BBF Progressive HoF Election: 1907

[DoubleX]

PLEASE READ BEFORE VOTING!

Format and Rules
Voting Rules: Until further notice, voters may vote for between 0-15 candidates (the number may eventually be cut to 10). A "None of the Above" option is available if you believe no one is worthy and you wish to submit a blank ballot. Votes will be made public, and voters are encouraged to post their ballots in the thread and not view results before voting. PLEASE LIMIT YOUR BALLOT TO 15 VOTES AT MOST. EXCESS VOTES MAY RESULT IN YOUR BALLOT BEING DISQUALIFIED.

Thoughtfulness and Editing Ballots: Please review and thoughtfully consider the candidates before voting, and make sure you have accurately filled out your ballot before submitting. Requests for editing ballots after the fact will generally not be honored. Exceptions might be made if a voter accidentally voted for the wrong player or accidentally went over the voting limit (but I strongly encourage you to do your best to prevent either from happening).

Required Support: Players receiving at least 75% support in an election will be elected. Players need at least 5% support to stay on the ballot, with the exception of first time eligible players, who will need at least 1 vote to appear on the next ballot.

Player Eligibility: Players eligible for an election will have last played at least 5 years prior to the election year and have appeared in at least 10 major league seasons (exceptions may be made if player died before appearing in 10 seasons). Players will remain on the ballot for 15 years, provided they continue to receive at least 5% of the vote.
- Age Exception: For players 40 or older, they will become eligible the later of either 5 years after their last year of continuous play, or their first inactive year at age 45 or older.

Election Period: Elections will close exactly one week after starting. The next election might not commence for another day or two.


1907 Guide
There are 31 candidates on the 1907 ballot; 26 holdovers and 5 first timers. First time eligible players last played in 1902 (unless qualifying under the age rule).

First Timers (5)
Steve Brodie
Bone Ely
Dummy Hoy
Win Mercer
Wilbert Robinson

Holdovers (26)
Player Year of Eligibility Previous Support High Support
Ross Barnes 7th 52.17% 68.00% (1904)
Charlie Bennett 7th 56.52% 64.00% (1904)
Pete Browning 7th 34.78% 52.00% (1904)
Bob Caruthers 7th 56.52% 58.33% (1905)
Cupid Childs 2nd 21.74% 21.74% (1906)
Larry Corcoran 7th 8.70% 8.70% (1906)
Nig Cuppy 2nd 4.35 % 4.35% (1906)
Bob Ferguson 7th 8.70% 8.70% (1906)
Jack Glasscock 7th 43.48% 57.69% (1903)
George Gore 7th 60.87% 66.67% (1905)
Charley Jones 7th 8.70% 12.50% (1905)
Jim McCormick 7th 13.04% 13.04% (1906)
Cal McVey 7th 17.39% 32.00% (1904)
Tony Mullane 7th 60.87% 66.67% (1905)
Tip O’Neill 7th 8.70% 8.70% (1906
Lip Pike 7th 17.39% 33.33% (1905)
Hardy Richardson 7th 43.48% 58.33% (1905)
Al Spalding 7th 56.52% 56.52% (1906)
Joe Start 7th 52.17% 62.50% (1905)
Harry Stovey 7th 65.22% 70.83% (1905)
Ezra Sutton 7th 47.83% 62.50% (1905)
Sam Thompson 5th 60.87% 70.83% (1905)
Mike Tiernan 4th 8.70% 8.70% (1906)
John Ward 7th 65.22% 65.22% (1906)
Mickey Welch 7th 30.43% 40.00% (1904)
George Wright 7th 69.57% 69.57% (1905)


Holdovers Receiving At Least 50% in the Previous Election (11)
Player 1906 Support
George Wright 69.57%
Harry Stovey 65.22%
John Ward 65.22%
George Gore 60.87%
Tony Mullane 60.87%
Sam Thompson 60.87%
Charlie Bennett 56.52%
Bob Caruthers 56.52%
Al Spalding 56.52%
Ross Barnes 52.17%
Joe Start 52.17%

Holdovers Dropped from Last Election (8)
Player Reason Years on Ballot High Support
Charlie Comiskey Lack of Support 6 12.50% (1905)
Ned Hanlon Lack of Support 6 8.33% (1905)
Denny Lyons Lack of Support 5 4.17% (1902, 1905)
Bobby Mathews Lack of Support 6 8.00% (1904)
Ed McKean Lack of Support 3 4.17% (1905)
Levi Meyerle Lack of Support 6 4.17% (1902, 1905)
Dave Orr Lack of Support 6 8.33% (1902)
Will White Lack of Support 6 4.17% (1902, 1905)

Last Year of Eligibility (0)

Penultimate Year of Eligibility (0)


Hall of “Almost” - Players Receiving At Least 2/3 Support in an Election But Never Elected (6)
Player High Support Last Year on Ballot
Harry Stovey 70.83% (1905)
Sam Thompson 70.83% (1905)
George Wright 69.57% (1906)
Ross Barnes 68.00% (1904)
George Gore 66.67% (1905)
Tony Mullane 66.67% (1905)



Hall of Famers

Players Elected (15)
Player Year Elected Election Percentage Years on Ballot Position Primary Team Active Years
Cap Anson 1902 100% 1 First Base Chicago Cubs (NL) 1871-1897
Dan Brouthers 1901 90.00% 1 First Base Buffalo Bisons (NL) 1879-1896, 1904
John Clarkson 1901 90.00% 1 Pitcher Boston Beaneaters (NL) 1882, 1884-1894
Roger Conner 1902 79.17% 1 First Base New York Giants (NL) 1880-1897
Buck Ewing 1902 83.33% 1 Catcher New York Giants (NL) 1880-1897
Pud Galvin 1903 80.77% 3 Pitcher Buffalo Bisons (NL) 1875, 1879-1892
Billy Hamilton 1906 82.61% 1 Center Field Philadelphia Phillies (NL) 1888-1901
Paul Hines 1904 76.00% 4 Center Field Providence Grays (NL) 1872-1891
Tim Keefe 1901 75.00% 1 Pitcher New York Giants (NL) 1880-1893
King Kelly 1902 75.00% 2 Right Field/Catcher Chicago Cubs (NL) 1878-1893
Bid McPhee 1905 75.00% 2 Second Base Cincinnati Reds (NL/AA) 1882-1899
Jim O’Rourke 1901 90.00% 1 Left Field New York Giants (NL) 1872-1893, 1904
Charley Radbourn 1901 95.00% 1 Pitcher Providence Grays (NL) 1881-1891
Amos Rusie 1906 78.26% 1 Pitcher New York Giants (NL) 1889-1898, 1901
Deacon White 1904 76.00% 4 Third Base/Catcher Buffalo Bisons (NL) 1871-1890

Players Elected by Primary Position
Catcher (1): Buck Ewing
First Base (3): Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, Roger Conner
Second Base (1): Bid McPhee
Third Base (0):
Shortstop (0):
Left Field (1): Jim O'Rourke
Center Field (2): Billy Hamilton, Paul Hines
Right Field (1): King Kelly
Utility (1): Deacon White
Pitcher (5): John Clarkson, Pud Galvin, Tim Keefe, Charley Radbourn, Amos Rusie

Players Elected by Year
1901 (5): Dan Brouthers, John Clarkson, Tim Keefe, Jim O’Rourke, Charley Radbourn
1902 (4): Cap Anson, Roger Conner, Buck Ewing, King Kelly
1903 (1): Pud Galvin
1904 (2): Paul Hines, Deacon White
1905 (1): Bid McPhee
1906 (2): Billy Hamilton, Amos Rusie

Number of Ballots Submitted in Past Elections
1901: 20
1902: 24
1903: 26
1904: 25
1905: 24
1906: 23

Links to Past Elections
1901 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=77167)
1902 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=77464)
1903 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=77797)
1904 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=78133)
1905 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=78417)
1906 (http://baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=78737)

[DoubleX]

The Barnes supporters finally got me. Here's my ballot:

Ross Barnes
Charlie Bennett
Pete Browning
Bob Caruthers
Jack Glasscock
George Gore
Jim McCormick
Tony Mullane
Hardy Richardson
Joe Start
Harry Stovey
Ezra Sutton
Sam Thompson
John Ward
Mickey Welch

It will be interest to see if thinning out the ballot with the 5% rule helps get a few extra guys elected.

I've included a Hall of "Almost" list in the opening post, which will reflect all players that receive at least 2/3 support in an election but were never elected. We have six such players now: Harry Stovey, Sam Thompson, George Wright, Ross Barnes, George Gore, and Tony Mullane.

[Erik Bedard]

Ross Barnes
Al Spalding
Harry Stovey
John Ward
George Wright

This is a very weak ballot. If I didn't give contributor credit, this could be cut to three.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Ross Barnes
Charlie Bennett
Pete Browning
Bob Caruthers
Jack Glasscock
George Gore
Cal McVey
Tony Mullane
Lip Pike
Hardy Richardson
Joe Start
Harry Stovey
Ezra Sutton
Sam Thompson
John Ward

[Paul Wendt]

Late last year,
I would ask for a special exemption for Win Mercer. He was a very good pitcher for bad teams, a strong "Cy Young" candidate in 1897, and an excellent hitting pitcher. He played nine years and was still going strong when he died after the 1902 season at age 28. He was suffering from "pulmonary troubles" and depression related to that when he took his life.
The ladies were wild over Winnie Mercer. It was embarrassing to read the coverage of his career in some of our less distinguished newspapers. Mangement noticed, of course, without the help of the writing fraternity. Mercer's work as field manager might have been just what one of the struggling Washington clubs needed. I wonder whey they never tried it? Manager, with the President's orders not to take the mound himself on ladies day!

Chick Stahl
Died March 28, 1907 in W.Baden, IN

Chick was another looker. Are Winnie and Chick nicknames that ladies give to their favorites?

Everyone must have noticed how many suicides we have in baseball. Does anyone know why? The Stahl and Mercer cases are extra worrisome for the game. A prominent player is named the manager of his team, which always means some extra money and a bigger name for himself, and also shows that he is respected as one who knows his stuff. And then he gives it up?

Old Cy Young says that he doesn't want it and Larry Lajoie says that thinking about the team hurts his playing. But it doesn't bother Fielder Jones and Frank Chance out in Chicago.

[Paul Wendt]

(This is not a ballot.)
My top eight at the moment:

Barnes, Spalding, Wright, Ward
Bennett, Caruthers, Gore, Start

[Sockeye]

Mickey Welch

[jalbright]

Bennett
Childs
Glasscock
Gore
Mullane
Richardson
Start
Stovey
Sutton
Thompson
Ward
Wright

[leecemark]

Ross Barnes - Best 2B and arguably best peak in history
Charlie Bennett - Best career catcher in history
Bob Caruthers - outstanding 2 way player
George Gore - 2nd only to the great Hines amoung
Cal McVey - versatile hitting star of the
Tony Mullane - best of the AA pitchers
Al Spalding - dominant early pitcher and pioneer
Joe Start - best player of the 1860s
Harry Stovey - top AA slugger
Ezra Sutton - best eligible 3B so far
Sam Thompson - mightest slugger of the
John Ward - top flight SS, pitcher and players advocate
George Wright - superstar SS and pioneer

[leecemark]

--7 votes in and only JH Ward is on pace for election. Of course at 7 votes it only takes 2 to block and one ballot blocked all but the immortal Mickey Welch. Bunch of guys who will be on pace if the next voter punches their ticket.
-- BTW does any one think that Welch's chances for induction have been severely compromised by his isolated position on that one ballot? I doubt I'd be voting for him anyway, but I do have 2 open spots and he did win 300 games. Not in very impressive fashion perhaps, but Galvin wasn't a world beater either and we elected him.

[jjpm74]

--7 votes in and only JH Ward is on pace for election. Of course at 7 votes it only takes 2 to block and one ballot blocked all but the immortal Mickey Welch. Bunch of guys who will be on pace if the next voter punches their ticket.
-- BTW does any one think that Welch's chances for induction have been severely compromised by his isolated position on that one ballot? I doubt I'd be voting for him anyway, but I do have 2 open spots and he did win 300 games. Not in very impressive fashion perhaps, but Galvin wasn't a world beater either and we elected him.

I don't think it has anything to do with it. Welch is a pretty undeserving candidate. I was under the impression that sockeye was asked to leave this project by doubleX. All he's doing is imposing a stupid benchmark that didn't mean anything at this time in history. By continuing, he's making this less enjoyable and not worthwhile.

[DoubleX]

I don't think it has anything to do with it. Welch is a pretty undeserving candidate. I was under the impression that sockeye was asked to leave this project by doubleX. All he's doing is imposing a stupid benchmark that didn't mean anything at this time in history. By continuing, he's making this less enjoyable and not worthwhile.

I did not ask him to leave. We did exchange several PMs and I made clear that going forward his vote could be discounted. I have to admit, I'm still struggling with what to do. I'm loathe to discount any votes, but it was also pretty clear in Sockeye's PMs to me that he is unwilling to adopt a perspective that appropriately accounts for the era. Choosing instead to impose automatic benchmarks that have no meaning or practicality in the era we're looking at and unfairly punish players of this era. He also mentioned something about only voting for players when the appropriate time comes. Such as Paul Hines is specifically a 5th ballot guy, and thus he wouldn't vote for Hines until he was on the ballot for 5 years. King Kelly was a 3rd ballot guy, and that's why he didn't vote for him in the first two years, and so on. I don't really get this approach. I can understand wanting to distinguish between maybe 1st ballot and the rest, but if you're a Hall of Famer, you're a Hall of Famer - what's the difference between 2nd ballot and 5th ballot? How does one even make such a distinction?

