the Hall of Miller and Eric
Jim McCormick
HoME 2.0 Backlog, Election of 1901
You and I want the same thing in this space – the results of our 1951 and 1956 elections. However, we need to have results from the 50s before we can share them. And until we’re satisfied with the accuracy of segregation penalty, we can’t even vote. We’re going to make sure we get it as right as we can before we proceed.
What I expected to include in this space today was something about COVID at the ballpark, awful announcing, the Cleveland team playing with a name they seem to acknowledge as racist, baseball’s culture of sexual harassment, or Rob Manfred and his merry band of billionaires whining about how they’re losing money – and fans taking their side!
Well, you’ve been saved. A loyal reader, Ryan, recommended that we look at our backlog during this election hiatus. He even recommended a schedule that will give us seven weeks to get our numbers straight. Fingers crossed that we beat that schedule. Thank you Ryan!
So let’s get started with our rather large pre-AL backlog.
HoME 1.0 Member? Yes
An offensive superstar with Black Ink all over his Baseball Reference page, Barnes won multiple runs, hits, doubles, triples, walks, batting, on base, slugging, and total base titles. You can understand his hitting greatness, perhaps, by looking at BBREF’s new Rbat+ stat. It’s a player’s batting runs from WAR indexed to league and park. Average is 100, and Barnes clocks in at 147. The slugging second sacker’s greatness can be otherwise seen by comparing him to players who played a similar defensive position. Of all players with at least 25% of their defensive games at 2B and at SS, Barnes was worth a win every 90 plate appearances. Among all players on that list, only Lonny Frey at one every 146 trips to the place produced at even half of Barnes’ rate.
Perhaps you don’t like the odd 2B/SS playing time criterion? Well, in the history of the National Association, Barnes tops everyone with 18.8 WAR. He bests HoMErs George Wright and Deacon White by 4.4 and 8.2 respectively. On top of that, Barnes’ best year was likely 1876, the National League’s first year, when he won his second triple slash triple crown.
Barnes hasn’t received a vote from either of us through ten elections. Hmm, that feels wrong. When we vote again, I think I’ll rectify that problem.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
Buffinton’s SABR Bio starts off with, perhaps, the definitive statement to describe Buffinton’s career. David Nemec says that while not a truly great pitcher, he was unquestionably a very good one. In one simple sentence, that’s why he’s never become a HoME member.
About a year ago, as acknowledgment that the game Buffinton played was so different from the one played by Dizzy Dean, Larry Jackson, and Jimmy Key, Eric and I decided to separate pre-AL pitchers from the rest of history’s hurlers. Comparing apples to apples, we see where Nemec was coming from. While Buffinton ranks fourth among 19th century pitchers by my numbers, behind only HoMErs John Clarkson, Old Hoss Radbourn, and Tim Keefe, if we dig a little deeper we see that such a ranking may mean less than it first appears. By WAR, Buffinton’s best season was 1884 when he was worth an incredible 14.9 wins on the mound, which brought with it 10.8 WAA. On the surface, that’s simply amazing. But looking more closely, we see that five of the best ten pitching WAA in history occurred in 1884, the only year the Union Association existed, and one of the ten seasons of the American Association’s tenure as a quasi-major league. The National League lost its sixth and seventh best position players from 1883, Fred Dunlap and Jack Glasscock, to the UA in 1884. It also lost Jack Rowe and Orator Shafer, two of its other top-30 players. In short, it was a weaker league – an easier one to dominate.
While I adjust his career year to just 11.3 WAR on the mound (and another 1.4 with the bat), I’m not at all sure that’s enough of an adjustment. He gets to fourth on my list based on that season, plus a pair of 8-win seasons that his main competitors cannot match. But we’re really looking at about a five-way tie for fourth place with Pud Galvin, Jim McCormick, Bob Caruthers, and Al Spalding. We already have three pitchers from this era in the HoME, and I expect our final number to be either three or four. Assuming it’s a 50-50 question of whether we take a fourth pitcher or not, Buffinton has about a 10% chance of getting into the HoME (or 12.5% since we’ve already eliminated Caruthers from consideration). And like his 1884 WAR, I think those numbers overrate him some.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
Take a guess as to when Dunlap’s best year occurred. Assuming you didn’t skip the Buffinton blurb, I suspect you may have guessed 1884, the year he won the Union Association triple slash triple crown while posting a league high for position players 7.9 WAR in his 101 games played. He was 25 that year, so it’s no shock that he put up his best year by WAR, yet a guy who never otherwise produced more than 4.5 WAR in a season was doubtlessly aided in “value” by the lesser competition.
Like Barnes and one other player on this list, Dunlap was a second baseman. Taking one of these second sackers, I might rank as “likely”. Taking two, I’d call “unlikely”. Taking all three, well, that’s not gonna happen. And since I can’t imagine a situation where we’d take Dunlap over Barnes, the eventual election of Fred Dunlap seems a bit less unlikely.
HoME 1.0 Member? Yes
As I expect you know, it’s hard to do a decent job constructing a personal Hall of Fame. I suggest that you know because either you’ve already done it or you’re at least kind of fascinated by those who are truing to do it. It’s one of those two, or you’re just a voracious reader who happened upon us in your quest to gain all of the world’s knowledge. So yeah, it’s one of the first two.
As difficult as putting together your personal Hall may be, it’s harder doing it with a partner. Sure, a partner takes on half of the work, provides a wonderful sounding board, and can point you toward the light when you’re headed in the wrong direction. Of course, a partner also has an opinion. Possibly a very strong opinion. Agreeing on Charlie Gehringer, Roberto Clemente, Bill Madlock, and Jack Morris is pretty easy if you have a decent partner. Agreeing on Galvin, Sal Bando, and Chuck Finley may be another story.
Eric and I both have strong opinions. Very strong opinions. We both also prefer to work in concert rather than in discord. Eric’s a great partner, so he had a few choices when I began voting for Galvin in our first 1926 election. He could go along with me and elect Galvin. He could argue against Galvin. Or he could let things slide for a number of elections, hoping and expecting that our thought processes would come together in the end. The third was clearly the right choice, and that’s the direction he took.
Well, I kept voting for Galvin again and again and again, each and every election through 1981. Then, trying to be a good partner and good thinker myself, I decided I was going to pull back on my votes for Galvin and Red Faber (another guy it took Eric a considerable amount of time to support) because I didn’t want to become entrenched in my position. Galvin fell off my ballot for a mere two elections, Faber for only one. Was that time sufficient to think and make sure I wasn’t entrenched? I’m not sure.
Then in 1986, a funny thing happened. I dropped Galvin from my ballot because I no longer thought he deserved election. For fourteen elections, I didn’t vote for him. However, in 2000, I reboarded the Galvin train, and in 2012, when there wasn’t another player worthy of support from either of us, Eric finally relented. And he basically admitted as much, deciding to trust me on Galvin over Wilbur Cooper and Clark Griffith, two pitchers who he saw, basically, as Galvin’s equals.
I’m guessing that the difference between Galvin and a pitcher he might otherwise support was small enough that just supporting the guy who I wanted was the right things to do. Harmony rather than discord.
Back when we did this the first time, I made two decisions I’m not close to prepared to make today. The first is that I saw enough distance between Galvin and quartet of McCormick, Buffinton, Caruthers, and Spalding. The second is that I wanted four pitchers from Galvin’s era. So here Galvin resides. This may be his home for quite a while.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
The same thing that has been said about Buffinton could also be said about Piano Legs Gore; he was a very good player but not a great one. By my conversions, he has four seasons worth at least six wins, but he doesn’t have one worth seven. There are seven center fielders I rank ahead of him who don’t sport as many 6-win seasons, so that’s a plus in his corner even though it’s a sign of very (very) goodness rather than greatness. Then there’s the fact that he’s within four percent of my average HoMEr in terms of peak, prime, consecutive, and career value. In other words, he looks like a borderliner.
But is he really? Everyone above him and the four right below him rank as more than four percent above the line by one of those measures. And there are two other reasons beyond not being elected in our first go ‘round not to like Gore’s chances. The first is that he ranks behind fellow waiting list member Paul Hines at the same position. And the second is that this time through, he’s also clearly behind HoMErs Oscar Charleston, Cristobal Torriente, Turkey Stearns, Alejandro Oms, and Pete Hill at the same position. Plus, he has to deal with Bullet Rogan, Martin Dihigo, Willard Brown, and a version of Monte Irvin that includes his entire career. Gore has a steep hill to climb. Sure, we might decide to move two or three Negro League center fielders to a corner, but I’m not sure that will be enough for Gore.
HoME 1.0 Member? Yes
And speaking of one of Gore’s problems, Paul Hines sits ten percent above my in/out line. That’s why I’ve been voting for him the last six elections. Eric isn’t in agreement on his ranking vis-à-vis a couple of Negro League greats, so it makes sense that he hasn’t yet earned induction in the HoME 2.0. There are a couple of reasons I believe Hines will earn Eric’s vote. The most obvious is that Hines sits above Eric’s in/out line right now, just not by enough to elect at this early stage in our process. Then there’s the fact that we’re either going to shift a couple of Negro League center fielders to the position we think they’d have played in an integrated MLB, or we’re going to elect a disproportionate number of center fielders.
HoME 1.0 Member? Yes
As the best right fielder before Sam Crawford, Kelly received Eric’s vote from the very first HoME election. It took me just three elections to get on board and make Kelly the tenth player we ever elected. As we fast-forward to 2021, Kelly remains on the outside looking in after ten elections. The reason, it seems to me, is the presence of five guys he didn’t really have to deal with last time. Heavy Johnson wasn’t eligible. Neither were Vladimir Guerrero and Bobby Abreu. Still “active”, Ichiro wasn’t eligible either. And in 2013, we hadn’t yet decided to credit Enos Slaughter for his time missed while serving in the American military. Though I’m not convinced that any one of those players was superior to Kelly, an argument, I think, could be made for each of them. Thus, we have to wait on Kelly.
Like a lot of guys on this list, most of Kelly’s career could be described as “very good” rather than “great”. Sure, by WAR he was the league’s second-best position player in 1886, though he was three times further away from first (0.9) than from sixth (0.3). He also had a very nice 1884 season, placing fifth in the National League in WAR among position players. Of course, we’ve already discussed 1884’s confounding factors. Beyond those two years, I convert Kelly to ten seasons between 2.9 and 5.8 WAR. In other words, we’re looking at the career of Jack Clark or Kip Selbach with an outstanding season and another very good one on top of that. That gives you some perspective both on Kelly and on how close Hall of Very Good types are to becoming HoMErs.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
In our first elections of 1931-1946, McCormick received Eric’s support all four times, as Eric basically equated him to Vic Willis, Rube Waddell, and Joe McGinnity at the time. Then, as now, he kept researching, basically determining that 19th century leagues weren’t as difficult to pitch in as his early numbers suggested. And he correctly pointed out that we had already elected the league’s best three pitchers at this time.
I mean not to criticize Eric’s though process here, nor his McCormick “mistake”. In the same 1951 post mentioned above, I touted Pud Galvin’s win total, something I did for a decent number of elections.
Then, as now, Eric and I are on the same page as to the era’s three best pitchers – John Clarkson, Old Hoss Radbourn, and Tim Keefe in some order. If we take a fourth, as we did last time, McCormick would be very much in the running.
HoME 1.0 Member? Yes
If you’ve been searching for the first long and low player in the game’s history, search no more. O’Rourke has only a couple of 5-win seasons, which is almost unheard of for a HoMEr. But beyond those two, there are five more above 4.0 and six others above 3.0. Throw in seven more as 1.8 or better, and you see what long and low means.
If you’re asking yourself how I can speak with such precision even though our segregation numbers aren’t on target yet, well, I can’t. I’m just sharing the idea, the flavor behind long and low. The first time around, it took us 36 elections to call O’Rourke’s name. I began voting for him in 1994, and Eric followed suit two years later. It was basically a, “yeah, okay, fine, he can have a vote” sort of thing. Neither one of us is in love with the guy, but he had to get in. The combination of his fight with other pre-integration players and the dearth of Negro League left fielders makes me think that in 30 elections or so, we may be calling his name again. Yes, Ralph Kiner, Willie Stargell, Albert Belle, Ducky Medwick, and Charlie Keller may be sexier. However, I’m not certain any one of them was better. It’s going to be another tough call in left field.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
Old True Blue was a terrific player on both sides of the ball, mostly in the National League, but he played in both the AA and the PL late in his career as well. Richardson’s case now is almost exactly as it was before we determined we needed to adjust value because of segregation. Let’s explore.
Richardson was a plurality second baseman. He played 43% of his games there, 28% in left field, 13% at third base, and 12% in center field. So, yeah, he’s a second baseman, but given his theoretical competition at other positions, he looks somewhat better when compared to just second basemen than he actually was. He’s a little bit like Gene Tenace in that way, I think. But even if we look at him just as a second baseman, he has some real competition in his era.
