New Candidates

New eligibles: 2020 HoME Election

And this is 20/20. Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters couldn’t make it due to advanced cases superannuation and senescence, so instead we welcome our guest hosts are Hugh Duffy and Bucky Walters….

But in all seriousness, it’s been about a month since the Hall of Fame announced Derek Jeter and Larry Walker had won election to that club and even longer since we learned about Ted Simmons’ selection. So we have some catching up to do, to the tune of three honorees. In addition to everyone who retired prior to 2014, we have this year’s newly eligible players.

F=Hall of Fame
M= Hall of Merit
S=Hall of Stats

2020 Eligibles

Bobby Abreu
Josh Beckett
Heath Bell
Eric Chavez
Adam Dunn
Chone Figgins
Rafael Furcal
Jason Giambi
Raul Ibanez
Derek Jeter (F,M)
Paul Konerko
Cliff Lee
Carlos Pena
Brady Penny
J.J. Putz
Brian Roberts
Alfonso Soriano
Jose Valverde

There’s a lot of strange stories among these guys. Let’s see, there’s:

• Chicken-and-Beergazi
• The contract that never ended
• 400 homers that meant nothing to no one
• An almost-apology that may or may not have concerned substances possibly known to potentially improve stuff about athletes
• A guy who cost his team dozens of runs due to his refusal to switch positions
• A career about one to two seasons shy of Hall level
• The last player with consecutive fifty-double seasons and with three fifty-double seasons
• and the general strangeness of Alfonso Soriano.

Seriously, Alfonso Soriano was a really, really strange player. He evidently had some smarts and was signed out of the Dominican by an NPB team with whom he got a little playing time. I’ve heard it said he picked up some Japanese while there. But those smarts rarely translated to baseball smarts. Or even baseball intuition. My wife loved watching him because he could make even the most routine play at second look like a high drama. His reflexes seemed OK, but his movements were…unpredictable. We both recall fondly him jumping like a startled cat into the air for a liner he caught about his normal shoulder height. Soriano’s physical tools helped him find the starting lineup, but they weren’t enough to make him a great player. His baseball IQ didn’t match them. For a very fast man, he had a league-average stolen base percentage (77%). He walked about 1.3 times a week. In fact, he unintentionally walked only 16 more times than he homered. That’s…crazy. In fact, among hitters with 400+ homers only two batters “better” him. Andre Dawson had four more homers than unintentional, and Juan Gonzalez laps the field twice over with 51 more homers than unintentional walks (!!!). So take the bat of Andre Dawson, mix it with the defense of Bobby Bonilla, and put it all into the sinewy, whippet like body of Eric Davis then add a dash of Vlad Guerrero’s iffy instincts and you’ve got Soriano. Also, add in the jaws of an alligator. I mean did you ever watch him chew gum during a game? It’s something. Fun guy to watch, though.

Tune in on Thursday to see which of these lucky fellows, if any, we’ll choose or whether we will plunge deep into the backlog for tasty leftovers.

2018 New Candidates

Can we talk about Hideki Matsui? A couple voters in the BBWAA election just announced included Godzilla, citing his Japanese play. There may be something to this in the sense that Japanese players are subject to their own national draft and their player movement is highly restricted. Most Japanese don’t make it to the US until they are at or past their peak seasons. That’s not uniformly true, but it is true for the very best players, the biggest stars in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Now, we know that Ichiro has accolades along the lines of “the most professional hits ever!” or “3,000 hits plus all the ones in Japan!” There is some kind of sentiment out there to credit him for Japanese play. Whether that’s a good idea is beyond the scope of this little ditty. Instead, let’s say that Matsui were allowed credit for his play in the Nippon Pro world. Would it make him a Hall of Famer?

While there’s a lot of ways we could do this, for now, let’s keep it dead simple. Matsui arrived in New York in 2003 at age 29. He’d spent parts of 10 years  with the Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants. Let’s lop off his age-19 season (.223/.296/.451) in 57 games, and focus on ages 20 to 28. In those nine years, he essentially never missed a game, just like in his first three seasons in pinstripes, and he hit .307/.417/.588 for an eye-popping 1.005 OPS.

