Circle of Greats: 1938 Balloting

140 Replies

This post is for voting and discussion in the 38th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats. This round adds to the ballot those players born in 1938. Rules and lists are after the jump.

The new group joins the holdovers from previous rounds to comprise the full group eligible to receive your votes this round. The new group of 1938-born players must, as always, have played at least 10 seasons in the major leagues or generated at least 20 Wins Above Replacement (“WAR”, as calculated by baseball-reference.com, and for this purpose meaning 20 total WAR for everyday players and 20 pitching WAR for pitchers).

Each submitted ballot, if it is to be counted, must include three and only three eligible players. The one player who appears on the most ballots cast in the round is inducted into the Circle of Greats. Players who fail to win induction but appear on half or more of the ballots that are cast win four added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Players who appear on 25% or more of the ballots cast, but less than 50%, earn two added future rounds of ballot eligibility. Any other player in the top 9 (including ties) in ballot appearances, or who appears on at least 10% of the ballots, wins one additional round of ballot eligibility.

All voting for this round closes at 11:00 PM EST on Monday, December 9, while changes to previously cast ballots are allowed until 11:00 PM EST Saturday, December 7.

If you’d like to follow the vote tally, and/or check to make sure I’ve recorded your vote correctly, you can see my ballot-counting spreadsheet for this round here: COG 1938 Round Vote Tally. I’ll be updating the spreadsheet periodically with the latest votes. Initially, there is a row in the spreadsheet for every voter who has cast a ballot in any of the past rounds, but new voters are entirely welcome — new voters will be added to the spreadsheet as their ballots are submitted. Also initially, there is a column for each of the holdover players; additional player columns from the new born-in-1938 group will be added to the spreadsheet as votes are cast for them.

Choose your three players from the lists below of eligible players. The 15 current holdovers are listed in order of the number of future rounds (including this one) through which they are assured eligibility, and alphabetically when the future eligibility number is the same. The new group of 1938 birth-year guys are listed below in order of the number of seasons each played in the majors, and alphabetically among players with the same number of seasons played. As we did in the 1939 round, we have one player who makes the ballot via the 20 WAR threshold without having played at least 10 seasons in the majors — last round it was Wes Parker, this round it’s Tom Tresh (only Mickey Mantle played more games as a Yankee during the 1960s than Tresh).

Holdovers:
Lou Whitaker (eligibility guaranteed for 10 rounds)
John Smoltz (eligibility guaranteed for 8 rounds)
Bobby Grich (eligibility guaranteed for 5 rounds)
Edgar Martinez (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Phil Niekro (eligibility guaranteed for 4 rounds)
Craig Biggio (eligibility guaranteed for 3 rounds)
Ron Santo (eligibility guaranteed for 2 rounds)
Dick Allen (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Roberto Alomar (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Kenny Lofton (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Eddie Murray (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Rick Reuschel (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Ryne Sandberg (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Willie Stargell (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)
Dave Winfield (eligibility guaranteed for this round only)

Everyday Players (born in 1938, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Willie McCovey
Ron Fairly
Manny Mota
Vada Pinson
Billy Williams
Leo Cardenas
Deron Johnson
Matty Alou
Curt Flood
Ron Hansen
Tony Oliva
Johnny Edwards
Bob Aspromonte
Chris Cannizzaro
Don Mincher
Don Pavletich
Bobby Wine
Jake Gibbs
Mack Jones
Gene Michael
Rich Rollins
Al Weis
Tom Tresh

Pitchers (born in 1938, ten or more seasons played in the major leagues or at least 20 WAR):
Jim Kaat
Gaylord Perry
Mike McCormick
Steve Barber
Bob Locker
Al McBean
Ray Washburn

0 0 votes

Article Rating

140 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Jeff Harris

10 years ago

Whitaker
Smoltz
Martinez

Dr. Remulak

10 years ago

Biggio, Smoltz, McCovey.

Chris C

10 years ago

Perry, Biggio, Sandberg

Josh

10 years ago

Smoltz, Niekro, Winfield

10 years ago

Bobby Wine played 12 seasons in the majors and never cracked a 64 OPS+. That may be a record. As might be his 8 seasons of 300+ PAs with an OPS+ at or below 64.