In terms of his peak, Richardson finished fifth in the NL in bWAR in his best season and ninth in two others. That’s it for top-10 finishes. And remember, such finishes were a lot easier when there were eight teams in all of baseball than such a finish would be today. Back to that competition. Other 19th century second basemen include Bid McPhee, Cupid Childs, and Fred Dunlap. Childs and Dunlap have the peak edge. For career value, it’s McPhee. Richardson doesn’t stand out anywhere, and there’s not a shot in hell we take four second sackers from the pre-AL days. Taken all together, Richardson rates as a longshot to make it, but he’s still being considered, so that’s something.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
As the last of our four olde tyme holdover pitchers comes up, this seems like a good time to share where they shake out in regard to CHEWS+ and MAPES+ (admitting that these numbers are likely off some).
CHEWS+ MAPES+ Charlie Buffinton 8th, 92.4 4th, 100.1
Bob Caruthers 7th, 91.0 6th, 95.6
Pud Galvin 4th, 100.5 7th, 95.2
Jim McCormick 6th, 98.2 5th, 99.9
Al Spalding 5th, 99.0 9th, 94.4
I’ve included a fifth player here too, Bob Caruthers. We stopped considering him fairly recently because we both ranked him behind at least two others from the era, and there’s not a shot in the world we take more than one of these guys. With that in mind, Spalding isn’t likely long for our “Still Considering” list; we both place him behind Pud Galvin, and neither one of us loves Galvin.
HoME 1.0 Member? No
Williamson has two pretty big things going against him. The first is his ranking among third basemen of his era. Deacon White was a better player. And there’s an argument to be made that either John McGraw or Ezra Sutton could be as well. We’re either going to take one or two third basemen from the 19th century, so Williamson has to do something to distinguish himself from others in the era.
His other clear negative has to be the 1884 season, safely his best by WAR. The NL lost hurlers Jim McCormick, Dupee Shaw, Hugh Daily, Charlie Sweeney, and a couple of others to the Union Association that year. And Williamson’s home of Lake Front Park was a joke in 1884. The left field foul pole was just 180 feet from home plate, and the left field power alley was only 280 feet away. Balls hit over the fence were previously categorized as ground rule doubles, and Williamson led the league with 49 doubles in 1883. The same bloops were considered homers in 1884, and Williamson led the league with 27 bombs, three times as many as he hit in any other season of his career and setting a single-season home run record that lasted for 35 years – until Babe Ruth hit 29 for the 1919 Red Sox. As you might expect, 25 of Williamson’s 1884 home runs were hit in Chicago.
I credit Williamson with 8.35 WAR for that season. I’m not confident he was nearly that good though.
Next week, assuming our new numbers aren’t completed, we’ll take a look at the holdovers from the 1906 and 1911 elections.
Miller
All-Time HoME Leaders, Pitcher – 81-100
A conversation Eric and I need to have is one about cleaning up the HoME. When the Hall elects a clunker, he’s in forever. Same at the Hall of Merit. They honor their voters in that way. Over at the Hall of Stats, Adam Darowski makes things simple. Those over the line are in, while those under it are out. Changes welcome. Right now, we operate in the same way as the Halls of Merit and Fame.
Such a system supports the idea that we’re not embarrassed by our mistakes, and it honors the decisions we’ve made. On the other hand, we’re just two people who continue to learn. It could be said that it’s a bigger crime to have the wrong players in the HoME than it is to change our minds.
I don’t know, but it’s a conversation we need to have. Today you’ll see Pud Galvin ranked #91 and #98, and Whitey Ford is ranked at #83 and #100. We both rank Dizzy Dean above this pair. Eddie Rommel and Charlie Buffinton too. At the very least, it’s worth a conversation.
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This is the penultimate post in a pretty long series. If you’ve missed any, check ‘em out below.
[MAPES+], [CHEWS+], [1B, 1-20], [1B, 21-40], [2B, 1-20], [2B, 21-40], [3B, 1-20], [3B, 21-40], [SS, 1-20], [SS, 21-40], [C, 1-20], [C, 21-40], [LF, 1-20], [LF, 21-40], [CF, 1-20], [CF, 21-40], [RF, 1-20], [RF, 21-40], [P, 1-20], [P, 21-40], [P, 41-60], [P, 61-80]
Pitcher – 81-100
Where do we project the active player(s) to finish in our rankings?
Max Scherzer
Three Cy Young Awards and two other top-five finishes across the last five seasons, and a start to this year that looks like another outstanding year. That suggests that his best six years indicate a reputation in his own time to Sandy Koufax. Koufax won three Cy Youngs and finished third one other time. He earned six straight All-Star Game berths, and Scherzer should get his sixth this year. Koufax’s actual performance is more dominant, leading to an MVP award and two second-place MVP finishes. But Scherzer balances Koufax out because he can hit a little and because his performance prior to his outstanding peak is better. Scherzer tossed 805 innings with a 110 ERA+ and 11.7 WAR. Koufax threw 692 innings with a 100 ERA+ and 6.7 WAR. What I’m saying is that right now, assuming his 2018 continues on like this, Scherzer is basically Koufax. So that puts him on the borderline. It’s all a question of how many more seasons he has and how many more are at a high level. The top forty is not out of the question.—Eric
Cole Hamels
For me, Hamels is a little like Ian Kinsler, except that it took me a lot longer to really appreciate what Hamels is doing. I mean, I’ve seen the guy’s whole career and watched him a bunch in the playoffs, yet I don’t think I really paid close attention until he was traded to the American League. He’s 34 now and bouncing back from an un-Hamels-like campaign in 2017. We’re looking at about 4 WAR this season if he keeps up his first half pace. To see what the rest might be, I looked at all pitchers within 5% of his innings and 5% of his ERA+ through age 33. Then I dumped anyone who pitched before WWII ended. Those on the list very much resemble the chart Eric showed you last week when he discussed Hamels. It’s Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina, Jim Bunning, Kevin Appier, and Bret Saberhagen. Let’s dump the two actives and consider just the other five. Below is their seasonal WAR with my adjustments for the remainder of their careers.
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Total ===================================================================== Mussina 7.2 2.9 3.5 5.2 1.1 5.1 24.99 Smoltz 1.0 3.2 1.2 3.3 5.1 5.9 4.3 0.7 -0.5 24.03 Bunning 9.0 8.0 -1.7 0.3 2.6 -2.0 16.14 Sabes 3.0 4.0 -0.1 6.94 Appier 2.2 0.3 -0.4 2.10
So we see quite a range. I think the Appier path means he won’t reach the HoME, and that’s quite possible. With the Saberhagen path, he has a shot. If his run out is like Mussina or Smoltz, he’s a no-brainer. The median guy is Bunning. If we spread out those years in a way that makes more sense, Hamels would finish right behind Saberhagen for me. And that would get him a spot in the HoME. Should be interesting.
Where do our rankings diverge the most from the conventional wisdom?
I want to talk about Mickey Welch. He pitched from 1880-1892 in the National League, won 307 games, and is in the Hall of Fame. Even though I rank him 77th all-time, he’s not close to a HoME vote for me, given that there are other pitchers of his era well ahead of him and not enshrined. Eric ranks him a laughable #156, kind of like Al Leiter. So as far away as he is for me, he’s miles away from that for Eric. Brian Kenny would be happy that we mention Welch here, as he’s a great example of our need to kill the win. Welch won 116 total games for the New York Giants from 1884-1886, a period during which he pitched about half of all innings for an okay New York team. He led the game in walks each of those years, and his 125 ERA+ is pretty tiny compared to those 116 wins. Before that run, his ERA+ was just 101. Afterwards, it was 116. So what we’re looking at is an above average pitcher whose three great years actually weren’t that great. I think Welch is a bad choice for the Hall of Fame; Eric thinks he’s a miserable one.
Oh, we both also rank Frank Tanana higher on our lists than Tommy John. And, um, Whitey Ford. Want to touch that one, Eric?—Miller
Yeah, Whitey Ford. We could look at all 20 of these moundsmen and find big differences with the CW. Mark Langston, George Uhle, Nap Rucker? Not too many advocates out there for them. Then there’s Roy Oswalt. He retired at 35 and hadn’t been good or healthy for a few years. He never won a Cy Young He was elected to only three All-Star Games. He picked up very little black ink. But he’s got a nice peak/prime-oriented case. He’s one or two seasons short of the Hall level, but I suspect we’re one or two standard deviations outside the opinion of most observers.—Eric
Where do we disagree with one another the most?
Kenny Rogers is pretty high on my list. He’s not very high on Miller’s list. There’s twenty-nine slots between us. This seems likely to be related to his seasons in relief. BBREF calculates 2.1 WAR for him in those years. I give him 4.7 after my little relief adjustments. Given how tightly packed all of these guys are, it probably makes the difference.—Eric
Have I mentioned Mickey Welch? On another note, Eric wants more of a conversation about electing Mark Buehrle. I want to talk more about kicking out Whitey Ford.—Miller
Are there any players who MAPES+/CHEWS+ might overrate or underrate?
My peak-centric system likes Wilbur Wood, though he produced more campaigns below 1 WAR than above. I don’t know how I feel about someone useless for half of his career being as close to the line as he is. Even if he were over the line, I think I’d find a way to avoid supporting him. I do wonder what might have been had Wood figured things out before he turned 30 though.—Miller
Practically every pitcher on this list is here because he wasn’t quite good enough or good for long enough. So this is a spot where any small nits in our respective systems can be picked and picked again. But there are things outside our analytical frameworks that complicate our view on a player. For example, Clark Griffith, for me, is nearly unelectable. Why? Because we’ve elected waaaayyyyy too many people from the 1890s, and Cupid Childs is on the outside looking in. So if we are serious about being fair to all eras, Griffith is out until the HoME elects another 50 or 100 people. We could also talk about Mark Langston. While both of us have preferences for peak versus career value, a pitcher like Langston pushes the outer limits of our thinking. He’s about one excellent season short of a Koufaxian profile, and a lot of his surrounding years are as spotty as Koufax’s first six years. How much value should we put on peak versus career value? The flipside, of course, is Don Sutton with 5,000 innings, 300 wins, and a mere 23.3 WAA. BBREF has him down for just three All-Star quality seasons. Personally, I have two after my series of adjustments. But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe there’s additional, undetected value to bulk innings? Studies suggest that Don Sutton’s pennant-adding value is more than I give it credit for. Finally, there’s the issue of pre-1893 pitching, you know back when dudes threw more innings in a year than most closers throw in a career. Do the methods we have now adequately capture the value of a pitcher when a whole team only employees one or two of them?—Eric
Just as a counter-point, I’m happy Griffith is in as a combination candidate, and I don’t think we’re way over in the 1890s or any era. Simply, we measure how many people should represent an era differently. And there’s more than one defensible conclusion. I’d explain here if I thought people actually cared. But I caution you, fine readers, before you ask, know that the answer might make watching paint dry seem enjoyable. You know, if you’re close enough to catch some fumes.—Miller
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We hope to see you back here next week for the final installment in this series.
Pud Galvin and the Best Pitchers of the 1880s
The 1880s were a time of tremendous rule change that would make the game on the field look quite different than the one that preceded it. Eight balls became a walk, then six, five, and by the end of the decade four. In 1883, pitchers were allowed to deliver the ball from above their waist, and four years later requests were no longer granted for high or low pitches. That same year, the hit by pitch became a rule. Sure, we were still a bit away from mitts being used by catchers or the mound being moved to 60’6”, but we’re getting there.
This was also the decade of Pud Galvin. Back in the early days of the HoME, we wrote a decent amount about Gentle Jeems, as he was sometimes called. That’s because I supported his inclusion in the HoME, while Eric wasn’t quite there yet. In fact, it wasn’t until 2012, Galvin’s 52nd time on the HoME ballot, that we saw fit to elect him. He’s a borderliner for sure, but he may not have been if we only considered his pitching and ignored his hitting. You see, Galvin was a disgustingly bad hitter. In all of the game’s history, there have been only 40 players to total -5 WAR or worse for a career. Galvin is the second worst all-time at -9.9 WAR, less awful than only Bill Bergen.
In this series, we’re looking at the best pitcher of the decade. Given that there were no real hitting outliers in the 1870s aside from the special case of Monte Ward, we didn’t really need to define our terms so much. Now we do.
For entrance into the HoME, it was clear that we needed to consider only value, in whatever form it took. For this list, however, if it’s close, we’re going to take the better pitcher. Pud Galvin’s pitching value is quite a bit greater than his overall value in the decade.
The Best Pitchers of the 1880s
#10 Jim Whitney: Man, nicknames were better 150 years ago. Grasshopper Jim is one of eight pitchers ever to win and lose 30 games in the same season. And in his rookie campaign of 1881, he became the only one of those guys to lead his league in both categories. At just 68% of our decade leader’s number, Whitney is no threat for the top spot.
