Joe Start

[Cowtipper]

Joe Start played from 1871 to 1886, hitting .299 with 1418 hits and an OPS+ of 121. A first baseman, he led the league in games in 1871, at-bats in 1878, hits in 1878, total bases in 1878, singles in 1878 and 1882 and AB/K in 1877 and 1882.

None of the ten players most similar to him statistically are in the Hall of Fame. The players that are similar to him are Walter Holke, Chick Gandil, Dick Hoblitzel, Duff Cooley, Candy LaChance, Dave Foutz, Lou Finney, Bill Phillips, Eddie Waitkus and Jimmy Wolf.

So, what do you think? Should Joe Start be in the Hall of Fame?

[SamtheBravesFan]

Nein.

He doesn't have a case at all, really. He just seems to be typical of the time. Only led his league in hits once (sheer majority of singles), total bases once, singles twice, and ABs per strikeout twice. Only total bases seems particularly meaningful, especially in these formative years of baseball.

[jjpm74]

Nein.

He doesn't have a case at all, really. He just seems to be typical of the time. Only led his league in hits once (sheer majority of singles), total bases once, singles twice, and ABs per strikeout twice. Only total bases seems particularly meaningful, especially in these formative years of baseball.

Joe Start played close to 30 years professionally and continued to be successful through every reincarnation of professional baseball during that period. He was actually better than Cap Anson in the 1870s despite the fact that his career was starting to wind down at that point. Start also defined the role of a 1st baseman for future generations, including Cap Anson and Dan Brouthers. He was anything but typical at the time.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I would put Vic Power in the HOF before I'd put Joe Start in.

[jalbright]

The thumbnail case for Joe Start: He had an excellent 1.77 runs per out ratio for the 1860's, when 0.67 or so is average and 1.00 is good. In the 1860's, he had 8.41 full seasons. He didn't do too well in the 1871-1875 National Association, averaging 0.7 games above average per/162 games by Total Baseball's methods (Bill James didn't do win shares for the NA). That's the level of a good player, but nothing special. However, he played from 1876 to 1886 and averaged over 25 win shares/162 games there in 9.64 full seasons. That's all-star performance for that last eleven years of his career. A long career with sustained excellence is a recipe for a HOF quality career, even with a slight dip in the NA years in the middle. The Baseball Think Factory guys apparently agree with that thought, since they selected him to their Hall of Merit.

[SamtheBravesFan]

Joe Start played close to 30 years professionally and continued to be successful through every reincarnation of professional baseball during that period. He was actually better than Cap Anson in the 1870s despite the fact that his career was starting to wind down at that point. Start also defined the role of a 1st baseman for future generations, including Cap Anson and Dan Brouthers. He was anything but typical at the time.

Well, it would certainly help if I knew where else he played. :)

[AG2004]

Well, it would certainly help if I knew where else he played. :)

Here are the records compiled by Marshall Wright for the pre-1871 portion of Start's career. Wright notes that a players' statistics will be affected by the team he played for, since teams of the NABBP era did not have standard schedules. However, Atlantic was one of the top teams of the decade, and Start was one of its stars.


JOE START

Start was considered the Atlantics’ great power hitter during the mid-1860s, but total bases were not recorded at that time.

1860 – Played for Enterprise (Brooklyn), 2-7
Competition: NYC Area
Position: 3B-1B
Runs: 13 (tied for third on team) in 6 games. (R. Cornwall and Oddie had 16 runs each).
Outs – 2.50 per game.

1861 – Played for Enterprise (Brooklyn), 5-4
Competition: NYC Area
Position: 1B-3B
Runs: 29 in 7 games. (Third on team; Fred Crane and John Chapman each had 30 runs in 10 games.)
Outs – 1.71 per game.
Start’s average of 4 runs, 1 over per game tied him for the NA lead with Campbell of Eckford (Brooklyn).

