2005 Best of Baseball election thread

[Jar of Flies]

jalbright from post 25:

If anybody wants to try to persuade me against one of these or in favor of someone else, I'll listen

and post 7:

Players
1. Cal Ripken, Jr.
2. Tony Gwynn
3. Cupid Childs
4. Sal Bando
5. Quincy Trouppe
6. Bill Freehan
7. Reggie Smith
8. Andre Dawson
9. Hugh Duffy
10. Tony Mullane
11. Graig Nettles
12. Bobby Bonds

from the Seven Circles of the Hall of Fame: the Final Ballot - http://www.baseball-fever.com/showth...The-Outer-Hall

1 Brown, W
2 Chance
3 Beckley
4 Rizzuto
5 Duffy
6 Bresnahan

Do you have interest in voting for Beckley ahead of Duffy?

[jalbright]

Not really. The other ballot simply followed the rating system, in large part because I didn't have the time or patience to sort out the differences between 60+ names. Here, I am doing that, and Beckley's just on the other side of the in/out line for me.

[joggerdru]

1 Cal Ripken
2 Tony Gwynn
3 Lou Brock
4 Bill Freehan
5 Andre Dawson
6 Eppa Rixey
7 Luis Aparicio
8 Reggie Smith
9 Dwight Evans
10 Sal Bando
11 Urban Schocker
12 Burleigh Grimes

[jalbright]

Just giving it a bump. I'll get to next year's eligibles tomorrow.

[jalbright]

Next season's new eligibles, players first:

Aguilera , Rick
Caminiti , Ken
Coleman , Vince
Franco , John
Galarraga , Andres
Key , Jimmy
Kruk , John
Mattingly , Don

Now the contributors:

Cox , Bobby
McCarver , Tim

I'm not going to vote for any of the players, though Mattingly may get some support. Cox will be on my contributor ballot, even if I have to bump someone currently on the ballot to do it.

[Brad Harris]

None of the newcomers will ever make my ballot. Going to be three holdovers elected next year. Bobby Cox will debut at the top of my contributor ballot.

[Jar of Flies]

With the strong support for Perucho Cepeda, maybe the electorate would have interest in voting for or examining closer the candidacy of Dick Lundy.

From the guys at the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit:

MLEs on Lundy were performed by Dr. Chaleeko, Dan Rosenheck, and Chris Cobb

97. Eric Chalek (Dr. Chaleeko) Posted: October 19, 2007 at 05:02 PM (#2584642)
Now then, here's the MLEs I'm getting for Lundy based on what you've read above. They include the new HOF data as well as Cuban League data, and they are "regressed" in the manner I've discussed before (filling in gaps with a mix of career and recent-prior peformance data), contextualized all to the NL of 1919-1937, with 1922 a whole-cloth year and nothing for 1936 at all.

YRS AGE out| pa| ab | _h | bb| k |sh|hp|sb|dp| tb |cs| rc || avg .obp .slg
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1919 20 333| 484| 441| 120| 36| 28| 4| 2| 8| 4| 161| 3| 55 ||.272 .327 .364
1920 21 377| 556| 509| 145| 41| 33| 4| 3| 9| 5| 191| 4| 67 ||.285 .339 .375
1921 22 273| 416| 380| 119| 29| 28| 4| 2| 8| 4| 169| 4| 62 ||.313 .362 .445
1922 23 361| 568| 510| 164| 49| 38| 5| 3|11| 5| 220| 5| 86 ||.322 .381 .431
1923 24 392| 582| 534| 157| 39| 34| 5| 3| 9| 5| 203| 4| 72 ||.294 .343 .380
1924 25 409| 627| 566| 177| 52| 40| 6| 3|21| 5| 256| 9| 97 ||.313 .370 .453
1925 26 396| 612| 535| 155| 66| 39| 7| 3| 8| 5| 208| 4| 81 ||.289 .366 .388
1926 27 376| 587| 523| 161| 56| 35| 4| 3|12| 5| 211| 5| 83 ||.308 .375 .404
1927 28 372| 562| 506| 149| 45| 35| 5| 3| 5| 5| 209| 2| 76 ||.294 .350 .413
1928 29 384| 597| 542| 173| 47| 39| 5| 3|13| 5| 230| 6| 88 ||.319 .374 .425
1929 30 199| 312| 273| _85| 31| 20| 6| 2| 5| 3| 114| 2| 46 ||.311 .378 .418
1930 31 372| 601| 539| 186| 51| 41| 7| 3|13| 6| 242| 6| 98 ||.345 .399 .449
1931 32 367| 546| 499| 144| 41| 36| 3| 3| 9| 5| 188| 4| 67 ||.289 .343 .377
1932 33 363| 575| 519| 170| 48| 36| 4| 3|11| 5| 223| 5| 88 ||.327 .385 .429
1933 34 391| 561| 513| 135| 41| 34| 4| 3| 9| 5| 178| 4| 59 ||.263 .318 .346
1934 35 265| 412| 371| 117| 35| 28| 3| 2| 8| 4| 157| 3| 60 ||.315 .374 .422
1935 36 165| 242| 222| _63| 16| 15| 2| 1| 3| 2| _82| 1| 28 ||.283 .333 .367
1937 38 _46| _67| _61| _16| _5| _4| 0| 0| 1| 1| _23| 0| 8 ||.263 .324 .383
================================================== =========================
TOTAL_ 5843|8906|8043|2436|728|562|82|46|165|76|3264|71|1 222|.303 .360 .406