#9 Bob Caruthers: Parisian Bob was from, you guessed it, Memphis. An American Association pitcher every bit as much as our next guy, Caruthers won 40 games in both his first and last year over there. He’s out of order here at 76% of the top guy’s value because a ton of his value was at the plate, 16.8 career batting WAR with two seasons of 4+. He even led the AA in OPB, OPS, and OPS+ in 1886.
#8 Tony Mullane: The Appolo of the Box was a righty pitching switch-hitter from Cork, Ireland who actually threw lefty on occasion. His BBREF page looks a little extra-impressive because of his six-year stint in the relatively weak American Association, all of which gets him to within 72% of our decade leader. Of note, perhaps, is that he holds the all-time wild pitch record at 343. In fact only Nolan Ryan (277), Mickey Welch (274), and Bobby Mathews (253) are within even 100 of the top spot.
#7 Charlie Buffinton: It’s pretty odd for a star pitcher of this era to have only one 30-win season on his ledger. Of course, the one he has is the 48-win campaign in 1884, which helps get him to 77% of the 1880s leader. Only Cy Young and Walter Johnson top his three seasons of 11.2+ pitching WAR. Buffinton is actually the highest rated pitcher on my list who isn’t in the HoME. However, I don’t think he’s so close to getting in because his era is a little clogged. Only time will tell.
#6 Jim McCormick: One of the main reasons McCormick clocks in at #6 is his excellent 1884. See, that was the only year of the Union Association, which wasn’t really a major league. More than half of its players either never or hardly ever played in another major league. And in my adjustments, I treat the UA less well than any season in any major league. McCormick, a guy at almost 78% of our decade’s leader, put up 7.8 pitching WAR in the UA and another 6.7 in the NL that year.
#5 Mickey Welch: Welch is an interesting guy in that he won 307 games and isn’t in the HoME. In fact, we never had real discussions about inducting him. Perhaps that’s because he’s only the fifth best pitcher over the exact years of his career. Four of his five Black Ink titles are in earned runs and walks, so he never really seemed like a star when he played. For his career, he’s tied for 150th all-time in WAR with Juan Marichal. The all-time placing says something about Marichal. It’s a decent ranking. About Welch, it indicates that WAR accumulation was easier when talent distribution was wider. And it explains why we don’t want to over-induct in any era. His 79% of the decade leader is a better reflection of his value than his 95% of HoME-worthiness as noted by my MAPES+ number.
#4 Pud Galvin: Galvin actually ranks #6 in the decade at 78% of our leader, but he’s brought down by his awful hitting. He was a much better pitcher than he was a player overall, buoyed by his outstanding defense and possibly best-in-the-century pickoff move. As a bit of evidence of his move’s greatness, in one inning of an 1886 game, he walked the bases loaded and then picked the guys off first, third, and then second. Back in 1875, Galvin led the NA in ERA. Then he spent three years, by choice I would imagine, in the minors or with unaffiliated teams. Give him those four seasons in the majors, and 400 wins shouldn’t have been a problem.
#3 Old Hoss Radbourn: Nicknames were such a big deal at this time that James Galvin and Charles Radbourn weren’t even known by their given names. Old Hoss used one of the best seasons in baseball history, his 1884 campaign with the Providence Grays, to help him get to within 90% of the 1880s leader. That year, he won the pitching triple crown with a record of 59-12, a 1.38 ERA, 441 strikeouts, and also a 205 ERA+. In all of history, his 19.3 WAR that year were topped only by Tim Keefe’s 20.1 the previous season.
#2 Tim Keefe: And speaking of Smiling Tim, his value for the decade is about 93.5% of the #1 guy. Like many (most?) pitchers of this time, he was a product of his era. Once the mound moved from 55’ to 60’6”, he was pretty much done. Of course, with Keefe, it would seem that his arm died. He pitched through his age-36 season, after all. Even today lots of pitchers don’t do that.
#1 John Clarkson: Is he the greatest player in history who is relatively unknown today? I don’t know. Eddie Collins, Kid Nichols, Roger Connor, and Smokey Joe Williams come quickly to mind too. In fact, Clarkson is the only player in history with three seasons of 13+ WAR. In fact, there are only 20 other such seasons ever.
Many years ago I knew a guy who was writing a book about grave stones of Hall of Famers. Hint, they have about as much to do with baseball as yours will have to do with your job. Anyway, we visited Clarkson’s grave at the Cambridge City Cemetery. And on the same trip, we saw Tim Keefe’s in the same cemetery, not too far away.
A week from now, we’ll get to the 1890s.
Miller
The Best Pitchers Ever, the 1870s
So you’ve probably heard by now that Jack Morris is a Hall of Famer. That’s right, the guy who’s 139th in career pitching WAR is among about 70 pitchers in the Hall. The reason? Aside from maybe one single game where he was simply awesome, he’s a Hall of Famer because, to many, he’s considered the pitcher of the 1980s.
For some time many of us have argued that Morris isn’t the pitcher of the 1980s, though he did win the most games in that decade. What I’d like to do in this series of posts is to try to systematically (kind of) determine who the pitcher of each decade is.
I’m trying to identify the best pitcher of a decade rather than just the best in the decade. That’s a small but significant difference. The best pitcher in a decade would only focus on those years; for Jack Morris we’re talking about 1980-1989. But when we look at something in such a manner, we’re using sort of strange start and end points. There’s just no reason 1980-1989 is any more significant a decade than 1977-1986, for example.
With that conundrum in mind, I reviewed Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein’s book, Baseball Dynasties, where they tried to determine the best team of all time. They didn’t just look at a given year. They also considered surrounding years. I realized I should do the same, though at somewhat reduced strength. That adjustment should cover for the fact that there’s nothing special about start and end points of xxx0 and xxx9.
Also, given that we’re looking at the best pitcher of a particular decade rather than just the best pitcher for those ten particular seasons, I’m including a small career measure as well. So here’s my process.
Step 1: Do a BBREF search for the most innings pitched in a given decade. Get 40-60 pitchers or so for each decade. I want to err on the side of reviewing too many guys. After all, if I look at the top-40+ in innings for a decade, I can be pretty confident I’m discovering the best five or ten.
Step 2: Since I’m a bWAR-based thinker, I use my adjusted WAR for each of the pitchers in Step 1 for each year in the decade. Then, sort of based on the theories from Neyer and Epstein, I add the year before and after the decade (say 1979 and 1991) at 90%. Then I add then next year in both directions (1978 and 1992) at 70%. And finally, I add the next year in both directions (1977 and 1993) at 50%.
Step 3: If we were looking only for the best pitcher in a particular decade, we could be done now. However, I want to determine the best pitcher of a decade. Thus, there has to be a career factor that helps to articulate “best”. The whole story isn’t told by the false-construct start and end points of a decade. So careers will be added to the calculation at 10% of value. If 10% proves to be too high, I’ll adjust.
Step 4: I will rethink things, subjectively, based on post-season performance and, perhaps, other things that seem out of place.
The Best Pitcher of the 1870s
The National Association, which many consider the first “major” league, got started in 1871. Thus, I couldn’t count 1870 or a percentage of the three years before. This decade saw a lot of uncertainty, so while I like my WAR adjustments, I admit that the error bar for the 1870s is wider than for that of any time in our game’s history. Further, though six pitchers reached 2000 innings in the decade, there were only six others who reached even 700. Perhaps for this decade the 10% career adjustment overestimates where players should rank. Without an adjustment, Pud Galvin ranked ninth on my list. He drops off since he really only played one year in the decade. And Jim McCormick finished fifth by the numbers. He’ll drop a few slots as well.
With no further ado, let’s look at the ten best pitchers of the 1870s.
#10 George Bradley: Aside from an insane 1876 season when he won 45 games while leading the NL in ERA and ERA+, Bradley was a below average pitcher in the decade. If you’re looking for a bit of trivia, on July 15, 1876, it was Bradley who threw the NL’s first ever no-hitter against the Hartford Dark Blues. Bradley isn’t even in my database. I’m just guesstimating his value, which clocks in at about 27% of our decade’s leader.
#9 George Zettlein: Charmer, as he was known, is in my database of adjusted seasonal and career WAR, as is everyone else on this list. Zettlein’s career lasted for the 1871-1875 span of the National Association and then a year in the National League. In six years, he switched teams six times, and he may have been the best pitcher in the first year of the NA, leading the circuit in ERA, ERA+, and pitching WAR. That’s a nice distinction, though his value for the decade is only about 40% of our 1870s leader.
#8 Dick McBride: McBride’s career mirrored Zettlein’s – all five seasons in the NA, the first season in the NL, and that’s it. He was a shade better though – 48% of our leader. Unlike Zettlein, his NA career was quite stable, playing for nobody other than the Philadelphia Athletics.
#7 Jim McCormick: The righty from Glasgow was truly an excellent player, twice leading his league in ERA+ and three times winning his circuit’s pitching WAR title. McCormick drops from where the formula puts him since his only work in the 1870s was a partial season in 1878 and a 40 loss campaign for the Cleveland Blues in 1879.
#6 Monte Ward: Strictly by my formula, our only HoMEr on the list finished third in the decade. However, much of the value of this “pitcher” came at the plate. In fact, pitcher was only his third most common position during his impressive career. As far as his mound work, we’re looking at just two seasons in the decade with the Providence Grays. Granted, he did win 47 games in 1879, but there were clearly more important 1870s pitchers.
#5 Candy Cummings: Did Cummings invent the curveball? I don’t know. The truth, perhaps, is lost to history. What’s not lost is that Cummings is almost certainly in the Hall because it is believed he invented the pitch. His Hall plaque says as much. He was the most prolific hurler in the 1872 NA, though not really the most effective, and he clocks in at 55% of our winner’s total “value”. One thing I’m pretty certain of is that he either invented the curve, or he has absolutely no business in the Hall.
#4 Jim Devlin: To get him to this level, which is a shade better than Cummings at 57%, we’re looking at just three seasons. He was particularly good in the first two of the NL’s existence, leading the league in games, innings, and losses both years. He was also the most valuable by WAR in both. His career ended abruptly after the 1877 season when he and three other players were among the first group banned from the sport for throwing games. Of course, even if he weren’t banned, he’d have been done soon. He died six years later. A combination of consumption and alcoholism will do that to a guy.
#3 Bobby Mathews: A winner of 297 games and not in the Hall of Fame. Even as I write that, I’m surprised he’s not in the Hall. Of course, he shouldn’t be. His wins are a product of his time, as is his ability to reach such a height on this list while clocking in at just 69% of our leader’s total. While he won 29+ six times, only once did he top 30 wins, posting 42 for the New York Mutuals of the 1874 NA. Mathews was possibly the most durable pitcher of his era. Of those who appeared in the NA in 1871, only Mathews, Cherokee Fisher, and Al Spalding lasted until 1878. Kind of amazingly, Mathews made it nine years after that. Whenever I read posts from the SABR Bio Project, which I highly recommend, I’m reminded of what difficult lives these men led, and how different times are now. It seems that Mathews’ syphilis led to mental decline during and after his playing days.
#2 Tommy Bond: Continuing with detail from the SABR Bio Project, Bonds’ entry reminds us that our decade was a time when batters could request high or low pitches from a hurler throwing underhand. At that time, pitchers essentially just initiated play rather than attempting to control it. Bond, I suspect, helped to advance the game by throwing sidearm, probably in an effort to deceive hitters. For his efforts, he led the NL in strikeouts the first two years of their existence and finished at 97.3% of our decade leader. Also, he posted at least 10 unadjusted pitching WAR every season from 1875-1879. Unlike most players of his era, and most people of his era, Bond lived until the age of 84. In and of itself, that’s an impressive statistic.
#1 Al Spalding: Better known for his sporting goods company than his pitching, I’m dubbing Albert Goodwill Spalding the best pitcher of the first decade of organized baseball. Though he only pitched six full seasons, we’re talking full seasons here, five times topping 400 innings. He also led the league in wins in each of those years, and he was in the top-4 in pitcher WAR all six years he pitched over 11 innings. It’s very close between Spalding and Bond, but I feel comfortable giving the Hall of Fame righty the edge.
One week from today, we’ll take a look at the marginally more stable 1880s.
Miller
Maybe the Win Shouldn’t Die
For a number of years MLB Network’s Brian Kenny has been on a campaign to kill the Win. And he’s been joined by pretty much everyone who understands the game. I’m guessing Harold Reynolds is a holdout, and I have to guess because I don’t watch too much of the MLB Network these days. Anyway, it might not surprise you to know that I’ve been with Kenny and others from the start. But I’m beginning to have second thoughts. Let me explain.
We can only judge whether a statistic is good or bad in relation to other stats, right? In fact, we can only judge whether anything – a movie, restaurant, or science fair project – is good or bad when we compare it to others of its ilk.