Richard Chester

10 years ago

Reply to Ed

Running the PI shows that you are right. Mick Kelleher had 11 seasons and never had more than 59 OPS+ and Bill Bergen had 11 years and never had more than 41. Rafael Belliard had 16 seasons with less than 62 OPS+ and one year of 177+ but with just 2 PA. Incidentally the PI search shows an error in that it returns 11 years for Wine with OPS+ equal to or less than 64 OPS+, not 12.

latefortheparty

10 years ago

Gaylord Perry
Lou Whitaker
Bobby Grich

Phil

10 years ago

Alomar, Edgar, Winfield.

10 years ago

Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Lou Whitaker

Nick Pain

10 years ago

Niekro, Whitaker, Lofton.

Gary Bateman

10 years ago

Perry, Santo, Alomar

Artie Z.

10 years ago

Niekro, Perry, Murray

bells

10 years ago

Niekro, Perry, Santo

Bix

10 years ago

Perry, Lofton, Allen

koma

10 years ago

Phil Niekro, Craig Biggio, Gaylord Perry

ATarwerdi96

10 years ago

Bobby Grich, Edgar Martinez, Ron Santo

--bill

10 years ago

Gaylord Perry, Rick Reuschel, Phil Niekro

Voomo Zanzibar

10 years ago

Gaylord
Knucksie
Lofton

Mike

10 years ago

Niekro
Billy Williams
Dave Winfield

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

First thought: anyone else notice how Cub-errific this round is? Santo, Williams, Reuschel, Sandberg. Maybe, birtelcom, you should sneak Ernie Banks on here a couple rounds early, so we can vote on him, too!

A very crowded ballot! In my opinion, the top three spots are easy. But after that . . . yikes. It’s very crowded, in the group Grich-Sandberg-Martinez-Reuschel-Lofton-Alomar-McCovey-Allen-Biggio-Whitaker-Williams-Murray. It will be interesting to see how many of those (if any) ever break through and make the COG, and which one(s) it will be. Well, here are my picks:

Phil Niekro
Gaylord Perry
Ron Santo

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

A very crowded ballot! In my opinion, the top three spots are easy. But after that . . . yikes. Well, here are my picks:

Phil Niekro
Gaylord Perry
Ron Santo

John Z

10 years ago

Wow Stretch can’t get no love, ROY, MVP, perennial All Star and MVP vote receiver, but no love. I know he has been gone a long time, Out of site out of mind im thinking, not to mention the second half of his career he was, well, very pedestrian, but his OPS + of 147 still puts him in some nice company like Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Edgar Martinez and Jim Thome, and his WAR puts him in the company of Reggie Smith and Andre Dawson. So why no love, can someone point something out to me that I am… Read more »

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to John Z

John Z, I was surprised by how low Stretch ranked by my own method. But the truth of the matter is, it seems he may not have been as good as many of us would think. I have him ranked #10 on my own list (Niekro, Perry, Santo, Grich, Sandberg, E. Martinez, Reuschel, Lofton, Alomar, McCovey). He’s really close to Edgar for the #6 spot, and I could see ranking him that high. The problem with that is that Dick Allen, Biggio, Whitaker, and Billy Williams are just as close to him as he is to Martinez. I just don’t… Read more »

John Z

10 years ago

Reply to Dr. Doom

Doom, thanks for your feedback and opinion. I considered Williams a lot when voting for my 3, but just could not pull the lever to vote for him, on the other hand I have always felt Kaat career goes extremely unnoticed and underrated. Kaat’s WHIP Is Niekro..ish and he should have/could have won the 66′ Cy Young if it were not for this guy named Sandy Koufax.

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to John Z

Over a six-year period from 1965 through 1970, McCovey was almost certainly the best hitter in the major leagues: highest batting WAR, highest OPS+, highest RE24 (thanks, Doug, for reminding us about that RE24 stat — very useful). But in WAR overall for position players, he was sixth over that period, behind Yaz, Clemente, Aaron, Santo and Mays, all more multi-dimensional players than McCovey. Nothing really wrong with being behind that group, though.