1862 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 2-3
Competition: NYC Area
Position: 1B
Runs: 6 in 4 games.
Outs: 2.75 per game.

1863 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 8-3
Competition: NYC area, Philadelphia, Princeton NJ
Position: 1B-OF-SS
Runs – 23 in 9 games (third on club; Charles Smith had 33 in 11 games, and Dickey Pearce had 30 in 11 games).
Outs – 2.89 per game.

1864 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 20-0-1
Competition: NYC Area, Woodstock ON, Princeton NJ, Philadelphia, Rochester NY
Position: 1B-3B
Runs – 82 in 18 games. Fifth on team in runs per game.
Outs – 2.61 per game.

1865 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 18-0
Competition: NYC area, Philadelphia, Washington
Position: 1B
Runs: 82 (top on team; Fred Crane had 71 and Charles Smith 70) in 18 games.
Outs: 2.17 per game
Start led the NA in both runs and runs average this season.

1866 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 17-3
Competition: NYC Area, Philadelphia, Boston
Position: 1B
Runs: 69 in 16 games (First on team; John Chapman also had 69 runs, but in 18 games).
Outs: 2.31 per game

1867 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 19-5-1
Competition: NYC Area, Philadelphia, Rochester NY
Position: 1B
Runs: 83 in 19 games, second on team (Fred Crane 88 in 25 games, Pearce 83, Bob Ferguson 82). Only player on team to have a runs average over 4.
Outs: 2.11 per game.

1868 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 47-7
Competition: East and Midwest
Position: 1B
Runs: 235 in 52 games. First on team in runs and run average.
Hits: 233 (First on team).
Total Bases: 283 (Third on team. Ferguson 312, Chapman 301)
Outs: 2.35 per game.
Among NA teams that kept records of hits, Start finished first in the NA in total hits and hit average (4 hits, 25 over).

1869 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 40-6-2, 15-6-1 vs. pros (second of 12 pro teams)
Competition: East Coast and Cincinnati
Position: 1B
Runs: 202 in 46 games (First on team; Chapman 197, Pike 193)
Hits: 203 (first on team; Curtis Chapman 197)
Total Bases: 341 (first on team; Pike 325)
Outs: 2.59 per game

1870 – Played for Atlantic (Brooklyn), 41-17, 20-16 vs. pros (fifth best pro team)
Competition: East and Midwest
Position: 1B
Hits: 2.88 per game (best on team; Chapman had 2.58 per game)
Total Bases: 4.41 per game (second on team; Pike 4.58, Chapman 3.62)


As Albright points out, Start was averaging 25 win shares per 162 games from 1876 onwards (Bill James doesn't calculate win shares for the NA era). That span includes ten full season of play -- and Start was 33 years old when the NL was established. If he was that good then, just imagine how good he was in his prime. As noted above, despite playing on one of the top teams -- and therefore playing more than the usual share of games against other top teams -- Start did lead the NABBP in several statistical categories.


I would put Vic Power in the HOF before I'd put Joe Start in.


Were you taking Start's pre-1871 record into account when you wrote that?

[AstrosFan]

The thumbnail case for Joe Start: He had an excellent 1.77 runs per out ratio for the 1860's, when 0.67 or so is average and 1.00 is good. In the 1860's, he had 8.41 full seasons. He didn't do too well in the 1871-1875 National Association, averaging 0.7 games above average per/162 games by Total Baseball's methods (Bill James didn't do win shares for the NA). That's the level of a good player, but nothing special. However, he played from 1876 to 1886 and averaged over 25 win shares/162 games there in 9.64 full seasons. That's all-star performance for that last eleven years of his career. A long career with sustained excellence is a recipe for a HOF quality career, even with a slight dip in the NA years in the middle. The Baseball Think Factory guys apparently agree with that thought, since they selected him to their Hall of Merit.

Wow, where do you get pre-NA info like that?

[jalbright]

Wow, where do you get pre-NA info like that?