We’re against the win because pitchers can get them when they pitch awfully, and they can fail to earn them when they twirl gems. But we’re talking about something that happens on the individual game level. Why is it that we make a big deal, or any deal at all, about something that happens in individual games?
Nobody is particularly impressed if a pitcher posts a 1.35 ERA or a hitter drives in three runs in a particular game. We understand that those things happen with great frequency, so they’re generally non-issues. We also don’t freak out if a pitcher gives up three bloop hits and a double off the wall. And it’s not the end of the world if a hitter comes up twice in a game with men on second and third only to be robbed by two great defensive plays by outfielders. Luck and random variation both happen.
Yet, we’re somehow fixated on the Win.
I’m here to tell you that Wins have value as a statistic, at least on a career level. And we shouldn’t kill it if it’s no worse than other mainstream statistics. In this pithy analysis, I’m going to look at all-time leaders in some mainstream statistical categories to see what kind of HoME membership is contained therein.
It’s possible that we can look at the Win a little differently than Kenny does. It’s possible that Wins aren’t so bad a stat relative to other mainstream measures we respect or at least stomach.
Wins
Each of the top 19 guys on the all-time Wins list is in the Hall of Miller and Eric. It’s not until #20 where we reach 307 game winner, Mickey Welch, that we find a hurler not in the HoME. Then things get a little dicey. Bobby Mathews clocks in at #25, Tommy John is #26, and Tony Mullane is tied for #29. Jim Kaat is #31, Burleigh Grimes is tied for #33, Jamie Moyer is #35, Eppa Rixey is #37, and Jim McCormick is #39. Then there’s Gus Weyhing at #40, Jack Morris tied for #43, Al Spalding at #46, and Jack Quinn at #49.
Whoa! Maybe I’m making a mistake. By my count, that’s 13 of the top 50 on the all-time wins chart who aren’t in the HoME. But let’s see how this list compares to others before we, like many, just dismiss the Win.
Strikeouts
Mickey Lolich is #18 on the list. Then there’s Frank Tanana at #21, Jerry Koosman at #29, Javier Vazquez at #30, A.J. Burnett at #31, as well as Jack Morris, Mark Langston, Jim Kaat, Sam McDowell, Andy Pettitte, and Jamie Moyer at #34-39. Bartolo Colon is #44, Charlie Hough is #45, and Dwight Gooden is #50. Let’s not count Pettitte since he has a shot at HoME induction.
So we’re looking at 13 out of 50. Exactly the same as our Wins guys. Maybe we should kill the Strikeout?
Saves
I’m just including this category to be a pain in the ass. Trevor Hoffman, the #2 guy on the list, isn’t in the HoME. Neither are 46 others. The only guys who are in or going are Marino Rivera at #1, Dennis Eckersley at #7, and Rich Gossage at #23. That means 47 of the top 50 are out of the HoME. But we all know Saves are a terrible statistic already, much worse than the Win. Maybe we should try the Goose Egg?
And we’d have to agree if we could keep just one statistic, it would be the Win rather than the Save.
Batting Average
Much of this all-time list is outside the HoME, including #4, Lefty O’Doul. In fact, 21 of the top-50 Batting Average leaders are outside the HoME. However, we really should look at a more recent sample of players to learn if this is a bad statistic. Batting averages were different over 120 years ago, so I’m just going to look at the World Series era.
O’Doul is now #3 on the list. And we’re down to just 13 of 50. Of course, it’s not like 13 is so far 13 on the Wins list. I’m no math expert, but I think 13 is exactly the same.
Home Runs
We see the same problem on the all-time Home Runs list that we see on others. Relatively early on the list there’s a guy who’s not in the HoME. In this case it’s #12, Harmon Killebrew. David Ortiz at #21, sadly, isn’t going either. Same with Fred McGriff at #28, Willie Stargell at #30, Carlos Delgado at #32, Adam Dunn at #35, Jose Canseco at #36, Dave Kingman at #42, Jason Giambi at #43, Paul Konerko at #44, and Juan Gonzalez at #47. Additionally, I think it could be some time before #39, Vladimir Guerrero, gets in. That all depends on what Hall voters do, particularly those on the Era Committees.
All told we have 11 or 12 of 50 not in the HoME. Again, that’s not far from the 13 on the Wins list.
Runs Batted In
It’s not as vociferous a crowd who wants to dump the RBI, but we have to admit that opportunity is the driving force behind driving in runs. And the all-time list suggests to me that teams do a decent job of finding the right guys to give those RBI opportunities. It’s not until #21 where we find David Ortiz, deeper than any list thus far. Tony Perez is #28, Harold Baines is #30, Harmon Killebrew is #36, Fred McGriff is #42, Willie Stargell is #45, and Carlos Delgado is #50. That’s only seven guys in the top 50 who aren’t in the HoME. And the truth is that a few of them would be in if they did anything other than hit well. Hooray for Runs Batted In!
Runs
Johnny Damon clocks in at #25, and he’s never going to be a HoMEr. Lou Brock is #36. And that’s it! The other 48 guys on the list are all in the Hall of Miller and Eric. Forget ribbies, hooray for Runs!
Hits
Lou Brock is #23 on this list, Omar Vizquel is #36, Harold Baines is #39, Johnny Damon is #48, and Vada Pinson is #50. So compared to Hits and Runs, at least by this measure, Wins is a pretty bad statistical measure.
OPS+
Dave Orr is #14, Charlie Keller is tied at #31, Gavvy Cravath is tied at #33, and Charley Jones is tied at #35. Elmer Flick, Benny Kauff, and Ralph Kiner are tied at +37. Sam Thompson is tied at #42, and of the eight guys tied at #49, only one is a HoMEr. Active players on the list include Mike Trout, Joey Votto, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Paul Goldschmidt. Most of those guys are fine, but Goldschmidt still has work to do. And Votto is older than some think at 33. Should he fall off the map in the next year or two, he likely won’t make it. That’s a minimum of nine guys. It’s ten if you count two of the tie for #49, and it’s 11 if you count one of Votto and Goldschmidt. I certainly believed OPS+ would be considerably more telling than Wins, but at 11 compared to 13, it isn’t.
ERA+
This list is littered with olde tyme dudes and relief pitchers. There are two dozen who aren’t in and aren’t going.
WAR
If we’re looking as WAR by position players, every single guy is either in the HoME or going. Except maybe Chase Utley. I have him #22, a place where we might or might not support him. I believe Eric likes him more than I do, so he’s going to go.
Pitcher WAR
Well, we have Jim McCormick at #27, Mickey Welch at #44, Tommy John and Dazzy Vance tied at #47, and Bobby Mathews at #49. That’s five guys, more than as on the Runs list and as many as on the Hits list.
Shortcomings and Conclusions
Clearly a shortcoming of this study is that the HoME is a WAR-based institution. We start with a bias toward WAR as a strong statistic. On the other hand, it’s not like the list of pitcher WAR is even as good as the list of Hits or Runs.
My conclusion is this – the Win shouldn’t die. At least not as long as we still use other mediocre measures to help us interpret performance. Omnibus stats like WAR are great, but even WAR needs context. Should we timeline? Should we adjust for shorter schedules? How should we weigh peak and prime versus career?
There’s no easy answer, and that’s why just ignoring a statistic, any statistic, probably isn’t the best idea. Long live the Win! Maybe.
Miller
RIP, Players Falling Off the 2012 Ballot
Right down to the wire for a guy who threw over 3000 innings from 1879-1884.
The 52nd ballot was a special one for Pud Galvin. On Friday, he learned that he would be the next inductee into the HoME. Because of his election, you had to know that there would be some accompanying obituaries, and today we deliver. Or execute. When we decided on Galvin, we just obliterated the backlog. We took Galvin over George Gore, Jim McCormick, Clark Griffith, and Wilbur Cooper. As a result those four all have their HoME chances end here. Those players go back to the very start of our project, and we don’t take writing their obituaries lightly. It’s not like they’re necessarily gone forever. All players still have HoME chances based on the size of the Hall of Fame. But the fates of those four now rest on the electing prowess of theHall voters.
With the four old-time obituaries and the five one-and-done newcomers, we now have 520 obituaries in our 52 elections. And there are now 199 players in the Hall of Miller and Eric. In our remaining three elections, we have 33 more players to review from our original 752. That means we’re going to elect nearly 50% of the remaining population into the HoME. But don’t think we get easy on players. The guys coming up in the next three elections are a pretty elite group.
When I started on this series of posts, I didn’t know where it would go. I decided to keep running the chart below just in case anyone was concerned with our progress. I’m going to keep running it for this election and our final three. So once again, below is the tally from each election since our first in 1901.
Year Carried New Considered Elected Obituaries Continuing to
Over Nominees this Election Next Election
2012 5 5 10 1 9 0
2011 6 9 15 4 6 5
2010 8 9 17 3 8 6
2009 10 8 18 4 6 8
2008 11 7 18 2 6 10
2007 12 15 27 5 11 11
2006 13 5 18 1 5 12
2005 12 8 20 2 5 13
2004 13 8 21 4 5 12
2003 14 7 21 2 6 13
2002 18 7 25 6 5 14
2001 23 8 31 2 11 18
2000 26 9 35 1 11 23
1999 30 9 39 4 9 26
1998 33 9 42 4 8 30
1997 40 3 43 3 7 33
1996 42 7 49 4 5 40
1995 41 11 52 4 6 42
1994 38 8+1 47 3 3 41
1993 41 9 50 3 9 38
1992 40 10 50 3 6 41
1991 40 9 49 1 8 40
1990 42 9 51 3 8 40
1989 45 10 55 6 7 42
1988 44 7 51 2 4 45
1987 44 3 47 0 3 44
1986 44 4 48 1 3 44
1985 47 10 57 1 12 44
1984 50 5 55 2 6 47
1983 52 8 60 5 5 50
1982 51 8 59 3 4 52
1981 59 8 67 1 15 51
1980 59 8 67 3 5 59
1979 67 6 73 6 8 59
1978 78 6 84 5 12 67
1977 86 6 92 2 11 79
1976 82 26 108 6 16 86
1971 87 21 108 6 20 82
1966 94 26 120 7 26 87
1961 91 24 115 6 15 94
1956 92 32 124 7 26 91
1951 93 27 120 9 19 92
1946 94 26 120 8 19 93
1941 82 29 111 5 12 94
1936 75 29 104 8 14 82
1931 69 17 86 2 9 75
1926 71 25 96 9 18 69
1921 66 27 93 4 18 71
1916 53 31 84 5 13 66
1911 47 20 67 5 9 53
1906 33 28 61 3 11 47
1901 0 54 54 3 18 33
Dead in 2012
While Edgardo Alfonzo doesn’t belong in any real Hall of Fame conversation, he did have four quite nice seasons, accumulating close to 22 WAR. The rest of his career, however, totaled just about 5 WAR. A sort of sad note for Mets fans is that he’s the all-time franchise leader in post-season hits with 26. Of course, his best post-season series was the 1999 NLDS when he hit .529 in a losing effort for the Giants against Marlins.
Wilbur Cooper: Armed with a sneaky fastball, an incredible relief record, a fine bat, and a helpful defense, the lefty who pitched mostly for the Pirates posted four 20-win seasons and 216 victories overall. Cooper may have been the finest hurler in the game aside from Pete Alexander from 1908-1927. His fastball helped him retire second among NL lefties in strikeouts with 1250. His bullpen work resulted in a sparkling 1.52 ERA. And his bat added five wins to his résumé too. Overall, he’s closer to the HoME than many people would think. In the end, he falls just a bit short. Had the Hall elected another player every third year over their existence, we’d have supported Cooper.
George Gore was such a weak defensive outfielder that he garnered the nickname “Piano Legs.” He also retired with the all-time record for errors by an outfielder, since obliterated by Tom Brown. On a more positive note, he was the first major leaguer to post five extra base hits in one game, still a record. And he and Billy Hamilton are the only players ever to steal seven bases in one game. But there’s more to Gore than that. He had six 6-win seasons, a total matched by only nine others at the position. Gore’s downfall is playing in an overpopulated era as well as tailing off considerably beyond his first nine seasons. If there were only a few more spots…
Player, manager, and owner, baseball’s “Old Fox” Clark Griffith is considered one of the best people ever to play the game. As a player, he won 20+ games for six consecutive seasons for the 1894-1899 Chicago Orphans and Colts. As a manager, he ranked fourth in career wins at the time of his retirement. And as an owner of the Washington Senators from 1920-1955, he won the 1925 World Series but did little else with his very small budget. A reasonable person could see eight 5-win seasons in Griffith, a total that would put him in a group with only 20 others, all HoMErs. Of course, era has something to do with his demise. As does the fact that he had only two decent seasons beyond his eight excellent ones. Really, he needed more career innings.