I do wish Sockeye would respond to his critics in public, and I asked him to do so, but he refused.

Anyway, after re-reading this, I think I've convinced myself to to discount Sockeye's ballot. That does present some logistically problems, however, in that the poll will not actually reflect the true results.

[jjpm74]

Anyway, after re-reading this, I think I've convinced myself to to discount Sockeye's ballot. That does present some logistically problems, however, in that the poll will not actually reflect the true results.

If you need any assistance in retabulating after this election ends, I'd be happy to oblige.

The whole 1st ballot, 6th ballot, whatever makes no sense. A HOFer is a HOFer regardless of how short/long it took to get him there.

[Brad Harris]

Easy to sort out this time...

My ballot
Ross Barnes
Charlie Bennett
Bob Caruthers
Jack Glasscock
George Gore
Charley Jones
Tony Mullane
Lip Pike
Al Spalding
Joe Start
Harry Stovey
Ezra Sutton
Sam Thompson
John Ward
George Wright

In the queue/under consideration
Hardy Richardson
Cupid Childs
Cal McVey
Pete Browning

"Never gonna get it..."
Steve Brodie
Larry Corcoran
Nig Cuppy
Bones Ely
Bob Ferguson
Dummy Hoy
Jim McCormick
Win Mercer
Tip O’Neill
Wilbert Robinson
Mike Tiernan
Mickey Welch - might have made my consideration set but I loathe the sight of his name thanks to this project

[NineWorldSeries]

I have finally decided to vote for Ward after careful consideration.

My ballot:

Browning
Caruthers
Hoy
Mullane
Spalding
Thompson
Ward
Welch
Wright

[AG2004]

He also mentioned something about only voting for players when the appropriate time comes. Such as Paul Hines is specifically a 5th ballot guy, and thus he wouldn't vote for Hines until he was on the ballot for 5 years. King Kelly was a 3rd ballot guy, and that's why he didn't vote for him in the first two years, and so on. I don't really get this approach. I can understand wanting to distinguish between maybe 1st ballot and the rest, but if you're a Hall of Famer, you're a Hall of Famer - what's the difference between 2nd ballot and 5th ballot? How does one even make such a distinction?



I think I know how Sockeye made those distinctions.

Paul Hines was elected in his fourth year of eligibility. Since Sockeye did not vote for him in any of those four elections, Sockeye can't claim that he should have showed up on any of his first four ballots. But, by making Hines a "5th ballot guy," Sockeye can claim that he would have voted for him, but the other voters elected Hines before he got a chance.

Similarly, King Kelly was elected in his second year of eligibility. Therefore, Sockeye retroactively makes him a "3rd ballot guy."

The formula Sockeye uses is simple. If it takes N years for a player to get elected, Sockeye makes that player an (N+1)th-ballot guy. It works wonderfully for players who have already been elected. It's a bit more difficult to apply to candidates still on the ballot, which is why he hasn't been voting for anyone who hasn't reached his benchmarks. The very fact that someone hasn't been elected in his first six tries means that he's not a 7th-ballot guy -- but Sockeye doesn't have any way of telling us which ballot he'd put such a player on.

I do wish Sockeye would respond to his critics in public, and I asked him to do so, but he refused.

I'm not too surprised. If the only standards he's applying are (a) 300 wins, (b) 3000 hits, or (c) 400 home runs, then he knows that he can't create any justification for his using them (in a 1907 context) which will not be roundly criticized by his critics. In order to avoid these responses, Sockeye has no choice but to avoid stating his standards and evade responding to questions for as long as possible.

Back in 1902, Sockeye never told me why he saw Connor and Brouthers as unworthy as the hall; his "response" consisted of arguing that they weren't as good as Anson. I stated that I wasn't asking him to compare the three players; I was asking him to state his standards for the Hall and explain why Connor and Brouthers didn't meet those standards. Sockeye didn't do that; he just continued to argue that those two weren't as good as Anson. I wouldn't be surprised if Sockeye now considers the two first basemen in question to be 2nd-ballot guys.

He's getting more intelligent. In last year's election, I asked him why he saw Welch as superior to Rusie, and he never bothered to respond. That way, I couldn't comment on his reasons for holding that opinion.

----

I'll ask Sockeye two simple questions.

(1) Are there any candidates on this year's ballot that you would consider voting for?

(2) If so, on which ballots (2nd, 5th, or 13th, for example) would you first put those candidates on?

[DoubleX]

I think I know how Sockeye made those distinctions.

Paul Hines was elected in his fourth year of eligibility. Since Sockeye did not vote for him in any of those four elections, Sockeye can't claim that he should have showed up on any of his first four ballots. But, by making Hines a "5th ballot guy," Sockeye can claim that he would have voted for him, but the other voters elected Hines before he got a chance.

Similarly, King Kelly was elected in his second year of eligibility. Therefore, Sockeye retroactively makes him a "3rd ballot guy."

The formula Sockeye uses is simple. If it takes N years for a player to get elected, Sockeye makes that player an (N+1)th-ballot guy. It works wonderfully for players who have already been elected. It's a bit more difficult to apply to candidates still on the ballot, which is why he hasn't been voting for anyone who hasn't reached his benchmarks. The very fact that someone hasn't been elected in his first six tries means that he's not a 7th-ballot guy -- but Sockeye doesn't have any way of telling us which ballot he'd put such a player on.

Good observation. For public consumption, here's how Sockeye evaluated certain players in his system:

If you must know here are the years and worthiness of the players so far elected.

Anson (1st)
Brouthers (2nd)
Clarkson (1st)
Connor (2nd)
Ewing (2nd)
Galvin (1st)
Hines (5th)
Keefe (1st)
Kelly (3rd)
McPhee (3rd)
O'Rouke (2nd)
Radbourn (1st)
White (2nd)

Your theory is true for each player on this list he did not vote for, except one - Brouthers, Connor, Ewing, Hines, Kelly, McPhee, and O'Rourke. The one exception is White, whom Sockeye lists as a 2nd ballot guy, but White (both Deacon and Will) lingered past the 2nd ballot without ever receiving Sockeye's support. The other 5 guys, Anson, Clarkson, Galvin, Keefe, and Radbourn, Sockeye did vote for, but all also achieved an arbitrary benchmark with modern relevance but little to no meaning in the early 20th Century.

So that's 7/8 players that coincidentally would have received Sockeye's vote the election after they were elected, and the 1 other player, Sockeye never voted for anyway. Seems kind of convenient.

I've asked Sockeye to explain himself in public. He's declined, which is his prerogative, but I'm convinced he's an obstructionist, going by the beat of his drummer and refusing to abide by the spirit of this project. So I am discounting his vote (which shouldn't be an issue since he said to me that he could care less anyway) and I am banning him from participating in elections.

For this election, I will remove a vote for Welch, but if you want to know what the actual results are minus Sockeye's vote, you'll have to tabulate manually by dividing the total for each player by one less than the total votes represented on the poll.

[Paul Wendt]

Your theory is true for each player on this list he did not vote for, except one - Brouthers, Connor, Ewing, Hines, Kelly, McPhee, and O'Rourke. The one exception is White, whom Sockeye lists as a 2nd ballot guy, but White (both Deacon and Will) lingered past the 2nd ballot without ever receiving Sockeye's support.
Regarding Deacon White, no doubt Sockeye was fooled by your own clerical error at the top of the page, listing White as a 1st ballot winner.

[BlueBlood]

Ezra Sutton and Jim McCormick, players that appeared on my 1905 ballot, return to replace the elected Billy Hamilton and Amos Rusie. In other words, my ballot for 1907 is the same as 1905 but with Cupid Childs in place of the elected Bid McPhee.

Barnes
Bennett
Browning
Caruthers
Childs
Glasscock
Gore
McCormick
Mullane
Richardson
Start
Stovey
Sutton
Thompson
Wright


Ranked By # of Ballot Appearances:

Six (1901 onward) - Pete Browning, Bob Caruthers, Tony Mullane, Joe Start, Harry Stovey, George Wright
Five (1902 onward) - Ross Barnes, Hardy Richardson
Four (1903 onward) - Charlie Bennett, Jack Glasscock, George Gore, Sam Thompson
Two (1906 onward) - Cupid Childs
Two (1905 and 1907) - Jim McCormick and Ezra Sutton

[BlueBlood]

For this election, I will remove a vote for Welch, but if you want to know what the actual results are minus Sockeye's vote, you'll have to tabulate manually by dividing the total for each player by one less than the total votes represented on the poll.

And whaddayaknow, there's a bunch of guys that now have 8 out of 10 votes once Sockeye's ballot is discarded and a few hovering near election with 7 out of 10.

[DoubleX]

Regarding Deacon White, no doubt Sockeye was fooled by your own clerical error at the top of the page, listing White as a 1st ballot winner.

Ha, I hadn't even noticed that. I think that proves that Sockeye had an improper motive.

[jjpm74]

Ha, I hadn't even noticed that. I think that proves that Sockeye had an improper motive.

Was that definitely how his PM read? If so, it's amazing to think that someone would actually believe that the people here who frequent the HOF forum would be so dense as to not pick up on it.

[Freakshow]

It was suggested to post this earlier. Here's the list of new candidates for 1908, as I have it:

Billy Clingman-3B/SS
Tom Daly-2B
Ed Delahanty-LF
Bill Hallman-2B
Brickyard Kennedy-P
Jimmy Ryan-CF/RF
George Van Haltren-CF
Chief Zimmer-C

[leecemark]

--Sure hope we clear some backloggers this year. Delahanty should be first ballot and Ryan and Van Haltren are sure to have a fair number of supporters.

[BlueBlood]

Yep, just those three. Perhaps Zimmer? Let's say there's a season threshold where discussion goes out the window. Like if a player plays 18 seasons, they automatically make it to the poll. Zimmer then makes it and his amount of play has the potential to receive a vote or two while the other three are well deserving. Simply put, having an amount of seasons that automatically leads to the ballot would make the discussion process for each future poll much easier.

[Freakshow]

1907 Ballot: Rusie and Hamilton are replaced by Pike and Childs.

Barnes
Bennett
Caruthers
Childs
Glasscock
Gore
McVey
Pike
Richardson
Spalding
Start
Stovey
Sutton
Ward
Wright

[Paul Wendt]

And whaddayaknow, there's a bunch of guys that now have 8 out of 10 votes once Sockeye's ballot is discarded and a few hovering near election with 7 out of 10.
I'm tempted to pursue the arithmetic but I think we should all give Sockeye a rest now that DoubleX has made the call.

[DoubleX]

Was that definitely how his PM read? If so, it's amazing to think that someone would actually believe that the people here who frequent the HOF forum would be so dense as to not pick up on it.

Yup. In his preceding paragraph, which I did not post, he explicitly says that he ranks people by year of ballot worthiness, 1-15, and will not vote for a player until the appropriate year. Convenient huh?

EDITED: To correct many grammar problems.

[jalbright]

Yup. In his preceding paragraph which I did not post his explicitly that he ranks people by year of ballot worthiness, 1-15, and will not vote for a player until the appropriate year. Convenient huh?

I think that particular piece of evidence really speaks to the insincerity with which those ballots were cast. We need good faith balloting by all participants.

[Brad Harris]

Yup. In his preceding paragraph, which I did not post, he explicitly says that he ranks people by year of ballot worthiness, 1-15, and will not vote for a player until the appropriate year. Convenient huh?

EDITED: To correct many grammar problems.

So by his own admission, he has an established order of "ballot worthiness"? Well, that certainly means those in his queue, regardless of their placement, are worthy of election. That he chooses not to put those names on a ballot on which he has plenty of room speaks volumes about his real motive.

I suggest an amendment to the rules in which voters are instructed to put the names of all candidates they feel are Hall-worthy on their ballot excepting only those instances where a voter feels than more than 15 players are Hall-worthy, in which case the voter shall put the 15 players he feels are most worthy.

As it appears we are establishing a Veterans Committee to include "overlooked" players, I feel much more positive about going forward with the 15 most deserving players on my ballot and allowing the Charley Jones and Lip Pikes of the world to slip off the ballot.

[Brooklyn]

Browning, Glasscock, Mullane, Spalding, Thomson, Ward, Welch, Wright

After the back and forth on the last election, I would agree that I was relying somewhat too heavily on current standards, and moved Glasscock, Ward and Wright from my maybe list to my ballot.

[Brad Harris]

After the back and forth on the last election, I would agree that I was relying somewhat too heavily on current standards, and moved Glasscock, Ward and Wright from my maybe list to my ballot.
No worries. To my mind there's only been one person in previous elections with even remotely questionable motives and I think that's nothing more than a matter of differences of opinion between what this project is and what that voter wants this project to be; nothing more. I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we want as many opinions and participants in this project as possible (so long as they agree to "play by the rules".)

No problem with people who want to draw the line "here" as opposed to "there" and I don't think anyone else does so long as that line is within sight of who this group has already elected.

Glad to have you. :)

[PVNICK]

I added Barnes and Hardy Richardson.