Without getting into all kinds of translation factors, league run contexts, home parks, and whatnot, Japanese baseball is typically seen as halfway between MLB and AAA, or about 90% of MLB. In which case, that OPS might be roughly translated as .905. That’s similar to Bernie Williams, Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds, Ryan Klesko, John Olerud, and Tony Gwynn over the same span of years (1993 to 2002). It’s also extremely close to the .912 OPS he posted at age 30 in 2004, which resulted in a 137 OPS+. From age 29 through 36, in more than 4,000 plate appearances, he OPSed .848, a combined 123 OPS+. Not bad at all for an outfielder in his thirties. His last two seasons stank, but that kind of production from 29 to 36 is pretty significant. Here’s every corner outfielder, in the expansion era with 4,000 PAs from age 29 to age 36, within five OPS+ points of Matsui:

128: Moises Alou
127: Tony Oliva
126: Brian Downing, Ben Oglivie
125: Jayson Werth, Bobby Abreu
124: George Foster
123: Hideki Matsui
122: Andre Dawson
120: Jim Rice, Dusty Baker, Rusty Staub
118: Raul Ibanez, Dale Murphy

One HoMEr (Dawson), lots of Hall of the Very Good types, and Miller’s personal favorite Brian Downing. Not exactly a hopeful sign. Matsui’s glove and legs didn’t help with -31 runs between them, though his handedness helped him avoid double plays well (+11 runs). Overall from 29 to 36, he was worth 136 batting runs and 22.1 WAR. Those 22.1 WAR are about what Jayson Werth earned over the same stretch of his career.

All of this is to level-set. Matsui would almost certainly have been a better player in his twenties than he was in his thirties. In fact, looking at his thirties as a window into his twenties, I think we probably have to give Matsui the benefit of the doubt in 2003 coming from a league with much different pitching patterns. Let’s just toss that out. He made strong adjustments and was worth 9.5 WAR the next two years. He got hurt in 2006, then came back for a 4.1 WAR season in 2007 before more injuries hit him in 2008, which led to permanent diminution of his abilities. I’d argue that the 4.5 WAR player he was in his three best seasons in MLB is the minimum we would expect from him in his twenties.

Let’s give Matsui an average of 160 games a season for his nine Japanese seasons, age 20 to 29. He demonstrated that durability on both sides of the Pacific, and we’ll give him 1,440 MLB games in his twenties. In the three seasons I mentioned above, he earned 13.6 WAR in 467 games. Extrapolate to 1,440 games, and we get 41.9 WAR. Then add back his actual 21.3 MLB WAR, and we might reasonably estimate 63.2 WAR off the cuff, in 2,676 games.

If that’s anywhere close to realistic, then Matsui’s career would fit in with those of:

Dwight Evans: 66.9 WAR in 2,606 games
Andre Dawson: 64.5 WAR in 2,627 games
Dave Winfield: 63.8 WAR in 2,973 games
Gary Sheffield: 60.3 WAR in 2,576 games

None is a top-shelf HoMEr, but all are, indeed, above the in/out line. Sometime we’ll go back and do a deeper dive, get into the run contexts and whatnot. But for now, at least we know that it’s not impossible or even outlandish that Matsui had a Hall-type career when all his professional performance is taken into account.

Doesn’t mean he’d make my ballot.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2018

Chris Carpenter
Johnny Damon
Livan Hernandez
Orlando Hudson
Aubrey Huff
Jason Isringhausen
Andruw Jones (S)
Chipper Jones (F,M,S)
Carlos Lee
Brad Lidge
Hideki Matsui
Kevin Millwood
Jamie Moyer
Scott Rolen (M,S)
Johan Santana (S)
Jim Thome (F,M,S)
Omar Vizquel
Kerry Wood
Carlos Zambrano

2017 New Candidates

Tim Wakefield might be Miller’s all-time favorite pitcher. That and $32,000 can get you a nice mid-sized sedan, but there’s sadly no price to get him a digital bronze plaque.

Casey Blake, however, is a member of a very special group. Blake’s last name is a common first name and a common last name. Casey’s baseball first name is a common first name and a common last name. Could he crack the all first-name-last-name-and-vise-versa team?