YEAR | _bws | _fws | _ws_ |162WS
--------------------------------
1919 | 13.2 || 6.3 | 19.5 | 20.5
1920 | 14.5 || 7.2 | 21.8 | 22.9
1921 | 12.0 || 5.4 | 17.4 | 18.3
1922 | 15.1 || 7.4 | 22.5 | 23.6
1923 | 10.7 || 7.6 | 18.2 | 19.2
1924 | 19.5 || 8.2 | 27.7 | 29.1
1925 | 11.9 || 8.0 | 19.8 | 20.8
1926 | 16.5 || 7.6 | 24.1 | 25.3
1927 | 13.9 || 7.3 | 21.2 | 22.3
1928 | 16.3 || 7.8 | 24.1 | 25.3
1929 | _6.6 || 4.1 | 10.6 | 11.2
1930 | 14.5 || 7.8 | 22.3 | 23.4
1931 | 10.9 || 5.7 | 16.6 | 17.5
1932 | 17.9 || 6.0 | 23.9 | 25.1
1933 | 10.5 || 5.9 | 16.4 | 17.2
1934 | 11.6 || 4.3 | 15.9 | 16.7
1935 | _4.1 || 2.5 | _6.7 | _7.0
1937 | _1.2 || 0.7 | _1.9 | _2.0
================================
TOTL |221.0 |109.8 |330.9 |347.4

YEAR| pa| ab | obp slg |lgob lgsl|obp+|slg+|ops+
------------------------------------------------
1919|484| 441|.327 .364|.319 .347|102 |105 |107
1920|556| 509|.339 .375|.330 .368|103 |102 |104
1921|416| 380|.362 .445|.348 .410|104 |109 |113
1922|568| 510|.381 .431|.359 .419|106 |103 |109
1923|582| 534|.343 .380|.352 .408| 97 | 93 | 90
1924|627| 566|.370 .453|.345 .404|107 |112 |119
1925|612| 535|.366 .388|.358 .429|102 | 90 | 93
1926|587| 523|.375 .404|.347 .398|108 |102 |110
1927|562| 506|.350 .413|.349 .400|100 |103 |104
1928|597| 542|.374 .425|.355 .413|105 |103 |108
1929|312| 273|.378 .418|.368 .443|103 | 94 | 97
1930|601| 539|.399 .449|.370 .464|108 | 97 |105
1931|546| 499|.343 .377|.344 .403|100 | 94 | 93
1932|575| 519|.385 .429|.337 .412|114 |104 |118
1933|561| 513|.318 .346|.327 .375| 97 | 92 | 90
1934|412| 371|.374 .422|.342 .408|109 |104 |113
1935|242| 222|.333 .367|.341 .407| 98 | 90 | 88
1937| 67| _61|.324 .383|.342 .397| 95 | 96 | 91
================================================
TOT 8906|8043|.360 .406|.347 .406|104 |100 |104


OK, there you go!

