1990 Best of Baseball Election thread

[TheMendozaLine]

Players:

1. Rod Carew
2. Jim Palmer
3. Addie Joss
4. Lou Brock
5. Hilton Smith
6. Jake Beckley
7. Jose Mendez
8. Edd Roush
9. Roger Bresnahan
10. Don Sutton
11. Sam Rice
12. Bob Lemon


Contributors:

1. Happy Chandler
2. Harry Caray
3. Ford Frick
4. Phil Rizzuto
5. Warren Giles

[Tiboreau]

1. Rod Carew
2. Hughie Jennings
3. Charlie Keller
4. Alejandro Oms
5. Jim Palmer
6. Cal McVey
7. Jose Mendez
8. Joe Kelley
9. Willard Brown
10. Jimmy Wynn
11. Leroy Matlock
12. Lip Pike

I've dropped Mendez a little bit after comparing him to Palmer. Palmer's a player who is overrated by some, IMO, while others tend to underrate him, a conflict that's caused by attempting to better understand the impact of a talented defense, such as the Baltimore Orioles squad of the '70s.

[Tiboreau]

(There is also a contradiction between Oms #20 ranking ahead of Lip Pike #23 among CFs, yet Pike ahead of Oms at the bottom of Group 4, also casts doubt on the meaning of that CF #20.)

Yeah, like the rest of the 2nd tier Negro League HoMers (and 2nd tier 19th century stars) there's wide consensus on Oms' value (and Pike's). Depending on which 25-50 voters were participating, there are a variety of places both Oms & Pike could've landed on that CF ballot.

[Paul Wendt]

So in that project, he trails Lip Pike, but in the Centerfield rankings Oms finishes 20th and ahead of Lip Pike... as well as Cool Papa Bell, Edd Roush, Willard Brown, Pete Browning, and Andre Dawson. The only CFer ranked higher than him who has yet to be elected in our project is Jim Wynn (18th).

Hall of Merit rankings, CF 2008

It isn't a distinct project but a distinct ranking. A great majority of the voters coincide, as in distinct cycles within one baseball-fever hof forum project. Even if the voters coincide precisely, and every one votes consistently, under scoring by the sum of rank orders, the differences between candidate pools will generate some reversals.

In the HOM centerfield scores there are big gaps between 12/13 and between 17/18. Those are reliable reports of collective opinion, robust to moderate differences in the pools of voters and candidates. Thus I think it's fair to say that the Hall of Merit group, which contains the voters in any particular HOM election, judges those five in ranks 13 to 17 to be "below" the first twelve and "above" the last ten --including Reggie Smith who has been elected since the ranking. On the other hand it's a stretch to make much of the rankings within those last ten. These judgments aren't based only on scores in the one CF ranking election but on all of the ranking elections. Above I noted some supporting evidence in the rankings of "Cooperstown ineligible" and "1943-1987" players.
(Here we have elected the top twelve, the middle five, and two of the last ten, Earl Averill and Cool Papa Bell. This

[J W]

Actually, you could divide the rankings even further. All but two voters ranked Joe DiMaggio 6th all-time. So you've got the top five (Cobb, Mays, Speaker, Mantle, Charleston), then DiMaggio, then 7-12 (Stearnes, Hamilton, Torriente, O' Rourke, Snider, Hines), then 13-17 (Doby, Gore, Hill, Ashburn, Carey), then the rest (Wynn, Averill, Oms, Bell, Roush, Pike, Brown, Browning, Dawson, Smith). Through all this I suppose the point is, we're beginning to elect "the rest" and I support that. I don't mind if CF has the largest number of electees, so long as numbers are relatively even across the board. CF is a demanding position.

Off topic: in your opinion, which group would Griffey fit in among HoM voters? And how close are Kirby Puckett/Jim Edmonds to the last group?

[Paul Wendt]

Griffey Jr fits the first twelve, in your subgroup "7-12" if not "DiMaggio".
Puckett and Edmonds fit the last ten. (Puckett was a leading also-ran in some annual elections. Edmonds is not yet eligible.)

[jalbright]

We've gotten the ballots from everyone who voted last time except Paul Wendt and seaphil. If either or both of them haven't voted by Monday, I'll follow up by PM.

In the next election, we add the following players:

Bonds , Bobby
Fingers , Rollie
Hunter , Catfish
Jackson , Reggie
Lee , Bill (Spaceman)
Murcer , Bobby
Oliver , Al
Tenace , Gene
Torrez , Mike
Watson , Bob 
Yamamoto , Koji

We also add the following contributors:

Davids , Bob 
Kuhn , Bowie
Martin  , Billy

Only Jackson seems a slam-dunk, which could open the way for two holdovers next time.

[jalbright]

I will send the reminder PMs after I make this post.

[Paul Wendt]

This is under construction but I understand that 1-4 and 1-11 constitute valid ballots, and I have numbered four and eleven candidates accordingly, just in case I don't get back.


Palmer and Carew replace Seaver and Carlton.