We think of Javy Lopez as an Atlanta Brave, and we should. But the three-time All-Star backstop had his second best season in Baltimore. Being a Brave of his age, he had quite an extensive playoff career, winning the 1996 NLCS MVP, helping the Braves to their only World Series title in their great run (1995), and homering ten times in 225 trips to the plate. With catching adjustments, Lopez played like an All-Star a couple of times, and he had two other years of 4+ WAR. Overall he’s about the equal to Hall of Famer Rick Ferrell. Man, Ferrell was a bad selection.
Jim McCormick was a talented and effective northpaw pitcher in the days before the mound moved, and he was the first Scottish-born player in the majors. In 1879, his first full season for the Cleveland Blues, he lost 40 games. In the very next campaign, we won 45 to lead the NL. He led the NL in wins again in 1882 and ERA in 1883. Fickle wins. The coolest thing about McCormick’s career isn’t his 265 wins or the fact that he jumped to the Union Association for $2500 in 1884 (nor the 40 total wins or UA ERA title that year). It’s that to get back to the NL, which he did with the 1885 Providence Grays, he had to pay a $1000 fine. That’ll teach him!
Control pitcher and 1988 All-Star Brad Radke was a fine hurler with a fairly typical arsenal. He pitched a dozen seasons, all for the Twins, and won 20 games in 1997 and 148 for his career. At his 1996-2001 peak, he was a top-10 pitcher in the game. For a career highlight, perhaps we look to the 2002 ALDS against Oakland. Though he didn’t pitch wonderfully, Radke won two games and helped the Twins get to the ALCS, where they lost to Anaheim.
A career Angel, Tim Salmon spanned the California, Anaheim, and Los Angeles years. He won the AL Rookie of the Year Award in 1993 and the Comeback Player prize in 2002. In the second game of that year’s World Series, he homered twice, helping the Angels win the game 11-10 and the series in seven games. Mr. Angel, as he’s sometimes called, is the franchise career leader in homers, runs, and walks. Overall, he’s a decent bit like Hall of Famer Chuck Klein or the clubbing Johnny Callison. With eight seasons at or near the 4 WAR level, we’re talking about a very, very good player.
At the beginning of this process, I thought we’d elect Bernie Williams. After all, an extra near-season of playoff games is hard to ignore for someone who’s pretty close. On a positive note, Bernie totaled 4.7 WAR or more nine times. Only ten at the position could match him on that level. On the other hand, he never topped 6.4 WAR. In some ways, he mirrors Max Carey if we eliminate Carey’s 11th through 13th best seasons. Even if we give him three wins for his playoff work, he’s still short. Sorry Bernie.
Our 2012 election is now in the books. Take a look at our Honorees page to see the plaques of our new members and all of the HoMErs. And check back here after the 2013 election for more obituaries.
Miller
Re-re-re-reexamining the Backlog
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Eric and I have been talking about what might be the Hall of Miller and Eric for over a decade, though pretty unofficially for most of that time. At this point, we’ve been working on this blog and our actual project for nearly two years. It’s a labor, a labor of love, but still a labor.
We decided to undertake this work because we so disliked the composition of the Hall of Fame. We thought we could do it better, and we truly believe that we have. But the process isn’t easy at all. Since we decided we would have the exact same number of players in the HoME as in Cooperstown, we’re planning on 215 total. With eleven elections to go, we’ve enshrined 177 players and written obituaries for another 465. We have 38 players to elect from those 91 not yet considered and from our current backlog of 12 more. Today we’re going to take another look at those dozen who are giving us trouble, as well as two others from the 2005 election who will receive neither a plaque nor an obituary when our election finishes up Friday and next Monday. We just like to let you know what’s going on behind the scenes. And each part of the process helps us get it right.
Pud Galvin
First eligible: 1901, our first ballot
Candidacy considered: 44 times
Why he’s not in: Eric won’t vote for him! I’ve voted for Galvin 25 times. And I think I’ve written about him just as many. Because I keep supporting him, even Eric wrote about him once. To my credit, I think, I’ve stopped voting for him a couple of times only to restart. That pattern as least suggests I’m being thoughtful. In Eric’s defense (as if he needs defending!), Galvin is far from a slam dunk. His era is quite full. His numbers under the surface are nowhere near as good as those underlying numbers that we claim are more important. Plus, Galvin still has competition at his position and in his era. More on that guy in a moment.
Why he’s not dead: I’m not completely sure on this one. Eric hasn’t given any indication that he’d like to eliminate Galvin. Perhaps that’s because I’m still voting for him. Even behind the scenes we haven’t yet had a player receiving support from one of us and wanting to be eliminated by the other. I’ve come off Galvin in the past. I may again.
Jim McCormick
First eligible: 1901
Candidacy considered: 44 times
Why he’s not in: Neither one of us supports McCormick right now, though Eric was in his corner for four elections from 1931-1946. Eric says that McCormick bests my guy on peak/prime, which he does. But Galvin has him for the career. And Galvin is far superior when we eliminate bats.
Why he’s not dead: I’ve wanted McCormick dead for some time, every election since 1997. My reasoning is that I prefer Galvin and won’t take two more pitchers from that era. Very simple. However, there are still eleven elections remaining. Thus, Eric and I haven’t played all of our cards yet. Don’t misunderstand, this is a very collegial partnership, but I think there are pretty deep thought processes about how to get things right and how to keep your partner from getting too bogged down in his position. It’s possible that Eric wants neither Galvin nor McCormick but is keeping McCormick around so he can make an accurate peak/prime comparison later to persuade me to vote for another pitcher over Galvin. If that’s happening, I think Eric is doing the right thing.
George Gore
First eligible: 1901
Candidacy considered: 44 times
Why he’s not in: Eric wanted him dead last election, so he’s not voting for Gore anytime soon. And I have trouble supporting a guy at a position that still has a slam dunk in Ken Griffey coming in 2016, a surprisingly good candidate in Jim Edmonds coming the same year, and defensive wizard Andruw Jones coming two elections after that. There may seem to be room for someone else in center field. Maybe Bernie Williams (2012) or Kenny Lofton (2013). We’ll have to wait to see. And Johnny Damon is still out there way down the line. Only he, Cobb, Mays, Speaker, and Mantle have 15 years of 2.0 WAR among center fielders.
Why he’s not dead: I’m not quite sure I can let go yet. While it’s incredibly close, my ranking system puts Gore a shade above HoMErs Jimmy Wynn, Max Carey, and Willie Davis. Truth be told, if we elected Galvin, I’d write Gore’s obituary because I wouldn’t take another player from that era at that point. Since I still would, and since Eric may not ever support Galvin, I can’t yet kill Gore.
Cupid Childs
First eligible: 1911
Candidacy considered: 40 times
Why he’s not in: I’ll let Eric tell you.
Why he’s not dead: Spoiler alert. Tune in next week.
Clark Griffith
First eligible: 1916
Candidacy considered: 41 times
Why he’s not in: I have to be honest and say for a candidate who we’ve reviewed 41 times, he’s received very little real consideration. He’s a bit of a problematic candidate since I rank him a lot higher than Eric does. My numbers put him in the Vic Willis, Tim Keefe, Rube Waddell, Joe McGinnity category. Eric sees more Early Wynn, Bucky Walters, Bob Caruthers, and Charlie Buffinton. Clearly my group is superior to Eric’s. The thing is, I don’t really like Griffith much. Behind the scenes, for the first time, I think, I have to really compare him to the aforementioned Willis, Waddell, and McGinnity. Griffith played with all three from 1899-1908. And he played with Waddell for four more years and Willis for three more. In other words, they’re pretty good comps. More on that comparison in the coming elections.
Why he’s not dead: I don’t know. We just haven’t gone in that direction. But it’s pretty hard to kill a pitcher who you rank higher than seventeen pitchers already in the HoME, even if by almost nothing over ten of them.
Heinie Groh
First eligible: 1936
Candidacy considered: 37 times
Why he’s not in: Talent? If elected he’d be my lowest ranked player other than Roy Campanella and George Wright, two players my system struggles with. I was killing him from 1993-1996 because I saw enough better 3B, and perhaps because I was still trying to make a case for a guy who I really love but just didn’t deserve induction, John McGraw. He’s also not in because I’m far more inclined to vote for a more recent near-doppelganger, Sal Bando, right now. And I think the arguments in Bando’s favor are there.
Why he’s not dead: When I wanted to kill him, Eric wisely didn’t. Right now he can’t very easily die because there’s still room at third base, and it’s not clear that we’re going to vote in Sal Bando. Just like I could see eliminating Gore if we vote for Galvin based on era, I can see eliminating Groh if we vote for Bando based on position.
Wilbur Cooper
First eligible: 1936
Candidacy considered: 37 times
Why he’s not in: Way back in 1984, the only time Eric supported Cooper, I didn’t. Our 1984 ballots were both pretty cool in retrospect. We both voted for Bob Johnson and Joe Sewell, in their 14th and 16th elections respectively. And Eric threw his support to Billy Herman and Dave Bancroft as well. Herman got in in his 26th election in 1997, and Bancroft finally made it in his 35th election in 2002. As for me, I voted for Whitey Ford, Red Faber, and Pud Galvin. Faber was elected in election #30 in 1998, and Ford made it in election #27 in 2002. Galvin still waits. Same for Cooper. In both of our systems, Cooper ranks #73 among pitchers. I suspect we’ll have to elect and obit more of the backlog before we make a determination on him.
Why he’s not dead: We’re just not sure. We see the player in much the same way, but he’s going to be a function of those around him about whom we feel more passionate, one way or the other, at least as of right now.
Sam Rice
First eligible: 1941
Candidacy considered: 36 times
Why he’s not in: Rice is one of only three backlog players, along with Clark Griffith and Tommy John, who neither of us has advocated killing nor electing. Maybe that’s because he just doesn’t stand out. He’s at a very crowded position, the most crowded in the HoME to date. Eric ranks him behind every RF in the HoME, while I rank only Reggie Smith ahead. But I prefer Smith’s era, his Runs Above Average, and the trustworthiness of his defensive ranking. Looking forward, Rice getting in might depend on how we ultimately rank him arond Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Brian Giles, and Vlad Guerrero.
Why he’s not dead: Nobody in front of him on the RF list has been killed. And he’s just so much like HoMEr Reggie Smith season-by-season. His fate may be similar to Wilbur Cooper’s, dependent on those around him.
Harmon Killebrew
First eligible: 1981
Candidacy considered: 24 times
Why he’s not in: He was a lumbering slugger who did exactly two things not terribly, hit for power and draw walks. Further, Eric has advocated for his death since the 1999 election.
Why he’s not dead: I’m not just refusing to kill him; I’m considering voting for him. Please understand my willingness to get rid of borderline, lumbering sluggers who the Hall likes. Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez don’t quite fit that mold, but they’re gone. Ralph Kiner isn’t exactly the same type of player, but he’s gone too. Perhaps the best comp for Killebrew on some levels is Willie Stargell. And another one bites the dust. But there’s a meaningful difference between Killebrew and Stargell in career value, I think. Plus, among our backloggers, Killebrew’s bat is just awesome, and his yearly WAR totals are reasonable.
Roy White
First eligible: 1985
Candidacy considered: 20 times
Why he’s not in: When Eric was voting for White form 1985-1987, I wasn’t. And there’s a reason I withheld a vote from a player who I thought I’d support. Michael Humphreys, who we cite frequently around here as the founder of the defensive measure, DRA, that Eric and I integrate into our WAR formulae, tells us that there’s a deduction that needs to be taken in left field in Yankee Stadium during White’s time there. It’s not huge, but it brings White into unsure territory for me.
Why he’s not dead: There’s room at his position. There’s a lot of room in his era. He’s so much like Jose Cruz, a guy who just got into the HoME in 2004. And he has some nice post-season numbers too.
Sal Bando
First eligible: 1987
Candidacy considered: 18 times
Why he’s not in: Eric hasn’t been supportive since I began taking up for Bando in 2000. Either I’m missing something, which is entirely possible, or Bando is getting in. We need a 3B, there’s space in his era, and he’s better than Groh. The counter argument is that he might not be better than Groh and that there’s more space in Heinie’s era.
Why he’s not dead: We can’t kill a guy one of us is currently supporting.
Tommy John
First eligible: 1995
Candidacy considered: 10 times
Why he’s not in: I sometimes wonder if there’s a little bit of bias at work here. See, neither one of us has voted for John yet. And part of the reason for that might be that as long as we’ve been baseball fans, we’ve known – we’ve just known – that Tommy John isn’t a Hall of Famer. But then we got into this project. And 215 is a lot of players if you’re not going to waste any on mistakes like of High Pockets Kelly, Tommy McCarthy, and Bruce Sutter. He’s right on the border, and there’s a tremendous amount of space in his era. On some levels, his election should be easy. But he still has competition on the mound, and he has competition in his era from Killebrew, White, and Bando. And with Don Sutton and Jose Cruz getting honored in the last four elections, the era isn’t quite so wide open.
