Yount, Wells, Moore, and Boudreau. Now, Banks ranks ahead of some of these folks on career (e.g. Moore, Boudreau, and Jennings) but he also has to rank behind some shortstops who trail him a little on peak but who have careers that far surpass his, e.g. Ripken & Davis. And then there are later players who are pretty close in peak and career against tougher competition: Smith,Trammell, Larkin, Jeter.

That sort of a rough view of competition suggests Banks' high end would be 10 at the highest and more likely in the 13-15 range.

The top 20 shortstops are a highly competitive group, tougher overall even than the top 20 center fielders. As I see it, the 20th of 28 elected shortstops is probably in the top half of the Hall of Merit.

Still, I'd agree that I see rankings of Banks at 22 or 23 as surprisingly low. I have a hard time seeing any case for ranking Banks behind Cronin, Boudreau, Moore, Ward, and Lundy at least, among the players he is ranked behind on the first preliminary ballots.

Just as with the center fielders, 11-20 among the shortstops is going to be challenging to sort out.

Player name MMP Score
Honus Wagner 157.76
Alex Rodriguez 104.11
Arky Vaughan 62.83
Ernie Banks 59.08
Cal Ripken Jr 57.90
John Henry Lloyd 53.54
Hughie Jennings 49.91
Robin Yount 46.42
Lou Boudreau 44.13
Willie Wells 38.41
Joe Cronin 36.36
Alan Trammell 33.41
Barry Larkin 27.31
George Davis 24.51
Derek Jeter 22.11
Hanley Ramirez 18.78
Dobie Moore 18.46
Luke Appling 17.75
Nomar Garciaparra 16.87
Bill Dahlen 16.70
Vern Stephens 16.23
Phil Rizzuto 14.19
Rico Petrocelli 12.92
Carlos Correa 12.54
Joe Sewell 12.52
Toby Harrah 12.12
Ozzie Smith 11.21
Johnny Pesky 10.57
Pee Wee Reese 10.43
Bobby Wallace 7.76
Dave Bancroft 7.73
Dave Concepcion 6.75
Art Fletcher 5.14
Joe Tinker 3.33
Bert Campaneris 3.10
Grant Johnson 2.67
Dick Lundy 1.71
George Wright n/a
Jack Glasscock n/a
Monte Ward n/a
Dickey Pearce n/a

Shocked to see Ernie Banks listed so low on the first two prelim ballots. JAWS has him at 8th. Yeah, take some credit off for his late career 1B seasons sure, but kind of hard to beat that peak.

For me it's more that the years at 1B add nothing to his case. His score is nearly the same if his career ends in 1962. Banks has a lot in common with Hughie Jennings.

Agreed that Banks' 1B years don't add much to his case, but he was a reasonably durable, average player at first base for seven years from 1962-8, his ages 31-37 seasons, adding 14.3 post-peak bWAR to Jennings' 5.3.

It's not unusual for shortstops, even if they stick at short, to have a steep decline after age 30, although most of the ones who have made the HoM are ones who managed to carry their value later into their careers. But Lou Boudreau picks up only 5.4 WAR after his age-30 season. Boudreau has more WAR by age 30 than Banks, but Banks' major-league start was likely delayed by his stint in the army in 1951-52 and his decision to return to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1953 rather than trying out for an NL or AL team. In any case, Banks' prime numbers are pretty much a match for Boudreau's and were put up against better competition.

Boudreau has more WAR by age 30 than Banks, but Banks' major-league start was likely delayed by his stint in the army in 1951-52 and his decision to return to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1953 rather than trying out for an NL or AL team.

Boudreau has an argument for minor league credit for 1939. There's also this:

While Boudreau was still at Illinois, Cleveland Indians general manager Cy Slapnicka paid him an undisclosed sum in return for agreeing to play baseball for the Indians after he graduated. Due to this agreement, Boudreau was ruled ineligible for collegiate sports

Interesting that they both played basketball professionally.

1. Honus Wagner

2. Alex Rodriguez

3. Cal Ripken

4. Arky Vaughan
5. John Henry Lloyd
6. George Davis

7. Willie Wells
8. Ernie Banks
9. Barry Larkin - one spot behind Banks all-time
10. Robin Yount
11. Bill Dahlen
12. Pee Wee Reese
13. Ozzie Smith - one spot behind Reese all-time
14. Home Run Johnson
15. Luke Appling
16. Alan Trammell - one spot behind Appling all-time
17. Joe Cronin
18. Derek Jeter
19. Dobie Moore
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Lou Boudreau
-- John Beckwith --
22. Jack Glasscock

23. John Ward
24. Hughie Jennings - one spot behind Ward all-time
25. Dick Lundy

-- Joe Tinker --
-- Nomar Garciaparra --
26. Joe Sewell
-- Jim Fregosi --
-- Dave Bancroft --

27. George Wright
28. Dickey Pearce

Notes: One, I think the HOM has done a very good job with SS. I don't have any pHom that aren't HOM, and there aren't any HOM that I think are mistakes. Pearce is the only HOM who is not pHOM, and he's just another case that's impossible to run through a system/formula to rank because of his era and pre-MLB play. Two, I happen to have a ton of SS that are back-to-back in all-time rankings. Three, that group 7-22 (23 with Beckwith in there) is tight. Probably the largest/most densely packed group of players at any position, IMO.

Also have to re-evaluate the NgL players with updated MLEs.

Updated for new MLEs:

1. Honus Wagner

2. Alex Rodriguez

3. Cal Ripken
4. John Henry Lloyd

5. Arky Vaughan
6. Willie Wells
7. George Davis

8. Ernie Banks
9. Barry Larkin - one spot behind Banks all-time
10. Robin Yount
11. Bill Dahlen
-- John Beckwith --
12. Pee Wee Reese
13. Ozzie Smith - one spot behind Reese all-time
14. Luke Appling
15. Alan Trammell - one spot behind Appling all-time
16. Joe Cronin
17. Derek Jeter
18. Dick Lundy
19. Home Run Johnson
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Lou Boudreau
22. Jack Glasscock
23. Dobie Moore

24. John Ward
25. Hughie Jennings - one spot behind Ward all-time

-- Joe Tinker --
-- Nomar Garciaparra --
26. Joe Sewell
-- Jim Fregosi --
-- Dave Bancroft --

27. George Wright
28. Dickey Pearce

Agreed that Banks' 1B years don't add much to his case, but he was a reasonably durable, average player at first base for seven years from 1962-8

I wish that he had been an average player at 1B but Dan R counts him as 2.8 wins BELOW positional average for those seasons at first (compared to 8.8 WARP2). A 2 WAR -1 WAPA season counts as a zero in my system.

Boudreau in my spreadsheet is at 68.4 WARP2 and 43.5 WAPA2. Banks has 67.5 WARP2 and 33 WAPA2 (and I'm giving him credit for military service).

As I see it, the 20th of 28 elected shortstops is probably in the top half of the Hall of Merit.

I agree, my top 20 shortstops are all in the top half.

Updated for new MLEs:
1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Cal Ripken
4. Willie Wells
5. John Henry Lloyd
6. Arky Vaughan
7. Pee Wee Reese
-- John Beckwith --
8. Robin Yount
9. Barry Larkin
10. George Davis
11. Luke Appling
12. Alan Trammell
13. Derek Jeter
14. Ernie Banks
15. Bill Dahlen
16. Jack Glasscock
17. Ozzie Smith - one spot behind Reese all-time
18. Bobby Wallace
19. Dick Lundy
20. Lou Boudreau
21. Home Run Johnson
22. Joe Cronin
23. George Wright
24. Dobie Moore
-- Joe Tinker --
-- Bert Campaneris --
-- Art Fletcher --
25. John Ward
26. Hughie Jennings

-- Dave Bancroft --
-- Vern Stephens --
-- Phil Rizzuto --
-- Johnny Pesky --
27. Dickey Pearce
-- Dave Concepcion --
28. Joe Sewell

I'm wondering how Bleed ended up with a copy-paste of my Ozzie Smith comment on his list...

Whoops, I copied your ballot as my starting place, then tweaked...forgot to remove that comment.