John Z

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Sometimes I just do not recognize how great Santo was, I mean I was into MLB since the late 60’s (1969 to be specific) when my O’s lost to those Miracle Mets, but I was an American League fan and did not follow the senior circuit as closely. But to see Santo name mentioned in the same breath as Yaz, Clemente, Aaron and Mays and yes even Mccovey is just surprising even with advanced stats. WOW…………..

Artie Z.

10 years ago

Reply to John Z

I considered dropping Murray for McCovey. Murray has a little more WAR but isn’t really close to McCovey on a WAR/G or WAR/PA measure (Murray has 4 more WAR in about 3000 more PAs). That being said, I thought McCovey was a hang it up early type, but he actually played parts of more seasons than Murray, 22 to 21. Both started at age 21, but Murray retired at 41 while McCovey retired at 42. The difference in PAs then isn’t “age” or “season” related, but due to injuries, and McCovey had them and Murray didn’t. Both had a “partial”… Read more »

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to Artie Z.

I’ve always thought that about 1st base, actually. People think that there are all these great hitters there, but it’s not as deep as you’d think. You did miss Harmon Killebrew, who will certainly have a shot (but probably won’t make it, and Hank Greenberg, who probably will.

no statistician but

10 years ago

Reply to Dr. Doom

A year or so ago there was a discussion about Johnny Mize as an underrated player, and I’d place him far above Killebrew, whom he outranks in OPS+ 158 to 143 and WAR by 10 points despite missing 3 years to WWII. In contention for the lifetime MUP award at his position.

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

Nailed it, nsb. Totally forgot about Maize. He was a half-generation after Gehrig-Greenberg-Foxx, and in the opposite league, so he slips the mind easily. Good catch.

no statistician but

10 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

Just for fun: Give Greenberg 7 WAR for 1936, most of which he missed due to injury, 24 for 1941-44, when he was in the service, 3 for the first half of 1945 when he was ditto, and he ends up with a total of 91-plus career WAR. Give Mize 18 WAR for 1943-45 when he was in the service, and 2.5 for the 1/3 season he lost in 1946 (his 6.4 ranked him second among position players, despite the fact that he missed over fifty games in August and September) and he ends up with a total of 91-plus… Read more »

mosc

10 years ago

Reply to Dr. Doom

Greenberg SHOULD get in easily. I agree, we won’t have many first basemen. We seem to prefer middle infielders. I do feel we are screening out the great pure hitters due to defensive and positional adjustments. On one hand I agree that their total value cannot be measured in a slash line but I do shed a tear for those who were simply much better with a bat than so many for so long. Honestly though, I’d rather have Sheffield or Winfield than McCovey, McGriff, Allen, Stargell, and Murray. I’d probably pick McCovey out of that list of first basemen… Read more »

Andy

10 years ago

McCovey
Biggio
Niekro

KalineCountry

10 years ago

I must be a large Hall guy, there are 19 or 20 that I would love to see make the Circle of Greats. Lots from my youth…Tony Oliva, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, et al.

1.Time to get Lou Whitaker in to join fellow teammate Alan Trammell.
2.Willie McCovey one of most vicious swings all-time (Earl Wilson another).
3.Jim Kaat.

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to KalineCountry

KalineCountry, I have the same problem vis-à-vis Hall size! I used to be a small-Hall guy, but then I sort of came around to thinking that it’s a lot more fun with 200-250 than with 25-30. And since I’m always thinking bout 200+ guys, I always feel guilty for skipping half the guys on the ballot. My Hall is big enough for Mark McGwire and Kevin Happier and David Cone and Sammy Sosa – and all four of those guys got one COG vote each! But then again, it is kinda fun using my baseball-addled brain a bit differently.