C: Carter Gary and Martin Russell
1B: Allen Dick
2B: Ellis Mark
3B: Brett George
SS: Davis George, Travis Cecil
LF: Howard Frank
CF: Thomas Roy, Blair Paul, Anderson Brady
RF: Kelly King
DH: Thomas Frank, Kelly George
P: Ryan Nolan, Lee Thornton, Alexander Doyle, Leonard Dennis

Blake Casey could make this team as a reserve, and if he could pitch, he’d surely be in its bullpen. Take it from Chalek Eric.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2017

Casey Blake
Mike Cameron
J.D. Drew
Vladimir Guerrero (S)
Magglio Ordonez
Jorge Posada
Manny Ramirez (M,S)
Edgar Renteria
Ivan Rodriguez (F,M,S)
Jason Varitek
Javier Vazquez
Tim Wakefield

2015 New Candidates

So now you know half the story. Last time out we took Jeff Kent and four others. That means we are electing the big three (Johnson, Pedro, Smoltz) in 2015 and someone else from among Carlos Delgado, Nomar, Gary Sheffield, and Brian Giles.

After all, there’s no one else still in the running. Well, there is Tom Gordon, but you guys know what our standards are like, and, uh, nah.

As we reach our final catch-up election, we hope you’ve all enjoyed the ride. We certainly have, and after we wrap up this election cycle with members 212 through 215, we will each take a look back at what we’ve learned through this process. Which in case you’ve only been along for part of the ride has been two-plus years in the making.

We’ll be scaling back a bit in our publishing schedule. After more than 24 months of reliably bringing you almost fully baked content three times a week, we’ll be taking the opportunity to get to know our wives again. But lest you think we’re disappearing altogether, we have some fun stuff in the works, and we’ll be posting at least once a week for the foreseeable future. In other words, check back weekly and watch your Twitter feeds for heads-ups about new stuff.

As you’ve come to expect, we’ll cover the VC and BBWAA ballots in November and December as well as their respective election results in December and January. You’ll see this particular post format again on the Monday following the BBWAA election and our lovable 2016 Results post two Fridays later.

Glad you’ve joined us for so much opinionating, bloviating, and overanalyzing on the small but somehow penetratingly meaningful matter of recognizing the greatest 215 players in baseball history. We’re especially grateful to regular readers and commenters like Verdun2, Geoff, Mike, Lucas, Brett, and many others who have made us a part of their regular reading rotation! And we travel a path blazed by the stalwarts at the Hall of Merit and the Hall of Stats. Thanks, gang, for giving us the can-do vision. One other website that was inspiring? Good old FireJoeMorgan. For the funnies, but also for the idea that two or three guys could just up and start a blog to take on the sports-media world in a constructive way. Agree or disagree with our selections, we do hope we’ve provided yet another demonstration that regular folks who don’t have press credentials or a BBREF page are at least as qualified as the BBWAA or former players to asses baseball greatness. And if we failed at even that? Well, we’d rather not think about what that suggests about our competence.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2015

Carlos Delgado
Nomar Garciaparra
Brian Giles
Tom Gordon
Randy Johnson (F,M,S)
Pedro Martinez (F,M,S)
Gary Sheffield (S)
John Smoltz (F,M,S)

2014 New Candidates

It’s our second-to-last election before we catch up with real time. By now, you recognize that we’ve cleared out our entire historical backlog, and we’re going to elect 9 more guys, all of whom become eligible in either this election or the next one. I’ll admit, it’s not hard to figure out who most of our remaining selections will be. Glavine, Maddux, Mussina, Thomas this time around, and Pedro, Johnson, and Smoltz next time are pretty obviously at the top of the heap. (And atop The Heep for that matter.) So it comes down to cases. There’s Kenny Rogers, Luis Gonzalez, Jeff Kent, Carlos Delgado, Nomar, Gary Sheffield, and Brian Giles left out there, all of whom have something to offer. Rogers won 219 games, Gonzalez hit 350 homers, Jeff Kent won an MVP at second base, Carlos Delgado darn near bashed 500 roundtrippers, Nomar had a majestic peak at shortstop, Sheff did make it to 500 dingers, and sneaky Brian Giles earned more than 50 WAR thanks to his under-the-radar take-and-rake thang.

Each of these guys has some warts, too. Rogers wasn’t that far above average and had some atrocious seasons. Gonzo was a late bloomer and didn’t stay on top very long. Kent wasn’t known as a top-notch defender. Delgado was worse than Kent. Nomar’s peak was all he had, and it wasn’t all that long. Sheff played defense like I play bassoon (not at all in my case, which sums up his defense too). Brian Giles got a late start and didn’t contend for any Gold Gloves himself.