Preliminary Shortstop Ranking

1. Honus Wagner – It’s possible to make an argument that the segregation adjustment should be large enough to move ARod ahead of Wagner, but I am not inclined to lean too heavily on that argument in this case.
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Cal Ripken Jr. – The last easy spot.
4. George Wright – My consensus score may suffer over this one, but if so, so be it. I see Wright as the #4 position player of the 19th century, after the ABC boys. Baseball’s first superstar, the best player in the game from 1867-71. Peak is not quite as good as Ross Barnes, but close, and Wright held his value much longer than Barnes across 14 years as a starter and generally a star. Put up 4.3 WAR in 79 games in 1879 in his age 32 season. Could have added another couple of good seasons but didn’t want to play in Providence away from his Boston business interests, and the reserve clause gave Providence his contract.
5. Willie Wells – Monster peak in his prime was as good as Arky Vaughan's, and Wells had the long career Vaughan lacked.
6. George Davis
7. Arky Vaughan
8. Robin Yount
9. John Henry Lloyd – Doesn’t appear to have to have as good a peak as the players above him, but is at the head of the long-career, good peak group that also includes Smith, Appling, Jeter, Reese, and Dahlen.
10. Ozzie Smith
11. Luke Appling
12. Derek Jeter
13. Pee Wee Reese
14. Bill Dahlen
15. Ernie Banks
16. Alan Trammell
17. Barry Larkin
18. Lou Boudreau
19. Jack Glasscock – Very difficult to place. Appears to have been the #4 position player of the 1880s after the ABC boys, but was so far below them in value that the rank order doesn’t seem that meaningful. In the 1880s cohort, I have him ahead of Hines and O’Rourke, but they’d be between Wallace and Johnson, so I’m going to slide Glasscock in here for now.
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Grant Johnson - Could have been better than this, but this is as a high a placement as current MLEs will support.
22. Joe Cronin
23. Dickey Pearce – Very hard to evaluate with a 21-year career that ran from the start of the organized amateur game to the first years of the National League. I see him as bit below average as a hitter for his career, with a decent offensive peak from 1859-64, followed by 80-90 OPS+-type offense thereafter, and with outstanding defense when that could be a larger share of players’ value. He remained outstanding defensively to his age-40 season in 1876. That profile puts him into the Johnson/Cronin/Lundy group, I think.
24. Dick Lundy
25. Dobie Moore
26. Hughie Jennings
27. Joe Sewell – Below my in-out line. Not a long career and not an outstanding peak.
28. John Ward – I don’t think he brings a strong case to the table. He was very good but hardly ever great as an infielder, and he was very good but not great as a pitcher as well. The Hall of Merit electorate struggled mightily with how to evaluate 19th-century players who had significant careers as position players and pitchers, and I think, in retrospect, that we overrated them.

Prelim:

1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Pop Lloyd
4. Cal Ripken
5. Arky Vaughan
6. Willie Wells
7. Luke Appling
8. George Davis
9. Pee Wee Reese
10. Bill Dahlen
11. Barry Larkin
12. Lou Boudreau
13. Ozzie Smith
14. Alan Trammell
15. Joe Cronin
16. John Ward
17. Jack Glasscock
18. Robin Yount
19. Ernie Banks
20. Derek Jeter
21. George Wright
22. Bobby Wallace
23. Home Run Johnson
24. Dick Lundy
25. Hughie Jennings
26. Joe Sewell
27. Dickey Pearce
28. Dobie Moore

4. George Wright – My consensus score may suffer over this one, but if so, so be it. I see Wright as the #4 position player of the 19th century, after the ABC boys. Baseball’s first superstar, the best player in the game from 1867-71. Peak is not quite as good as Ross Barnes, but close, and Wright held his value much longer than Barnes across 14 years as a starter and generally a star. Put up 4.3 WAR in 79 games in 1879 in his age 32 season. Could have added another couple of good seasons but didn’t want to play in Providence away from his Boston business interests, and the reserve clause gave Providence his contract.

5. Willie Wells – Monster peak in his prime was as good as Arky Vaughan's, and Wells had the long career Vaughan lacked.

9. John Henry Lloyd – Doesn’t appear to have to have as good a peak as the players above him, but is at the head of the long-career, good peak group that also includes Smith, Appling, Jeter, Reese, and Dahlen.

19. Jack Glasscock – Very difficult to place. Appears to have been the #4 position player of the 1880s after the ABC boys, but was so far below them in value that the rank order doesn’t seem that meaningful. In the 1880s cohort, I have him ahead of Hines and O’Rourke, but they’d be between Wallace and Johnson, so I’m going to slide Glasscock in here for now.

21. Grant Johnson - Could have been better than this, but this is as a high a placement as current MLEs will support.

23. Dickey Pearce – Very hard to evaluate with a 21-year career that ran from the start of the organized amateur game to the first years of the National League. I see him as bit below average as a hitter for his career, with a decent offensive peak from 1859-64, followed by 80-90 OPS+-type offense thereafter, and with outstanding defense when that could be a larger share of players’ value. He remained outstanding defensively to his age-40 season in 1876. That profile puts him into the Johnson/Cronin/Lundy group, I think.

24. Dick Lundy

27. Joe Sewell – Below my in-out line. Not a long career and not an outstanding peak.

28. John Ward – I don’t think he brings a strong case to the table. He was very good but hardly ever great as an infielder, and he was very good but not great as a pitcher as well. The Hall of Merit electorate struggled mightily with how to evaluate 19th-century players who had significant careers as position players and pitchers, and I think, in retrospect, that we overrated them.

Great share/post Chris.

George Wright is a guy that I struggle with as much as one that's been elected. With pre-NA credit, it's clear to me he belongs, just how high.
Your notes are wanting me to bump him to at least #19.
The top 18 players were in a top 100 list I had drawn up last year...should Wright be a top 100 player?


On the Negro Leaguers, Eric's latest publish, taking out seasons at beginning end of career that I don't think move the needle:

Player / WAR / WAA / WAR + WAA*2
Willie Wells - 98.6 / 59.2 / 217.1
John Beckwith - 87.8 / 58.8 / 205.4
John Henry Lloyd - 87.6 / 49.1 / 185.8 - per Chris notes, this is the furthest down I've seen Pop. I've never placed him lower than 5th at SS, but maybe we should be?
Arky Vaughan's peak is tough to ignore, and when I incorporate clutch and Kiko's Retrosheet defense, so is Pee Wee Reese.

Dick Lundy - 70.1 / 37.2 / 144.4
*Bus Clarkson* - 70.3 / 35.1 / 140.4 - with estimated WAR credit, the latest indicates he's worthy of ballot review/placement in 2024.
Grant Johnson - 69.0 / 33.8 / 136.7
Dobie Moore - 56.0 / 37.4 / 130.7

*Silvio Garcia* - 56.9 / 20.6 / 20.6 / 98.1 - appears to be far enough below the borderline, great career though.

It's a tight one between Lundy, Johnson, and Moore.

Glasscock and Wallace have supreme DRA defensive numbers, I think they could move as high as #12, but I don't want to overrate the early ball SS.

On Pearce vs Ward, Monte does have 6+ WAR with Baseball Gauge compared with Reference, but your comment on not being outstanding as either or a pitcher gives me pause.
Maybe this should be Pearce 25, Jennings 26, Ward 27...I'd prefer them to Joe Sewell, who's close by shy of pHOM for me.

Bleed the Freak, thanks for this review of how the Negro-League and early players look by some key metrics.

One follow-up question: How high exactly are Glasscock's and Wallace's DRA numbers, and how do they compare to Davis, Dahlen, and Jennings by DRA?

One follow-up answer to your question, "The top 18 players were in a top 100 list I had drawn up last year...should Wright be a top 100 player?"

Unsurprisingly, I see Wright as a top 100 player, although I am still working on a "Top 560 players" project, so I couldn't tell you where exactly in my Top 100 he would fall. But I can say a bit about how I see him as a Top 100 player. If I start with the distribution of players by decade via a quota system that allots a share of the top 100 players proportionately to each decade from the 1870s to the 2010s, that would allot 2.4 top 100 slots to the 1870s. Given my rankings of players in the 1870s, those slots would match up well with 1/2 of Cap Anson, George Wright, and Ross Barnes, who are far ahead of everybody else in this decade.

When I look at the players' raw scores, that provides reasonable corroboration of Wright's position. For post-1870 19th-century players, I project their seasons out to 140 games, using a three-season rolling average of their WAR/game to fill in the missing games to smooth out the extremes. For pre-1871 seasons, I look at the existing stats to estimate the player's status relative to "league average" at this time, and then map each season as well as I can onto the player's post-1870 seasons, adjusting for positional changes as well as I can. Using this method, Wright ends up with a raw score of 194.8, Barnes with a raw score of 189.8. Looking across baseball history, I find that there are 62 players who have a raw score of 180. Without further competition adjustments, Wright ranks 47th all time, Barnes 49th.

When I find the "bottom quota" player for each decade, and look at who they are and their raw scores, there's a bit of smoothing that would need to be done, but it seems like the bottom of each decadal list is defining a fairly consistent area of excellence. Here' how that looks:

1870: Barnes 189.8 (next below Barnes is Deacon White at 160.3, then Jim O'Rourke at 141.2 -- there's a lot of space between players in this small set)
1880: Hines 140.0
1890: Hamilton 154.6
1900: Dahlen 161.0
1910: Jackson 153.5
1920: Stearnes 159.0
1930: Greenberg 176.2
1940: Reese 158.3
1950: Robinson 155.2
1960: Santo 161.0
1970: Jenkins 173.7 (this decade is high because of all the mega-career pitchers)
1980: Trammell 145.9
1990: Mussina 163.5 (again, mega-career pitchers pull this number up)
2000: Halladay 141.9
2010: Votto 134.1 (this number will rise as active players like Goldschmidt continue to accumulate value)

Obviously, I have a lot of work to do to put this data together into a top 100 list for my system, but I hope this general bench-marking suggests how I come to see Wright as very likely a top 100 player.

Thanks Chris on the breakdown for Wright and a top 100...