Doug

10 years ago

Allen, Perry, McCovey

PaulE

10 years ago

Allen. McCovey. Sandberg.

opal611

10 years ago

For the 1938 election, I’m voting for:
-Ryne Sandberg
-Phil Niekro
-Gaylord Perry

Other top candidates I considered highly (and/or will consider in future rounds):
-Alomar
-Biggio
-Martinez
-Smoltz
-Whitaker
-Grich
-Lofton
-Santo
-Reuschel
-McCovey
-Murray

Jeff Hill

10 years ago

McCovey, Santo, Lofton

David Horwich

10 years ago

Alomar, Niekro, Sandberg. For now, at least. Our ballot is getting as badly overstuffed as the current HoF ballot. Have we ever had 15 holdovers before? Add to that a handful of good-to-excellent candidates from this year’s crop, and…yeesh. I’d vote for McCovey, but he a) doesn’t seem to have much, if any, chance to win this around, and b) appears to have already garnered enough votes to join the holdover list, so why bother. I’d like to vote for Santo, but there are several guys on the bubble I’d like to keep on the ballot, while Santo at least… Read more »

Aaron Blower

10 years ago

Niekro, Perry, Martinez

Chuck Conrad

10 years ago

Willie McCovey
Billy Williams
Gaylord Perry

JEV

10 years ago

McCovey, Perry, Biggio

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

10 years ago

Most Wins Above Average, excluding negative seasons:

Niekro 54.7
Perry 50.9
Grich 43.6
Santo 43.3
Whitaker 42.7
Martinez 41.3
Reuschel 40.6
Smoltz 40.1
Lofton 39.3
McCovey 38.9
Sandberg 38.8
Tiant 37.5
Alomar 36.8
Biggio 36.3
Allen 35.9
Murray 34.9
Williams 30.5
Winfield 30.5
Stargell 29.6
Oliva 25.9
Pinson 23.3
Kaat 23.1

Niekro, Perry, Martinez

brp

10 years ago

Niekro
Lofton
Murray

Ugh, strategic votes.

mosc

10 years ago

What a friggin’ bloodbath this round is! Best player on the ballot is Niekro so I will vote for him. Perry deserves to get in but I don’t need to carry him nor do I particularly want to see him accumulate years. I spit in his general direction… for now. My third best guy would be Biggio but I’m not sure he needs the support just now. Best offensive player on this ballot is Winfield. Top 50 OWAR should be enough bat to pass all these 1B/DH type guys. I’d vote for Sheffield too if he were on here. Of… Read more »

paget

10 years ago

Reply to mosc

Bloodbath for real. An interesting byproduct of the way in which we do the voting for the CoG is that -as the years pass and we accumulate more and more outstanding holdovers- it’s going to feel increasingly arbitrary why you choose certain players over others. I don’t necessarily mean Mantle/Mays types (who are, forgive me!, “inner”circle of greats). I mean more like situations we confront here. The logjam at 2B is going to start developing at 1B, OF, elsewhere. I don’t know if anyone has already brought this up, but I wonder how elections for the CoG would have changed… Read more »

David Horwich

10 years ago

Reply to paget

Someone did recently bring up the question of how the CoG would look if we started at the early end of the timeline, although I don’t remember who that was. My feeling is that we’d have ended up with some players who wouldn’t quite measure up, in the long run, just because the talent is spread thinner in the earlier years. But we’ll never know, unless someone wants to run a CoG 2.0 some day…

I sometimes wonder how things would be panning out if our voting structure more closely resembled that of the HoF.

paget

10 years ago

Reply to paget

Vote change:

From: Niekro, Winfield, McCovey

To: Stargell, Winfield, McCovey

Niekro won’t need the help to get elected. Stargell definitely deserves to stay on the ballot.

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to paget

Sorry, the deadline for vote changes was last night. New votes can still be made through tomorrow night.

paget

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Shucks! Missed that.
Ok, Stargell was never going to make the minimum anyway…

Abbott

10 years ago

McCovey, Biggio, Reuschel

Steve

10 years ago

Dick Allen
Willie McCovey
Billy Williams

Low T

10 years ago

Gaylord Perry, Willie McCovey, Ryne Sandberg

I could vote for 10 players on this ballot without even flinching. This is going to get interesting.