Barnes
Bennett
Browning
Caruthers
Childs
Glasscock
Gore
Mullane
Spalding
Stovey
Thompson
Ward
Welch
Wright

[DoubleX]

Browning, Glasscock, Mullane, Spalding, Thomson, Ward, Welch, Wright

After the back and forth on the last election, I would agree that I was relying somewhat too heavily on current standards, and moved Glasscock, Ward and Wright from my maybe list to my ballot.

I echo what Classic said. I am extremely loathe to question a person's motives and even more reluctant to discount a vote. So the circumstances have to be pretty blatant. I've never thought twice about your vote, or any other save the one we've all talked about. It's perfectly fine to be a discerning voter.

It's also a very tough thing to adjust our standards. It's impossible for us to recreate perception in 1907. The best we can try to do, IMO, is to try to put the generation we're looking at in a relevant context and realize where using modern standards might not be appropriate. It's difficult though and goes against our instincts and subconscious perception.

[DoubleX]

I'll try to list the true results every few days. Through 13 ballots, here are the results:


John Ward - 92.31
Barnes - 76.92
Bennett - 76.92
Caruthers - 76.92
Stovey - 76.92
Thompson - 76.92
Wright - 76.92

Glasscock - 69.23
Gore - 69.23
Mullane - 69.23
Spalding - 69.23
Start - 69.23
Sutton - 61.54
Browning - 46.15
Richardson - 46.15
Childs - 38.46
Welch - 38.46
Pike - 30.77
McVey - 23.08
Hoy - 15.39
McCormick - 15.39
Corcoran - 7.69
Jones - 7.69

Brodie - 0
Cuppy - 0
Ely - 0
Ferguson - 0
Mercer - 0
O'Neill - 0
Tiernan - 0

Things are looking pretty good for Ward at this point. Then there 6 guys about 75% right now, but I'd actually be surprised if any of the 6 finish that way. I probably give Wright the best shot of those 6.

[Paul Wendt]

I suggest an amendment to the rules in which voters are instructed to put the names of all candidates they feel are Hall-worthy on their ballot excepting only those instances where a voter feels than more than 15 players are Hall-worthy, in which case the voter shall put the 15 players he feels are most worthy.
From modern perspective (2008), how do I know that before I know whether this group will elect 100, 200, or 300 players? (Not 300, I am now sure, but 100 outfielders and firstbasemen may yet be in the cards.) Joe Kelley, Hugh Duffy; Joe Medwick, Hack Wilson; Dave Parker, Dale Murphy. All six are in the BBF HOF.

AG is arguing for greater selectivity, almost in these numerical terms. His approach clearly implies many fewer than 100 OF and 1B. Last year someone joined him. (Erik Bedard?) It seems to be an open question.
As it appears we are establishing a Veterans Committee to include "overlooked" players, I feel much more positive about going forward with the 15 most deserving players on my ballot and allowing the Charley Jones and Lip Pikes of the world to slip off the ballot.
Arranging for a second look does provide some comfort. I'm not sure how much overlooking is at issue. The issue may be evolving selectivity --I anticipate a gradually lower standard as time passes.

[DoubleX]

Another effect of having a VC might be for us to go to a 10 vote ballot as there will be that VC safety net. Many of us are no longer voting for 15 anyway. One big argument against this though is that the expanded helps to combat the problems with a small electorate.

[jalbright]

Since we're following Cooperstown and eliminating guys from consideration, I think we've got to have a VC mechanism. If we kept everyone eligible from the day they went on the ballot, we wouldn't need one at least for major leaguers, and maybe even the Negro Leaguers. Going that way would be a very different project than this one, so I'm not suggesting this project go in that direction. Our own experience with various projects has convinced me that one of the most critical errors of Cooperstown was this limited eligibility idea.

[leecemark]

--Ross Barnes has again dropped below the 75% threshold. If we fail to elect him I think will will have set an impossibily high standard for peak candidates. Passing on a middle infielder who was the best hitter in baseball over a 5-6 year period pretty much says that we are only interested in electing those who last long enough to hit significant career milestones. I can live with that, but it will make for a much smaller Hall than the one currently locate din Cooperstown. There won't be room for the Elmer Flicks, Hack Wilson's, Ralph Kiners, etc.
--If Barnes goes unelected I see that as a strong statement that we are looking for at least 10 All Star caliber seasons for a realistic candidate. Personaqlly I see 5 MVP type seasons as equal or better than 10 All Star type, but that may not be our consensus. Of course we may set our standards so high that we require both 5 MVP AND 10 All Star caliber seasons. I would also be okay with that, but it would require a fairly large shift in who I consider voting for. We'd be definately in Small Hall mode - with closer to 100 than 200 players worthy of induction.

[jalbright]

If Barnes had played 100 game seasons in a more robust league, I would agree with you, Mark. However, his 6 year peak is a mere 320 games, with rule changes that may or may not had a huge effect on his play. If I could equate Barnes' six peak years with the best six of some of those mentioned, I'd vote for him--but I'm just not convinced. My counterargument is that if Barnes is in, Chino Smith deserves it as well. Personally, I'm comfortable with both on the outside.

[PVNICK]

I put Barnes in after not having him in becuase my assumption is in 1907, thoguhts such as an overcrowded hall and longevity may not have been as prevalent, also he dominanted his leagues for several years and be very very fresh in peoples minds as a Giant of his time.

By the way for whatever reason I always mentally associate him with Davy Force. Was Force even worthy of consideration or just a SS/2B who played regularly @ 1876-1880?

[jjpm74]

If Barnes had played 100 game seasons in a more robust league, I would agree with you, Mark. However, his 6 year peak is a mere 320 games, with rule changes that may or may not had a huge effect on his play. If I could equate Barnes' six peak years with the best six of some of those mentioned, I'd vote for him--but I'm just not convinced. My counterargument is that if Barnes is in, Chino Smith deserves it as well. Personally, I'm comfortable with both on the outside.

The difference there is that C.Smith only had 6 years total. Barnes had 13. If you guys are prepared to overlook a peak that outshined teammates Cal McVey, George Wright and Jim O'Rourke, be prepared to see guys like Joe Gordon and Ralph Kiner left on the outside looking in later on.

[DoubleX]

I've come around to Barnes on the subjective factor that he was the star of his day, but I agree most of what Jim said. His career was just too short and came at such an early juncture when the game was different in many aspects, that I can see why it's hard for some to get enthused about him. He might be better regarded as a pioneer/player, and thus might a better candidate for the VC.

Also, Jim, re eligibility, I think it adds another dimension of interest, and also serves as a natural mechanism for thinning things out. In theory, if someone isn't elected in 15 years, why think they'll ever be elected by that mechanism? Additionally, it keeps things relevant in that the real voters are judging players that they can remember and likely covered, instead of comparing players they can remember vividly to players they only know through box scores and second hand accounts. As time goes by, a specialized committee, IMO, is probably more appropriate for assessing players that have faded into history. I wish the actual Hall would adopt the enlightened committee approach.

[Paul Wendt]

DoubleX said of Ross Barnes,
> He might be better regarded as a pioneer/player

I don't see him as a pioneer in any way. A local or regional pioneer of professionalism? There were hundreds of them in the late 1860s. Unless we learn that Barnes or Spalding was the Forest City Club leader initiating the collection and division of admissions, which is implausible to me given their age. And I doubt that a focused research effort covering 100 early clubs that charged admission would identify 10 such individual leaders.

George Wright may be regarded as a pioneering professional player, someone pushing the envelope of amateurism. (He was an important sporting pioneer in other respects, too)

Ross Barnes has again dropped below the 75% threshold. If we fail to elect him I think will will have set an impossibily high standard for peak candidates.
Regarding the candidates who die on the ballot, we will not be able to say that we have failed to elect anyone --or, more directly, rejected anyone-- until completing nine years pass. Then we will suddenly reject, who knows, a dozen at once. We simply don't know whether we will see a surge of support for dying 15-year old candidates. (We do know that there will be greater scope for a surge in favor of everyone who comes later than in favor of those in the first class. Only once there will be many 15-year olds together.)

Passing on a middle infielder who was the best hitter in baseball over a 5-6 year period pretty much says that we are only interested in electing those who last long enough to hit significant career milestones. I can live with that, but it will make for a much smaller Hall than the one currently locate din Cooperstown. There won't be room for the Elmer Flicks, Hack Wilson's, Ralph Kiners, etc.
--If Barnes goes unelected I see that as a strong statement that we are looking for at least 10 All Star caliber seasons for a realistic candidate.
Elmer Flick did put up 10 All-Star caliber seasons but I take the point.
(I doubt the diagnosis and doubt that everyone or 75% credit Barnes with six MVP seasons.)

Personally I see 5 MVP type seasons as equal or better than 10 All Star type, but that may not be our consensus. Of course we may set our standards so high that we require both 5 MVP AND 10 All Star caliber seasons. I would also be okay with that, but it would require a fairly large shift in who I consider voting for. We'd be definitely in Small Hall mode - with closer to 100 than 200 players worthy of induction.
AG who explicitly uses 30 win shares and 20 win shares to define those terms. Otherwise I don't know what anyone means by MVP and 10 AllStar "caliber" seasons, or simply by MVP and All Star seasons, etc. If anyone doubts that Elmer Flick put up ten of the All Star flavor, I suppose that requirement alone restricts the number to fewer than 100 players, without insisting on any of the MVP flavor.

[jjpm74]

Regarding the candidates who die on the ballot, we will not be able to say that we have failed to elect anyone --or, more directly, rejected anyone-- until completing nine years pass. Then we will suddenly reject, who knows, a dozen at once. We simply don't know whether we will see a surge of support for dying 15-year old candidates. (We do know that there will be greater scope for a surge in favor of everyone who comes later than in favor of those in the first class. Only once there will be many 15-year olds together.)


I'd be surprised if we elect any of them. Most of the electees so far have been elected on the 1st ballot. While a good portion of the voters seem to be reading and participating in the discussions, about 7-8 of them per election have not to this point. Those 7-8 may be simply clicking boxes with little regard for hearing any cases or seeing whether or not a player is gaining momentum. Some of those participants probably fall under the casual fan category who know enough to elect a no brainer but might not have even heard of a guy like Charlie Bennett. 7-8 out of on average 24 voters per cycle is enough to keep guys who get to 66% out.

That is also why I think that some of these guys will get in through the VC as in all likelihood the 15 who sit on the committee will be the same 12-15 supporting these lesser known candidates.

[BlueBlood]

Let's just make the VC one upstanding and somewhat knowledgeable person. In fact, I'll do it.

[jalbright]

The difference there is that C.Smith only had 6 years total. Barnes had 13. If you guys are prepared to overlook a peak that outshined teammates Cal McVey, George Wright and Jim O'Rourke, be prepared to see guys like Joe Gordon and Ralph Kiner left on the outside looking in later on.

Barnes did nothing in the other seven years of his career to convince anyone he was great. I realize he was dealing with illness and/or injury, but I think it's insanity to contend that those other seven years really mean much in evaluating Barnes' HOF qualifications. He's a peak guy or forget it, and seven forgettable years don't change that one iota. I'm more a career guy to begin with, and then you add in the issues of the rules and the primordial state of the game in Barnes' day (do you seriously want to argue that the majors weren't stronger competition for Gordon and Kiner than Barnes?) are just enough when combined to make me back away from Barnes. Chino Smith had just as good a peak IMHO as Barnes, and if you put Barnes in on that peak (it's the only way he gets in), then the door should be just as open to Chino.

[jalbright]

Let's just make the VC one upstanding and somewhat knowledgeable person. In fact, I'll do it.

Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't advocate only one person's views should be the only one to matter even if it were my own. That said, if there's a one person VC, I'm outtahere, regardless of who it would be. I suspect you were joking about that, which is fine, and I have little doubt we won't have a one person VC.

[Brooklyn]

No worries. To my mind there's only been one person in previous elections with even remotely questionable motives and I think that's nothing more than a matter of differences of opinion between what this project is and what that voter wants this project to be; nothing more. I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we want as many opinions and participants in this project as possible (so long as they agree to "play by the rules".)

No problem with people who want to draw the line "here" as opposed to "there" and I don't think anyone else does so long as that line is within sight of who this group has already elected.

Glad to have you. :)

I echo what Classic said. I am extremely loathe to question a person's motives and even more reluctant to discount a vote. So the circumstances have to be pretty blatant. I've never thought twice about your vote, or any other save the one we've all talked about. It's perfectly fine to be a discerning voter.

It's also a very tough thing to adjust our standards. It's impossible for us to recreate perception in 1907. The best we can try to do, IMO, is to try to put the generation we're looking at in a relevant context and realize where using modern standards might not be appropriate. It's difficult though and goes against our instincts and subconscious perception.

To be clear, I didn't add the players because I felt pressure. But the process worked exactly has I hoped it would. There was back and forth on the players that I had on my maybe list, and the conversation was enough to convince me on a few of them.

--Ross Barnes has again dropped below the 75% threshold. If we fail to elect him I think will will have set an impossibily high standard for peak candidates. Passing on a middle infielder who was the best hitter in baseball over a 5-6 year period pretty much says that we are only interested in electing those who last long enough to hit significant career milestones. I can live with that, but it will make for a much smaller Hall than the one currently locate din Cooperstown. There won't be room for the Elmer Flicks, Hack Wilson's, Ralph Kiners, etc.
--If Barnes goes unelected I see that as a strong statement that we are looking for at least 10 All Star caliber seasons for a realistic candidate. Personaqlly I see 5 MVP type seasons as equal or better than 10 All Star type, but that may not be our consensus. Of course we may set our standards so high that we require both 5 MVP AND 10 All Star caliber seasons. I would also be okay with that, but it would require a fairly large shift in who I consider voting for. We'd be definately in Small Hall mode - with closer to 100 than 200 players worthy of induction.