And maybe I misspoke/remembered about Glasscock :(, but not on Wallace :)

Defensive value, TZ runs, DRA wins, Kiko wins:
Kiko's data available back to 1916, no score for the early ballers.
Luke Appling - 41, 14.3, (1.1)
Ernie Banks - 55, 3.2, 3.7
Lou Boudreau - 118, 15.0, 11.3
Joe Cronin - 28, 10.9, 1.9
Bill Dahlen - 139, 24.6
George Davis - 146, 9.0
Jack Glasscock - 149, 9.7
Hughie Jennings - 60, 5.8
Derek Jeter - (253), (34.0), (10.1)
Barry Larkin - 18, 11.7, 1.3
Dickey Pearce - 47, 1.2
Pee Wee Reese - 117, 7.5, 12.9
Cal Ripken, Jr - 181, 6.4, 9.6
Alex Rodriguez - 23, (2.2), (1.3)
Joe Sewell - (4), 3.5, 3.1
Ozzie Smith - 239, 15.7, 14.6
Alan Trammell - 77, 6.2, 6.2
Arky Vaughan - 21, 4.7, 1.5
Honus Wagner - 85, 11.0
Bobby Wallace - 133, 17.3
John Ward - 75, 9.8
George Wright - 75, 3.8
Robin Yount - (48), (5.2), (3.2)

Bleed, thanks for the additional fielding numbers! Lots of food for thought here.

With voters drawing variably on the available fielding numbers, which are all over the map, for such a tightly bunched group of players, I have a feeling that there's going to be quite a bit less consistency in the rankings than what we've seen recently for the outfielders . . .

Okay, got through the updates for the MLEs and did a little bit of a longer look at the 19th century players, so I think this prelim is pretty good. I agree with the consensus that the HoM has done a great job here so far.

1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Willie Wells - I've always liked him a lot, but the last round of MLEs kind of serve as confirmation. I think the's the all-time shortstop from the Negro Leagues
4. Arky Vaughan
5. Cal Ripken
6. Luke Appling
7. Pee Wee Reese - This feels really aggressive, but he really has an impressive extended prime, something rarer at this position.
8. George Davis
9. Pop Lloyd
10. George Wright - While I'm not as aggressive with this placement as Chris Cobb, I think that he is a top third HoMer. What we do have is really, really good, and every indication is that he was just as good prior to 1871.
11. Bill Dahlen
12. Lou Boudreau
13. Barry Larkin
14. Robin Yount
15. Joe Cronin
16. Ernie Banks - Saw a little discussion on him above. I think the reality of this position is that the peaks are high - there are a lot more guys with 9-10 WAR years here than any other position. Banks does well by traditional methods because he had a long career, but I think the electorate is correct in not giving him much credit for his 1B career
17. Jack Glasscock
18. Derek Jeter
19. Alan Trammell
20. Ozzie Smith - Looks like I am relatively low on him. Going to have to dive a bit more as to why before I comment further.
21. Bobby Wallace
22. Dick Lundy
23. Dickey Pearce - This is obviously a fair amount of guesswork and
24. Monte Ward - Probably the hardest player to place. Pre-1893 pitching is hard enough on it's own. Ward without the pitching is Jay Bell. With it... I don't know. Probably above the borderline, but I'm not confident on that.
25. Dobie Moore
-- Bert Campaneris
26. Hughie Jennings
27. Grant Johnson - I am confident the MLEs are underrating him. The problem is that there just aren't a whole lot of lower quartile HoM shortstops in general, so his room to move up is slim.
-- Joe Tinker
-- Vern Stephens
-- Bus Clarkson
-- Johnny Pesky
-- Phil Rizzuto
-- Jim Fregosi
-- Art Fletcher
-- Dave Bancroft
-- Luis Aparicio
28. Joe Sewell - The only guy who I find underwhelming. He's a better hitter than Bancroft, Fletcher, or Tinker, but not so much more that it makes up for those guys all having elite gloves.

Boudreau has an argument for minor league credit for 1939.

I find it hard to get around the fact that 19.8 of Boudreau's 63.2 WAR were accumulated between 1943 and 1945. AFAIC his true peak---which was truly great--- was in 1947-48, and his 1948 was arguably one of the greatest single seasons ever if you give him at least some managerial credit and look at his performance in the Indians' win-or-go home one game pennant playoff.

On the Negro Leaguers, Eric's latest publish, taking out seasons at beginning end of career that I don't think move the needle:

Player / WAR / WAA / WAR + WAA*2
Willie Wells - 98.6 / 59.2 / 217.1
John Beckwith - 87.8 / 58.8 / 205.4
John Henry Lloyd - 87.6 / 49.1 / 185.8 - per Chris notes, this is the furthest down I've seen Pop. I've never placed him lower than 5th at SS, but maybe we should be?

I posted in the HoM discussion thread that it's pretty clear the latest publish is overrating the 1920s and underrating Lloyd's era.

was only going to post a few of these from my 2008 SS ballot, but as I look closer I think ALL of these are subject to legitimate challenge - so here we go again:

1. HONUS WAGNER - Top 10 rankings in adj OPS+ are 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-3-3-6-7-8. That's 14 consecutive such seasons from 1899-1912. And fulltime SS the last 10 of those. Nice prime! Could have spent half his time in the OF and still been considered one of the all-time greats if he hit like this.

2. POP LLOYD - I see him as 3rd-best Negro Leaguer ever behind Gibson and Charleston. I don't buy that he was as good as Wagner, and I don't offer much credit beyond age 40 (I don't see him starring in MLB after that), but still a great peak and long prime and stellar career. Lasted longer at SS than Ripken as well.

3. CAL RIPKEN - Really only an off-the-charts player three times - 1983/84/91 (his only 3 times in league's top 10 in OPS+). Next-best fulltime OPS+ is a 128. But an extremely valuable player at 114-128 in six seasons aside from the peak. And a significant plus when he's 102-107 playing every day in four other years. So peak is not unreal, but the prime is what's so tough to beat here. Hurt his team a little and even his own stats a bit late into his dopey streak, and 2nd half of his career doesn't add a ton to his cause. Trivia: Top 10 in outs made in 13 different seasons.

4. ARKY VAUGHAN - I've come a long way around on him, and nearly put him ahead of Ripken. Top 10 in NL in OPS+ from 1933-38. Slips in 1939, but bounces right back and is a big hitter in 1940-41-43-47 as well. Weird career arc; didn't play MLB in 1944-46, supposedly Durocher-related. Dead at age 40.

5. GEORGE DAVIS - Yes, 977 G at other positions than SS. But he's got that 1893-1902 decade, and the 1905-06 end-game kick nudges him over Dahlen for this spot.

6. BILL DAHLEN - This is a phenomenal player when he clears 115 OPS+, as he did 7 times. Another 5 over 100, excellent seasons. Durable. Long career. Wondrous all-around player, if lacks anything, maybe needs 2-3 more seasons like 1896.

7. ROBIN YOUNT - 1479 G at SS by age 28 - and never played another game there. Historically great in 1982-83, awakened the echoes in 1989 a bit. Mediocre at best in his last 4 seasons, a little better than that in his first 5 seasons. The 1980s are his case, and it's a good one although split between SS and CF.

8. ERNIE BANKS - Similar career to George Sisler's in some ways, in that he had a great first half and long mediocre second half. But Banks' hitting while playing SS is even more valuable.

9. JOE CRONIN - I note the similarities to Doyle's hitting career in the Cronin thread. That's OK, because there is a big gap between a terrible 2B fielder and a good SS fielder. Nine VERY solid years and several other useful ones at a difficult position. Might be a little overrated generally, but still a solid HOMer.

10. LUKE APPLING - Only five seasons over 120 OPS+ - two after age 40, one in a war year. But five others over 110, not a small thing for a good SS to offer. And top 7 in OBP eight times. Others might easily have voted this high for him without the wacky late-career turbocharge, but for me he needed a lot of it to hit the top of the ballot.

11. ALAN TRAMMELL - Six OPS+s of 130 or better, and a 7th at 120, for a SS who can field, too. What more can you want? Also a 114 and a 113, and he's a real asset in his 5 seasons of 89 to 99 OPS+ as well. Durability is a fair knock, yes, and keeps him from being mentioned with some of the higher-tier HOM SSs. But he's got enough to get here.

12. OZZIE SMITH - Defensive numbers accurately reflect the spectacular range that made him such a key player. OPS+ doesn't completely capture his running game, but he only had 111-05-05-02 as his best years. To be fair there's also 99-98-97-96, but Trammell was more impressive even after Ozzie's deserved boost for fielding even above Trammell's level as well as his superior durability. Longevity a plus.

13. GEORGE WRIGHT - Lack of 1867-70 raw data frustrates the most stat-minded, but do any of you really doubt that he was a stud in that period as well? A SS who was among the game's best players at his non-miniscule peak - not many here can say that.

14. LOU BOUDREAU - Sixth-best career OPS+ on this board among MLBers, but shorter career than most. Had his best year outside WW II, which is key. One more good year, and I'd be more comfortable with him here.

15. PEE WEE REESE - His OPS+s as a regular: 122 20 16 13 10* 05 04 04 04* 03 01 (98) (98*) (96) (74) (68) (* figures are war credits). Long career of "average to above average hitting" is unusual for a SS. Rivals came and went; it's only he who lasted. Would be higher with even a single outstanding offensive season.

16. HUGHIE JENNINGS - Would have been' greatest four-year peak career not to be HOMer-worthy' by a lot. Enough peak for me to ask for not so much more, yet he supplies almost nothing else - and even plays so many games at 1B rather than SS. Very tough to slot.

17. GRANT JOHNSON - We have more sense of his career than Frank Grant's, but still a lot in the shadows. What I can see, I like more than a lot of others here, obviously.

18. WILLIE WELLS - Not sold on the Appling comparisons. MLEs and other comps put me in the 'better than Sewell' camp. Gets here on his longevity, which is quite impressive.