As AG2004 noted, from Marshall Wright's book on the 1859-1870 years. Two of the things they kept in those days were runs scored and outs made. There were a lot of runs, and Wright has said that 2 runs scored to 3 outs made was about average. A one to one ratio is good, and better than that is excellent--and has the advantage of putting things into some context. The complete seasons is player's games played divided by team games played, done season by season. Some more of this stuff appears in posts 88 to 101 in my musings thread.

[Paul Wendt]

At the Hall of Merit many of the player pages for pre-1871 players include notes by yours truly.
Selected 19th Century Candidates (index), Hall of Merit (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/selected_19th_century_players)

Some of them are almost empty because player pages were added after they were elected, and others because player pages didn't become popular sites for HoM debate until some time after they proliferated.

Whether or not the page is nearly empty (Ezra Sutton) or continues past 100 artilces (Joe Start), my notes that include pre-1871 data tend to be near the end.

[SamtheBravesFan]

Taking that stuff into account, I'm willing to say that I'm wrong on this.

[Cowtipper]

Revived, because Paul Wendt wants it to be.

[JDD]

Correct me if I am wrong, but was I just looking at stats from seasons which included fewer games than what I used to play during a summer of Church League Softball?

:faint:

[rsuriyop]

Just how was he (or anyone else of qualified fighting age) able to play "base ball" throughout the entire duration of the Civil War? And how much did this affect league quality? Did he fight? And if so, does he deserve "war credit?"

[Freakshow]

At the Hall of Merit many of the player pages for pre-1871 players include notes by yours truly.
Selected 19th Century Candidates (index), Hall of Merit (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/selected_19th_century_players)A more complete version of the "Start and McVey" thread can be found at this link (http://web.archive.org/web/20040428124517/www.baseballprimer.com/hom/archives/00000074.shtml). Post #120 in the original (now archived) thread, now exists as post #94 in the thread at Paul's link. The thread, and many others, was a casualty of the site upgrade from the spring of 2004.

[SavoyBG]

Just how was he (or anyone else of qualified fighting age) able to play "base ball" throughout the entire duration of the Civil War? And how much did this affect league quality? Did he fight? And if so, does he deserve "war credit?"

There's a good book about baseball during the civil war. Apparantly there were games being played all the time at various forts and other sites while soldiers looked on.

[rsuriyop]

There's a good book about baseball during the civil war. Apparantly there were games being played all the time at various forts and other sites while soldiers looked on.

Yeah, I already knew about that. But I'm talking about playing in an actual league here, not about playing just for the sake of camaraderie.

[Paul Wendt]

Participation in the annual the NABBP convention, which was equivalent to club membership in the Association, shrank in number by about half and shrank geographically to greater New York. Some clubs went out of "business", some played no matches, others played fewer matches than in 1860. No one toured in 1861.

If a club did play ten matches in 1860 and ten in 1861, that would still represent a drastic change in the sense that typical numbers of games had been booming along with the number of clubs. This was very early in organized baseball history. Many 1860 clubs were new that season or the preceding fall and most of the "old" clubs played more matches than in 1859.

Joe Start was a teenager playing for the Phoenix club in 1859, the Enterprise in 1860 and 1861. The Atlantics picked up him and two(?) teammates for 1862. Certainly war created some opportunities on stronger clubs that remained in operation --practice as well competition, and I suppose that some continued only at practice. The Atlantics returned to championship form in 1864 and that was the first season for Joe Start as a leading batter.

Just how was he (or anyone else of qualified fighting age) able to play "base ball" throughout the entire duration of the Civil War? And how much did this affect league quality? Did he fight? And if so, does he deserve "war credit?"
No one was required to fight. Anyone drafted was required to serve or to provide a substitute or to pay $300. (Warning: I don't know anything about the jurisdictions. Was there a federal draft? Was there a uniform rule of substitution by a serviceman or $300?)