But it’s our wisdom, or something like that, that two of these dudes are better than the likes of Heinie Groh, Sam Rice, and Wilbur Cooper. We’ll see if you agree.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2014

Moises Alou
Ray Durham
Keith Foulke
Tom Glavine (F,M,S)
Luis Gonzalez
Jeff Kent (S)
Jon Lieber
Greg Maddux (F,M,S)
Mike Mussina (M,S)
Kenny Rogers
Frank Thomas (F,M,S)

2013 New Candidates

It’s all in the elbow.

There is a terrible disappointment among our 2013 newbies. No, not the steroids revelations. Not that some have taken some too long to get into the Coop. Not that Julio Franco didn’t get his full chance. Not that Barry Bonds was colluded against preventing him from reaching 3000 hits. None of that.

The terrible disappointment is that Craig Biggio couldn’t find a way to lean into two more pitches. Just two lousy pitches separate him from the all-time record for plunkings:

Hit by Pitch Leaders
1. Hughie Jennings 287
2. Craig Biggio 285

Look, I’ve never been hit by a 95 MPH fastball, let alone a hanging 80 MPH slider, so I can’t say what Biggio was truly up against. But the guy wore Arthurian-era armor around his elbow and made a career-long practice of hanging that elbow into inside pitches. During his last season, that painful march to 3,000 hits in which he cost his team two wins in his personal quest, couldn’t he have stepped into two or three more pitches? Especially once he got that special hit? He finished with 3,060 hits after all!

Look, I might be a little off-the-wall when it come to oddball baseball records, but settling for the “modern” baseball record for HBP seems silly. Lots of guys have 3,000 hits (by which I mean 29 today, 27 during Biggio’s career), but only one man can have the all-time HBP record. A record that’s stood since 1903! Why wouldn’t you want that record? OK, maybe because it requires risk of injury. But that had never stopped Biggio at any other time from diving into the path of that little spinning bee bee.

All I’m saying is, he could have had both: 3,000 hits and the HBP record. He managed only 3 HBPs in his last season after years of 20 or more. I just don’t think he thought that one through. But then, it’s not my elbow.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2013

Craig Biggio (F,M,S)
Barry Bonds (M,S)
Jeff Cirillo
Roger Clemens (M,S)
Steve Finley
Julio Franco
Kenny Lofton (S)
Mike Piazza (M,S)
Reggie Sanders
Curt Schilling (M,S)
Jason Schmidt
Sammy Sosa (S)
Jose Valentin
David Wells

2012 New Candidates

The is not the Bernie Williams you are looking for….

2012 is without doubt our weakest group of newbies since 1984 (Bob Bailey, Ron Fairly, Jim Fregosi, Davy Johnson, and Wilbur Wood). Among our five newcomers, just one, Bernie Williams, has even kind of a shot at the Hall of Miller and Eric. It’s not a bad shot, either. He’s very close to or on the borderline. He’s in none of the other Halls we pay attention to (Merit, Stats, and Fame), but he’s a lot better than some of the centerfielders in some of them. (Looking at you, Roush and Averill, let alone Wilson, Combs, and Waner!) Still, he shouldn’t count his pollo before they hatch. We’ve taken a lot longer to elect lower-end HoMErs than the four elections he’ll have remaining if we don’t elect him this year or give him an obit. And the rest of these guys? Lopez might make it into the Anti-Hall of Personal Catchers based on Greg Maddux’s recommendation….

So it’s going to be a good year for the backlog. If you’ve been following closely, you’ll know that we’ve basically killed off all of our position players except for George Gore, Bernie’s most direct competitor, and we are continuing to sort through our five remaining backlog pitchers. Things are coming together, and with a number of very obviously qualified players gaining eligibility from 2012 to 2015, our retreads feel the heat. They have very, very few slots left once you look at who the future newbies will be. Two, maybe three or four at most. Perhaps we will swing and miss this year as we did in 1987? Or perhaps we will finally make a decision on some of those old codgers clogging up the backlog? Or maybe we decided that Bernie’s our man after all? Tune in next Friday to find out.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2012

Edgardo Alfonzo
Javy Lopez
Brad Radke
Tim Salmon
Bernie Williams

2011 New Candidates

They should have said nyet.