10 years ago

Rueschel whitaker santo

Darien

10 years ago

Biggio, Lofton, and Perry

RonG

10 years ago

Grich, McCovey, Biggio

Hartvig

10 years ago

So many old favorites and so many deserving. I love Jim Kaat because he said “After 2 hours, my fastball turns into a pumpkin.” which is something that every MLB pitcher should take to heart. Tony Oliva might be the surest “If only…” player ever. Another 2 or 3 healthy years probably would have landed him in the HOF. Billy Williams is a clear Hall of Famer but for me he falls just short of the COG. I’m taking Niekro over Perry because Phil had the balls to throw that knuckler to 22,677 batters and while Gaylord gets extra points… Read more »

Insert Name Here

10 years ago

Initial vote based solely on merit: 1. Ron Santo (7.0 WAR/162 during 10-yr peak of 1963-72) 2. Gaylord Perry (5.9 WAR/162 during 13-yr peak of 1964-76) 3. Kenny Lofton (6.7 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1992-99) Ranking of other candidates: 4. Willie McCovey (6.7 WAR/162 during 8-yr peak of 1963-70) — Manual override (originally ranked #9) 5. Bobby Grich (6.6 WAR/162 during 12-yr peak of 1972-83) 6. Dick Allen (6.6 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1964-72) 7. Ryne Sandberg (6.2 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1984-92) 8. Craig Biggio (5.8 WAR/162 during 9-yr peak of 1991-99) 9. Lou Whitaker (5.5… Read more »

Insert Name Here

10 years ago

Reply to Insert Name Here

OOPS! I forgot Phil Niekro is still on the ballot. I had him with an identical peak to that of Perry (5.9×13) but ranked him above Santo last round and as such he, Santo, and Perry are my top three.

Initial vote is actually Niekro, Santo, and Perry.

Mike HBC

10 years ago

Niekro, Perry, Santo

Arsen

10 years ago

I’ve watched with interest as various voters have come up with methodolgy for ranking the players. I’ve been a bit more scattershot in how I pick the greats. This time I went through all of the hitters on the ballot and looked at their peak seasons, how many seasons they have above 5.0 WAR (All-Star level), and what their WAR per 600 plate appearances was. Santo’s 1967 was the best single season at 9.8 WAR. Biggio’s 1997 was next with a 9.4 WAR. Both players finished fourth in the MVP voting. Edgar Martinez has eight seasons with a WAR of… Read more »

bcholm

10 years ago

McCovey, Santo, Billy Williams

Kirk

10 years ago

Alomar, Niekro & Kaat

Two interesting things (at least to me) I learned looking at this ballot. Billy Williams was a terrible outfielder and Ron Santo was two different players, a HoFer at home and so-so on the road. I didn’t remember either of these watching them growing up.

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to Kirk

Was Billy the greatest Cubs hitter ever (hitting alone, setting aside defensive value)?

Lawrence Azrin

10 years ago

Billy Williams may be the most _consistent_ Cubs hitter ever, but I’d rank them: Sosa/ Banks/ Billy Williams/ Santo. Peak: Hack Wilson, Bill Nicholson, Derek Lee honorable mention: Frank Chance/ Gabby Hartnett/ /Kiki Cuyler/ Stan Hack/ Sandberg Sosa beats out Banks on peak, even after taking the air out of Sosa’s stats. Banks was never the same quality of hitter after 1961 that he was before; I assume this has to do with a recurring knee problem that forced him to move from SS to 1B. This makes it hard to evaluate Banks by career stats only; 1953-61 and 1962-71… Read more »

Richard Chester

10 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Riggs Stephenson is practically a clone of Kiki Cuyler, check their stats with the Cubs.

oneblankspace

10 years ago

Some interesting candidates to consider here. Kaat holds the record for longest time between two World Series appearances (with none in between) and was the last active Senator (Minnesota). Perry was at one time the only pitcher to win both Cy Young awards during the one-award-per-league era. Manny Mota was 150 for 500 as a pinch hitter with 4 HR, 115 RBI, 63 walks (14 intentional) (.300/.375/.368/.743). His last game was a September 1982 pinch-hitting appearance in the 13th against St Louis, who brought in Jim Kaat to induce a groundout. McCovey retired in a tie for 8th/9th on the… Read more »