The war was unpopular in New York City, at least Manhattan, which was the site of the worst draft riots. I'm sure that many of the participants were men of fighting age who could not provide substitutes or pay $300 but there must have been others who were disgusted to be required to do so.

I don't know that we have any comprehensive draft records. I don't recall reading that any ballplayer was or wasn't drafted.


add: "New York Draft Riots" at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Draft_Riots) (with many notes and references)

[Paul Wendt]

Revived, because Paul Wendt wants it to be.

Thanks.

cross-reference to Progressive election 1951 (http://www.baseball-fever.com/showpost.php?p=1544776&postcount=183):
1. SavoyBG replies to SABRMatt on Joe Start
2. "Joe Start" by Eric Miklich

[SABR Matt]

I don't put much stock in pre-1876 performances...let alone pre-1871 performances. Exceptions being for players who are credited with an important innovation that would come to be used by all subsequent generations (Candy Cummings and his curveball, e.g.).

Joe Start's best case would be if it could be shown that he did indeed pioneer playing off the bag at first. Statistically he was a pretty mediocre fielder by 1876...but it could well be that he was very good compared to his peers before that because he was the first guy to play off the line and behind the bag...even though he was tiny and unlikely to have had much range or reach.

[Paul Wendt]

Before 1876 everyone played firstbase bare-hand so there was much greater scope for value in reliably catching infield throws. I'm sure there were few one-hand catches of batted or thrown baseballs at any fielding position, so not many diving, leaping or reaching snares anywhere. Start was reliable and that must have been high among the reasons why one of the strongest clubs made him a fixture at first.

The story is that Spalding was the first to use a glove, except behind the plate, after he hurt his arm and moved to firstbase for the 1877 season. He was already in the sporting goods business, with the contract to provide official National League baseballs, for example. Soon he was peddling a lot of gloves.

The 1887 Spalding's Guide gives some reason to doubt the latter. That pocket-size book includes 20 pages of ads for baseball equipment but only one for gloves, which are all called catchers gloves. They do seem to me appropriate for a right-hand firstbaseman as well as a right-hand catcher: a full heavily padded five-finger glove for the left hand and a padded fingerless glove, open on the back, for the right hand.

[AG2004]

I don't put much stock in pre-1876 performances...let alone pre-1871 performances. Exceptions being for players who are credited with an important innovation that would come to be used by all subsequent generations (Candy Cummings and his curveball, e.g.).

However, Start had ten years as a regular in the National League. That's enough to make him eligible for Cooperstown. (Add on one month in early 1886, and he has eleven seasons in what are now recognized major leagues).

Furthermore, those ten years as a regular started when he was 33 years old, and lasted until he was 42. How many players with seasons like Start's between ages 33 and 42 don't belong in the Hall?

If all we had for Start were the pre-1871 performances and a few years in the NA, his case would be weak (especially as his decline would have come in his early 30s in that case). However, Start did manage to play at the game's top level for in at least 24 different seasons (1863 to 1886), which is a very impressive feat in itself. The pre-1871 numbers are nice, but the data from the NL would indicate that Start must have been a great player during his peak.

[SABR Matt]

Weeeeeelllll...that would be a good point if he started out strong in 1871...he didn't. He was a pretty marginal star even then. He really had no great seasons after 1871...for a HOFer you'd like to see at least ONE HOF caliber season even if it's after the age of 31.

[TonyK]

As AG2004 noted, from Marshall Wright's book on the 1859-1870 years. Two of the things they kept in those days were runs scored and outs made. There were a lot of runs, and Wright has said that 2 runs scored to 3 outs made was about average. A one to one ratio is good, and better than that is excellent--and has the advantage of putting things into some context. The complete seasons is player's games played divided by team games played, done season by season. Some more of this stuff appears in posts 88 to 101 in my musings thread.