This year’s class is a graveyard of bad trades.

Of course, Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson is probably among the worst trades ever. The ultimate reliever-rental-dumpster-fire of a deal. But here’s one you might not have remembered:

1988: Cubs send Rafael Palmeiro, Jamie Moyer, and Drew Hall to Texas for Luis Benitez, Pablo Delgado, Paul Kilgus, Curtis Wilkerson, Mitch Williams, and Steve Wilson. Palmeiro (#22) and Hall (#3) were both first-rounders, and Moyer was selected in the sixth. But evidently they valued quantity… Benitez, an 18-year old infielder with a good batting eye but no other discernible skills famed out by age 20 without getting out of low-A. Delgado was an 18 year old lottery ticket who hit about .180 for two years and couldn’t get out of rookie league ball. Kilgus, a former 43rd round selection, was a 27 year-old, soft-tossing lefty with spotty command. Wilkerson, a fourth round pick, had a 68 career OPS+ in six seasons before the deal. Williams had, uh, trouble with location and was just a reliever. Wilson, the real jewel from the Cubs’ perspective, was a fourth rounder who had some promise. In other words, the Cubbies decided they’d rather deal Palmer’s 23 year-old All-Star bat (120 OPS+ through age 23 and a guy who was probably their 3rd starter of the future plus a big-league ready arm (Hall) for the contents of the Rangers’ junk drawer plus Steve Wilson. Blech.

Here’s another one that didn’t work out so well, though it’s hard to blame the Reds too much. In 1983, they dealt John Franco and minor leaguer Brett Wise to the Reds for the immortal Rafael Landestoy. Landestoy played in 117 games with the Dodgers, batted 124 times, and was worth -0.9 WAR. But Wise never made the show, and Franco had been a complete dud in the minors. In fact, it’s something short of miraculous that a guy with his epic fail numbers in the minors contributed in the big leagues let alone nabbed 424 saves.

Think the Jays might want this one back? They dealt John Olerud’s 1997 walk year for the Mets’ Robert Person. Olerud, away from Cito Gaston, rejuvenated his career in Flushing while Person went about flushing his down the toilet. The 6.18 ERA he posted in his 177 innings with Toronto “earned” him -1.8 WAR in parts of three seasons.

You can’t take ’em back.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2011

Jeff Bagwell (M,S)
Bret Boone
Kevin Brown (M,S)
John Franco
Al Leiter
John Olerud (S)
Rafael Palmeiro (M,S)
B.J. Surhoff
Larry Walker (M,S)

2010 New Candidates

Do you recognize this man? He might have been the only player in the play-by-play era who could outrun Rickey. 

In a recent post on Rickey Henderson, we noted how astounding his base running was as we compared him to other great leadoff hitters. We compared his times on base to his BBREF base running runs (rbaser) and showed what it looked like at a seasonal level (per 200 times on base). Of course, leadoff men aren’t the only great base runners, and Barry Larkin, one of this year’s newbies was outstanding on the lines. So before we let Rickey Henderson and his truly amazing and unique career go, we wanted to see if there was anyone, at all, with more than a cup of coffee in the play-by-play era who could match him as a baserunner per opportunity. Let us hasten directly to the answer.

If we use total career numbers, Rickey is at 5.8 runs per 200 TOB. He beats Larkin who was at 5.2. However, Rickey is only #19 on the list I drew up (thanks BBREF PI!). Many of the guys ahead of him have very short careers with only 200 to 700 times on base (versus Rickey’s 4,980) and, well, everyone had a shorter career than the ageless Henderson. Tim Raines (#17) was above Rickey’s career mark, but in that prior article, when we removed Rickey’s worst base running seasons until the TOB were similar, Rickey then beat the pants off Rock. In fact, doing this process for the remaining 17 guys revealed just one man who could out run The Man of Steal.

Go ahead, take a guess. I’ll put the answer in white letters that you can highlight with your mouse to reveal it: Willie Wilson. This player just nudged by Henderson by less than half a run per year, and not in a career of short length either. And in this way, the exception proves the rule of Rickey’s amazingness. OK, now we’re done with Rickey Henderson, and we’ll return to writing about the rest of baseball history.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2010

Roberto Alomar (F,M,S)
Ellis Burks
Juan Gonzalez
Ray Lankford
Barry Larkin (F,M,S)
Edgar Martinez (M,S)
Fred McGriff
Robin Ventura (S)
Fernando Vina

2009 New Candidates

How many clappers would the Bells have if the Williams beat them all the time?

