Cy Williams

[DoubleX]

Here's someone that is really never talked about. For some reason, I've long been pretty curious about Cy's career, but don't know much about it. His home/away splits are pretty skewed because of the Baker Bowl, right?

Like I said, I don't know much about his career, other than he played CF for the Phillies in the 20s, had decent power (though that might be Baker Bowl induced) and a 125 OPS+, which is pretty nice for a CFer. I just looked in 2000 Bill James Abstract and he has Williams buried in the 70s in CF. So, anyone know more about him? Is Cy underrated? Were his numbers overly skewed by the Baker Bowl? How was he defensively?

-----Cy Williams, Phillies' RF, 1925-30---BB Reference-----------------------------------------------1923


2 shots of Cy Williams from 1922.


Cy Williams

[leecemark]

--Williams led the league in HR once (and was 2nd another time) before being traded to the Phillies, He was already 30 when he got to Philly and 32 whenthe live ball era got underway. He might be another example of the unappreciated sluggers of the deadball era we were talking about in the "babe ruth in the deadball" thread. I think if he came along 10 years later he is a slam dunk Hall of Famer. He has a reasonable case anyway.

[KCGHOST]

Williams had a fine career and has nothing to be ashamed of. Not an HoFer by any measure.

[DoubleX]

He has a reasonable case anyway.

You think. I've kind of thought that myself, but in all the discussions we've all had hear about players that have at least somewhat plausible arguments for being in the Hall, I don't think anyone has ever mentioned Cy Williams. That's why I started this thread. Just on the stats, he seems like he should have a good case for being at least a top 25 or 30 all-time CFer. What am I missing?

Also, it was mentioning Ken Williams in the Ruth thread that got me thinking about Cy.

[538280]

Williams was a good player for a pretty long time, a deadball slugger who later hit 41 home runs in 1923. Good player, but really wasn't much of a CFer and is certainly below the HOF.

I've never quite been able to understand why Win Shares is so hard on Williams. I think, looking at his numbers, Williams should be at least a top 50 CFer easily but James (going on the results of his system) rates him 75th I believe. For some reason WS doesn't think Williams was really much of a player.

[leecemark]

--XX, check out the thread "the rest of the centerfielders". Cougar makes a nice case for Williams that partially convinced.
--Chris, James does NOT follow the Win Shares numbers in his player rankings. There is a huge subjective element (even outside the subjectively involved in how he weights the system). Williams is ranked behind 35 guys with fewer total WS, some who also had fewer peak WS. WS doesn't give Williams great seasonal totals though and I assume Cy is getting hurt by defense and/or park factors to drag those numbers down.

[538280]

--Chris, James does NOT follow the Win Shares numbers in his player rankings. There is a huge subjective element (even outside the subjectively involved in how he weights the system). Williams is ranked behind 35 guys with fewer total WS, some who also had fewer peak WS. WS doesn't give Williams great seasonal totals though and I assume Cy is getting hurt by defense and/or park factors to drag those numbers down.

I know he doesn't follow his WS system all the time (in fact he doesn't follow it so often it's almost useless to even have the system), but in the case of Williams I still can't see him being much higher than 70th or so by just the "objective" function.

-Although it is true there are he is behind 35 players with less career WS than Williams, I don't see any players with a lower 3 year peak than Williams. Terry Moore is tied with him. On the other hand, 18 of the 24 players rated behind Williams do better on the three year peak score.

-There are only three players rated ahead of Williams who have lower 5 year consectutive scores (Bill Bruton, Sam Chapman, and Terry Moore). Moore missed time to the war, so the only legitimate ones are Bruton and Chapman. 12 players below Williams do better on the 5 year consecutive peak.

I think while James may have rated Williams slightly lower than where his system told him to, I really don't think the system has him much higher than the 75th among CFers. There are only three players (Barney McCosky, Sam Chapman, Terry Moore, and Bill Bruton) who it is quite clear James rejected the evidence of his system in ranking Williams behind them. Then again, Eillis Burks and Tom Brown clearly rate ahead of Williams by the system and James rates them lower.

I think WS shoots a big hole in the possible case for Cy Williams for the HOF, and most likely they're picking up in many flaws (park adjustments, era adjustments, defense) that make Williams seem much better on his BBRef page than he really was.

Of course, WS aren't always right, but I'm inclined to think they've gotten this one right.

[FatAngel]

The only thing I know about him is that he was a dead pull hitter, ideal for Baker Bowl. Some sources state that the first "Williams shift" was created for him. There was also a book "How to hit home runs" published under his name, I think.