I can't get over the fair/foul hits with Barnes. His career tailed when that rule was changed. I'm not against his peak - it is quite impressive. But he did it under different rules. Sometimes you do have to give a player credit for taking advantage of the rules in effect. But in this case, I chalk it up to the league learning which rules made sense, and this one didn't. And Barnes couldn't compete at a HOF level after the change

[jjpm74]

I can't get over the fair/foul hits with Barnes. His career tailed when that rule was changed. I'm not against his peak - it is quite impressive. But he did it under different rules. Sometimes you do have to give a player credit for taking advantage of the rules in effect. But in this case, I chalk it up to the league learning which rules made sense, and this one didn't. And Barnes couldn't compete at a HOF level after the change

The fair foul rule was changed because of Barnes. He was an expert at exploiting that rule. He reminds me of a certain basketball player named Wilt who exploited a rule so well that they had to change it. :shhh:

[jjpm74]

Barnes did nothing in the other seven years of his career to convince anyone he was great. I realize he was dealing with illness and/or injury, but I think it's insanity to contend that those other seven years really mean much in evaluating Barnes' HOF qualifications. He's a peak guy or forget it, and seven forgettable years don't change that one iota. I'm more a career guy to begin with, and then you add in the issues of the rules and the primordial state of the game in Barnes' day (do you seriously want to argue that the majors weren't stronger competition for Gordon and Kiner than Barnes?) are just enough when combined to make me back away from Barnes. Chino Smith had just as good a peak IMHO as Barnes, and if you put Barnes in on that peak (it's the only way he gets in), then the door should be just as open to Chino.

The only insanity is your justification of comparing an obscure player who never played a single game in the ML, had 1 documented year in a league that actually kept any kind of semblance of statistics and is compared to Lloyd Waner (http://www.historicbaseball.com/players/s/smith_chino.html) to a player who was documented as playing in a professional league and out competing guys like Spalding, the Wright Bros, McVey and O'Rourke.

[Brooklyn]

The fair foul rule was changed because of Barnes. He was an expert at exploiting that rule. He reminds me of a certain basketball player named Wilt who exploited a rule so well that they had to change it. :shhh:

But when Wilt was gone, they changed the rule back. When Barnes was gone, they didn't change the rule back. They weren't saying, "Barnes is too good, this rule shouldn't be here when he plays". They were saying "this rule makes no sense"

They made rule changes for Gretzky, too, btw. I don't put Barnes in the Chamberlain / Gretzky category

[jalbright]

I can't get over the fair/foul hits with Barnes. His career tailed when that rule was changed. I'm not against his peak - it is quite impressive. But he did it under different rules. Sometimes you do have to give a player credit for taking advantage of the rules in effect. But in this case, I chalk it up to the league learning which rules made sense, and this one didn't. And Barnes couldn't compete at a HOF level after the change

In fairness to Barnes, his illness/injury problems started at the same time. It would be so much easier to assess the impact of the rule change on his career had he had at least one or two healthy years after the rule change. Had he excelled after the change, it would eliminate that issue--and had he failed, it would point to the fair foul rule as necessary for him to succeed. Bottom line is I have too many questions about Barnes to support him.

[Paul Wendt]

"I chalk it up to the league learning which rules made sense, and this one didn't."

"The fair foul rule was changed because of Barnes."

I would read a lot of 1876 and 1877 newspapers before saying that National League owners decided their rule made no sense, or saying that they decided because of Ross Barnes.

In general I don't believe there are many rules that "make sense" or "don't make sense".
And no baseball players using particular batting or pitching or baserunning tactics were able to dominate like George Mikan or Wilt Chamberlain around the basket.

[jalbright]

The only insanity is your justification of comparing an obscure player who never played a single game in the ML, had 1 documented year in a league that actually kept any kind of semblance of statistics and is compared to Lloyd Waner (http://www.historicbaseball.com/players/s/smith_chino.html) to a player who was documented as playing in a professional league and out competing guys like Spalding, the Wright Bros, McVey and O'Rourke.

The guy making the comparison to Lloyd Waner frankly doesn't know what he's talking about. This guy hit with much more power than Lloyd but wasn't the fielder. As a hitter, he's a heck of a lot closer to Rogers Hornsby when Rogers was at his peak. It isn't Chino Smith's fault that the Negro Leagues were no better organized than pre 1876--but that was the era in which Barnes played well.

I see a lot of similarities between baseball before 1876 and the Negro Leagues, including the likely quality of play. While Barnes was a dominant force for about 6 years in those early leagues, Chino Smith was just as dominant in the Negro Leagues for his seven--and in more games and without the distraction of the fair/foul rule. I can live without either in any HOF, and have voted and will continue to vote that way--but I stand by the position that if Barnes belongs, so does Chino.

Do you seriously contend that seven years of playing mediocre baseball are in any way important in making a HOF case? The best such a stretch can do is add numbers like 3000 hits--and Barnes didn't play enough games to rack those up, either. Mediocrity tends to be evidence a guy doesn't belong in the Hall, not that he does.

Barnes at his best was a force--but it lasted six seasons, comprising 320 games--another similarity to the Negro Leagues in that we're talking about small samples. Beyond that, I don't see anything but a mediocre ballplayer, granting that he was fighting illness and/or injury in his last three seasons.

[jjpm74]

The guy making the comparison to Lloyd Waner frankly doesn't know what he's talking about. This guy hit with much more power than Lloyd but wasn't the fielder. As a hitter, he's a heck of a lot closer to Rogers Hornsby when Rogers was at his peak. It isn't Chino Smith's fault that the Negro Leagues were no better organized than pre 1876--but that was the era in which Barnes played well.


I'd seriously like to see how you justify C.Smith's play is simlar to Rogers Hornsby. I also read some of the sources you've used when drawing conclusions about C. Smith. Translate his play to the major leagues and it runs like maybe Mattingly's peak. IMO, a lot of the comps listed for NeLers are exaggerated. It's safe to say that the NeL was comparable to AAA or AA baseball. We all know that many players excelled in the minors but went bust in the majors and vice versa. While I don't doubt that many would have excelled in the majors, it's also not out of place to contend that many more would have been just another player which is what makes short career guys like C. Smith so problematic.

[leecemark]

--If Smith had washed out after 6 years then I'd definately assume he wasn't as good as his numbers make him seem. Instead he died, so his real talent is unknowable for both reason of league quality and lack of a full career to review. In any case I wouldn't consider him because 6 years is just too short to consider him eligible. Barnes non-peak years do at least make him clearly eligible - and once over that hurdle his peak is undeniable (at least to me:)).
--Hack Wilson and Ralph Kiner did nothing outside of their peaks except earn eligibility. They will both be strong candidates (Kiner was long ago elected to the BBFHoF). Whether they get my support will be determined by Barnes fate though. As I see it we are deciding early on whether peak only candidates deserve to make out Hall.

[DoubleX]

Hack Wilson and Ralph Kiner did nothing outside of their peaks except earn eligibility. They will both be strong candidates (Kiner was long ago elected to the BBFHoF). Whether they get my support will be determined by Barnes fate though. As I see it we are deciding early on whether peak only candidates deserve to make out Hall.

I don't think Barnes will set the measuring stick for peak candidates. I think questions about Barnes' era, where different rules, styles of play, equipment were in place, as well as a much shorter schedule in which Barnes' career looks pretty insignificant by modern standards or even the standards of just 5-10 years after Barnes' career. This is what I meant earlier when I said I perceive Barnes as more of a pioneer/player. I didn't really mean that Barnes specifically did anything pioneering, just that he played in a different time where the game and resulting statistics were very different than what they would be a few years later (which is much closer to how they are now in 1907 (and much closer to how they would be in 2008).

When we get to guys like Kiner and Wilson, I think people will be more comfortable with the era, in that those guys would have had high peaks in a game that remain largely the same for several decades (on a personal note, I don't know if I'll be voting for Wilson).

I've added Barnes to my ballot due to the subjective element of his star power in his day, but I've felt all along he's a better candidate for the VC because his career is pretty much entirely contained in those early years where the games was different in many ways. Al Spalding and George Wright are a couple of others I throw in that category (though they may be even better suited for the VC due to their other contributions).

Anyway, we have 5 guys over the line in this election right now:

Charlie Bennett
Harry Stovey
Sam Thompson
John Ward
George Wright

I'm hopeful we can get at least 2 of these guys in.

[jjpm74]

I don't think Barnes will set the measuring stick for peak candidates.

Maybe not, but for a few of us, if Barnes is passed over, it'll take someone else with a similar high peak short career scenario getting serious attention before we vote for another one. Currently, the trend seems to be good peak long career is favored over great peak short career.

[leecemark]

--There have been huge changes in baseball on a near annual basis. I don't know that the difference between a star of 1871 and one of 1881 is any greater than the difference between one of 1881/1891 or 1891/1901. We could as easily draw the line at 1893 when the mound was moved back or 1901 when the American League was founded as the start of "modern baseball". Except that 20 years ago people thought the AA/NL set up was here to stay.
--Maybe 20 years from now these leagues will have been replaced. Or maybe the bunt will have gone out of fashion and we'll see guys hitting 20 or even 30 HR a year to power the offenses. All we can do is judge a player based on how he did in his own time and by the rules in play at that time. Maybe our choices will seem odd to observers 20 or 50 years down the road, but our job is to pick the best of each era. We early voters will be setting the standards that define this instution.

[Paul Wendt]

. . . It isn't Chino Smith's fault that the Negro Leagues were no better organized than pre 1876--but that was the era in which Barnes played well.
. . .
Barnes at his best was a force--but it lasted six seasons, comprising 320 games--another similarity to the Negro Leagues in that we're talking about small samples. . . .
I'm not sure what you mean by poorly organized. Do Negro Leagues experts in 2008 rely on statistics that cover only some, not all, of the league games? I believe that is true of John Holway and Jim Riley and that may be the occasion of a small sample problem.

Complete record of league games.
We do not suffer with a small sample for Ross Barnes 1871-1876. The widely distributed season statistics cover all of the league games in some seasons and almost all in others (the number of missing games for Barnes' teams may even be zero). For the purpose of measuring his contribution to the strength of his team, and his impact on its season record, we have a complete record for Barnes, not a sample at all. This is a major difference from the Negro Leagues if for some team-seasons we have playing records for 30 games that represent half of 60 league games played; or if we have 60 games that represent half of 120 league games played. Or if we have playing records for 60 out of 60 league games, but the Negro League team considered many non-league games more important than league games. (I don't know the truth about this.)

Year to year consistency.
The basic small sample problem is high variance and that is manifest in the data when we have several small samples. So there are .400 batters during April and during September but none during the whole season. And no one should be surprised to see a modern player bat over .400 one month, under .300 the next month. Nor should anyone be surprised to find in the record a player bat over .400 in the whole 1871 season and bat under .300 or maybe .320 in the whole 1872 season. (In 1871 the team played about as many league games as modern teams do in one month; in 1872 about two months.) But we don't see that for Ross Barnes. His 1871 and 1873 records support his 1872 record. By 1874-1876, the number of league games in a season was almost the number in three months today. So it should be surprising to find a player bat over .400 in 1875, under .300 in 1876. There should be some explanation for that (not merely the variance of small samples). 1874 was an off year for Ross Barnes: fifth on-base, fifth slugging, ninth OPS+, playing only 51 of 71 games. Not that far off! Broadly, his 1874 and 1876 records support his 1875 record.

"Park Factor" and OPS+.
For the tiny number of games without playing statistics we do have the run scores or even line scores. That leaves little or no data missing for the calculation of "park factors". Standard "park factors" account for the relatively high or low run-scoring quality of every team's home ballpark and for the run-scoring influence of every team's pitching and defense on its batting. Standard park factors do suppose balanced schedules, so the variation in numbers of games played between teams introduces some error in 1871-1875 park factors. I understand that the situation is much worse for the Negro Leagues. IIUC, we know OPS+ (adjusted for ballparks and teammates) for 1871-1875 better than we know OPS (unadjusted) for the Negro Leagues.

[DoubleX]

--There have been huge changes in baseball on a near annual basis. I don't know that the difference between a star of 1871 and one of 1881 is any greater than the difference between one of 1881/1891 or 1891/1901. We could as easily draw the line at 1893 when the mound was moved back or 1901 when the American League was founded as the start of "modern baseball". Except that 20 years ago people thought the AA/NL set up was here to stay.

We could start with the fair/foul rule and the number of games played during the bulk of Barnes' career, IMO. The game has looked more similar from the mid 1880s to the present than it did during Barnes' prime compared to the present.

[jalbright]

Complete record of league games.
We do not suffer with a small sample for Ross Barnes 1871-1876. The widely distributed season statistics cover all of the league games in some seasons and almost all in others (the number of missing games for Barnes' teams may even be zero). For the purpose of measuring his contribution to the strength of his team, and his impact on its season record, we have a complete record for Barnes, not a sample at all. This is a major difference from the Negro Leagues if for some team-seasons we have playing records for 30 games that represent half of 60 league games played; or if we have 60 games that represent half of 120 league games played. Or if we have playing records for 60 out of 60 league games, but the Negro League team considered many non-league games more important than league games. (I don't know the truth about this.)