Why he’s not dead: Comparatively, he’s better than we’d have thought. When we began the HoME, I think both of us would have just written John off. But then we ran numbers and just couldn’t. No, he doesn’t get credit for Frank Jobe’s surgery. And no, we give him almost no credit for playing for 26 years, though we do think that’s amazing. But sometimes I wonder. Maybe I am giving him credit for all of those seasons. See, the reason Tommy John looks so good to me is that he played during 20+ seasons that are underpopulated in the HoME. Maybe that “credit” is throwing me off some.
Tony Phillips
First eligible: 2005
Candidacy considered: still reviewing his first ballot
Why he won’t get in this election: He’s Tony Phillips, right? Even if we loved him, and we kind of do, I think we’d be considered crazy for electing a utility guy without at least considering him for a few elections. The other thing is that Phillips, if we call him a 2B, doesn’t rank ahead of a single guy in the HoME by either of our systems.
Why he’s not receiving an obituary this election: Well, he doesn’t rank behind a single second baseman who’s received a HoME obituary either. Whether he’ll get in or not, he’s going to need to percolate a little longer.
Mark Langston
First eligible: 2005
Candidacy considered: still reviewing his first ballot
Why he won’t get in this election: I’m not voting for him anytime soon. I see him as similar to David Wells, Eppa Rixey, Billy Pierce, and Chief Bender. When we get to this level for me, Eric and I can sometimes have very different rankings. We’re within eleven spots in rank on three of the above players (Langston included), but with Langston and Rixey, we’re 49 spots different.
Why he’s not receiving an obituary this election: Eric thinks he fits rather snugly within our backlog of pitchers, and he thinks Langston’s era may be under-represented.
That’s all for today. Please look for 2005 results on Friday and obituaries one week from today.
Miller
Backlog Prospectus: The Pitchers
Line up the pitchers. Man, they all have great curves. Ewer going to love them.
It’s time to talk pitchers. Our backlog of moundsmen feels extensive, even if numerically it isn’t all that bad In this last installment of our backlog prospectus, we’ll follow the same format we did with the middlemen and the corners.
PITCHER
Balance: So far, so good
Recently elected: Bucky Walters
Recent regrets: Hoyt Wilhelm
Wilbur Cooper
Why he might just make it:
- Good peak/prime hurler
- Very good hitting pitcher
- Pitched in a time from which we are a little short of honorees
Why he might not make it:
- His worst seasons really drag him down
Dizzy Dean
Why he might just make it:
- Helluva a peak!
- Good hitter too!
- Also a relief ace!
- Great 1934 World Series!
Why he might not make it:
- There’s just six seasons and some change
- That peak isn’t historically amazing, so the lack of bulk really hurts
- His other World Series appearance wasn’t so hot
- We could be waiting a long time for more information about his relief work
Red Faber
Why he might just make it:
- His best two seasons are of historic proportion
- He racked up a lot of value and threw a ton of innings
- Helps fill out a period of time that needs it
Why he might not make it:
- After his best two or three years, his career is a series of barely above-average seasons that don’t inspire a vote
Pud Galvin
Why he might just make it:
- 6000 innings and 365 wins are not exactly chopped liver
- Miller has voted for him in the past
- A huge 1884 season
Why he might not make it:
- His bulk career value (especially below average but above replacement) may be a reflection of the usage patterns of his times or of WAR’s construction, not of greatness
- That huge 1884 season came in a double-expansion year
- He might not be the best pitcher of his time outside the HoME
- He is among the very worst hitting pitchers ever
Clark Griffith
Why he might just make it:
- Lasted a long time
- Third most innings of the 1890s
- Could hit a little
Why he might not make it:
- Was not especially durable during the season by the standards of his times
- You’d need a shoehorn to jam him into the 1890s
- Competes with several of turn-of-the-century players, including Beckley, Childs, Bresnahan, and Kelley
Whitey Ford
Why he might just make it:
- Was never really bad and thanks to the addition of a good bat had a lot of seasons of four or more WAR
- Boatload of World Series innings
- Helps with two underserved eras (post-War and the 1960s)
Why he might not make it:
- Was never great in any season
- Despite looking sort of like a long/low candidate he only pitched 16 seasons and didn’t rack up Suttonesque career value
Tommy John
Why he might just make it:
- Long career with good value
- Many, many years with above average value
- We’re fans of That 70s Player
Why he might not make it:
- Many, many years of garbage time
- Don Sutton is a better version of the same type of pitcher
- Soon to arrive Frank Tanana might be better, too
Jim McCormick
Why he might just make it:
- Had more BBREF pitching Wins Above Average during his career than any other pitcher in baseball
- Third most pitching WAA between 1871 and 1895 of anyone in baseball
- Might be the best pitcher of his time outside the HoME
Why he might not make it:
- We may not even want another 1880s player
- His career year of 1884 season came in a double-expansion year, and he pitched a third of his innings in the lousy Union Assocation
- He might not be the best pitcher of his time outside the HoME
Billy Pierce
Why he might just make it:
- Second most WAA of any AL pitcher during his era
- Nice, if brief, World Series numbers
Why he might not make it:
- He’s not quite as good as Ford though shaped pretty similarly
- Miller is pondering his demise
- Eric is pondering his demise
Eddie Rommel
Why he might just make it:
- BBREF WAR likes him a lot
- Probably has some hidden relief value
Why he might not make it:
- If he was so good, why did Connie Mack use him in relief?
- If he was so good in relief, why did Connie Mack use Lefty Grove as his relief ace?
- Miller’s been casting him away for years, Eric’s listening
Don Sutton
Why he might just make it:
- Lotsa career value, but more than Tommy John
- Miller is already casting ballots for him
- Did you know we could use another 1970s guy?
Why he might not make it:
- Never, ever had a great year
- Was rarely very far above average and has relatively few total WAA
George Uhle
Why he might just make it:
- One hell of a hitter for a pitcher!
- Three outstanding peak seasons
- Pitched in a time when we’re looking for guys
Why he might not make it:
- He wasn’t actually a very great pitcher, which would be nice to have in a pitching inductee
- Wilbur Cooper and Red Faber may be the better pitchers from his times
BEHIND THE SCENES: More than anywhere else on the diamond, we disagree in the pitcher’s box. The nature of this disagreement can be easily seen in Galvin v. McCormick. Galvin’s got the huge bulk innings but McCormick slams him in Wins Above Average, especially once Galvin’s absolutely terrible batting is factored in. One of us prefers the bulk, the other prefers the WAA. We’ve even debated whether the 1880s with its 600 inning years breaks WAA/WAR. Maybe pitchers were truly more valuable then? Or maybe it’s more a matter of conditions and trends of the day. Anyway, it might be that neither pitcher makes it, but this discussion has been the crucible in which the 4% of baseball that we disagree on comes spattering up. Elsewhere, Sutton and John (and soon Tanana) spark a similar discussion owing to their long/low career path. Obviously Miller doesn’t object as he’s voted already for Sutton and led the charge on Faber. Eric has never liked that career shape and wishes like heck that Dizzy Dean had one more decent year on his baseball card. Acceptance is the first step. We can make too much of this and blow it up to sound like we’re at war. In reality, neither of us thought for a moment that Jim Kaat should get a plaque in our Hall, so the divide is obviously not that deep. It’s not Bill Plaschke versus Nate Silver here. More like Rob and Rany. As we march along, a few more borderliners will pop up to challenge this bunch. Frank Tanana, Doc Gooden, Chuck Finley, Mark Langston, Kenny Rogers, Frank Viola, and more, so don’t expect resolution (or even resoluteness) here for a while. Looks like it could come down to the (hopefully not bitter) end.
* * *
That’s the end of our look at the current backlog at the Hall of Miller and Eric. We’d love to hear what you all think of these guys. We will deliver all the plaques we promised on time. Fortunately the 2015 Hall elections will come before that so that we can have a few more weeks of mulling and with any luck at all, a few more slots to fill.
The Backlog, What They’re Missing, Pitchers
On some of these pitchers, we’re just stuck.
As we continue another trek through our backlog, today we tackle the pitchers who have been giving us trouble. We’ve already done the same for infielders on Friday and outfielders on Monday. And as we’ve previously noted, we’re going to do it a little differently this time. In addition to the simple biographical stuff and whether or not they’re in the Halls of Fame, Merit, and Stats, we’re going to discuss three things about each player. First, we’ll offer a simple explanation as to why the player lives on. Second, we’ll examine a potential fatal flaw in his candidacy. And finally, we’ll look to the seasons that are the reasons players haven’t been elected yet. Today we look at pitchers.
Since we last checked in on the mound, there have been a number of changes. Some have been elected, while others written off.
- New pitching backlog: nobody
- Old backlog now in the HoME: Early Wynn
- Old backlog receiving obituaries: Babe Adams, Bob Caruthers
There are twelve pitchers who we’ve discussed along the way who have neither been elected nor been given obituaries. Those players will receive more attention today. Some, of course, are sure to get elected to the HoME, and it’s probable others will receive obituaries. We hope you enjoy.
Hoyt Wilhelm, P, 1952-1972, (F, M, S)
Why He Lives On: He’s the greatest eligible reliever in our data set aside from Goose Gossage. If we take more than just Goose, he’ll get in.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: He wasn’t a starter. Seriously. Starters pitch more innings and thus accumulate more value than relievers. Wilhelm’s one-time manager, Leo Durocher, didn’t think Hoyt had the stuff to go the distance on the mound. But in 1959, the Orioles found out that he did. In his only full season as a starter, he won 15 games and the AL ERA title. It was easily Hoyt’s best year. By 1960, he was back in the pen.
Seasonal Struggle: For Wilhelm, it’s not about seasons. If we take another reliever, it’ll be him. But if we don’t, it’ll be because he didn’t accumulate enough value. Just for fun, let’s look at his 1966 season. Between years he posted 3.5 and 2.9 WAR, he managed just 0.8 that year. The main culprit is an obvious one. Despite a 1.66 ERA, he pitched 60+ fewer innings than in the previous season. And therein lies the issue with relief pitcher value – they don’t accumulate enough innings.
Whitey Ford, SP, 1950, 1953–1967, (F, M, S)
Why He Lives On: He was a good pitcher and occasionally a very good one for fourteen straight seasons. And there’s that undeniable post-season record.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Eric has written quite extensively on Ford and his shortcomings. But we can see what he lacked without analysis as impressive as that. Ford didn’t have a single season in his career worth seven wins based on our current adjustments. Don Sutton, Tommy John, Jack Powell, and David Wells are those closest in value about whom we can say the same. And he had only a single season worth as many as six wins. Others about whom we can say that are Sutton, John, and Wells again. Also, Pud Galvin.
Seasonal Struggle: Ford put up 5.9 WAR in 1956 and 5.1 in 1958 (including relatively small bonuses given to him for playoff performance), but in between he was worth just 2.0 WAR. What happened? Ford was hurting. He pitched only 7.2 innings in May and June of 1957 combined. And when he was “healthy”, he wasn’t really. For a guy who completed over 50% of his starts in surrounding seasons, he completed fewer than 30% in 1957. Maybe another All-Star type of season and 4 more WAR get Ford to a place where he’s HoME-worthy.
Billy Pierce, SP, 1945, 1948-1964, (-, M, S)
Why He Lives On: Four seasons at an All-Star level and a couple more that were close. He was baseball’s third best pitcher of the 1950s.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Pierce had control problems, particularly in the early part of his career. From his cup of coffee in 1945 until 1954 he walked 4.1 per nine. During no year did the AL walk as many as what he averaged. To be fair though, the free passes were only really a problem when they got over 4.0 per nine in individual seasons, 1949, 1950, and 1954. Better control in those seasons might have led to more success and an easier vote.
Seasonal Struggle: From 1951-1958, Pierce averaged 5.3 WAR per season. That’s if we eliminate the 0.7 disaster that was 1954. Pierce struggled with injuries that year, pitching only 10.1 innings in June, for example. Whether it was a problem with his teeth, his arm, or both is unclear. What is clear is that another 5-WAR campaign in 1954 would have been a huge boost to Pierce’s candidacy.
Dizzy Dean, SP, 1930, 1932-1941, 1947, (F, -, -)
Why He Lives On: When he was great, from 1932-1937, he was the third best pitcher in baseball, behind only Lefty Grove and Carl Hubbell.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: A comebacker in baseball has potential to be literally fatal. In Dean’s case, the comebacker from Earl Averill in the 1937 All-Star Game that broke his toe merely ended his effectiveness as a pitcher. He struggled for the rest of that season and went on to put up only 4.3 more WAR the rest of his career. Sandy Koufax is the only pitcher with only seven 2-WAR seasons who’s in the HoME. And as great as Dean was, at their respective bests, Koufax was a clearly better.