The ML record for highest percentage of runs scored per outs made in a season is only .685. There was a big dropoff in these averages after the 1860's. Joe Start's career shows us we sometimes need to look past the traditional methods used to determine a player's value.

[Beady]

Paul Wendt is mistaken on details but correct on the essential principle. Spalding did not claim to have originated the practice of wearing gloves, but says he saw Charlie Waitt of New Haven doing it. Peter Morris, "Game of Inches" (vol. 1, p. 420) has some information that suggests at least a few first basemen may have been wearing gloves routinely by the very early 1870's. These were skintight kid gloves that cushioned the palm but offered no help in catching the ball, and nothing more substantial developed until the very end of Start's career, or more probably some years later.

Essentially, Start played his entire career barehanded, as did all his contemporaries. He was not a really big man by any standards, yet I don't see how he can be called "tiny," but at any rate the most important quality for a bare-handed first baseman is not size but good hands.

As quoted by Peter Morris, "Game of Inches" (vol. 1, p. 211), the veteran sportswriter Will Rankin wrote in TSN in 1910 that Start "made first base a fielding position. Up to the early sixties the first baseman stood at the base and caught, or tried to do so, all balls thrown there, but made no attempt to leave the base to get batted balls. In the early '60's Start revolutionized the first base system of play...[by going] after hits in his direction."

The subsequent development is complicated, but by the time John Ward wrote his book "Base Ball" in 1889, he saw Start somewhat differently. Ward knew Start's play very well, having been Start's teammate from 1879 to 1882, and although Ward was primarily a pitcher at that stage of his career he had played a large number of games at short and third in the same infield as Start. Almost at the very beginning of his chapter on the first baseman, Ward writes:

“For many years, and, indeed, until he retired from the diamond, ‘Old Reliable’ Joe Start was the king of first basemen; but, unquestionably, the play of such basemen as Connor, Comiskey and Morrill is a steady improvement along with the rest of the game. Especially has there been an advance in the direction of fielding ground hits, and it is now not an unusual sight to see a first baseman getting a hit in short right field, and assisting in the put-out at first or second base."

Rather than mobility, Ward emphasizes Start's mastery of the art of taking care of the ball, a crucial skill given the high error rates of the day:

"Start was the first man I ever saw who knew how to leave the base for a wide throw. He never took the chance of a long reach for the ball, unless, of course, the game depended on that one put-out and there was no time to leave the base and return. He believed, and with reason, that it was better to first make sure of the ball and then touch the base, than, by trying to do both at once, see the ball sailing over the side sets.”

Compare this to what Mike Kelly, or his ghostwriter, had to say: "Joe Start...could save the players more errors when covering the first bag than any man in the business.”

Kelly and Ward knew Start at a relatively late period in his career, however. Although I don't have a lot of evidence, it seems that Start did revolutionize the playing of the first base position in the 1860's. He certainly was regarded as an outstanding fielder to the end of his very long career. And I have to say, once I know the man was playing regularly at 42, it doesn't take a lot of evidence to convince me he was a very good player.

[Paul Wendt]

good show, Beady
good show, Peter Morris

TonyK commented on Marshall Wright's rule of thumb, presented by Jim Albright: "There were a lot of runs, and Wright has said that 2 runs scored to 3 outs made was about average. A one to one ratio is good, and better than that is excellent"
The ML record for highest percentage of runs scored per outs made in a season is only .685. There was a big dropoff in these averages after the 1860's. Joe Start's career shows us we sometimes need to look past the traditional methods used to determine a player's value.

For the entire professional league, runs scored per out dropped from 0.393 in 1871 to 0.228 in 1875, or from 10.6 to 6.1 per nine full innings.

Curve pitching was one cause. Through 1871 the wrist snap essential to modern curve pitching was illegal. It may be presumed that some pitchers were already using it and that more of them adopted it every season, or that more curve pitchers joined the league (such as Candy Cummings in 1872).