Year to year consistency.
The basic small sample problem is high variance and that is manifest in the data when we have several small samples. So there are .400 batters during April and during September but none during the whole season. And no one should be surprised to see a modern player bat over .400 one month, under .300 the next month. Nor should anyone be surprised to find in the record a player bat over .400 in the whole 1871 season and bat under .300 or maybe .320 in the whole 1872 season. (In 1871 the team played about as many league games as modern teams do in one month; in 1872 about two months.) But we don't see that for Ross Barnes. His 1871 and 1873 records support his 1872 record. By 1874-1876, the number of league games in a season was almost the number in three months today. So it should be surprising to find a player bat over .400 in 1875, under .300 in 1876. There should be some explanation for that (not merely the variance of small samples). 1874 was an off year for Ross Barnes: fifth on-base, fifth slugging, ninth OPS+, playing only 51 of 71 games. Not that far off! Broadly, his 1874 and 1876 records support his 1875 record.

Small samples can come in the form of short seasons. Which is a more accurate barometer of a player's talent, 250 or 500 PA, regardless of how much of a full season is involved. Multiply that by a career worth of seasons, and basically Barnes' case for greatness comes down to 1700 PA over a mere 6 years, which in many ways is similar to what we get from Negro Leaguers--except for the period of time in which excellence was demonstrated. The best on both levels had rather significant year to year consistency (Josh Gibson seemed always to be near the lead in HR, for instance)--and many Negro Leaguers had it for many more years than Ross Barnes did (so did many 19th century guys).

Barnes also failed to show consistency after the fair/foul rule disappeared. He went from top of the heap to exceptionally mediocre in the same time frame. It could have been the illness/injury woes he was experiencing, but we'll never know. It would have been so much more tidy from a historical perspective if he'd had a few years healthy under both sets of rules. Certainly, we don't expect a guy to drop off the table like Barnes did going into his age 27 season of 1877. It can happen, but in this case, it's difficult to sort out the "why" behind it.

Before 1870, there weren't organized leagues as we know them today, at least not at the highest level. Even after that, the organization was a often 50-60 games in the summer, with ample time off (or in the case of the Negro Leaguers, for barnstorming). Also, the acquisition of talent by top teams in the early years or the Negro Leagues hardly could claim to be very "organized", at least by the standards met even in the early 1900s.

[DoubleX]

Here are the actual results through 18 valid votes:

Charlie Bennett - 83.33
Sam Thompson - 83.33
John Ward - 83.33
Harry Stovey - 77.78
George Wright - 77.78

Ross Barnes - 72.22
Bob Caruthers - 72.22
Tony Mullane - 66.67
Pete Browning - 55.55
Jack Glasscock - 55.55
George Gore - 55.55
Al Spalding - 55.55
Joe Start - 55.55
Ezra Sutton - 55.55
Hardy Richardson - 50.00
Mickey Welch - 38.89
Cupid Childs - 27.78
Lip Pike - 27.78
Cal McVey - 22.22
Larry Corcoran - 16.67
Dummy Hoy - 16.67
Jim McCormick - 16.67
Mike Tiernan - 11.11
Charley Jones - 5.56
Wilbert Robinson - 5.56 - Guaranteed to make next ballot even if below 5% (1st year, 1 vote rule)

Steve Brodie - 0
Nig Cuppy - 0
Bones Ely - 0
Bob Ferguson - 0
Win Mercer - 0
Top O'Neill -0

[Freakshow]

Barnes also failed to show consistency after the fair/foul rule disappeared. He went from top of the heap to exceptionally mediocre in the same time frame. It could have been the illness/injury woes he was experiencing, but we'll never know. It would have been so much more tidy from a historical perspective if he'd had a few years healthy under both sets of rules. Certainly, we don't expect a guy to drop off the table like Barnes did going into his age 27 season of 1877. It can happen, but in this case, it's difficult to sort out the "why" behind it.
Maybe not so difficult. From Wikipedia:

In 1877, he fell ill with what was then only described as an "ague" (fever), played only 22 games, and did not play well when he was in the lineup. The illness robbed Barnes of much of his strength and agility, and shortened his career. While many baseball histories originally blamed the change in rules that outlawed the "fair-foul" hit, of which Barnes was an acknowledged master, his illness has become a more widely accepted explanation for his loss of productivity.

From Nineteenth Century Baseball Stars by SABR:

His performance declined sharply in 1877, not because fair foul hits had been outlawed, but due to illness, which idled him from mid-May to early September and permanently diminished his muscular strength. Barnes played only 22 games, batting and fielding below form.

In 1878, he played 2B and captained for Tecumseh of the IA, the other professional league. In 1879 he came back and was not "mediocre", but rather a star, the NL's second best shortstop, after Wright. Here are each team's main SS in 1879:

OPS+ WinSh
G. Wright 121 16
R. Barnes 108 10
E. Sutton 82 8
E. Caskin 94 6
T. Carey 77 7
J. Peters 74 7
D. Force 56 5
J. Macullar 62 4

In 1880 he "sat out" or "stayed out" the whole season, although they don't say why. Perhaps related to the reserve clause issue controversy?

In 1881 he came back to Boston for his final season. He was one of the ten oldest regular players in the NL that year. He was still among the top half of the league's shortstops. Here are each team's main SS in 1881:

OPS+ WinSh
T. Burns 111 12
S. Houck 105 10
R. Barnes 102 9
J. Glasscock 92 10
A. Irwin 88 5
E. Caskin 64 5
J. Peters 51 3
B. McClellan 26 2

[Paul Wendt]

Small samples can come in the form of short seasons. Which is a more accurate barometer of a player's talent, 250 or 500 PA, regardless of how much of a full season is involved.[?]

That isn't a serious small sample problem, for the reasons that I covered
--the first two paragraphs; the third is strictly relative to the Negro Leagues.
--Technically it isn't a sample problem at all because we have the complete record of league games.

Why look for a "barometer of talent" here, where the impact on runs and thus games is easy to measure fairly accurately? Anyway, you shouldn't be concerned about a small sample problem in assessing talent. The neighboring seasons support the record of the so-called small sample observed in each season. That isn't true when Chipper Jones hits OPS+ 200 during 300pa through mid-June. We have exceptionally good evidence that Barnes would have put up just about the same record, per plate appearance or per game, if NA teams had scheduled twice as many championship games with so many fewer exhibition games (many against lesser opponents). So we have exceptionally good evidence that he was the most skilled player for six years.

Above I gave my understanding of some shortcomings with Negro Leagues playing records (the widely available ones, at least). On my understanding, there are some serious problems not shared by our 1871-75 records. But my understanding is not much greater than rumor, far from expert understanding.

[jalbright]

[Why look for a "barometer of talent" here, where the impact on runs and thus games is easy to measure fairly accurately? Anyway, you shouldn't be concerned about a small sample problem in assessing talent. The neighboring seasons support the record of the so-called small sample observed in each season. That isn't true when Chipper Jones hits OPS+ 200 during 300pa through mid-June. We have exceptionally good evidence that Barnes would have put up just about the same record, per plate appearance or per game, if NA teams had scheduled twice as many championship games with so many fewer exhibition games (many against lesser opponents). So we have exceptionally good evidence that he was the most skilled player for six years.

This is the heart of the matter, whether you call it sample size or not. I'm always looking for barometers of talent, but especially in situations well off the 140-162 game seasons we've become accustomed to in the majors. Not only do we have rules issues for the 19th century guys, but there are things like fatigue that modern players most certainly deal with, while I'm not as certain it was the same issue for early 19th century guys. Even if they played a lot of exhibitions, is it clear that everyone bore down like it was a league game?

I'm far more impressed by somebody who played well over 10000 PA than one who played as well but in only 5000 PA, other things being relatively equal. Granted, with 19th century guys, a lot of things aren't equal, but I really like to see long-lasting excellence out of them, Negro Leaguers, and Japanese players to be sold on them, basically because the conditions were dramatically different in each of the cited situations from what we see in the majors.

If we include the fair/foul rule, Barnes probably was the most skilled every day player for a relatively short period to demonstrate greatness (maybe just long enough, but not much more), but I'm not sure he'd still be the best if pitchers were included. But could he play without the rule?

I'm willing to consider the IA if you can point me to resources which enumerate the players and stats, etc. I may or may not buy that argument after I get a chance to kick the tires, so to speak, but without that opportunity, it's a definite no sale.

Oh, and Paul, as a teacher, I never accept Wikipedia as a decisive source on anything.

[TheSlaff]

Barnes
Bennett
Caruthers
Glasscock
Gore
McVey
Pike
Richardson
Spalding
Start
Stovey
Sutton
Thompson
Ward
Wright

[Paul Wendt]

This is the heart of the matter, whether you call it sample size or not.
So you are dropping the part about small samples and the part about close comparability of 1871-1875 and Negro Leagues statistics.

I'm willing to consider the IA if you can point me to resources which enumerate the players and stats, etc. I may or may not buy that argument after I get a chance to kick the tires, so to speak, but without that opportunity, it's a definite no sale.

Oh, and Paul, as a teacher, I never accept Wikipedia as a decisive source on anything.

That is more than a little pompous, Jim. You may want to reword it before directing it to Dan.

Probably you were a SABR member in 1999. You may want to read the National Pastime cover story by Bob Schaefer, "The Art of Fair-Foul Hitting". As you probably know, it is one of the many references provided at Wikipedia.

[Brad Harris]

Probably you were a SABR member in 1999. You may want to read the National Pastime cover story by Bob Schaefer, "The Art of Fair-Foul Hitting". As you probably know, it is one of the many references provided at Wikipedia.
There's a huge difference between citing Wikipedia (unacceptable from an academic standpoint) and citing a source linked/cited at Wikipedia. There's nothing pompous about maintaining a high standard of credibility in source citation. Academia at-large, not Jim, finds Wikipedia (and similar open-source collaborations) lacking in the credibility department largely because of their lack of any substantial validation review. It's a widely adopted standard of proof for serious research and publication and Jim is just playing by the rules here. Dan, being published himself, is well aware of it and won't, I'm sure, take offense to Jim's opinion on the matter. It isn't that the source, in question, can't be produced so much, I believe, as Jim insisting that the burden of proof for doing so rests on the person who's case that will help and that second-hand imitations are all too-often unreliable in producing an exact replica of the original. Jim is one of the more humble people I've known around these boards. I doubt very seriously if Dan or anyone else is going to presume the man is pompous because he demands high standards of proof. It's that devious legal mind of his at work. ;)

[jalbright]

So you are dropping the part about small samples and the part about close comparability of 1871-1875 and Negro Leagues statistics.



That is more than a little pompous, Jim. You may want to reword it before directing it to Dan.

Probably you were a SABR member in 1999. You may want to read the National Pastime cover story by Bob Schaefer, "The Art of Fair-Foul Hitting". As you probably know, it is one of the many references provided at Wikipedia.

I'll thank you not to call anyone here pompous, sir, much less a moderator. Please consult the rules against personal attacks, including the potential consequences of repeated violations of this rule.

Look, if you want to cite a source, please cite one that's better than the Wikipedia, which anybody, whether they know anything or not, can change. Such a state of affairs clearly limits the authoritativeness of the source. No, I wasn't part of SABR in 1999, and I don't really wish to purchase the edition in question.

Please also do not put words in my mouth. I still feel there's a lot of similarities between baseball of the 1870's and Negro Leagues, and stand by the comparison.

Also, interestingly, one source I believe you did cite was SABR's Nineteenth Century Stars. On page 10 of my edition, Barnes is shown as hitting .235 and slugging .282 in the IA, which doesn't impress me very much at all, regardless of the quality of the IA.

[AG2004]

I'm willing to consider the IA if you can point me to resources which enumerate the players and stats, etc. I may or may not buy that argument after I get a chance to kick the tires, so to speak, but without that opportunity, it's a definite no sale.



The International Association (1877-78) changed its name to the National Association (1879-80) after the London Tecumsehs folded. Since this NA was just the IA with a name change, I'll refer to the 1877-80 league as the IA.

There are three teams which jumped directly from the IA to the NL:

Buffalo - IA champions 1878; 3rd place in the 8-team NL, 1879
Syracuse - IA runners-up 1878; 7th place in the 8-team NL, 1879
Worcester - IA/NA mid-table 1879; 5th place in the 8-team NL, 1880.

As a point of comparison, the 1884 UA champion St. Louis Maroons finished 8th in the 8-team NL in 1885.

There's some information about the Worcester club in Troy Soos' Before the Curse quoted at:
http://www.mcfarlandbaseball.com/modules.php?name=news&file=article&sid=23

The 1879 Worcester side went 26-31 against all competition, including some wins against NL teams; it finished 40-43 in the 1880 NL. Charlie Bennett, who played with the NL's Milwaukee club in 1878 before it folded, was on the 1879 Worcester club. Its pitcher, J. Lee Richmond, was a good pitcher in 1880, becoming the first person to throw a perfect game in the NL.