Seasonal Struggle: Quite simply, Dean didn’t have one of these. He got great in 1932 and remained great until the 1937 All-Star Game. Should Dean fail to make it into the HoME, that failure will be more associated with a particular injury than a similar failure of any other player.
Bucky Walters, SP, 1931-1948, 1950, (-, -, -)
Why He Lives On: He had one dominant season, a few other excellent ones, and three more shoulder seasons before a decline that included some passable work. He was baseball’s most valuable pitcher from 1933-1947. 15 seasons!
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Walters wasn’t called to military service during WWII. We say this not as a political statement, but as a concern about his career. From 1941-1945, he had two of his All-Star seasons and two of his shoulder seasons. Had he been called to serve, he would have been short some value. To be fair though, his two best seasons were in 1939 and 1940, both before the War.
Seasonal Struggle: Walters averaged 5.5 WAR in 1941-1942 and 5.3 in 1944-1945, but he only put up 2.0 in between. The reasons seem fairly clear. He hurt his leg in spring training that year and struggled quite a bit early on, posting a 5.52 ERA through mid-July due both to his leg issues and a problem with his appendix. His ERA the rest of the way was a far better, 2.02, but it wasn’t until an appendectomy that he felt like himself again. If 1943 were a 5-win season, Walters may well have his HoME membership card punched.
Eddie Rommel, SP, 1920-1932, (-, -, -)
Why He Lives On: An MVP-type season, five other All-Star type seasons, and a near-All-Star season. And as a sometime knuckleballer, he managed to beat his FIP (the expectation of his record given those inputs not impacted by defense) pretty often.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Rommel didn’t strike anyone out, but his walk rate was lower than his leagues. He pitched exactly like how someone thrust into the Ruth-and-Gehrig AL should have, avoiding hard contact and big innings. That’s a great approach for a starter trying to get through the lineup three or four times. But entering in relief with men aboard, his 1+ hits per inning led to a lot of inherited runners scoring. We don’t yet have the kind of extensive WPA or leverage-based information we need to fully evaluate Rommel’s relief work. That will come when we have event-based information for the 1920s. But our own back of the envelop guesstimates show that in his last several years, Rommel pitched in lower leverage situations and often coughed up inherited runs. We haven’t examined his earlier years yet, but this was enough to make us wonder why Connie Mack used him in relief at all and didn’t start him. Especially since Rommel was better overall as a starter. And, as we pointed out for Wilhelm above, relievers just can’t rack up much value unless they are as good as Gossage or Rivera. Rommel likely wasn’t, sot the last third of his career lacks a lot of punch.
Seasonal Struggle: Rommel didn’t have a bad season until the bitter denouement, but his 1927 (age 29) signaled the early beginning of the long end. After six straight years with 200+ innings, he slumped to 146 and would never top 200 again. His ERA jumped more than a run, and for the first time since his rookie year, he started in fewer than half his appearances. Although his rate stats would settle down again, as Mack worked George Earnshaw into a more prominent role and accumulated a gaggle of useful old pitchers, Rommel was relegated to swingman and part-time closer for the rest of his career.
George Uhle, SP, 1919-1934, 1936, (-, -, -)
Why He Lives On: Uhle was a phenomenal hitting pitcher. If we put all pitchers since 1893 on a list of pitching WAR and all on another list of hitting WAR, the only ones who top him on both are HoMErs Red Ruffing, Walter Johnson, and Wes Ferrell.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: When we strip out the hitting, Uhle has only five seasons of over 3.5 WAR. And he has only nine above 1.8. We know that stripping out the hitting isn’t the right thing to do. Value is value, no matter how it’s accumulated. However, we’re nearing a point when we’re going to have to compare individual pitchers for the last few spots in the HoME. When we get there, it’s possible we opt for the pitcher rather than the two-way player.
Seasonal Struggle: In 1922-1923, Uhle averaged 6.5 WAR. In 1925-1926, it was 6.2. But in 1924, Uhle put up only 1.0 WAR. That year he was 9-15 with a 4.77 ERA, a 90 ERA+, and fewer than 200 innings. He was having arm troubles that year, possibly ligament damage. Luckily for him he hit .407 with a .484 OBP in pinch hitting duty. Maybe the 5 WAR he lost that season would be enough to get him into the HoME. I guess we’ll never know.
Red Faber, SP, 1914–1933, (F, M, S)
Why He Lives On: Faber was a monster in 1921-1922, totaling over 20 WAR those years. He was the fourth most valuable pitcher of the 1920s, and he was behind only Urban Shocker from 1920-1925.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Faber might have had two great seasons and two others that were excellent, but that’s it. If we remove those four seasons and his one partial year, we have a guy who averaged just 2.2 WAR over the other 15 seasons of his career. Nolan Ryan had such a streak of mediocrity, but he had a better basis on which he could add. Red Ruffing wasn’t quite as bad for that period, but he was also better than Faber during his good period. Faber’s record of value isn’t unlike that of Dennis Eckersely, though he’s without the seasons closing games at an elite level.
Seasonal Struggle: Faber’s 1918 wasn’t outstanding, but that’s because he spent a portion of it in the military. It was his 1919 when he accumulated -1.1 WAR that really hurts him. He had problems with his arm, with his ankle, and with influenza. He didn’t throw a single pitch for the disgraced Black Sox in the World Series, and one has to wonder if conspirators would have had enough pitching on their side to get the Series to be thrown had Faber been healthy.
Wilbur Cooper, SP, 1912-1926, (-, -, -)
Why He Lives On: He’s the fourth best pitcher in the game from 1914-1925. A dozen years at such a height is a long time. He has four seasons worth 6+ WAR and four more worth at least 4.2.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: For a HoMEr, Cooper had a pretty short career, only a dozen seasons with at least 180 IP. After struggling with the Cubs in 1926, he was picked by the Tigers. He was awful enough to be released after just eight games in the AL. Maybe he could have caught on somewhere; he did have some passable pitching in the minors thereafter. But he was done in the bigs at age 34.
Seasonal Struggle: If any season sticks out like a sore thumb for Cooper, it’s 1915. He put up 3.0 WAR before and 6.0 WAR after, but in that season, it was -0.9. While injuries usually explain problems for pitchers, it’s quite possible Cooper just had a down year in 1915. He was able to strand fewer runners that year than any in his career – meaning if they got on, they were more likely than ever to score. This struggle led to a 5-16 record and an 82 ERA+. A season midway between 1914 and 1916, rather than what he put up, might be enough that we’d flip Cooper’s HoME switch.
Clark Griffith, SP, 1891, 1893-1907, 1909, 1912-1914, (-, M, S)
Why He Lives On: Like many on the bubble, a long career with a few All-Star appearances and one monster season plus a lot of above average/good type years. He could hit a little too.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Durability, sort of. During the meat of his career, Griffith ranked third behind Cy Young and Kid Nichols in innings pitched. In his peak years, he ranked fourth behind them and Pink Hawley. Those are to the good, of course. But his highest finishes in innings in a single season were third and sixth. He never otherwise finished among the top ten. His career total of 3386.2 innings ranks just 83rd, in the neighborhood of Mel Harder or Vida Blue. The problem here is that Griffith rarely maximized his run prevention skills in a given season across a lot of innings. The one time he aligned them, he had his monster year in 1898. However, his 372 starts rank only 163rd all time—Burt Hooton, Brad Radke, and Tim Belcher made more starts. So his peak is good, not great, and he couldn’t accumulate the innings to give him an especially bulky career. To put it differently, Griffith is stuck in durability purgatory. He pitched 100 more innings than Curt Schilling who doubles him up in Wins Above Average (WAA) thanks to outstanding run prevention. On the other hand, Griffith and Ted Lyons had nearly the same WAA, but thanks to his extra 800 innings and 100 extra starts Lyons adds an additional 10 wins of bulk that Griffith didn’t. Bulk isn’t everything, and just showing up isn’t determinative, but even so, Griffith has an issue.
Seasonal Struggle: 1902 is a real problem for Griffith. He was basically a replacement-level pitcher after years of good and sometimes great pitching. At age 32, his innings dropped to a then career low (for a full season), and he was simply awful at preventing runs. Even his hitting suffered. There’s no good explanation in the usual haunts on the nets, so either he simply sucked for a single year, or he was injured in some way. I’d go for the latter since he never recovered his previous levels of durability. Naturally, on the bubble, he could really have used a non-crappy season here.
Pud Galvin, SP, 1875, 1879–1892, (F, M, S)
Why He Lives On: Miller has already mentioned on about a dozen occasions that he’s fifth in history in wins and second in innings. From 1879-1884, he’s #2 among pitchers, and for the decade from 1879-1888, he’s #1 if we eliminate the bat.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Aside from one incredible season, he only has six others that are worth much of a damn. Only Sandy Koufax among HoMErs and likely future HoMErs has a worse eighth best season. And Pud Galvin was no Sandy Koufax. In terms of one great season that’s an absolute outlier, Galvin is a lot like Doc Gooden. Except Gooden could hit.
Seasonal Struggle: In 1884 Galvin posted 15.4 adjusted WAR. What did he do for an encore? It was just 0.4. Perhaps two seasons with nearly 1300 innings took their toll on Gentle Jeems, as he was “only” able to toss 372.1 in his attempt to follow-up on greatness. Maybe it was that when a runner got on base that year, he was more than 50% likely to score. Or perhaps it was an unusually poor defense playing behind him. Whatever the case, you can bet that if he performed in 1885 as he did the previous season, he’d already be in the HoME.
Jim McCormick, SP, 1878-1887, (-, -, S)
Why He Lives On: Might be the Koufax, Waddell, or McGinnity of the 1880s.
Potentially Fatal Flaw: Only the fourth or fifth best pitcher of the 1880s, and do we really need more than Tim Keefe, John Clarkson, and Charley Radbourn?
Seasonal Struggle: With 14.5 BBREF WAR and 40 victories in 569 innings, 1884 is McCormick’s greatest season. Or is it? A full 7.8 of his wins came in the Union Association, which was nearly as major a league as today’s Sally League. He went 21-3 with a loop-leading 1.54 ERA (213 ERA+) and seven league-leading shutouts. He also tossed 359 frames in the NL that year, going 19-22 with a more pedestrian 2.86 ERA (110 ERA+). The UA was bad baseball. It lured a few big leaguers, mostly to the Saint Louis team, most teams didn’t finish their schedule, and the whole thing folded up after one year. So the struggle here is ours. How much should we dock McCormick? He’s already docked by BBREF itself, but if you put 2002 Barry Bonds on the Beloit Brewers, wouldn’t he break the machine? Part of what makes WAA and WAR work is the simple fact that the talent gap between great, average, and bad is comparable in each level of pro ball. Beloit Bonds would be so far off the scale that he’d be outside the usual number of standard deviations of performance and would actually begin warping the league’s averages toward him. This is the kind of thing we’re talking about with the UA. We can’t be sure exactly what McCormick’s performance looked like in 1884 because he was playing against the modern equivalent of A ballers (OK, maybe Hi-A).
If you’ve missed it, take a look at our backlog in infield and the outfield, and get set for our 1991 results coming on Friday.
Miller and Eric
Who’s Left? Checking in with Our Backlog, Pitchers
It seems not every middle child struggles.
In the same way, perhaps, that middle children can be neglected, we’ve neglected out backlog. Sure, we review each and every player every single election. But what you see on our posts are those who get in and those who we kill off. We never pay homage in the same way to those who are left behind for debate in our next election. Plus, we think it’s a good idea to keep our loyal readers informed as to where we are in our process. So for this election cycle, we’re going to address the backlog. Today we’ll cover the pitchers who we’ve neither elected nor rejected. On Monday, it’ll be the infielders, and on Wednesday the outfield backlog will take center stage.
Below you’ll see our pitching backlog, along with the years they played and whether or not they’re members of the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Merit, and the Hall of Stats. You’ll also see some pithy commentary as to why they should or shouldn’t be in and then a bit of somewhat deeper analysis. Enjoy!
Babe Adams, SP, 1906-1907, 1909-1916, 1918-1926, (-, -, S)
Why he should be in: One of only 25 pitchers ever with a dozen 2-win seasons and a trio over 6.6
Why he shouldn’t be in: That’s not really a stat
Other thoughts: Adams’ argument rests on his career value. He only had three seasons that are very good, but he has twelve that help build his value. As you can see above, not many pitchers have such a combination. Over the course of 21 years from his first season until his last, he was about the tenth best pitcher in the game. If we narrow it to 1909-1923, Adams trails only Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander in value among pitchers we’re considering. Of course, he’s closer to your value and mine than he is to the Big Train’s, and he’s close to a one-win pitcher than he is to Old Pete. But stats are stats. Here’s another one – third best NL pitcher in the first quarter of the 20th century.
