Wells moves up from 12th to 4th. Banks slides from 11th to 15th. George Wright drops from 9th to 19th. Sewell is still last.

Thanks as always for running these DL!

I feel a little bad for always focusing on the bottom of these groupings, but we have another group that's hard to tell exactly where the current HoM line is. The most recent inductee anywhere near the bottom of the rankings is Dick Lundy, and he was back in 2008 (and has gone through some MLE revisions in the interim to boot). Jeter probably is a good line of where someone needs to be to get safely in - he was obviously a first ballot choice, but he did face the mildest of headwinds. I'd also think that Glasscock, Boudreau, and Cronin are safe as well - I've never seen anyone feel they weren't well qualified HoMers. Wallace is probably safe too - perhaps he'd take a few ballots to get in though.

The results for Wright are fascinating - range of 4th to 26th! I know I'm more sympathetic to the higher placing here - there's a real men-among-boys look to his career - but I have no clue how he'd place on a modern HoM ballot. For me, either you think there was real baseball in the 1870s or not, and if there was he's the choice to make for that era. I will note I have similar feelings for Dickey Pearce, although I'm a lot less confident both on his evaluation and on our ability to consider the 1850s/60s quite the same as the 1870s. Although I do think it's notable that the three highest voters on Pearce (me, Chris, and Howie) were also three of the four highest voters on Wright.

The NeL trio of Johnson, Moore, and Lundy is an interesting grouping right there - not a whole lot of chatter in the discussion thread about them either. Of the three Lundy seems to be the most straightforward case - Dr. C's MLEs certainly don't point to him being a mistake, but I do think they peg him well in the range of Hurley McNair, who doesn't appear to be headed for election anytime soon. Lundy has a bit of a leg up in that he's a little more historically well regarded (Hurley McNair is pretty damn anonymous) - but I do think that's a good baseline perhaps? How do people see his election nowadays?

Ward, Jennings, and Sewell look like pretty hard rejections to me - it's pretty easy to see why collective opinion may have faded in all three cases.

The consensus look quite good/reasonable to me.

The Negro Leaguers, between Seamheads and the MLEs, paint a picture of worthy HOMers.

As Jaack mentions, the bottom four are all in question, with Ward, Jennings, Pearce, and Sewell, however, none are heinous level picks, and I think only Sewell is clearly shy for me.

Pearce we just don't know on, it's a guess.

Jennings has the great 4 year consecutive peak as an B-R MVP each year, one good additional year, and not much else. How you handle his extreme peak can place him in or out.

Ward is tough as a combo candidate in the short distance era.
Monte's 73.7 Baseball Gauge WAR would be the second highest if we wasn't elected and eligible
If eligible, the top B-G WAR candidates.
Joe Tinker - 75.0
Monte Ward - 73.7
Tommy Leach - 69.6
Tommy Bond - 68.7
Willie Davis - 68.6

Shortstop Election History

Unanimous First Ballot Electees 3 : Wagner (all #1), Rodriguez (all #1), Ripken
First-Ballot Electees 16: Ward, Davis, Dahlen, Wagner, Vaughan, Wells, Appling, Reese, Banks, Yount, Trammell, Smith, Ripken, Larkin, Rodriguez, Jeter
Initial Top 10 placement 25: All First-Ballot Electees + Wright, Glasscock, Jennings, Johnson, Wallace, Lloyd, Sewell, Cronin, Boudreau
Started Outside Top 10 : Pearce, Moore, Lundy

More than 10 years to election (5): Pearce 34 (1898-1931), Sewell 47 (1939-1985), Jennings 53 (1908-1960), Moore 60 (1932-1991), Lundy 66 (1943-2008)

Of the shortstops with long paths to election, three of them—Moore, Sewell, and Lundy—traveled more or less together. They appeared after Pearce’s 34 year path to election had just been completed, with Moore appearing on the ballot first in the year following Pearce’s election. Jennings forms the bridge, appearing on the ballot with all four of the other shortstops with long paths to election.