Holyoke was the 1879 NA (IA) champion, but three key players left the team and joined the NL's Troy club in 1880: Pete Gillespie, Mickey Welch, and Roger Connor. Connor earned 17 win shares in 1880, which comes out to 28 win shares per 140 scheduled games. Welch was tied for fourth among NL pitchers in total win shares; he wasn't a star yet, but he certainly did hold his own in 1880. The SABR biography for Gillespie,

http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=5134&bid=1092

notes that Martin Powell played for a few years with Detroit; he seems to have been an average starter-type player in the early 1880s. (I don't know what Powell did in 1880.)

I mentioned the 1878 Buffalo club; Pud Galvin, who had played with the IA's Pittsburgh side in 1877, was Buffalo's star pitcher. The HOM discussion on Galvin indicates that he went 10-5 in Buffalo's exhibitions against NL clubs in 1878, picking up victories against every club in the league. (The Buffalo side was 10-7 overall against NL teams that year).

Other IA players included Fred Goldsmith and Joe Hornung (London, 1876-78; the team was an independent side the year before the IA was formed), Candy Cummings (Lynn, 1877), and Bud Fowler (Lynn, 1878).

There's a detailed essay on the UA in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract . It seems to me that the best players in the IA were better than the best players in the UA. Galvin, Welch, and Connor were able to transition smoothly from the IA to the NL; the UA didn't have any young stars who were nearly as good as those three. Two of the teams that jumped from the IA to the NL did much better than the UA's St. Louis Maroons. It seems to me that the IA has a better claim to major league status than the UA does. Perhaps the IA wasn't quite as good as the NL, but it was good enough for its players to deserve some credit for their performance with IA teams.

[jalbright]

Exactly how did Barnes exploit the fair/foul rule? Was it by what we would call a bunt, or was it by pulling a ground ball fair then foul before the third base bag. One of Paul's comments (#9) in the discussion on him at BBTF here (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/ross_barnes/) would indicate the latter.
The old rule enabled Barnes to hit many safe "fair-foul" balls back past 3B.
If you smacked a foul grounder past third, I would think that's a double. I don't know how you could consistently bunt for doubles. One of the key elements Barnes lost in 1877 was his isolated power. If it was a bunt-type move, I could soften my stance. But if he's gaining an advantage by smacking them down the 3B line and past that bag, the loss of the fair/foul rule may be at least a key reason for his 1877 decline.

I'm not going to dismiss his ability to take advantage of a rule, but greatness is also about being able to adapt. If he was that much of a one-trick pony, I don't have any qualms about failing to vote for him. So, how much of a one trick pony was he?

[KCGHOST]

I have no idea why anyone would spend any amount of time arguing for Ros Barnes. Clearly the need to argue so strenously should be the sign of a flawed candidacy.

Browning
Glasscock
Gore
Mullane
Richardson
Spalding
Stovey
Thompson
Tiernan
Ward
Wright

[DoubleX]

Here's a tentative list of newbies for the 1908 election, let me know if I missed anyone:

Billy Clingman - Likely won't be on the ballot
Tom Daly
Ed Delahanty
Bill Hallman
Jimmy Ryan
George Van Haltren
Chief Zimmer
Brickyard Kennedy

Pretty good group. Right now we still have 5 players over the 75% line (Bennett, Stovey, Thompson, Ward, and Wright), so it would be nice if we could clear some of this backlog.

[jjpm74]

Exactly how did Barnes exploit the fair/foul rule? Was it by what we would call a bunt, or was it by pulling a ground ball fair then foul before the third base bag. One of Paul's comments (#9) in the discussion on him at BBTF here (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/ross_barnes/) would indicate the latter.

If you smacked a foul grounder past third, I would think that's a double. I don't know how you could consistently bunt for doubles. One of the key elements Barnes lost in 1877 was his isolated power. If it was a bunt-type move, I could soften my stance. But if he's gaining an advantage by smacking them down the 3B line and past that bag, the loss of the fair/foul rule may be at least a key reason for his 1877 decline.

I'm not going to dismiss his ability to take advantage of a rule, but greatness is also about being able to adapt. If he was that much of a one-trick pony, I don't have any qualms about failing to vote for him. So, how much of a one trick pony was he?

When I was up in Cooperstown, they had some limited info on the fair foul rule and Barnes' name was featured prominently as a skilled bunter as well as someone who exploited the fair foul rule by pulling the ball. This is an assumption based on what I've read on him, but it seems that he had a knack as a slap hitter along the lines of what Ichiro and Abreu can do in the batter's box.

[jalbright]

One reason I think it's important to understand what he's doing is to understand what the defense had to do to try to deal with him that they wouldn't have to under the 1877 and after rule. If you're bunting, I think that especially a righty would want to bunt to the first base side. If he runs up in foul territory, he can make it a nasty throw for whoever fields the bunt. If you're smacking them up the lines landing short of the bag fair then going foul, that's tough for the infield to deal with effectively--and if they try to, they're almost sure to leave significantly larger holes toward the middle of the field. Also, a guy could shoot them up the lines by pulling them early or pushing them late--and if it was/became a habitual swing, it wouldn't be easy to get away from to deal with the new realities.

That said, a truly great player at age 27 (which is what Barnes was when the new rule came in in 1877) should be able to adapt far more effectively than he did. I understand that injuries could be a part of if (maybe even most of it)--but if we can't reasonably determine that the bulk of the difference wasn't due to the rule change, I think that it's best to hold off on Barnes. If we can eventually adequately demonstrate it was almost all injury, we can induct him then. If we can't, it's a shame we can't figure out that complex question--but I still feel leaving him out in that scenario is better than letting him in if we later could demonstrate that he was largely a product of a rule and couldn't adapt when it changed.

[jjpm74]

That's an understandable reason for exclusion. The question later on we're going to have to address is whether or not a person with a short career but an amazing peak belongs as we've yet to establish a precedent for short career guys. To this point, Barnes is probably the best short career example we can come up with, though we've also failed to elect Bob Caruthers to date and he may be an even better example of a short career/high peak guy from this generation. Caruthers currently sits at 66.67% support and prior to the 1907 election had a peak of 56.52% prior.

On a separate note, what does Bill James rank Barnes defensively? I've read some sources that site him as second only to Bid McPhee defensively in his generation and others that rank him as an average fielder with the ability to field multiple positions.

[jalbright]

I think it's best to wait for a position player to set the precedent you're looking for--one without the extraneous questions posed by Barnes. IIRC, guys like Orr and O'Neill aren't doing too well. Pitching peaks from this era are a crazy thing, and it's hard (at least for me) to carry that over to hitters. Truthfully, I think comparing pitchers and hitters on peak is a difficult task any time, but that's another discussion.

[jalbright]

On a separate note, what does Bill James rank Barnes defensively? I've read some sources that site him as second only to Bid McPhee defensively in his generation and others that rank him as an average fielder with the ability to field multiple positions.

Regrettably, my edition of the Win Shares book doesn't include Barnes. James unfortunately gives short shrift to the 19th century even after 1876, so I think you might surmise how he treats the game before that date.

[AG2004]

That said, a truly great player at age 27 (which is what Barnes was when the new rule came in in 1877) should be able to adapt far more effectively than he did. I understand that injuries could be a part of if (maybe even most of it)--but if we can't reasonably determine that the bulk of the difference wasn't due to the rule change, I think that it's best to hold off on Barnes. If we can eventually adequately demonstrate it was almost all injury, we can induct him then. If we can't, it's a shame we can't figure out that complex question--but I still feel leaving him out in that scenario is better than letting him in if we later could demonstrate that he was largely a product of a rule and couldn't adapt when it changed.


Conceptually, it should be simple to determine whether Barnes' decline was primarily due to the rule change or largely due to illness/injury. Putting this concept into play is a bit more complicated.

It's helpful that Barnes was a middle infielder. If the decline was due to the rule change, it would show up only in his offensive numbers. His defensive value, on the other hand, would remain stable; it's hard for me to imagine how the elimination of the fair-foul rule would change the play of middle infielders.

On the other hand, if the decline was due to injury/illness, the decline would be reflected in both his offensive and defensive performance. Both would go down at similar rates, since his lack of strength would interfere with his play both at the plate and in the field.

I'm not a big fan of FRAR and BRAR at Baseball Prospectus, but in this case, those numbers are the best available to test our case. The single-season values of

(BRAR) divided by (FRAR),

whether adjusted by season or for all time, remain rather stable. The main exception is 1877, but we are dealing with single-digit BRAR and FRAR totals for that season, and so the above ratio is suspect to severe rounding error. The values produced in 1879 and 1881 aren't out of place (the 1881 ratios are similar to the 1874 ratios; both the defense and offense are worse by roughly the same percentage).

I can't do much more than eyeballing in Barnes' case, since I don't know much about advanced statistical analysis. However, BP's numbers do reflect a drop-off in both his offense and his defense. This would be an indication that his decline was due more to his severe illness in 1877 and the resulting strain on his body than to the elimination of the fair-foul hit.

[jjpm74]

There's only 1 person who didn't vote last time yet to vote and we have Charlie Bennett and Harry Stovey, who can miss 1 and still get in, Sam Thompson and John Ward who are sitting pretty and can miss 2 and George Wright who needs a vote if any more ballots are cast and currently sits just over the hump. This bodes well for this project. If we can get the majority of these guys in, we'll have a decent set of 19th century guys in and it shows that we can manage to rally around these candidates after they've been on the ballot for a few years. Caruthers also has an outside shot if 3 more people vote and he's on all of them.

I'm hoping we can get at least Bennett and Wright in.

[AG2004]

Regrettably, my edition of the Win Shares book doesn't include Barnes. James unfortunately gives short shrift to the 19th century even after 1876, so I think you might surmise how he treats the game before that date.

Barnes had just four seasons in the NL from 1876 onwards, and he split his time between two positions, so he probably didn't play enough innings to earn any defensive letter grades.

The NA just had far too many bad teams - the 1872 Washington Nationals (0-11), the 1873 Elizabeth Resolutes (2-21), the 1874 Baltimore Canaries (9-38), and the 1875 Keokuk Westerns (1-8), for example - for the win shares system to work. There were five NA teams in 1875 with winning percentages below .200. In 1872, there were six teams with sub-.300 winning percentages, five teams with winning percentages above .600, and nobody in the middle. The assumptions that go into the win shares system break down completely in that situation. Thus, James doesn't bother with NA clubs; the system just won't work.

[jalbright]

Conceptually, it should be simple to determine whether Barnes' decline was primarily due to the rule change or largely due to illness/injury. Putting this concept into play is a bit more complicated.

It's helpful that Barnes was a middle infielder. If the decline was due to the rule change, it would show up only in his offensive numbers. His defensive value, on the other hand, would remain stable; it's hard for me to imagine how the elimination of the fair-foul rule would change the play of middle infielders.

On the other hand, if the decline was due to injury/illness, the decline would be reflected in both his offensive and defensive performance. Both would go down at similar rates, since his lack of strength would interfere with his play both at the plate and in the field.

I'm not a big fan of FRAR and BRAR at Baseball Prospectus, but in this case, those numbers are the best available to test our case. The single-season values of

(BRAR) divided by (FRAR),

whether adjusted by season or for all time, remain rather stable. The main exception is 1877, but we are dealing with single-digit BRAR and FRAR totals for that season, and so the above ratio is suspect to severe rounding error. The values produced in 1879 and 1881 aren't out of place (the 1881 ratios are similar to the 1874 ratios; both the defense and offense are worse by roughly the same percentage).

I can't do much more than eyeballing in Barnes' case, since I don't know much about advanced statistical analysis. However, BP's numbers do reflect a drop-off in both his offense and his defense. This would be an indication that his decline was due more to his severe illness in 1877 and the resulting strain on his body than to the elimination of the fair-foul hit.

Interesting approach. I can agree it demonstrates that, as one would logically suppose, that the injury/illness issue had an effect. The problem is, I'm not convinced that the assumption that this does a good job of dividing the "blame" for his offensive fall-off is correct. I would agree his injury/illness affected his offense, but I'm not sold that the rule change wasn't a critical issue. If only the two hadn't come in the same season, it would be relatively simple to reach some solid conclusions--but that isn't what happened.

[DoubleX]

Here are the actual results (22 votes) with just over a day left:

Charlie Bennett - 81.81
Sam Thompson - 81.81
John Ward - 81.81
Harry Stovey - 77.27
George Wright 77.27

Bob Caruthers - 72.73
Ross Barnes - 68.18
Tony Mullane - 68.18
Jack Glasscock - 63.64
George Gore - 59.09
Al Spalding - 59.09
Pete Browning - 54.55
Hardy Richardson - 54.55
Ezra Sutton - 54.55
Joe Start - 50.00
Lip Pike - 31.82
Mickey Welch - 31.82
Cupid Childs - 22.73
Jim McCormick - 22.73
Cal McVey - 22.73
Larry Corcoran - 13.64
Dummy Hoy - 13.64
Mike Tiernan - 13.64
Wilbert Robinson - 4.55 (Makes next ballot due to receiving a vote in 1st year)

Charley Jones - 4.55
Steve Brodie - 0
Nig Cuppy - 0
Bones Ely - 0
Bob Ferguson - 0
Win Mercer - 0
Tip O'Neill - 0

Some observations:

- It's looking pretty good that we'll elect at least a couple of players, but I believe we still have a regular or two yet to vote. A couple of these players, Stovey and Thompson, were done in by last day voting a couple years ago, so you never know at this point.