19. DICKEY PEARCE - Best player in baseball at a time when admittedly not too many played it. Late-career looks like a possible tail of a mighty comet, a sense confirmed by anecdotal evidence. Minor catching bonus.

20. JACK GLASSCOCK - Four 'top 8s' in adj OPS+, sweet for a SS. A bit odd how he kept bouncing around and how forgotten he became so quickly (of course, Arky has that situation on a much higher level).

21. JOHN MONTGOMERY WARD - Not as good a pitcher as I had previously thought; slightly above average, really. Also a 92 career OPS+. But a fascinating and valuable combo of skills at the time. Even played some 2B and OF.

22. BOBBY WALLACE - He did play for a long time and has a 105 OPS+. Only 74 pct of games at SS.

23. DOBIE MOORE - Really seems to be palatable only for a pure-peak guy. I sympathize with the wartime play idea, but the games seem so unorganized for the most part that major credit here opens Pandora's Box. So, great player for a short time, just didn't play a ton of measurable ball.

24. JOE SEWELL - Slugged exactly the league average in his career, split between SS and 3B. That's good, but not real exciting. I prefer great-hitting SSs, or long-career ones, or great fielding ones at least. Sewell is a HOVG SS-3B, and Pie Traynor was a better INF who gets little love.

25. DICK LUNDY - I've reread his thread, and I still don't really see it. A comparison to Dave Concepcion seemed about apt. Better than I imagined, but lots of HOVG white guys didn't get in.

Howie, on #18 for Wells, Seamheads has him with the 4th most WAR with strong rates...Appling looks more like his floor.

It's a deep position group, but Lundy also looks impressive with the latest Seamheads updates.

Perspective from one who has not voted in the HoM for a while:

- I believe there is a general consensus that the best three NgL players ever were S Paige, J Gibson, and O Charleston, in some order. And Pop Lloyd would be consensus #4.

- There is not as strong a consensus about the best MLB players pre-1947, but many might claim Ruth, Cobb, W Johnson, and Wagner would be the top 4. Tris Speaker would not be top 4 for most people.

- The CF rankings have Charleston below Speaker. I am not going to argue with that, just pointing it out.

- And yet, Lloyd appears here really high on some ballots; next to or above A-Rod in some cases.

- There are many similarities of amazing accomplishments between Wagner and A-Rod; numbers of times they were the best position player in the league by WAR (Wagner 11, Rodriguez 7), and career WAR (both top 12). To put Lloyd even close to that level, it would seem necessary to call him the best or 2nd best Negro Leaguer ever. If that is your position, then fine, but it seems incongruous with the consensus that Charleston >> Lloyd to have Lloyd higher in SS rankings than Charleston in CF.

Tom, CF group is deeper at the top end.

Speaker probably > A Rod.

Toughest position yet, for me at least. A whole clump of guys in the middle with vastly different resumes that somehow come out to very similar value stats.

My list is highly preliminary and is guaranteed to change as I weigh input from others, but can I start a little conversation about Derek Jeter?

I could be off on this, but sometimes it feels like there's an instinct in serious baseball circles to overcorrect for how vastly overrated Jeter is in more mainstream baseball circles (ESPN last year ranked him the 28th best player ever, which... come on). So far in this thread he has fallen between 12th and 20th, with a median of 18th. Yet he's 10th among shortstops in Baseball-Reference WAR, 13th in JAWS, 6th in FanGraphs WAR and seems to be in a comparable range by WARP, though I'm having a hard time navigating BP's all-time leaderboards.

None of those metrics include postseason performance, when he replicated his career rate stats over more than a season's worth of additional plate appearances (albeit with almost no WPA).

I could make an additional case that Jeter's brutal defensive numbers should be regressed a little because in a sane world the Yankees would have moved him off shortstop the way the Cubs did Banks or the Brewers did Yount, but even without that (admittedly thorny) argument I think he belongs in the top 15 at least. Having him many spots below Trammell and Larkin, among others, feels difficult to justify, even in such a bunched field. That said, I'm more than open to having my mind changed and would love to hear from the folks who feel differently.

One final note: We've had conversations in a few other threads about knocking guys down a few spots who put up big numbers in a weakened WW2-era league, and I'd note Boudreau is a prime example of that. To me, that's enough to bump him comfortably below the Jeter/Larkin/Trammell/Smith tier.

Here is my preliminary list:

1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Cal Ripken Jr.
4. John Henry Lloyd
5. Arky Vaughan
6. Willie Wells
7. Luke Appling
8. Robin Yount
9. Pee Wee Reese
10. Ernie Banks
11. George Davis
12. Derek Jeter
13. Ozzie Smith
14. Alan Trammell
15. Barry Larkin
16. Bill Dahlen
17. Dick Lundy
18. Joe Cronin
19. Home Run Johnson
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Lou Boudreau
22. Jack Glasscock
23. Dobie Moore
24. John Ward
25. Joe Sewell
26. George Wright
27. Hughie Jennings
28. Dickey Pearce

My prelim ballot has Ernie Banks at 19. I utilize a system that attempts to estimate a player's total contribution to winning pennants over his career based upon his seasonal WAA and WAR figures. With the caveat that I use a sliding replacement level for WAR. Year one of a player's career the replacement level is the standard replacement level and it ramps up linearly one year at a time until in year 20 (and beyond) the replacement level becomes the league average. A sliding replacement level reflects the "opportunity cost" of having/keeping the player on the roster (e.g., foregone development time for younger players).

- I believe there is a general consensus that the best three NgL players ever were S Paige, J Gibson, and O Charleston, in some order. And Pop Lloyd would be consensus #4.

I'm rejecting the hypothesis here.

1) Josh Gibson
2) Joe Williams
3) Pop Lloyd
4) Satchel Paige
5) Bullet Rogan
6) Willie Wells
7) Oscar Charleston

put up big numbers in a weakened WW2-era league, and I'd note Boudreau is a prime example of that

He also put up huge numbers in 1948. You could regress Boudreau's 1944-45 performance to his surrounding seasons but it isn't going to change them that much.

John Beckwith - 87.8 / 58.8 / 205.4
John Henry Lloyd - 87.6 / 49.1 / 185.8 - per Chris notes, this is the furthest down I've seen Pop. I've never placed him lower than 5th at SS, but maybe we should be?

Here's direct evidence of the latest MLEs inflating the 20's and deflating the 10's. Pop Lloyd is the top black position player for about a decade. Beckwith is somewhere in the 5-10 range for his era. I'm not buying that the 6th best black player of the 20s is better than the best player of the 10s.

Here's direct evidence of the latest MLEs inflating the 20's and deflating the 10's. Pop Lloyd is the top black position player for about a decade. Beckwith is somewhere in the 5-10 range for his era. I'm not buying that the 6th best black player of the 20s is better than the best player of the 10s.

Beckwith's numbers do seem quite a bit high, and are evidence that something may be off in the 1920s MLEs. (If so, those might have more impact on Lundy and Moore than on Lloyd and Wells.)

However, there may be a couple of factors that should be checked before drawing too large of a conclusion on the basis of Beckwith's MLE. One is playing time. When I went through Beckwith's career recently, I found that he appears to have typically missed MUCH more playing time than other top NeL position players. I haven't gone through and looked at the details of Dr. Chaleeko's MLEs for Beckwith. It's possible that the MLEs wash out a good deal of that missed time. If so, that would cause Beckwith to do better by the MLEs than he typically does by other measures.

The other factor, which Dr. Chaleeko would need to weigh in on himself, is the way that batting translations work. It is certainly my impression that power translates much better from the Negro-League context to the NL/AL context than contact skills and speed. If this is something that Dr. Chaleeko's system picks up on and implements, then a power hitter like Beckwith may see less of reduction from NeL to NL/AL contexts than players whose offensive value comes from batting average and speed. Artie Wilson is, of course, the poster child for this problem.

All that said, I am similarly skeptical, overall, about a projection that puts Lloyd and Beckwith on equal footing. Seamheads has Lloyd at 52.5 WAR for his career, with a lot of very short seasons from 1907-20 in need of expansion. Seamheads has Beckwith at 28.3 WAR for his career, much of which was in the longer-season 1920s. It's hard for me to see a circumstance that would bring Beckwith from 28.3 to 87.8 WAR, while bringing Lloyd only from 52.5 to 87.6.

@31 - For me, Jeter's biggest issue is his pretty unimpressive peak. With the type of peaks that are at this position, having only one 7 WAR season is a big drag.

I'm also going to fall on the side that the standard WAR models are probably generous to his defense. DRA rates him out as like a -300 defender. Even if you do give him the benefit of the doubt and say that a smart team would have moved him elsewhere, his later career bat isn't really impressive for a non premium position.

John Henry Lloyd and Willie Wells: A Deeper Dive

This is a bit lengthy, but it might be of some interest.

The direction of discussion and particularly Howie’s repost of his ballot from the previous shortstop ranking has focused attention on the relative ranking of John Henry Lloyd and Willie Wells, so I thought it might be useful to take a deeper dive into this comparison. I don’t think my study has produced definitive results, which are hard to come by in this business, but I found that it clarified the issues for me, at least.