Bob Caruthers, SP, 1884-1892, (-,M,-)
Why he should be in: Peak pitcher with a Ferrellesque bat
Why he shouldn’t be in: His peak wasn’t that great, actually
Other thoughts: Caruthers turns out to be a paler shade of Uhle. His peak pitching performances are very good, but he wasn’t especially durable in a time of extreme durability. George Uhle led his league in innings twice and finished in the top five once. Caruthers never led his league and finished twice in the top five. Uhle led the AL in pitcher WAR once and finished in the top five three times. Caruthers never led his leagues but placed in the top five four times. Both guys were fantastic hitters who need every batting run because their peak-oriented pitching careers don’t add up to a HoMEr alone. Uhle is just a little better and pitched in a more competitive era. Even if you like Caruthers’ snappy black-ink totals for wins and winning percentage, you’d want to know that year in and out he played for the AA’s best teams and the ones that scored the most runs. Parisian Bob just doesn’t seem to have that je ne sais quoi.
Wilbur Cooper, SP, 1912-1926, (-, -, -)
Why he should be in: Best NL lefty 1911-1925; fifth best overall in MLB
Why he shouldn’t be in: That’s all folks
Other thoughts: Cooper is the Kevin Appier of his time. He was outstanding for a decade but gave us little else to hang our faded Pirates hats on. Though maybe we should n’t snort at fourteen years. He doesn’t have a lights-out peak, but it’s plenty good enough to push him by the careerists like Tommy John and perhaps just above the in/out line. It’s not high enough to get close to a peak/prime guy like Juan Marichal and make it an obvious yes vote. Cooper, like Appier, would be a fine addition to the HoME, and if passed over wouldn’t provoke a Balkanization of our (two-man) electorate. Compare him not only to the TJs out there but also more well thought of pitchers like Early Wynn. You might be surprised.
Dizzy Dean, SP, 1930, 1932-1941, 1947, (F, -, -)
Why he should be in: Amazing peak, arm may have trailed only Grove and Hubbell in the 30s.
Why he shouldn’t be in: All peak and nothing but the peak
Other thoughts: From the day he joined the Cardinals until the day Earl Averill’s All-Star Game liner fractured his toe in 1937, Dean was a revelation. Prior to 1937, he had put up five straight campaigns of six+ War. He was on his way to the inner circle. Some might say that he was his generation’s version of Sandy Koufax. But others could retort that Koufax was better at his best. And they might further argue that the 70s quartet of Fergie Jenkins, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, and Bert Blyleven – guys who weren’t exactly known for their peak greatness – might have had five consecutive seasons better than Dizzy’s best. Dean will be a question of just how much we value peak.
Red Faber, SP, 1914–1933, (F, M, S)
Why he should be in: Long career, plenty of wins, good ERA+, 68 career WAR
Why he shouldn’t be in: Two great seasons, one fringe All-Star season, 17 meh seasons
Other thoughts: No exaggeration. Faber’s 1921 and 1922 were truly amazing. Thereafter, he never again topped 3.6 WAR. Before his brief explosion of awesomeness, he only beat that total twice (4.1 WAR in 1915, 5.8 in 1920). An All-Star season is 5.0 WAR per BBREF, so the implication is that he had three years of note and a lot of not much else. He’s the Frank Tanana of the 1920s. The question is whether we want to reward two great seasons.
Whitey Ford, SP, 1950, 1953–1967, (F, M, S)
Why he should be in: Trad stats love him, lots of black ink, he’s Whitey Frickin’ Ford!
Why he shouldn’t be in: Had nearly every advantage, relatively few innings, less value than assumed
Other thoughts: Ford was a lefty ground-ball pitcher with so-so control and a great pick-off move. As a member of the most successful dynasty in MLB history, he was on the national stage in October more than any other pitcher and did very well. His Yankees had an airtight infield defense that turned a lot of double plays in a ballpark with cavernous dimensions in left and center. His hitters routinely finished at or near the top in R/G. His first, long-time manager conscientiously shielded him from the one place he fared worst by far (Fenway Park) and the most righty-centric lineup in the AL (Detroit). He had every advantage going his way. Ford routinely beat his FIP (2.76 ERA career, 3.26 FIP), a credit to him, but which also pumped his ERA+ upward, especially since the league average included the Yankees’ offense, but his opponents did not. And he’s admitted ball doctoring for the last third of his career. Fangraph’s WAR loves him, BBREF’s WAR merely likes him. The difference is enough to create some serious doubt.
Pud Galvin, SP,1875, 1879–1892, (F, M, S)
Why he should be in: 6000 innings, 365 wins, 84 WAR!
Why he shouldn’t be in: Context. (And he hit like Sandy Koufax…or Sandy Duncan)
Other thoughts: Bryan at The Replacement Level Blog summarized Eric’s position well in a comment on one of our recent articles: “With less separation among pitchers in run prevention, the majority of the deviation in WAR is tied to volume. Health may be a skill, and most teams wouldn’t trust a bad pitcher to throw 500 innings, but Galvin scores well in WAR largely because he pitched 6,000 innings in various forms of baseball.” There’s a lot of showing-up value on Galvin’s resume. Also his season of the ages, 1884, coincides with a double expansion in which twelve new teams (eight in the one-year Union Association and four in the one-year expansion of the American Association) were introduced into what was a sixteen-team setting (eight in the NL and AA each). His second best season, 1883, was also an expansion season as the AA went from six to eight teams in its second year. Miller has appreciated the trad stats more than Eric does, and he finds more value in the ability to take the mound every day (or every other day as Galvin’s career went on).
Clark Griffith, SP, 1891, 1893-1907, 1909, 1912-1914, (-, M, S)
Why he should be in: Two MVP-level seasons, three All-Star-level seasons, 121 ERA+
Why he shouldn’t be in: Young, Nichols, Rusie, McGinnity, Breitenstein, Hawley
Other thoughts: Like Wilbur Cooper, Clark Griffith wouldn’t be a deal breaker, and he wouldn’t trigger a duo-thermal-nuclear-word-war between us. At best, he’s the fourth best pitcher of the 1890s. The battle for fourth is between the Old Fox and Iron Joe McGinnity, which sounds like a 1980s WWF match. Believe it or not, the pair are only one birth year apart. McGinnity arrived later, but he was clearly the better pitcher. Then again, it’s not as though Griffith blows lesser lights like Ted Breitenstein, Pink Hawley, and even Jack Stivetts away. More like he survived a little longer. Here’s another thought: Griffith never once led his league in innings, and he only finished in the top-ten twice. Without lights-out effectiveness, that’s not exactly the makings of greatness.
Jim McCormick, SP, 1878-1887, (-, -, S)
Why he should be in: Strong peak, lots of value above average, great mustache
Why he shouldn’t be in: We’ve got the 1880s pitchers covered, and 1884
Other thoughts: An open question is How many 1880s pitchers do we need? We have the three, clear best ones, Clarkson, Keefe, and Radbourn. We also have that chunk of Monte Ward’s career spent as a starter. With teams starting the decade relying primarily on one pitcher then transitioning to two, how many HoMErs is enough? There’s no right answer, but three plus Ward is a perfectly acceptable answer. So might be three plus Ward plus Jim McCormick. Or you could substitute Pud Galvin’s name in for McCormick. Or is five plus Ward OK? Given the pitcher’s role as initiator, all the rule changes, and multiple rapid expansions, is it fairest to err on the side of three plus Ward? That would leave one or two slots open to those who came later and whose impact we can more clearly demonstrate.
Billy Pierce, SP, 1945, 1948-1964, (-, M, S)
Why he should be in: Because someone has to be our 63rd or 64th pitcher
Why he shouldn’t be in: Because we don’t have to vote for 63 or 64 pitchers
Other thoughts: It’s like this. We know we want around 28 to 30 percent pitchers. Feels right to us. Over 212 total honorees, that’s 58 to 64 hurlers. There are a clutch of fifteen closely clumped moundsmen vying for that coveted final pitcher’s plaque, and Billy Pierce is one. If you like career-oriented pitchers, you’ll go for Don Sutton, Tommy John, Early Wynn. If you’re a peakster, you’ll dig Dizzy Dean or Bucky Walters. If you have the 19th Century bug, there’s Pud Galvin, Jim McCormick, and Clark Griffith. Pierce occupies the middle ground. His peak is good but not amazing. His career is good but not quite as good as the careerists above. He’s sort of the Orel Hershiser of his time with a few stellar seasons and a lot of okay shoulder seasons. Like any of these guys, if just one of his surrounding seasons had been a six-win season, he’d be Bret Saberhagen or David Cone and a relatively easy vote.
Eddie Rommel, SP, 1920-1932, (-, -, -)
Why he should be in: Because we’re secretly planning to elect 150 pitchers (note Miller’s bias here)
Why he shouldn’t be in: Too few innings of less than great quality
Other thoughts: From 1920-1925, his absolute peak, bWAR sees him as the fourth best pitcher in the game. According to fWAR, he’s #24 during the exact same period, smack between Johnny Morrison and Dutch Ruether. For those who don’t believe fWAR is useless, Rommel would be a hideous selection. For those who do, he may be stretching the borderline some – unless you really value peak. And that’s reasonable. Then again, during his six-year peak the hurlers he trails include Urban Shocker and Pete Alexander, but they also include non-HoMEr, Red Faber. For what it’s worth, Rommel was also used as a trusted fireman by Connie Mack, but without play-by-play data, we can’t yet assess his value in that role. Are we allowed to un-dead someone? If so, it might be wise to give Rommel and obit and then wait to see if the PBP information ever comes around.
George Uhle, SP, 1919-1934, 1936, (-, -, -)
Why he should be in: Some stellar seasons, some shoulder value, a really good bat
Why he shouldn’t be in: Without the bat he’s Frank Viola
Other thoughts: Not that Viola is a bad guy to be, but it’s not enough, so we need to look at the bat. Wes Ferrell was on the borderline without his bat. With his weak-tea pitching peak Red Ruffing would not have been electable for one of us without his bat. Early Wynn gets a good amount of help from his hitting. On the other hand, Pud Galvin’s bat is so bad that it hurts his case. Sandy Koufax is very close to the borderline because of his “hitting.” So precedent exists for Uhle to be the peak version of Ruffing. His case may really come down to a peak/career preference or to whether his era is already well represented or another under-represented.
Bucky Walters, SP, 1931-1948, 1950, (-, -, -)
Why he should be in: More three-win seasons than Sandy Koufax
Why he shouldn’t be in: Not really better than Mark Langston
Other thoughts: It’s possible Walters is hanging around, in part, because of Koufax. See, Koufax and Dizzy Dean are pretty similar in terms of their peakiness. And Walters and Dean are pretty similar in terms of their pitcher rankings. Therefore, it seems premature to knock off Walters. Bucky’s argument rests somewhat on era. During the time he pitched, only Bob Feller and Hal Newhouser were better in all of baseball when we combine arm and bat. Of course, you might not be wrong if you called the 1940s a down decade for pitchers…or anyone.
Hoyt Wilhelm, P, 1952-1972, (F, M, S)
Why he should be in: The first outstanding career relief pitcher
Why he shouldn’t be in: Relievers don’t have that much value
Other thoughts: Recently, we both wrote about the relative value of relievers and ways to go about valuing them. Existing ways of doing it just don’t add up to much. The greatest reliever ever, Mariano Rivera, would be a third tier candidate anywhere else on the diamond. And he’s streets ahead of runner up Goose Gossage, let alone Wilhelm. And don’t forget, we’ve already inducted two great hidden relief aces: Mordecai Brown and Lefty Grove. To induct Wilhelm would require ignoring today’s value stats and instead either rationalizing that WAR and WPA don’t quite capture enough information about relief value or believing in the saves mythology. To be sure, we haven’t made up our minds, but we’re not exactly agnostics.
Early Wynn, SP, 1939, 1941-1944, 1946-1963, (F, M, S)
Why he should be in: 300 is still a magic number, isn’t it?
Why he shouldn’t be in: 300 is symptomatic of greatness, not evidence thereof
Other thoughts: Wynn looks a decent amount like Red Faber, with one less season of greatness and a little more quality in seasons 4-11. And it’s not like we’re exactly in love with Faber either. Simple enough statistics as ERA+ give us pause. Wynn’s 109 says that he’s about 9% better than average. Other long and low guys clock in with similar numbers – Don Sutton is 108, Jim Kaat is 108, and Pud Galvin is 107. Not exactly signs of greatness. We certainly haven’t decided that Wynn isn’t going, but if his argument rests on 300; then it rests on this game. And if it rests on that game, certainly taking some time before electing him is a wise decision. One thing that does go in his favor, he could hit. A lot…for a pitcher.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned to future elections to see how many of our middle children make it and how many fall short.
Miller and Eric
the Hall of Miller and Eric 