- If we are able to elect 3-5 players this year, I think we will have expanded the quality of Hall of Famers, and that is something to keep in mind down the road, as IMO, the Hall's standards are generally as good as the average of those enshrined.

- What's happened to George Gore? A few years back he was pretty close, but he's fallen back a little bit since.

[Freakshow]

Here's a tentative list of newbies for the 1908 election, let me know if I missed anyone:

Billy Clingman - Likely won't be on the ballot
Tom Daly
Ed Delahanty
Bill Hallman
Jimmy Ryan
George Van Haltren
Chief Zimmer
Brickyard Kennedy

Pretty good group.
That matches the list I posted early on in this thread:

Billy Clingman-3B/SS
Tom Daly-2B
Ed Delahanty-LF
Bill Hallman-2B
Brickyard Kennedy-P
Jimmy Ryan-CF/RF
George Van Haltren-CF
Chief Zimmer-C

[DoubleX]

That matches the list I posted early on in this thread:

Billy Clingman-3B/SS
Tom Daly-2B
Ed Delahanty-LF
Bill Hallman-2B
Brickyard Kennedy-P
Jimmy Ryan-CF/RF
George Van Haltren-CF
Chief Zimmer-C

Sorry Dan, I totally forgot about that. Thanks!

[Brad Harris]

Here are the actual results (22 votes) with just over a day left:

Charley Jones - 4.55

Won't somebody with some room on their ballot please add Mr. Jones to keep him from the ashheap of history?

[dgarza]

Won't somebody with some room on their ballot please add Mr. Jones to keep him from the ashheap of history?you're wlecome

[dgarza]

1. Sam Thompson
2. Ross Barnes
3. Al Spalding
4. Harry Stovey
5. Pete Browning
6. Jim McCormick
7. Mickey Welch
8. Tony Mullane
9. Tip O'Neill
10. Cal McVey
11. Bob Caruthers
12. Hardy Richardson
13. George Gore
14. Lip Pike
15. Charley Jones

Other worthy considerations:
Mike Tiernan
John Ward
George Wright

[jjpm74]

1. Sam Thompson
2. Ross Barnes
3. Al Spalding
4. Harry Stovey
5. Pete Browning
6. Jim McCormick
7. Mickey Welch
8. Tony Mullane
9. Tip O'Neill
10. Cal McVey
11. Bob Caruthers
12. Hardy Richardson
13. George Gore
14. Lip Pike
15. Charley Jones

Other worthy considerations:
Mike Tiernan
John Ward
George Wright

If you supported Wright, you really should have voted for him. Your non-vote has caused him to slip under the 75% threshold. Ward is now hovering dangerously.

[jjpm74]

Won't somebody with some room on their ballot please add Mr. Jones to keep him from the ashheap of history?

Why worry so much about saving someone with so little support? If he slips off of this ballot, he goes into the VC pool and has a better chance there than he does here.

[Brad Harris]

Because, prior to this election, there wasn't the hint of a VC and, as of right now, the details haven't exactly been ironed out. More poignantly is the fact that when the cream of the crop has gone in there's more room for discussion of marginal candidates because of the smaller field.

If people don't vote for Jones because they don't feel he's worthy, that's fine. I just want to avoid Jones leaving the ballot because a few voters might think Jones is worth a look, but have 15+ more deserving names in their queue.

[jjpm74]

Because, prior to this election, there wasn't the hint of a VC and, as of right now, the details haven't exactly been ironed out. More poignantly is the fact that when the cream of the crop has gone in there's more room for discussion of marginal candidates because of the smaller field.

If people don't vote for Jones because they don't feel he's worthy, that's fine. I just want to avoid Jones leaving the ballot because a few voters might think Jones is worth a look, but have 15+ more deserving names in their queue.

Right, but I've noticed that in trying to save lesser candidates, a few people have recently left off Wright, Bennett, and Ward who had voted for him in the past. It won't be possible to get any of these lesser candidates elected if people keep passing up candidates right at the threshold to "save" someone with 1 vote. As it is, we're looking at the possibility we once again elect no one unless they come on to the ballot as a 1st timer.

[DoubleX]

Why worry so much about saving someone with so little support? If he slips off of this ballot, he goes into the VC pool and has a better chance there than he does here.

If he's dropped now or survives in futility for 15 years, either way, he'd still have to wait until his entire period of eligibility lapses to make the VC (which is moot now anyway since the first election probably won't be until 1920).

Also, when forming the VC players ballot, deference will likely be given first to those players that were close to election and/or survived for 15 years. Jones continuing to receive minimal support and possibly dropping with years left in his eligibility, may not bode well for him when the VC rolls around. If he can make the full 15 years, that could help. He will almost certainly make the first VC election though due to a lack of candidates, but it could become an issue down the road when the pool enlarges.

[DoubleX]

With just about 12 hours left, this thing is far from decided as two of our regulars have yet to vote - AG2004 and Paul Wendt. They both typically vote near the end (a few elections ago, their late votes brought Stovey and Thompson under the line just before the end of the election).

Right now we have six players that could get in if they are named on both AG2004 and Paul Wendt's ballots (and no one else votes): Chalie Bennett, Bob Caruthers, Harry Stovey, Sam Thompson, John Ward, and George Wright. If they vote for the same players they voted for last year, and barring any other new votes, the final totals for those six players will be:

Charlie Bennett: 76%
Sam Thompson: 76%
John Ward: 76%
George Wright: 76%

Bob Caruthers: 72%
Harry Stovey: 72%

Right now we have 23 valid ballots, so the magic number for election with 25 ballots is 19.

Caruthers and Stovey will each fall a vote short, as would Barnes. So it will be a close call for all 6 (7 if you count Barnes), but if we can believe AG2004 and Paul Wendt's track records, things look pretty good for electing multiple players. Also, worth mentioning Paul Wendt had a full ballot last time with both Hamilton and Rusie on it, so it's possible he could add players this time, though AG2004 did not have a full ballot last time (even with Hamilton and Rusie on it), so he might have his mind up as to the players on this list he's not voting for.

[AG2004]

Also, worth mentioning Paul Wendt had a full ballot last time with both Hamilton and Rusie on it, so it's possible he could add players this time, though AG2004 did not have a full ballot last time (even with Hamilton and Rusie on it), so he might have his mind up as to the players on this list he's not voting for.



That's not entirely so. I am willing to change my list to reflect new admissions to the HOF, but last year's inductees were on a par with players who were already in the Hall. If either Thompson or Stovey were to be inducted this year, Gore would certainly make my ballot next year -- but Gore isn't quite as good as the outfielders we already have in the Hall, so he's not on this year's ballot.

This year's ballot

Ross Barnes
Cupid Childs
Bob Ferguson
Al Spalding
Joe Start
Ezra Sutton
George Wright.

----

I don't see how Sam Thompson is so much better than Charley Jones or Tip O'Neill. Thompson's greatest advantage over the others is in ink scores -- but the ink scores don't make much sense when one looks at how they are made.

A player gets four points per season for HRs, batting average, and RBI. There is absolutely no justification for giving RBIs so much importance -- the two major leagues don't even keep official statistics for RBIs! If the leagues don't see RBIs as important enough to record, why should the ink scores make them one of their three most important statistics?

Home Runs are rare. With the exception of Jack Clements, all the top players of the recently completed century have hit more triples than home runs. There are more triples hit by the league leader in that category than there are home runs hit by the league HR leader. Triples reflect both speed and power; home runs only indicate power. Yet triples are only worth one point per season. There is no justification for considering leadership in home runs to be worth four times as much as leadership in triples.

Finally, we come to batting average. We know batters need to get on base. However, they can get to base on a walk. BA considers walks to be irrelevant, but OBP considers a walk to be a success. Batters' walks aren't an official statistic, either, but it seems to me that some players are much better at drawing walks than others. Yet OBP is irrelevant when it comes to computing ink scores, even though RBIs, another unofficial statistic, are important. It doesn't make sense.

Other than the ink scores, what does Thompson have that O'Neill and Jones don't? Furthermore, electing Thompson while dropping those two outfielders from the ballot would be the greatest blunder the electorate has made. If Thompson deserves honors, then O'Neill and Jones also deserve them - but I can't change my ballot to honor them if they are dropped.

[OOC from 2008 perspective - Bill James created the ink scores to reflect what the BBWAA voters found important when evaluating players. However, those voters were involved from the 1940s to 1980s, and were evaluating "liveball"-era players using pre-sabermetric criteria. Placing a large weight on ink scores is similar to using Sockeye's cut-offs when evaluating players from this era -- both reflect an attempt to rate early players by using the standards of a later time and a much different game. While Batter's walks became an official NL statistic in 1910, RBIs would have to wait another decade; they didn't become official numbers until 1920.]

[AG2004]

I've asked Sockeye to explain himself in public. He's declined, which is his prerogative, but I'm convinced he's an obstructionist, going by the beat of his drummer and refusing to abide by the spirit of this project. So I am discounting his vote (which shouldn't be an issue since he said to me that he could care less anyway) and I am banning him from participating in elections.

For this election, I will remove a vote for Welch, but if you want to know what the actual results are minus Sockeye's vote, you'll have to tabulate manually by dividing the total for each player by one less than the total votes represented on the poll.

For the record, is there a way for Sockeye (or other banned voters) to be reinstated?

[dgarza]

If you supported Wright, you really should have voted for him. Your non-vote has caused him to slip under the 75% threshold. Those were guys I think are worthy of strong consideration, but not neccessarily players I would vote for. Wright and Ward were given consideration mainly because they are in the real HOF. I would have to find some extra positive factor to actually vote for Wright and Ward, but was not able to find one that made me comfortable. My non-vote did not cause any player to slip under 75% at the time I voted.

[DoubleX]

For the record, is there a way for Sockeye (or other banned voters) to be reinstated?

Probably not.

In response to your last post, I think Thompson gets more support than Jones and O'Neill because of longevity, particularly considering the era.

Thompson's 146 OPS+ in 6500 PAs is much more impressive than Jones' 150 OPS+ in just 4000 PAs and O'Neill's 143 OPS+ in just 4700 OPS+. So I think longevity of production is what separates from Thompson from those two. Also, Thompson played his entire career in the NL, whereas Jones played much of his career in the NA and AA and O'Neill played most of his career in the AA. I think there's generally a greater comfort level with the NL.

[jjpm74]

This year's ballot

Ross Barnes
Cupid Childs
Bob Ferguson
Al Spalding
Joe Start
Ezra Sutton
George Wright.

Again, I ask why you support so many contributors and continue to ignore players you support via your Keltner list like Charlie Bennett? Who would have been a lock as opposed to teetering on the brink of non-election had you voted for him this time.

[jjpm74]

Those were guys I think are worthy of strong consideration, but not neccessarily players I would vote for. Wright and Ward were given consideration mainly because they are in the real HOF. I would have to find some extra positive factor to actually vote for Wright and Ward, but was not able to find one that made me comfortable. My non-vote did not cause any player to slip under 75% at the time I voted.

Your non-vote caused Wright to drop under the threshold at the time.

[DoubleX]

Your non-vote caused Wright to drop under the threshold at the time.

It's his right not to vote for Wright. What's the difference if it's in the first day or last day? The only difference is we can better see the magnitude of the vote of its late. Ideally, a person shouldn't be tailoring their vote to satisfy the poll, that's why I ask people in the instructions to vote before looking at the results. I don't think members of the BBWAA know how the candidates are doing when they send in their ballot, they find out in the end.

Anyway, Paul Wendt only has a couple hours to vote, and if he votes to form, Bennett, Thompson, Ward, and Wright would all make it. Barnes, Caruthers, and Stovey would all be a vote short.

If no more votes come in, than Stovey will also make it (Paul did not vote for Stovey last time, but I suppose he could add Stovey this time given that he has room with the elections of Hamilton and Rusie)

[dgarza]

Your non-vote caused Wright to drop under the threshold at the time.
I didn't think it did at the time. I don't remember seeing the numbers come up that way.
But if they did, they did.
They aren't players I'd normally vote for anyway because I don't totally support them (so why would I just because others support them? [I wouldn't, nor should I]).

[jjpm74]

I don't think members of the BBWAA know how the candidates are doing when they send in their ballot, they find out in the end.

They must have some idea. How else do we account for the bandwagoning that seems to be a common practice in the HOF voting every year?

Bruce Sutter:

Year Votes PCT
1994 109 23.9%
1995 137 29.8%
1996 137 29.1%
1997 130 27.5%
1998 147 31.1%
1999 121 24.3%
2000 192 38.5%
2001 245 47.6%
2002 238 50.4%
2003 266 53.6%
2004 301 59.5%
2005 344 66.7%
2006 400 76.9%

Not all of that can be accounted for based on who the other candidates were on the ballot each year. For a player to go from under 24% to over 76% in 12 years, there had to be other factors involved as well.

[dgarza]

Anyway, Paul Wendt only has a couple hours to vote, and if he votes to form, Bennett, Thompson, Ward, and Wright would all make it.
How so? Wouldn't they still be short (73%)?

[jjpm74]

I didn't think it did at the time. I don't remember seeing the numbers come up that way.
But if they did, they did.
They aren't players I'd normally vote for anyway because I don't totally support them (so why would I just because others support them? [I wouldn't, nor should I]).