I started just by looking at Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs. His findings appear to reverse what has been the standard view of Lloyd as the #1 Negro-League shortstop, Wells as the #2. This is clear enough from the career MLE WAR for each player in his system:

Wells: 98.6
Lloyd: 87.6

In terms of career WAR, without consideration of peak or quality-of-play adjustments by era, that puts Wells in the company of Cal Ripken and Lloyd in the company of George Davis. Several preliminary rankings have Lloyd up around Ripken or even ARod and above Wells in those cases, while others have him Davis-adjacent. Early assessments of Wells seem divided between having him Ripken-adjacent and having him Davis-adjacent. He’s generally above Lloyd in the Ripken-adjacent cases and below Lloyd in the others, but that’s not always the case.

Overall, the electorate appears to be divided on how far to accept the MLEs’ revision of the historical assessment of Lloyd v. Wells, although it does largely accept that both Lloyd and Wells are top 1/3 or top ¼ HoM shortstops. That may be as much consensus as we can hope to achieve. I think, however, that identifying some of the key choice points in the evaluations might still be useful in arriving at greater clarity.

In the Seamheads data, Lloyd and Wells appear similar at the career level, but with Wells clearly ahead:

Lloyd: 1333 games, 141 OPS+, 52.5 WAR (44.3 offense, 1.8 fielding, 6.4 pos adj.), 6.4 WAR/162
Wells: 1466 gams, 139 OPS+, 61.6 WAR (47.9 offense, 5.7 fielding, 8.3 pos adj.), 6.8 WAR/162

Indeed, Wells’ 9.1 WAR advantage at Seamheads is quite similar to his 11 WAR advantage in the MLEs. Case closed?

It's never that simple, of course. Because of the history of the Negro Leagues, Lloyd’s peak in the teens is underrepresented in his career numbers, while his long decline phase in the later 1920s is overrepresented, while Wells’ peak occurred in the best-documented era of the Negro Leagues, those same 1920s, and his documented career gains additional bulk from his seasons in the Mexican League in the early 1940s. So we have to adjust for season lengths to get a more accurate view of the two players. How to do this is our first challenge, and will involve us in more difficulties as we proceed.

Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs provide one option for how to adjust for season length variations--our most sophisticated and well-developed option, in fact-- but we have to be aware of what goes into those adjustments. Three components need to be highlighted:

(1) To deal with differing season lengths and the distorting effect of expanding short seasons into long ones, season-adjusting involves regression. In the absence of regression, we should expect short-season players to have an advantage over long-season players when short seasons are expanded.
(2) In the final results, Dr. Chaleeko's season adjustments include competition adjustments between NeL and NL/AL play and within non NL/AL baseball.
(3) In the final results, his adjustments also shape careers to a probable NL/AL length: they does not simply translate a player’s NeL seasons into NL/AL seasons.

Each of these factors contributes significantly to Dr. C’s MLEs relative evaluation of Lloyd and Wells. To get a sense of the contribution of each of the three factors, I carried out as a completely unadjusted season-expansion as I could, and then made the kind of adjustments to it that Dr. Chaleeko's system uses. For my simple season adjustment, I projected each of Lloyd’s and Wells’ seasons as documented in Seamheads out to 154 games. Whenever possible, I did this using basic multiplication:

Season-adj. WAR = actual WAR * (154 g / team’s season games)

In defining Lloyd’s and Wells’ seasons, I made the following choices:

(1) All games against NL/AL and white MiL competition were dropped, as were NeL championship series and all-star games. (All of these are included in the Seamheads’ career numbers.)
(2) CWL seasons and NeL vs. Cuba series were included and were treated as part of the preceding NeL season.
(3) MxL seasons were included.

For seasons in which a player played on two or more NeL teams, I generally proceeded by figuring out the percentage of each team’s games the player had appeared in, adding up the percentages, and multiplying by 154 to get adjusted games for that year, with 154 being the maximum number allowed. It was not possible in every case to handle seasons of this kind by a formula, but there are only a few of them.

No competition adjustments were applied to any of the included seasons.

This simple method of expansion catapults Lloyd far ahead of Wells:

Lloyd: 3750 games, 167.0 WAR
Wells: 3493 games, 139.1 WAR

When I apply my simple NeL to NL/AL conversion factor derived from the performance of NeL position players who went on to play in the NL/AL--.678—to these career totals, I get the following career MLE WAR totals:

Lloyd, 113.2 WAR
Wells, 94.3 WAR

This route of analysis is one approach that gets us to view of Lloyd as ARod-adjacent, while this route of analysis puts Wells out at a similar point to Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs, which is Ripken-adjacent.

If Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs and this simple projection arrive at similar results for Wells, why are the results for Lloyd so different? This question takes us back to the factors in Dr. C’s system I mentioned at the outset: regression, competition adjustments with NeL play, and career-shaping. These factors have little impact on Wells but significant impacts on Lloyd. Let’s look at each one , starting from the raw season-adjusted numbers I produced.

Regression. Lloyd’s peak is in the teens. Here’s how his career through 1921 looks in terms of actual games played, Seamheads’ seasonal WAR, and season-adjusted WAR.

1906: 11 g, -0.2 WAR – -0.96 (seas-adj. WAR)
1907: 38 g, 1.2 WAR – 4.86
1908: 53 g, 2.8 WAR – 6.25
1909: 18 g, 1.9 WAR – 16.26
1910: 31 g, 1.6 WAR – 7.04
1911: 43 g, 1.6 WAR – 5.36
1912: 66 g, 3.4 WAR – 7.93
1913: 16 g, 0.5 WAR – 4.53
1914: 48 g, 2.0 WAR – 6.42
1915: 66 g, 4.6 WAR – 9.27
1916: 77 g, 6.1 WAR – 12.20
1917: 57 g, 4.4 WAR – 11.69
1918: 21 g, 1.2 WAR – 7.70
1919: 24 g, 2.2 WAR – 14.11
1920: 22 g, 2.8 WAR – 19.60
1921: 90 g, 3.9 WAR – 6.67

These numbers strongly suggest a peak for Lloyd 1915-20, but the numbers also show the need for some kind of regression to address short seasons. While Lloyd’s 1916-17 performances are in two of the best-attested seasons in this period of his career, his three top seasons—1909, 1919, and 1920--all have fewer than 25 games. There’s definitely a need for regression here, and while regression would boost the surrounding seasons a bit, regression should shave off quite a few season-adjusted wins during this part of Lloyd’s career. In lieu of doing a complex regression, I replaced the one-year projections rates with three-year projection rates for Lloyd's 1909, 1919, and 1920. That small adjustment shaves 16.2 season-adjusted wins off of these years, dropping Lloyd’s career total in this simple estimate to 150.8 WAR, 102.4 WAR using the .678 MLE conversion factor. This would put Lloyd’s career between ARod and Ripken.

Career Shape. Lloyd had a famously long career of 27 years, playing in his last Negro-League season in 1932 at the age of 48. Dr. Chaleeko, quite reasonably, does not project a Lloyd career in the NL/AL as continuing all the way to 1932. His MLEs wrap up Lloyd’s career in 1925, after his age-41 season, shaving seven years off of the end of Lloyd’s career. If one makes the same cut in the straight-line season-adusted MLEs, that reduces Lloyd’s career WAR total again, this time by 14.1 WAR to 136.7 WAR (92.7 WAR using the .678 MLE conversion factor). This puts Lloyd just below Wells by career WAR, 136.7 to 139.1. This is a Ripken-adjacent, Wells-adjacent version of Lloyd.

Competition adjustment. This is a factor that I can’t directly model using simple methods: it is too complex a process. I can, however, describe the general competition levels that Dr. Chaleeko’s research has found, which is that quality of play in organized Black baseball rose fairly steadily from the first efforts at organized play in the period 1905-10 through to a peak in the NNL in the second half of the 1930s. Across the 1940s, QoP gradually declined again due to competition with the Mexican League, WW2, and competition with integrating White baseball, back to the level of the late teens and early 1920s. By this analysis, the competition Lloyd faced during his career was generally weaker than the competition Wells faced during most of his career: the competition levels Lloyd faced 1906-1920 were fairly similar, actually, to the competition Wells faced during his MxL seasons. Wells’ prime years—1924-1939—took place during the most competitive period of Black Baseball, and it is adjustments for competition that move Lloyd down to his Davis-adjacent total in Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs while bumping Wells up a notch above what my straight-line season adjustments and flat competition adjustment based on 1940s NeL quality propose as a rough model.

DL has presented evidence that suggests that Dr. Chaleeko’s league-strength findings are somewhat overrating the late 1920s—the period of Wells’ peak—and somewhat underrating the period of Lloyd’s peak—the 1910s. Given the evidence he has shown, I think that is probable, though I don’t have a handy estimate as to the degree of adjustment that would be appropriate. It looks to me, then, like the difference between Lloyd and Wells is probably less than Dr. Chaleeko’s MLEs suggest. My own assessment is that his finding that Wells>Lloyd is still probably accurate, but it’s probably a difference of 3-5 WAR rather than 11 WAR.

The degree to which Lloyd’s prime should be discounted due to competition factors and how one assesses the degree to which his decline phase should be truncated when comparing him to NL/AL players are points on which a range of conclusions are quite possible.

I would say that I think this study of the results of a simple season adjustment of the Seamheads data, by highlighting the clear need to apply regression to Lloyd’s peak, makes an assessment of Lloyd as ranking above ARod appear quite unlikely. But conclusions ranging from “around George Davis” to “above Cal Ripken” all seem potentially consistent with the basic evidence, depending on how one models Lloyd’s career and addresses the competition quality question. Wells’ range is narrower: he seems to me to be “around Cal Ripken” in pretty much any version I can derive from the Seamheads data. Whether a bit above or a bit below, that’s the harder call. An integration adjustment to Wells’ numbers would settle that question, but whether and how to apply that adjustment is still an active question in the electorate, I think.