Contributors
1 Kazuto Tsuruoka
2 Bob Ferguson
3 Gus Greenlee
4 Tim Murnane
?

Players
1 Jim Palmer
2 Rod Carew
3 Hardy Richardson
4 Hugh Jennings
5 Cal McVey
6 Eppa Rixey
7 Joe Kelley
8 Jimmy Sheckard
9 Jose Mendez
10 Bob Lemon
11 Jake Beckley
?

[Paul Wendt]

P.S.
Bob Davids, Bowie Kuhn, and Billy Martin, the new killer bees.
Have we seen a more dissimilar trio?

[Brad Harris]

P.S.
Bob Davids, Bowie Kuhn, and Billy Martin, the new killer bees.
Have we seen a more dissimilar trio?

Deceased bees, maybe but not killers.

[jalbright]

We've met the quorum on the contributor ballot as well.

[J W]

Paul, I see that you have a spot open at the end of each ballot. If I may, let me make a pitch for my newest contributor, Al Munro Elias:

Today's Elias Sports Bureau compiles stats for the NFL, NHL, NBA, WNBA and MLS... but their reign began when, in 1919, the Elias Sports Bureau became the official stat-keeper for both National (Major) and International (Minor) League Baseball. It had been only six years since Al and his brother Walter started the company in 1913... and three years since gaining publication in the New York Telegram in 1916. Al died in 1938, one year after the Elias Sports Bureau was granted custody of "The Little Red Book", Charley White's Record Book, which contained every known major league record. Al was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.

The foundation that Al and Walter Elias laid shaped how we look at baseball statistically; this is obvious. But the Elias Sports Bureau has gone so far as to effect the very business of Major League Baseball with their Elias Rankings. They are not only largely responsible for us the stat-heads but also the modern age of free agency. The Elias stamp has been so unquestionable that it may hold up in the court of law -- so it is written, so it shall be done.

Now, what I'd like to do is vote for the Elias Brothers, since they're linked at the hip... but anyways, if Al is elected he will represent Walter.

[Jar of Flies]

Spots 6-8 have shuffled throughout the election...I revisited the pitchers eligible, and I am not convinced that Don Sutton should be moved lower. I reviewed the most recent DERA figures at Baseball Prospectus and ran them through Joe Dimino's Pennants Added analysis. Sutton still excels.

1 Rod Carew
2 Hughie Jennings
3 Jim Palmer
4 Charlie Keller
5 Joe Kelley
6 Don Sutton
7 Dick Lundy
8 Masaaki Koyama
9 Jimmy Sheckard
10 Phil Rizzuto
11 Alejandro Oms
12 Jimmy Wynn

[jalbright]

The election is now over, and we've inducted Rod Carew, Jim Palmer and Hilton Smith on the player side, and Kazuto Tsuruoka on the contributor side. We had 13 player ballots and 10 contributor ballots.

Here are the complete results, the players first:

Players…………..	votes	pts
Carew, Rod	13	155
Palmer, Jim	13	139
Smith, Hilton	9	55
Oms, Alejandro	10	52
Lemon, Bob	10	51
Mendez , Jose	9	48
Joss , Addie	5	41
Jennings , Hughie	6	40
Tiant, Luis	5	36
Sutton, Don	6	33
Torre, Joe	6	31
Bresnahan , Roger	7	29
Grimes , Burleigh	4	28
Rixey , Eppa	4	28
Roush , Edd 	6	28
Brock, Lou	3	23
Wynn, Jimmy	6	22
Kelley , Joe	4	20
Keller , Charlie	2	19
Brown, Willard	3	16
McVey , Cal	2	15
Beckley , Jake	3	12
Berger , Wally	2	12
Richardson , Hardy	1	10
Smith, Reggie	1	9
Elliott, Bob	1	8
Sheckard , Jimmy	2	8
Howard, Frank	1	6
Lundy , Dick	1	6
Aparicio, Luis	1	5
Cepeda, Orlando	1	5
Koyama, Masaaki	1	5
Freehan, Bill	1	4
Childs , Cupid	1	3
Gomez, Lefty	1	3
Rizzuto , Phil	1	3
Matlock, Leroy	1	2
Rice , Sam..	1	2
Pike , Lip....	1	1

Now the contributors:

Contributors……..	votes	pts
Tsuruoka, Kazuto	8	25
Frick, Ford.	5	18
Rizzuto, Phil	5	16
Greenlee, Gus	4	14
Caray, Harry	2	9
Caylor , O. P.	2	8
Evans, Billy..	2	8
Chandler, Happy	2	7
Ferguson, Bob	3	6
Harris, Vic..	4	6
Jobe, Frank	1	5
Krichell, Paul	1	5
Murnane, Tim	3	5
Jennings , Hughie	1	4
Smith, Red.	1	4
Murtaugh, Danny	1	3
Abe, Iso.....	1	2
McCarthy, Tommy	1	2
Elias, Al Munro	1	1
Giles , Warren	1	1