You shouldn't if you don't support them. I no longer support Stovey so I didn't vote for him. When you listed them as just under your 15, I took it to mean that you do support them and that they are in your queue. My apologies if I misinterpreted what you wrote.

[dgarza]

They must have some idea. How else do we account for the bandwagoning that seems to be a common practice in the HOF voting every year?

They can make educated guesses based on past voting, but they really cannot tell exactly how the current voting is going.

[jjpm74]

How so? Wouldn't they still be short (73%)?

Sockeye's ballot was discounted so it's throwing off the results of the poll.

[dgarza]

You shouldn't if you don't support them. I no longer support Stovey so I didn't vote for him. When you listed them as just under your 15, I took it to mean that you do support them and that they are in your queue. My apologies if I misinterpreted what you wrote.
No, I just strongly considered their cases. Only Tiernan I considered and support.

[DoubleX]

They must have some idea. How else do we account for the bandwagoning that seems to be a common practice in the HOF voting every year?

Not all of that can be accounted for based on who the other candidates were on the ballot each year. For a player to go from under 24% to over 76% in 12 years, there had to be other factors involved as well.

I'm sure they talk to each other while voting and take into account the previous year's results, but it's almost certainly not like here where a voter filling out his/her ballot can know at that moment what exact percentage every player has as we can. A voter here voting today can see exactly how everyone else has voted up until and thus how each player is doing and how the voter's vote will effect each player. I don't think the BBWAA process is like that. A voter might have an idea how a player is doing based on word of mouth, but when a voter sends in his ballot, he likely doesn't know the actual results up that to that time. See what I'm saying?

[dgarza]

Sockeye's ballot was discounted so it's throwing off the results of the poll.
Oh. It threw me off as well.

[Brad Harris]

For a player to go from under 24% to over 76% in 12 years, there had to be other factors involved as well.
Like the election of a comparable, but inferior candidate?

[AG2004]

Again, I ask why you support so many contributors and continue to ignore players you support via your Keltner list like Charlie Bennett? Who would have been a lock as opposed to teetering on the brink of non-election had you voted for him this time.

Response from 1907: What's a Keltner List?

Response from 2008: The first elections for Cooperstown took place in 1936. I started making my lists in 2006. That gives us seventy years of history that gives us a fairly good guide of what a "Hall of Famer" is supposed to be.

For this project, however, we don't have those seventy years of history. We started our Hall of Fame from scratch and, as much as possible, with no preset definition of what a "Hall of Famer" should be, nor where the cutoff line for enshrinement in Brooklyn should be. (A few "years" ago, I proposed making the clubhouse of the old Brooklyn Excelsiors the HOF building; some others said that Brooklyn was fine, but the old clubhouse was now in a residential area, and we should look at nearby locations. Hoboken's Elysian Fields were paved over long ago, and, as of 1907, the only connections between Manhattan and New Jersey were by ferry. That would change with the opening of the Hudson & Manhattan tubes on February 25, 1908.)

Since we had no set standards, I decided to start with my own set of three questions in order to keep the Hall relatively small:

(1) Was this player the best of his era?
(2) Was this player the best ever at his position?
(3) If neither of the above apply, did the person make an important and lasting contribution to the game?

Ferguson gets in on contribution (3). He was the inventor of switch-hitting, and that carries some weight. Also, he was the president of the NA from 1872 to 1875. Since the NA was essentially the predecessor of the NL -- the top NA teams formed their own league -- and there was no assurance at the time that a professional league could last, Ferguson's tenure as president and role in keeping the NA alive was both significant and lasting.

However, in 1901, I stated that I would expand my ballot if the election of certain candidates justified it. In 1901, I wasn't sure if Ezra Sutton would be surpassed as the best 3B ever (John McGraw and Jimmy Collins both could have done so), so I left him off. Following Pud Galvin's election, I added Sutton to my ballot: both had long, valuable careers, and, while inconsistent, did have some seasons of greatness. With McPhee in, I couldn't justify keeping Childs off my ballot. And, as noted above, if Stovey or Thompson get in, George Gore will definitely be on my next ballot.

When I make my Keltner Lists, I'm using the standards that have evolved over the past seventy years to determine Hall of Famers, and applying them to candidates (under Bill James' definitions, Class C HOFers would get in here). For this Progressive HOF project, however, I started out with a fairly restrictive set of criteria (Class B Hall of Famers would get in, but not Class C HOFers), and stated that I might expand upon them as other members decide who gets in. My 1907 persona is basing player selection on who has been elected to the Progressive HOF, and not on standards based on an institution whose establishment is still three decades into the future.

Does this explain my position to your satisfaction?

----

To address a related topic, I will admit that the sabermetric numbers that I have posted are an anachronism. However, I defend their use on three grounds.

(1) Some common statistics were not officially kept during the first decade of the 1900s; these include batters' walks and RBIs.
(2) The Hall of Merit voters have been using sabermetrics in their elections.
(3) Sabermetrics isn't completely new; Allan Roth was doing it back in the 1940s. There are even some articles from the 1910s that attempt to apply these techniques:

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/BBM/1913/bbm112i.pdf
http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/BBM/1916/bbm165j.pdf

As far back as 1872, Philadelphia Athletics scorer Mr. Reed was evaluating fielders on plays made per game instead of fielding percentage. The building blocks for sabermetric analyses were there, but they weren't always easy to find or to build on.

Had someone had both the inclination and the opportunity to further develop those ideas back then, they would have done so. They might not have taken the same forms that are available now, and the formulas might have been slightly different, but they would have been there to be used. Therefore, I use them.

[jjpm74]

Does this explain my position to your satisfaction?


Not really. What makes Bennett inferior to Ewing even by 1907 standards? He caught more games, was better defensively at the most demanding defensive position and was more valuable to his team than Ewing.

[KCGHOST]

One thing about it, as a group, we are no more effective at this than the VC was.

[dgarza]

Your non-vote caused Wright to drop under the threshold at the time.
If the poll does not accurately reflect which votes will be counted, doesn't that mean Wright has been at 75%, not below it?

[jjpm74]

One thing about it, as a group, we are no more effective at this than the VC was.

Maybe, maybe not. We elected 5 players this time around and thinned out the pool so to speak by eliminating several with less than 5% support.

[DoubleX]

If the poll does not accurately reflect which votes will be counted, doesn't that mean Wright has been at 75%, not below it?

Yup, Wright is in, as well as Bennett, Stovey, Thompson, and Ward. Quite a haul, this could go down historically as a very significant election. It showed a lot of things, perhaps most importantly: 1) That we can build support for candidates over time and don't remain stagnated; 2) We've probably expanded the precedent for a Hall of Famer, perhaps opening the door to several candidates in the future that may not have made under previous standards.

I'm a little surprised Paul Wendt didn't get a vote in. As I said earlier, if he stuck with his history, Stovey may have fallen a vote short.

[jalbright]

Back to Ross Barnes. His triple and home run rates dropped precipituously in 1877, and even Doubting Thomas that I am, I have a hard time seeing the rule change hurting those categories. Homers isn't that huge a deal, as we're talking less than 3 HR (more like 2.7) lost from 1877 on in the NL. Triples, though, are more significant, with a loss of about 15 triples in his NL career from 1877 on (in 710 AB). His doubles are just under half (24 instead of about 50) his pre 1877 rate per AB, but we don't know how many doubles may have been fair/foul hits. If fair/foul doubles were a very small portion (say under 10%) of his total doubles, I'd have to say injury/illness was the culprit for all but his average, and maybe a good bit of that. If half his pre 1877 doubles were fair/foul jobs, well, it gets hard to buy the injury/illness as an answer. There's a continuum between those two extremes, obviously. Finally, has anybody even figured out how many of Barnes' hits were of the fair/foul variety? I mean, guys are noted for things that only happen 20 or so times in a 162 game season (OF assists and triples are two examples that come to mind), so it isn't out of the question that we're talking 10-12 hits in the short seasons he's playing, maybe 20-30 in the 710 NL AB starting in 1877. He lost about 91 hits from his pre 1877 rates, and if no more than a third of them were fair/foul jobs, it would then be clear injury/illness is the main culprit in his decline. Even if we had the data from one season from 1871-1876, it might be quite helpful, and if we had two such seasons of data , I think we could reasonably be expected to come up with solid answers.

[AG2004]

Not really. What makes Bennett inferior to Ewing even by 1907 standards? He caught more games, was better defensively at the most demanding defensive position and was more valuable to his team than Ewing.

There's also Deacon White from the 1870s, but I'll attempt to answer your question.

First, during the early 1880s, there were several catchers who caught 70 or more games a year, and teams would play 84-game schedules. In 1885, no NL catcher managed to catch in 70 games -- and the schedule had expanded to 114 games.

Part of the reason for this was that, in 1884, overhand pitching became legal. This meant that catchers couldn't catch as often during the mid- and late-1880s as they had before then; the wear and tear that a catcher endured during any single game had simply increased too much for them to do so. Because of this durability issue, catchers from 1884 to 1889 get a special 10% boost after I adjust their win shares to 140-game schedules; otherwise, pre-1884 catchers would get an unfair advantage in this comparison.

Bennett's peak came in the early 1880s, while Ewing's peak came in the middle and late 1880s. This adjustment for durability evens out their peaks.

However, Ewing had more career value than Bennett did. Bennett was better defensively than Ewing, but both were exceptionally good defensive catchers. Ewing, however, was a significantly better hitter than Bennett, and this outweighs Bennett's defensive edge.

Ewing's offensive play may have resulted in his not catching as often as he could have, despite his defensive excellence. If Ewing had caught a few more games, his teams would have lost his bat for all the games that he didn't catch -- and that would have hurt his team. If Ewing had been moved away from catcher, they would have lost his defense, and that would have also hurt his team.

The best solution would have been for Ewing to catch a high percentage of the games he could have caught. He would play other positions in a number of games -- not enough games to wear him out, but more games than he would have appeared in had be played no positions other than catcher.

If Ewing had been able to be an "everyday" catcher -- either because of the lack of overhand pitching or to some development in equipment that would allow catchers to play on a daily basis [such equipment would come later in the 20th century] -- then he wouldn't have been moved to other positions; it wouldn't have helped his team. But, because catcher was not an everyday position during Ewing's peak seasons, he did have to play other positions sometimes.

(In some senses, this is similar to the predicament Bob Caruthers' teams had. You couldn't have him play in the outfield in all the games that he's not pitching because that would have hurt his pitching too much. But you couldn't have him playing only as a pitcher because you would have wanted his bat in the lineup as often as possible. He was too good of a pitcher to keep him away from the center of the diamond. You had to have him split play at pitcher and at other positions in order to maximize the contribution he could make. Likewise, Ewing was just too good a player to reserve him for a position where he couldn't be an everyday player, but he was too good at that specific position for him not to be playing it.)

[jalbright]

On the side issue of Barnes versus Spalding, I think I'd have taken Spalding, now that I've looked at it. Win Shares only covers 1876 forward, but Spalding wins that 62-32. Total Baseball's rating isn't perfect, and measures players solely against average, and pitching 2700 innings at an average level certainly has value, more than 1700 AB plus good defense in 300+ games. That doesn't figure in their ratings, but Spalding wins the NA days 20.3 to 13.8. In 1868, Spalding was a better hitter than the 18 year old Barnes, and wasn't far enough behind in 1869 and 1870, and wehn one factors in the definitely superior value of a pitcher on the defensive side, especially one pitching almost every game, he should have been more valuable.

[Paul Wendt]

I will admit that the sabermetric numbers that I have posted are an anachronism. However, I defend their use on three grounds.

(1) Some common statistics were not officially kept during the first decade of the 1900s; these include batters' walks and RBIs.
(2) The Hall of Merit voters have been using sabermetrics in their elections.
(3) Sabermetrics isn't completely new; Allan Roth was doing it back in the 1940s. There are even some articles from the 1910s that attempt to apply these techniques:

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/BBM/1913/bbm112i.pdf
http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/BBM/1916/bbm165j.pdf

As far back as 1872, Philadelphia Athletics scorer Mr. Reed was evaluating fielders on plays made per game instead of fielding percentage. The building blocks for sabermetric analyses were there, but they weren't always easy to find or to build on.

Had someone had both the inclination and the opportunity to further develop those ideas back then, they would have done so. They might not have taken the same forms that are available now, and the formulas might have been slightly different, but they would have been there to be used. Therefore, I use them.
There was some sabrmetric analysis and some attention to useful unofficial statistics back in the old days. I am now reading a Milwaukee newspaper from 1899. Here is one note from Monday, June 19.
>>
Delahanty and Lajoie lead the individual long distance hitters with a record of [68] extra bases apiece. . . .
The latest output of National League figures, complete to date, shows the Philadelphia club in the lead in long-range batting with 328 extra bases.
<<
Many newspaper published box scores including total bases for each batter, as early as 1868-69, the same time base hits were introduced.

In 1899 Milwaukee Daily News box scores for the home team (Brewers) games provide eight columns of numbers for everyone in the lineup: AB R 1B SH SB PO A E.
Throughout the 1890s Chicago Tribune box scores for the home team ("Cubs") games provide eleven columns including BE BB LB for reached base on error, reached base on balls, and left on base (as a runner).
Those two newspapers provide only five columns for WL and NL games not involving the home team: R H PO A E.

Standardization commonly brings some advances (eg, at bats AB for every player in every game) but it costs some useful information at the same time (eg, these extras reported for the home team games).