I could make an additional case that Jeter's brutal defensive numbers should be regressed a little because in a sane world the Yankees would have moved him off shortstop the way the Cubs did Banks or the Brewers did Yount, but even without that (admittedly thorny) argument I think he belongs in the top 15 at least.

I vote for Posada as top 15 - in part because if Jeter AND Posada were as poor as defenders as we mostly think they were, how did the Yankees keep winning so many games?

Seems like either defense is overrated in general, these two players' deficiencies are overrated, or the Yankees pitchers were so awesome that they lifted the team toward 100 wins each year with both hands practically tied behind their back.

if there is a fourth reason, it hasn't occurred to me yet.
:)

Re Jeter's fielding:

Kiko's fielding assessment for Jeter, which is included in Bleed's post of fielding data in 22 above, supports the view that the magnitude of Jeter's fielding deficiencies is overrated by Total Zone and DRA.

On the other hand, Tango's WOWY analysis and stringer bias investigations suggest that Jeter's fielding deficiencies are underrated by TZ and DRA. And thus the general reticence to trust any fielding metrics in a nutshell...

if Jeter AND Posada were as poor as defenders as we mostly think they were, how did the Yankees keep winning so many games?

Seems like either defense is overrated in general, these two players' deficiencies are overrated, or the Yankees pitchers were so awesome that they lifted the team toward 100 wins each year with both hands practically tied behind their back.

The same run calculators that spit out the poor defense also show the Yankees at the league leader in WAR.

Yet he's [Jeter] 10th among shortstops in Baseball-Reference WAR, 13th in JAWS, 6th in FanGraphs WAR and seems to be in a comparable range by WARP, though I'm having a hard time navigating BP's all-time leaderboards.

Yeah, second most hits by a right-handed batter in MLB history (and most in the AL), is easy to overlook, apparently.

@31 - For me, Jeter's biggest issue is his pretty unimpressive peak. With the type of peaks that are at this position, having only one 7 WAR season is a big drag.

Jeter had 7.5 & 8.0 WAR seasons in 1998 & 99.

Jeter had 7.5 & 8.0 WAR seasons in 1998 & 99.

This may be a "which WAR are you using" question. fWAR puts these two years at 6.2 and 7.4 (and has nothing else over 7).

Seems like either defense is overrated in general, these two players' deficiencies are overrated, or the Yankees pitchers were so awesome that they lifted the team toward 100 wins each year with both hands practically tied behind their back.

I mean, the hitters had something to do with those 100 wins as well.

Also, the Yankees' pitchers during Jeter's career included: Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, David Cone, Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera. And that's just the HoMers; one might also throw in CC Sabathia or David Wells or Orlando Hernandez or Jimmy Key or Dwight Gooden or AJ Burnett or Javier Vazquez or Kenny Rogers. Obviously not all of these guys were at their best with the Yankees, but several of them were, and many of the others were good enough that "not at their best" still left a pretty good pitcher. (And the fact that several of these guys pitched worse once they got to New York and better once they left would seem to additionally argue in favor of the "bad defense" position.)

So no, I don't find it particularly unbelievable that the Yankees' pitching staffs were carrying their fielders.

So no, I don't find it particularly unbelievable that the Yankees' pitching staffs were carrying their fielders.

oh, I don't, either - all I ask is that someone pick a lane, so to speak.
you made that lane's case quite well.

maybe they would have won 100 every year with better D at SS and C. it's an interesting angle to explore.

as for Jeter's offense, his best OPS+s were:
153 132 128 127 125 125 125 124 121, plus a pair of 114s in 720+ PA in both seasons

that's just over a decade of "my SS is a better hitter than most of the other SSs" - granting that there often was a better one or two. the durability also seems a little underrated.

maybe they would have won 100 every year with better D at SS and C. it's an interesting angle to explore.

I'm not necessarily even trying to single out SS and C specifically. The '02-'03 Yankees also started Soriano at second, Bernie Williams in center, and Giambi at first. It's a remarkably bad defensive lineup for a team that won 100 games both years.

Re Chris Cobb on John Henry Lloyd and Willie Wells:

Thank you, Chris, for again providing the kind of thoughtful, deep analysis that has made this project so interesting. I find all your points regarding these two great shortstops to be persuasive.

I do have one minor technical quibble. You refer to "using the .678 MLE conversion factor" to convert Negro League WAR for MLE WAR. However, if one uses proportional conversion factors for simple rate statistics such as slugging or on-base percentage, logically it doesn't make sense to also have a proportional conversion factor for WAR. For example, let's suppose the replacement level for a third baseman with average defense is a .290 on-base percentage and a .360 slugging percentage. Proportional adjustments to the slugging and on-base percentages for a player who is slightly above replacement level in the Negro Leagues could take him below MLE replacement level, whereas a proportional adjustment to WAR would never move a player with positive WAR to zero or negative WAR.

I'd suggest an adjustment could take the form of: MLE_WAR/season = b*(NeLg_WAR/season) - constant. The multiplicative factor b would need to be larger than the simple proportion (that is, 1 > b > .678), and I'd guess that the constant to be subtracted would probably need to be somewhere between 1 and 2 WAR per season. I would try to come up with something more precise, but unfortunately, I need to get back to figuring my taxes. My general point is that a single "WAR proportion" will overestimate the MLEs for players or seasons who are near or below average performers but will underestimate the MLEs for players/seasons that are well above average (such as the prime seasons of most HoM-quality players).

Brent, I agree with your concern, and I would note that Dr. Chaleeko's MLEs use an additive method of the kind you describe rather than the multiplicative method that I use. The formula for his additive method is presented in one of the blog entries explaining the MLEs on his website. Unfortunately, use of this formula requires what is, from my perspective, "big data," and so I was unable to establish a simpler alternative that I could apply directly in my own calculations.

I have stuck with a flawed methodology that I can apply on my own so that I have a way of unpacking the MLE process and look at its individual parts, so that I can (or others, if interested) can make decisions about how to work with the complete MLE package that Dr. Chaleeko's work provides.

If you are able at some point to develop a simple but more accurate version of the multiplicative adjustment that could be used as part of the basic modeling that I am doing, that would certainly improve the model. For the HoM, the large majority of the seasons we are considering are well above average, so the inaccuracy of the method at the lower margins has little effect on the players' records, but a method that doesn't flatten peak seasons excessively would be a significant improvement.

Bleed, #30, "Speaker probably > A Rod." If that is true, then at least two of the following must NOT be true, and probably all 3.

- A-Rod was the best player on the planet as measured by the full time of his career, mid 90s - mid 10s.
- Tris Speaker was no better than the 3rd best player in MLB (Cobb, W Johnson) as measured by the full time of his career, late 00s - late 20s
- The quality of play, and thus the challenge to be the best, for A-Rod's time was much better; bigger population, Latin America, dark-skinned players allowed to play, twice as many teams, etc.

I believe all 3 of the above are essentially true.

I agree Tris Speaker is vastly underrated by history. But if history 50 years from now doesn't put A-Rod in the top 15-20 players all time from 1880 to 2020, *HE* will be more vastly underrated.

TomH #49...I don't agree with part #1.

Taking a swing at a top 30 type list for era fairness.

For his peak years, A Rod was behind Bonds and Pujols was comparable to him or close.

It's possible A Rod will fall out of a top 20 ranking by 2073, but I do have him ~14th all-time for position players...I don't see a large gap from Mantle to Pujols (9-17), just trying not to over credit LQ I suppose.

Trout is the only player with a clear path to pass him in the near-term.
01 Barry Bonds
02 Babe Ruth
03 Willie Mays
04 Ted Williams
05 Ty Cobb
06 Hank Aaron
07 Honus Wagner
08 Stan Musial
09 Mickey Mantle
10 Lou Gehrig
11 Tris Speaker
12 Rickey Henderson
13 Rogers Hornsby
14 Alex Rodriguez
15 Mike Schmidt
16 Mel Ott
17 Albert Pujols
18 Oscar Charleston
19 Gary Carter
20 Joe Morgan
21 Joe DiMaggio
22 Nap Lajoie
23 Mike Piazza
24 Eddie Mathews
25 Cal Ripken
26 Eddie Collins
27 Mike Trout
28 Frank Robinson
29 Al Kaline
30 Johnny Bench

- The quality of play, and thus the challenge to be the best, for A-Rod's time was much better; bigger population, Latin America, dark-skinned players allowed to play, twice as many teams, etc.

I don't timeline when ranking players. It's an interesting thought experiment but I don't find it relevant for Hall of Merit discussions.

I'm sure people here have had a version of the following conversation a trillion times, but I always find it interesting to look at a list of the best baseball players ever (and Bleed the Freak's feels as good as any) and look at the era slant.

Here are each of the players listed above, along with two others who I think most would say belongs on the list, with the decade in which they might be said to have peaked.