99. Eric Chalek (Dr. Chaleeko) Posted: October 19, 2007 at 06:33 PM (#2584694)
FYI on the defensive side for Lundy.

1919-1930: .056 fws/game, or 6.6 per 1000 innings.
1931-1937: .045 fws/game, or 5.3 per 1000 innings.

I think this is what Chris used in his original MLEs, and I just retained it.

6.6 fws/1000 would be synonymous wih an A+ fielder, a legit annual GGer.
5.3 fws/1000 would be synonymous with roughly a B+ fielder.

102. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: October 19, 2007 at 07:55 PM (#2584741)
OK, here is what this translates to, using league average figures for triples:

Dick Lundy MLE's in my WARP

Glossary: All numbers are adjusted for standard deviation. SFrac is the percentage of the season played (compared to a player with league average PA/G in 162 games). BWAA is batting wins above average, BRWA is baserunning wins above average, FWAA is fielding wins above average, Replc is wins above average a replacement player at the same position would have accumulated in the same playing time, and WARP is the first three minus the fourth (wins above replacement). 1919 is straight line adjusted to 162 games.

Year SFrac BWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP
1919 00.86 +1.1 -0.1 +0.6 -2.50 +4.1
1920 00.88 +0.9 +0.3 +0.8 -2.50 +4.5
1921 00.65 +1.1 +0.2 +0.6 -1.90 +3.8
1922 00.85 +1.0 +0.2 +0.9 -2.50 +4.5
1923 00.88 -0.2 +0.2 +0.9 -2.60 +3.5
1924 00.97 +2.3 +0.3 +0.9 -2.90 +6.4
1925 00.93 +0.3 +0.2 +1.0 -2.80 +4.3
1926 00.92 +1.5 +0.1 +0.7 -2.70 +5.0
1927 00.87 +0.9 +0.0 +0.8 -2.70 +4.4
1928 00.92 +1.4 +0.1 +0.8 -2.70 +5.0
1929 00.47 +0.4 +0.0 +0.5 -1.50 +2.4
1930 00.90 +1.3 +0.1 +0.7 -2.60 +4.7
1931 00.84 +0.2 +0.1 +0.0 -2.50 +2.7
1932 00.87 +2.3 +0.1 +0.0 -2.50 +4.8
1933 00.88 +0.2 +0.1 -0.1 -2.40 +2.7
1934 00.63 +1.4 +0.1 +0.0 -1.80 +3.3
1935 00.37 +0.0 +0.0 +0.0 -1.10 +1.0
1937 00.10 +0.0 +0.0 +0.0 -0.30 +0.3
TOTL 13.78 16.1 +2.1 +9.0 -40.5 67.5


3-year peak: 16.5
7-year prime: 35.1
Career: 67.5

Well, here's how it looks to me. These translations make Lundy look like an easy #1 for career voters--67.5 total WARP2 beats everyone else in the backlog by about 4. For peak and prime voters, he would seem to be rather lacking, sort of like an uber-Maranville. However, I wonder if this is a result of the MLE process flattening his peak. In particular, these numbers do NOT give him ANY seasons that would be good enough to win a Gold Glove in the majors, which does not jive with his reputation as one of the best fielders in NgL history. And they say he never had even one season over 120 OPS+, which we would expect just by random fluctuation if nothing else from a guy who played for nearly 20 years with a career OPS+ of 104. Was Lundy really the Beckley of shortstops?

The closest parallel to him--a defense-first, lowish-peak shortstop with 65 to 70 WARP2--seems to be Bobby Wallace (69.5). Wallace's best seasons by WARP2 were 7.2, 6.1, 5.9, 5.7, 5.6, 5.6, 5.4, while Lundy's are 6.4, 5.0, 5.0, 4.8, 4.7, 4.5, 4.5. So if we give Lundy 67.5/69.5 = 97% of Wallace's peak and prime, we get 6.9, 5.9, 5.7, 5.5, 5.4, 5.4, 5.2, making his 3-year peak 18.5 and his 7-year prime 40.0. That would still make him a low-peak candidate, but would give him a prime comparable to that of Campaneris and Rizzuto.

My understanding is that Lundy is very much considered in the pantheon of Negro League players--there's no "But why haven't we heard of him??" issue here as there is with Clarkson. Given that reputation, finding out that he was not even quite the black Bobby Wallace actually seems like something of a disappointment. That said, 97% of Bobby Wallace is clearly a deserving HoM'er.

150. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: November 13, 2007 at 02:22 PM (#2613531)
I'm asking the subset whose ballots seem to me to show a) some minimal understanding that playing first base and playing shortstop are not the same thing b) a similar embracing of the concept that catching the ball is part of the game c) a willingness to look past pure peak value and d) didn't mention Lundy on their 2007 ballots.

As you are obviously aware, (one) problem with MLE's is that they flatten peaks. We don't know what Lundy's Best Years would have looked like in the bigs. What we do know is that for him to have accumualted the career value he projects to without having had a peak at least as high as Wallace's, he would have to have been a historic outlier, the Jake Beckley of shortstops. That *could* be the case, but it is not the most likely one. I chose Wallace as his comp because he was a long-career, low-peak, defense-first, prewar shortstop whose career value is very similar to Lundy's MLE's. I too have Wallace ahead of Lundy, but by a hair.

Lundy was not really a viable candidate until the new data came along, which put him as a very strong HoM'er, welll above the backlog. I don't know if anyone else's MLE's moved nearly as much--my understanding is that the old MLE's had Lundy with extremely low walk rates because walks were not recorded for some of the teams he played on. So if any of those guys played on the same teams as Lundy, or on other teams with missing data, then we'd expect their MLE's to move as well, although it's just as likely (leaving Lundy's teams aside) that they'd go down as it is that they'd go up.

139. Chris Cobb Posted: October 23, 2007 at 11:43 PM (#2591042)
Dr. Chaleeko and I are unlikely to reconcile our results, which rest on some different assumptions about how MLEs ought to be constructed. However, I have re-run my numbers, applying the slugging adjustment only to isolated power, and not to slugging average as a whole, a change that treats players whose SA is mostly BA more fairly. This gets results that split the difference between my original estimate above and tthe good Doctor's:

Dick Lundy
1918-32 8501 PA, 643 BB, 2343 hits, 3115 total bases
.298 BA, .351 OBP, .396 SLG, 99 OPS+
140. Chris Cobb Posted: October 23, 2007 at 11:47 PM (#2591043)
My .298, .351, .396 is rather congruent to Dr. Chaleeko's .303, .360, .406.

It's clear when I make the switch to ISO that we're profiling the same player, but Dr. Chaleeko's estimates are just a bit higher across the board.

The MLEs resulted in the electorate comparing him in the range of:
Upper level potential equivalency: Pee Wee Reese, Lou Boudreau, Alan Trammell
Mid level potential and reasonable proxy: Bobby Wallace
Low level potential if skeptical of translations: Dave Bancroft, Phil Rizzuto

Baseball Historian Gary Ashwill has mentioned four players that he feels are the most worthy for the Hall of Fame: Grant 'Home Run" Johnson, John Beckwith, Bill Monroe, and Dick Lundy, and he mentions his excellent defensive reputation:

125. Gary A Posted: October 22, 2007 at 09:52 AM (#2588604)
A few things about Lundy:

1) As far as I can tell from reading contemporary newspapers (my subjective assessment of their subjective assessments), observers were more impressed by Lundy's defense at short than anyone else's. Reputation-wise, only Lloyd approached him in NgL history (and it was to accommodate Lundy that Lloyd finally moved to second base in 1924).

The Hall of Merit's vote on pre Korean war players produced the following results:

RK LY Player PTS Bal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
8 n/e Dobie Moore 84 19 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 3 3 3
9 n/e Quincey Trouppe 76 19 2 2 2 1 3 2 4 3
10 n/e Lip Pike 75 19 1 2 3 4 5 3 1
11 n/e Dick Lundy 72 19 1 1 7 2 3 2 3
12 n/e Alejandro Oms 48 19 1 2 2 2 6 6

Moore and Oms have been elected from this group, while Trouppe is on the cusp, and Pike has been largely an after thought besides the lost voting from Tiboreau (although his career is arguably the toughest define with a peak in the 1850s/1860s).

[J W]

Lundy is not lost on me; in fact he is currently 13 spots from Cepeda in my big ol' queue. I've got him rated above Vern Stephens, Jim Fregosi, and the low-level MLE translations Bancroft and Rizzuto. Heck, I've got him rated above Dobie Moore. Unfortunately (for me anyway) it will be a numbers game with Lundy. Cepeda himself was elected without my help.