Chronological Overview

John Ward 1900. First-Ballot Electee. #2 on ballot behind John Clarkson. Appeared on 35 of 35 ballot and received 10 elect-me votes. (George Wright finished 4th, receiving 11 elect-me votes, but appeared on only 32.5 ballots.)
George Wright 1901. #2 on ballot behind Tim Keefe. Appeared on 32.5 of 37 ballots and received 16 elect-me votes. First eligible 1898. #6 that year.
Jack Glasscock 1904. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 43 of 43 ballots and received 24 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1901. #3 that year.
George Davis 1915. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 43 of 44 ballots and received 41 elect-me votes, including 33 first-place votes.
Bill Dahlen 1915 First-Ballot Electee. #2 on ballot. Appeared on all 44 ballots and received 32 elect-me votes.
Honus Wagner 1923 First-Ballot Electee. Unanimous #1, receiving the top vote on all 48 ballots cast.
Grant Johnson . 1925. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 44 of 48 ballots and received 16 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1921. #4 that year.
Bobby Wallace 1929. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 40 of 48 ballots and received 14 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1920. #4 that year.
Dickey Pearce 1931. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 40 of 53 ballots and received 12 elect-me votes (all #1, as this was an elect-one year). First eligible in 1898. #31 that year, receiving 1 vote for 15th place.
John Henry Lloyd 1935. #2 on ballot, behind Eddie Collins. Appeared on 52 of 52 ballots and received 40 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1934. #4 that year (behind Cobb, Speaker, and Collins, all newly eligible as well. Placed ahead of Joe Williams and Cristobal Torriente, who debuted that year at #5 and #6)
Joe Cronin . 1951. #2 on ballot, behind Jimmie Foxx. Appeared on all 49 ballots cast and received 32 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1950. #3 that year (behind Paul Waner and Martin Dihigo.)
Arky Vaughan 1954. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on all 49 ballots and received 47 elect-me votes, including 43 first-place votes.
Willie Wells. 1954. First-Ballot Electee. #2 on ballot behind Arkvy Vaughan. Appeared on 48 of 49 ballots and received 24 elect-me votes.
Luke Appling. 1956. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on all 46 ballots and received 37 elect-me votes, including 31 first-place votes.
Lou Boudreau 1958. #3 on ballot behind Billy Herman and Stan Hack. Appeared on 34 of 47 ballots and received 11 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1957. #4 that year (behind Joe Dimaggio, John Beckwith, and Billy Herman).
Hughie Jennings 1960. #2 on ballot behind Hal Newhouser. Appeared on 28 of 49 ballots and received 8 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1908. #10 that year.
Pee Wee Reese 1964. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 42 of 48 ballots and received 21 elect-me votes.
Ernie Banks 1977. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on all 51 ballots and received 45 elect-me votes, including 40 first-place votes.
Joe Sewell 1985. #3 on ballot behind José Mendez and Bill Freehand. Appeared on 30 of 55 ballots and received 9 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1939. #4 that year.
Dobie Moore 1991. #3 on ballot behind Rod Carew and Ken Boyer. Appeared on 26 of 54 ballots and received 7 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1932. #30 that year.
Robin Yount 1999. First-Ballot Electee. #2 on ballot behind George Brett. Appeared on all 48 ballots and received 40 elect-me votes.
Alan Trammell 2002. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 48 of 49 ballots and received 36 elect-me votes.
Ozzie Smith 2002. First-Ballot Electee. #2 on ballot behind Alan Trammell. Appeared on 48 of 49 ballots and received 35 elect-me votes.
Cal Ripken Jr. 2007. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot, elected unanimously. Appeared on all 48 ballots and received 48 elect-me votes, 46 of which were first-place votes. (The other two went to fellow electee Tony Gwynn.)
Dick Lundy 2008. #2 on ballot behind Tim Raines. Appeared on 25 of 50 ballots and received 7 elect-me votes. First eligible in 1943. #25 that year.
Barry Larkin 2010. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on 40 of 41 ballots cast and received 39 elect-me votes, including 26 first-place votes.
Derek Jeter 2020. First-Ballot Electee. #1 on ballot. Appeared on all 30 ballots cast and received 26 elect-me votes, including 22 first-place votes.
A. Rodriguez 2022. First-Ballot Electee. Unanimous #1, receiving the top vote on all 28 ballots cast.

Technically A-Rod was not a unanimous selection because one voter used a first-year boycott to not vote for him. If you look at the results again you'll notice that Wally Schang received a first place vote. Also, that outlier 23rd place vote for Pee Wee looks like it cost him 3 spots in the rankings. I think it is interesting that Wells and Lloyd tied.

When the all-time shortstop rankings are compared the election history for the position, they appear quite consistent with one another.

The top 3 shortstops all time are also the only three unanimous first-ballot electees.

15 of the 16 first-ballot electees appear in the top 16 in the all-time rankings. The only non-first-ballot electee in the top 16
who was not a first-ballot electee is John Henry Lloyd, who was blocked by Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker in his first ballot appearance.
The only first-ballot electee not in the top 16 is John Ward, the value of whose combined career as pitcher/shortstop has undergone
authentic re-evaluation.

The 5 shortstops who took more than 10 years to be elected are all among the bottom 6 shortstops in the rankings. The other player who lands
in this group is the aforementioned John Ward.

While I disagree significantly with the all-time rankings at a couple of points (George Wright, Jack Glasscock), I have to say that the
match between the election history and this round of shortstop rankings is almost eerily close.