01 Barry Bonds - 1990s
02 Babe Ruth - 1920s
03 Willie Mays - 1960s
04 Ted Williams - 1940s
05 Ty Cobb - 1910s
06 Hank Aaron - 1960s
07 Honus Wagner - 1900s
08 Stan Musial - 1940s
09 Mickey Mantle - 1950s
10 Lou Gehrig - 1930s
11 Tris Speaker - 1910s
12 Rickey Henderson - 1980s
13 Rogers Hornsby - 1920s
14 Alex Rodriguez - 2000s
15 Mike Schmidt - 1980s
16 Mel Ott - 1930s
17 Albert Pujols - 2000s
18 Oscar Charleston - 1920s
19 Gary Carter - 1980s
20 Joe Morgan - 1970s
21 Joe DiMaggio - 1940s
22 Nap Lajoie - 1900s
23 Mike Piazza - 1990s
24 Eddie Mathews- - 1950s
25 Cal Ripken - 1980s
26 Eddie Collins - 1910s
27 Mike Trout - 2010s
28 Frank Robinson - 1960s
29 Al Kaline - 1960s
30 Johnny Bench - 1970s
31 Josh Gibson - 1930s
32 Roberto Clemente - 1960s

Of those 32 guys, 11 peaked during the 50-year span from 1970-2020, as compared to 16 who peaked from 1920-1970. Three peaked since the turn of the 21st century, as compared to five during the 1960s alone. Meanwhile, the more modern players are largely concentrated in the bottom half of the list. In the top 10 we have only one 1970-2020 player, as compared to seven from 1920-1970.

Additionally, the only modern-era decade not represented multiple times on the above list is the most recent one, the 2010s. On one hand this makes some sense, as players from that decade haven't had time to accrue their full career value, but on the other hand, I think Mookie Betts is a relative long-shot to crack this kind of list, and there's no other obvious candidate.

You can manipulate this a bunch of ways with almost whatever endpoints you want and the point basically stands. And that's despite this being a list designed specifically with era balance in mind, including some players (Piazza and Carter, for example) who don't always appear on this kind of list and others (Henderson) who don't always appear so high. It's easy to find similar lists with even more dramatic slants.

I think we all mostly get the reasons why this is. Over time quality of play has improved and the gap between the best MLB player and the worst has shrunk, so it's not as easy to dominate a league as it was 100 years ago. And yet these rankings take for granted that it makes sense that only one of the top 11 or so players of all-time played in the past 50 years and that only one of the top 30 has played in the past decade.

People much smarter than I am can suggest what the answer is, but my opinion is that if we write off this conversation, we wind up with the idea that nearly all the best baseball players ever played before many of us were born, which doesn't feel right at all.

these rankings take for granted that it makes sense that only one of the top 11 or so players of all-time played in the past 50 years

If talent is randomly distributed over time that isn't implausible. Rickey is at #12 so that's 2 in the top 12. Trout should get in the top 10 eventually.

If talent is randomly distributed over time that isn't implausible. Rickey is at #12 so that's 2 in the top 12. Trout should get in the top 10 eventually.

Pujols almost made it based on his age 21-30 seasons, bad feet and health I THINK keeps him out of the top 10, but maybe that's not fair.

A Rod had a year long suspension, another ~3 win season would have helped him.
Rodriguez is hurt for me by having ~11 negative clutch wins as well.

I would say that I think this study of the results of a simple season adjustment of the Seamheads data, by highlighting the clear need to apply regression to Lloyd’s peak, makes an assessment of Lloyd as ranking above ARod appear quite unlikely. But conclusions ranging from “around George Davis” to “above Cal Ripken” all seem potentially consistent with the basic evidence, depending on how one models Lloyd’s career and addresses the competition quality question. Wells’ range is narrower: he seems to me to be “around Cal Ripken” in pretty much any version I can derive from the Seamheads data. Whether a bit above or a bit below, that’s the harder call. An integration adjustment to Wells’ numbers would settle that question, but whether and how to apply that adjustment is still an active question in the electorate, I think.

Thanks Chris, this helps in having Wells ahead of Lloyd, and as mentioned, there aren't a lot of documented games in Lloyd's peak...having him 5th here isn't unreasonable, with a floor of around ~10.

Thanks BtF! Our lists would actually have a LOT in common.
I have Cobb/Speaker/Gehrig much lower, and Schmidt and Josh Gibson (especially) much higher, but 5 major differences in a list that big ain't bad. You have Speaker as the 5th best position player before 1940.. you just have him slotted overall higher up than I do.

56. TomH Posted: April 11, 2023 at 04:59 PM (#6123549)
Thanks BtF! Our lists would actually have a LOT in common.
I have Cobb/Speaker/Gehrig much lower, and Schmidt and Josh Gibson (especially) much higher, but 5 major differences in a list that big ain't bad. You have Speaker as the 5th best position player before 1940.. you just have him slotted overall higher up than I do.

...and this are tight enough, one tweak here or there can make a big difference.

The toughie is Josh Gibson, was he a good defensive catcher, and would he have been a catcher in the majors, or would he have been more like a Jimmie Foxx?

As no AL player stole even 25 bases for a whole decade (1934-43) when Josh was in his prime... my guess is the guy who was as good a hitter as Gehrig,, or better, woulda played catcher and have been the best MLB player in that period. Maybe by a mile.
And if I am wrong, he would've played first base and been MUCH more durable.

Best ever: I'd find a place for Jimmy Foxx. He was #2 in homers for almost 30 years and still holds MLB's 4th place for SLG, 5th for OPS.

Timelining: One factor not often noted is that prior to the 1950s (or 60s), MLB attracted the lion's share of America's best pro athletes. That share is much lower today and declining.

Revised Preliminary Shortstop Rankings

I'm continuing to work on and puzzle over these, so I thought I'd post an updated prelim.

1. Honus Wagner – No changes to the top 3.
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Cal Ripken, Jr.
4. George Wright – one of the best players of the 19th century
5. John Henry Lloyd – Another look at MLEs moves him up; I agree with DL that Dr. C’s competition levels for his pre 1920 play seem a little bit low, and a small upward adjustment puts Lloyd here.
6. George Davis
7. Robin Yount
8. Willie Wells – My prior MLEs for Wells were based on BBRef’s numbers, which aren’t park-adjusted. Re-running Wells using the Seamheads park-adjusted numbers puts him below Lloyd among NeL shortstops: St. Louis Stars’ park needs some air taken out.
9. Arky Vaughan – One of the best shortstop peaks of all time, but in a period in which it was fairly easy for top players to dominate.
10. Derek Jeter – My study of competition levels suggests that competition tightened quite a bit during the 2000s as the expansion era ended. This pushes Jeter a little bit above Larkin, Trammel, and Smith.
11. Bill Dahlen– As my system sees it, Dahlen, Glasscock, and Appling are all very similar in value, just as Yount, Jeter, Larkin, Trammell, and Smith are very similar in value. Placing these two tightly bunched but historically distinct groups in relation to each other has been the most difficult part of this process (with Vaughan, Reese, Banks, and Boudreau more or less part of the same group as well). Rank ordering will mean that the top players in this group will be overrated and the bottom players will be underrated, but unless I put together a list with a six-way tie in the middle of it, there’s no alternative. Of the two trios, the older one ranks higher because they are stronger relative to their peers.
12. Jack Glasscock
13. Luke Appling
14. Barry Larkin – Larkin, Trammell, and Smith are separated by less than half a point in my system. They go together right in the middle of the pack.
15. Alan Trammell
16. Ozzie Smith -- In this group of three, I’ve moved Smith down from the first prelim. My system uses what turn out to be the most favorable of the reputable fielding values for him (TZ), so it is likely that my system is overrating Smith just a little bit.
17. Pee Wee Reese
18. Ernie Banks – Could rank anywhere from 9-18. Ends up last in this group even though his peak is among the best because it’s not so much better as to outweigh the superior careers of others.
19. Lou Boudreau
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Grant Johnson – Might deserve to rank higher, but there’s too little data from the period in which he was probably at his peak as a player to assess it. I calculate his peak from his age 32-36 seasons: not many players peak at that age.
22. Joe Cronin – Although Cronin ranks 22nd among elected shortstops, he’s still a very solid HoMer,
23. Dickey Pearce
24. Dick Lundy
25. Hughie Jennings
26. Dobie Moore – a review of Moore’s MLEs drops him slightly. Still above the in-out line, but he and Jennings are both just above it. From a pure peak perspective, Moore would rank higher—among NeL shortstops, my system sees Moore’s and Lloyd’s peaks as being about the same.
27. Joe Sewell
28. John Ward – By bbref WAR, Ward was the 4th best pitcher in the NL each year from 1878-80 and the 10th best pitcher each year 1881-83. That doesn’t put his pitching performance on an HoM track prior to his switch to position play, and he doesn’t look close to HoM-level just as a position player. It’s still hard to know how to assess players with part of their career as pitchers and part as position players, but my sense is that the early Hall of Merit electorate overvalued such players.

Let's talk about Ward for a bit.

As I said earlier SS, he looks like Jay Bell to me. Eddie Joost is another guy in that range. This is far enough out of HoM territory for me that Ward will need some peak-ish type seasons from his pitching to get over the line.

Now I don't really trust any of the main WAR methods to evaluate 1870s/80s pitching with any degree of accuracy - they mostly seem to me to be products of IP more than anything else. Just as an example, Ward's 1879 gets rated out pretty highly, but his ERA was only slightly above league average (and basically in-line with every other primary starting pitcher). He did have a strong IP total, but not anything absurd in the vein of Old Hoss in 1884.