Am I being too harsh on gray-area shortstops? I currently have zero holdover SS projected to make my ballot by current day. Lundy is the highest rated in the queue, at #18 among position players. Every other position on the field is covered... although if Trouppe is elected, C will also be vacant.

[J W]

Not that I'm advocating him for the ballot; he won't make mine -- but the player not to forget from the upcoming ballot is Jimmy Key. He did not reach 200 wins nor 20 wins in a season. What he did have was a .614 winning %, a 122 ERA+ and a 1.229 WHIP while pitching into the Steroid Era. He finished 2nd in Cy Young Award voting twice and led the league in ERA+ and WHIP in 1987 for the Blue Jays. And, he started for three different franchises in the playoffs, winning the World Series with the Blue Jays (1992) and Yankees (1996). His postseason record is 5-3 with a 3.15 ERA and 1.282 WHIP.

I have Jimmy Key snuggled next to Bucky Walters in the "if we had ten more years" area of the queue.

[Brad Harris]

Not that I'm advocating him for the ballot; he won't make mine -- but the player not to forget from the upcoming ballot is Jimmy Key. He did not reach 200 wins nor 20 wins in a season. What he did have was a .614 winning %, a 122 ERA+ and a 1.229 WHIP while pitching into the Steroid Era. He finished 2nd in Cy Young Award voting twice and led the league in ERA+ and WHIP in 1987 for the Blue Jays. And, he started for three different franchises in the playoffs, winning the World Series with the Blue Jays (1992) and Yankees (1996). His postseason record is 5-3 with a 3.15 ERA and 1.282 WHIP.

I have Jimmy Key snuggled next to Bucky Walters in the "if we had ten more years" area of the queue.

To be clear, when I suggest a player won't make any of my remaining ballots "in this project" I'm referring to the elections (2006-2011) prior to going annual in real-time. Depending on how things shake out with holdovers (and how many years the project continues), Jimmy Key is definitely in my larger queue, biding his time.

[jalbright]

This election has ended, with our recent usual 11 player ballots and 10 contributor ballots. We inducted Bill Freehan, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr. as players and O. P. Caylor as a contributor. The official results follow, players first:

Players

Players………….	votes	pts
Ripken, Cal	11	131
Gwynn, Tony	11	122
Freehan, Bill	10	59
Evans, Dwight	7	51
Smith, Reggie	8	46
Dawson, Andre	8	43
Brock, Lou	5	38
Trouppe, Quincy	7	35
Sheckard , J	5	33
Bando, Sal	6	32
Aparicio, Luis	5	31
Rixey, Eppa	4	28
Beckley , Jake	3	23
Childs , Cupid	5	23
Berger , Wally	3	21
Puckett, Kirby	3	17
Mullane , Tony	4	13
Pierce, Billy	3	13
Grimes , B	2	9
Lundy , Dick	1	9
Sewell , Joe	1	9
Dandridge, Ray	2	8
Evans, Darrell	1	8
Fingers, Rollie	1	8
Howard, Frank	1	8
Shocker, Urban	3	8
Cepeda, Orlando	1	7
Gomez, Lefty	1	6
Duffy , Hugh	1	4
Leach , Tommy	1	3
Nettles, Graig	2	3
Perez, Tony	2	3
Munson, T	1	2
Newcombe, Don	1	2
Bonds, Bobby	1	1
Evers, Johnny	1	1

Contributors

Contributors…..	votes	pts
Caylor , O. P.	6	21
Evans, Billy	6	19
Neft, David	5	19
Schuerhotlz, J	4	14
Steinbrenner, G	4	14
Mizuhara, S	3	9
Pompez, Alex	5	7
Caray, Harry	1	5
Jobe, Frank	1	5
Pesky, Johnny	1	5
Harris , Bucky	2	4
Harvey, Doug	3	4
Martin, Billy	1	4
O'Doul, Lefty	1	4
Smith, Red	1	4
Gillick, Pat	1	3
Harwell, Ernie	1	2
Howsam, Bob	1	2
McCarthy, Tommy	1	2
Uecker, Bob	1	2
Busch, Augie	1	1

[jalbright]

Here's more on the James piece on Scheurholz: http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50567