There’s a pretty good surname baseball game to be played that includes two of the lesser lights among our 2009 newbies. The Bells versus the Williamses. We might be able to even give a prediction about who might win, all things being equal. Wins Above Replacement’s components give us some insight about how to do this. Just say for convenience that both teams go around the order four and half times (it’s high scoring with so many plus bats), and each team gets 41 PAs (or batters faced). And let’s figure the Surname League plays at 5.0 runs per game. Now let’s set our lineups. For each guy, we’ll show you how much his typical offensive production (including base running and DP avoidance) would be worth and how much his defense would be worth over nine innings. For the pitchers, we’ll assume the starter goes six, and the others each go one.

The Bells

CF: Cool Papa Bell, 0.12 runs offense, 0.26 defense
LF: George Bell, 0.056 runs offense, -0.12 defense
3B/MGR: Buddy Bell, 0.042 runs offense, 0.077 defense
RF: Derek Bell, .033 runs offense, -0.14 defense
SS: Jay Bell, 0.018 runs offense, -0.007 defense
DH: Gus Bell, 0.013 runs offense
1B: Beau Bell, 0.000 runs offense, -0.035 defense
2B: David Bell, -0.087 runs offense, 0.055 defense
C: Frank Bell, -0.267 runs offense, -0.456 defense

[For Cool Papa Bell, we comped him to Ichiro offensively and at half Ichiro’s fielding value, reflecting the relative difficulty of center and right fields. They were probably very similar players.]

All told, the Bells will score about -0.72 runs vs. average, or 4.93 theoretical runs. Their defenders are excellent, however, and will save 0.367 runs more than an average group .

SP: Gary Bell, -0.45 runs
RP: Jerry Bell, 0.002 runs
RP: Hi Bell, 0.004 runs
RP: Heath Bell, 0.014 runs

The Bell pitching staff will give up 0.25 runs more per game than other surnames do, so 5.25 runs for the bad guys. But rolling it up with the their nice defense, they net out at 4.88 runs allowed per game. So a team that scores 4.93 and allows 4.88 is going to be OK:  a .505 winning percentage, or an 82-win team.

The Williamses

MGR: Dick Williams
LF: Ted Williams, 0.550 runs offense, -0.16 defense
RF: Ken Williams, 0.236 runs, 0.017 defense
1B: Billy Willliams, 0.192 runs offense, -0.018 defense
DH: Bernie Williams, 0.167 runs offense
RF: Cy Williams, 0.142 runs offense, -0.020 runs defense
2B: Jimmy Williams, 0.060 runs offense, 0.004 runs defense
3B: Matt Williams, 0.056 runs offense, 0.052 runs defense
C: Earl Williams, 0.000 runs offense, -0.058 runs defense
SS: Woody Williams, -0.140runs offense, 0.081 runs defense

These guys are stacked. On offense, they should score about 1.263 runs more in this game than the average, which means 6.26 per nine. On the other glove hand, their defense gives back about 0.043 runs per game, oops….

SP: Smokey Joe Williams, 0.735 runs
RP: Lefty Williams, 0.014 runs
RP: Woody Williams, 0.034 runs
RP: Stan Williams, 0.041 runs

[Similar to Cool Papa Bell, we comped Smokey Joe Williams to Pete Alexander.]

And the pitching staff is pretty great, too. They suppress offense at a rate of 0.823 runs. Combined with the leaden gloves, we get 4.22 runs per nine. A team that scores 6.26 and gives up 4.22 will win .688 of the time, which is a 111-win clip. In other words, the 1954 Indians.

So how often will Smokey Joe ring the Bells? Bill James’ old Log 5 formula estimates this very thing and it suggests that the Williamses will pound the Bells at .684 rate (still 111 wins). Hell’s Bells, indeed.

F= Hall of Fame member
M = Hall of Merit member
S = Hall of Stats member

NEW FOR 2009

Kevin Appier (S)
Jay Bell
John Burkett
Andres Galarraga
Ron Gant
Mark Grace
Rickey Henderson (F,M,S)
Matt Williams