Really, the only two season that look to me to be notable for his peak are 1878 and 1880. In 1878 he's getting the best results of any pitcher in the game, with playing time thats inline with most of the good pitchers. He's not quite as effective on an inning by inning basis in 1880, but he does have a more impressive inning total. Neither looks like it'd translate into a Cy Young type of year, but probably a guy getting Cy votes? And then add in 1879 as a like a solid number 2 starter type of year, and 1881-83 as average seasons. It's not something shouting HoM to me, but add that on top of an Eddie Joost type career and I have to think you are getting close.

Now I don't really trust any of the main WAR methods to evaluate 1870s/80s pitching with any degree of accuracy - they mostly seem to me to be products of IP more than anything else.

Well, since early pitchers had less direct impact on a per inning basis, due to much lower walk, strike-out, and home-run rates, innings-pitched is going to be a more prominent factor in pitcher WAR in the early game. I still think bWAR is useful as a way of putting together innings pitched with effectiveness, and insofar as fielding-related pitching factors are involved, its approach can capture them. FWAR, only the other hand, can be an interesting statistic to consult in this context because it selects out the factors controlled by the pitcher from the noise of the fielding-related pieces, and it produces WAR totals that are not nearly so disproportionate to position player WAR in the period. In sum, I think it's worthwhile, if not decisive, to consult WAR stats for pre-1893 pitchers.

Having said that, here is what they show for Ward during his pitching period.

FWAR for 1878-83 Ward as the #3 pitcher over that 6-year period:

Galvin 33.3 (2627.3 IP, not including his massive 1878 season with Buffalo in the IA)
McCormick 25.0 (2784.7 IP)
Ward 24.7 (2401 IP)

With Galvin being a HoMer with 67 FWAR in about 60000 IP and McCormick not, we might consider that the "on the way to the HoM" total for a pitcher across six seasons at this point in baseball history to be somewhere between 25 and 33 WAR, with that total being about 40% of a HOm career, if we set that number at 27, which is 40% of Galvin's career FWAR. (How far one puts Galvin about the in-out line is also a factor here, of course, so we might say that the low take on Ward here would be 35% of a HoM career and the high take would be 45%.)

BWAR is not quite so favorable. If I have added things up correctly, Ward is the #6 pitcher 1878-83 by this measure:

McCormick 48.9 (2784.7 IP)
Galvin 36.7 (2627.3 IP, again not including 1878)
Keefe 32.0 (1503 IP, 19.9 of that coming in his monster 1883 season in the AA in 619 innings)
White 30.7 (2740.3 IP, in AA in 1882 and 1883)
Bond 29.2 (1618.7 IP, with almost all of the WAR earned in 1878 and 1879)
Ward 28.0 (2401 IP)

Still, if Galvin is our benchmark for Ward's performance, he is rather similarly positioned, though probably more toward the 35% than the 40% mark. Galvin has 83.3 pitching BWAR, but gives 10 wins back with his bat. Keefe also gives us a marker here, with his 32 WAR out of his career 89.1, though with Keefe we can be pretty sure that we are looking at a pitcher who was substantially above the in-out line.

From these estimates, we can then pivot back to Ward's career as a position player. I think Jaack's comparison of Ward to Jay Bell and Eddie Joost is in the ballpark for Ward's career, but I'd put both ahead of Ward, if Ward is considered only for the position player portion of his career. What fraction of an HoM SS career do they have?

When I do these fractions after I adjust both parts of Ward's career, I come up with him being at about 90-95% of an HoM career. What do others see?

Well, since early pitchers had less direct impact on a per inning basis, due to much lower walk, strike-out, and home-run rates, innings-pitched is going to be a more prominent factor in pitcher WAR in the early game. I still think bWAR is useful as a way of putting together innings pitched with effectiveness, and insofar as fielding-related pitching factors are involved, its approach can capture them. FWAR, only the other hand, can be an interesting statistic to consult in this context because it selects out the factors controlled by the pitcher from the noise of the fielding-related pieces, and it produces WAR totals that are not nearly so disproportionate to position player WAR in the period. In sum, I think it's worthwhile, if not decisive, to consult WAR stats for pre-1893 pitchers.

I guess my concern mostly comes from situations like Ward, where you are comparing a pre-1893 pitcher to a position player. bWAR produces disproportional results and fWAR seems somewhat removed from what makes pitchers effective, as the only component that really matters in this era is walks. I think you can do a fair job ranking pitchers among themselves, but using either to tell you who was more valuable between, say Tim Keefe and Buck Ewing, is a much more difficult task. I have a sort of finicky WAR estimator for pitchers in this era based on fWAR and fangraphs' RA9-WAR. RA9-WAR is even more wily than bWAR here, but fWAR+adjustments tame it enough where I'm producing numbers that kind of feel like a WAR number from a later era. It's not very good, but the results it produces track well enough that I'm comfortable using it as a starting point.

To tie this back to Ward, if I look exclusively at his pitching (not considering any hitting/OF from his seasons where he was primarily a pitcer), he comes out to ~22 WAR. Add in hitting and that's more like ~26 WAR, with 1879 actually ending up as the best season since he was a productive hitter/OF then too.

When I do these fractions after I adjust both parts of Ward's career, I come up with him being at about 90-95% of an HoM career. What do others see?

Interestingly, I've been approaching this from the opposite direction - I look at him as a shortstop first and then try to account for the pitching afterwards. Admitedly, this is because I had a template for going this direction (for Babe Ruth) and not because I think it's any better. Regardless, I have Ward the SS at about 70% of a HoM career (for comparison, I have Bell and Joost at 72% and 68% respectively). Looking only at his pitching stats, he's at about 50% of HoM level (closest comps are George Earnshaw and as-of-2022 Kevin Gausman), but with his hitting/defense included for the season where he was primarily a pitcher, that's more like 58% (Vic Raschi is the closest comp).

Now simply adding up those totals gets you to 128, which is right around the HoM midpoint for me, but my evaulation method doesn't quite scale that way - the higher you climb, the harder it is to add value in my system. I'm currently seeing Ward at 107% of HoM level, but I feel I might be high on my pitching evaluation. I also don't have a good feel for how best to account for season length adjustments for the season he pitches and played the field. I don't typically incorporate season length adjustments for pitchers the 19th century pitchers since their workloads already don't scale to 162 game seasons as is, but he wasn't exclusively pitching in some of those seasons - he played a quarter of his games at third or in the outfield. Should we account for season length for that production? I do, but I'm not sure that I should, or that I should to the same extent as I do for say, Paul Hines.

All that to say, Ward is one of the messiest players in the HoM.

Jaack, my process is fairly similar to what you are doing, I think, although I apply fWAR-derived adjustments to bWAR rather than using bWAR directly.

Once I have each pre-1893 pitcher's value calculated in the usual way--which uses bWAR only--I subtract 1/2 of the pitcher's BIP-wins and 1/4 of the pitcher's LOB-wins as calculated in fWAR from their total. The goal is to take some of the air out of BWAR while still recognizing that pitchers have considerable influence over what happens on balls in play and on how they adjust their approach once there are runners on base.

I don't season-adjust pitchers' WAR at all, but I adjust position players' seasons of less than 140 games to 140-game seasons, using a three year rolling average for the projection.

For Ward, I haven't season-adjusted his batting and fielding value in seasons when he was primarily a pitcher. In seasons where he pitched but played a majority of games in the field, I do season adjust, but since his batting and fielding WAR are 0 in 1881 and 1882, there's only an adjustment to 1.2 WAR in 1883, which doesn't make much difference to his ranking.

I think the difference between my outcomes and yours may be mainly that I rely more on bWAR, which likes Ward a bit less relative to other pitchers, though the way we work with fWAR may also be a factor.

I'll get the ballot up soon, we'll end this vote on June 7th.

Seems like either defense is overrated in general, these two players' deficiencies are overrated, or the Yankees pitchers were so awesome that they lifted the team toward 100 wins each year with both hands practically tied behind their back.

The Yankees had the lowest FIP in MLB in '02 (and '01), 2nd lowest (and lowest in the AL) in '03.

In '02, NYY FIP was .25 runs worse than their ERA; ARI (with a slightly higher ERA/FIP) was also "hurt" .25 runs by their defense and HOU was "hurt" .12 runs. No other team above league average in ERA was "hurt" more than .01 runs.
In '03, NYY FIP was .36 runs worse than their ERA; FLA (with a slightly higher ERA) was "hurt" .24 runs. No other team above league average in ERA was "hurt" more than .03 runs.

EDIT to add: .25 runs/game means the defense is costing them 40 runs for the year, .36 r/g means 58 runs. That seems bad.

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The site for whatever reason won't let me post in the ballot thread but will let me post here, so please consider this my official ballot!

1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Cal Ripken Jr.
4. John Henry Lloyd
5. Arky Vaughan
6. Willie Wells
7. Luke Appling
8. Robin Yount
9. Pee Wee Reese
10. Ernie Banks
11. George Davis
12. Derek Jeter
13. Ozzie Smith
14. Alan Trammell
15. Barry Larkin
16. Bill Dahlen
17. Dick Lundy
18. Joe Cronin
19. Home Run Johnson
20. Bobby Wallace
21. Lou Boudreau
22. Jack Glasscock
23. Dobie Moore
24. John Ward
25. Joe Sewell
26. George Wright
27. Hughie Jennings
28. Dickey Pearce

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