10 years ago

Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Willie McCovey

Sorry to have leave off Edgar Martinez…

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

10 years ago

Reply to wx

McCovey’s career line: .270/.374/.515 Martinez’s career line: .312/.418/.515 But wait… parks! eras! Ok, let’s try neutral stats: McCovey: 147 OPS+, 484 batting runs Martinez: 147 OPS+, 529 batting runs (more O in that OPS) But wait… McCovey played the field! Ok, let’s look at defense: McCovey: -80 fielding runs, -122 positional adjustment, 64.4 WAR Martinez: 17 fielding runs, -128 positional adjustment, 68.3 WAR McCovey’s home runs don’t quite close the gap Martinez creates with on-base ability. McCovey didn’t provide any extra value with his glove. McCovey’s getting a lot more votes than Edgar this round. Anyone care to make an… Read more »

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

It’s interesting that the Fangraphs version of WAR, unlike the b-ref version, ranks Stretch a bit ahead of Gar on a career basis. Fangraphs gives McCovey 3 or 4 more WAR for his hitting than b-ref gives him, and Fangraphs penalizes Martinez about two more WAR on the position adjustment side than does b-ref.

10 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

I don’t have a system like many voters here, but I’m surprised at how much I’m having to consider McCovey, who I assumed would be an automatic selection for me. I won’t argue that he or Martinez are better than the other, but Martinez has four rounds of eligibility, whilst McCovey has none, so that’s probably a large factor in Willie’s voting edge this round.

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to RJ

It’s true that new names on the ballot tend to get higher vote totals than they get later on, in part because a new name is automatically on the bubble for his first round. It’s also true though that Edgar has never in all his times on the ballot topped about 27% of the vote, and McCovey is currently around 37%. A turnaround from John Z’s early comment @22 above observing how few votes McCovey had received to that point (that comment itself may have helped motivate the turnaround).

Lawrence Azrin

10 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

@67/Bryan,

Peak for McCovey (1968-70).

I know that the “most feared hitter” schtick was terribly mis-used to bolster Jim Rice’s HOF case, but in those years McCovey was truly one of the scariest batters in MLB.

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

10 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Good point, Lawrence. McCovey’s peak was a little higher than Edgar’s (’95-97). If we extend it to seven years, McCovey’s ’65 to ’71 vs. Edgar’s ’95 to ’01, McCovey still has a 1.5-WAR advantage. McCovey was really bad in the post-Padres portion of his career.

On the other hand, Adam’s Hall Rating, which reflects peak and longevity, still has Edgar ahead, 135 to 126, even though the adjWAA component ignores the six straight below-average years that ended his career.

Paul E

10 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Lawrence A #75 / Bryan O #104: McCovey was the best hitter in the NL for that period 1968 – 1970 and that, to me, trumps the Edgar story. Literally, when McCovey played/stepped on the field, from 1968 -1970, he was the best. That is huge…..and when you think about all the little kids that wanted to grow up and be the best, the Mickey Mantle or Jackie Robinson of their time – McCovey got there. By the same token, if the Mariners would have given Edgar the chance he deserved earlier in his career, he would have ended up… Read more »

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to Paul E

WAR batting (also known as Rbat) has McCovey as the most productive hitter in the majors over the three-season period from 1968-70 (166 Rbat, to 162 for Frank Howard), and has Edgar as the most productive hitter in the majors over the three-season period from 1995-1997 (186 Rbat, to 185 for Frank Thomas).

Paul E

10 years ago

Reply to Paul E

BIRTLECOM #106:

Thanks for the update. For the period 1968-1970 McCovey was first in OPS+ 188 (Frank Howard is next at 173) while Edgar was fifth behind McGwire, Thomas, Bonds, and Piazza. The distance between McCovey and Howard is about the same as the distance between McGwire (1st) and Edgar (5th) at 186 – 172.

10 years ago

Reply to Paul E

Birtelcom #106

Actually McCovey was 1st in WAR batting for the 6 year period from ’65-’70, 16 runs ahead of Frank Robinson.

Martinez was 2nd for the 6 year period from ’95-00 (16 runs behind McGwire) and 2nd for the 7 year period from ’95-01 (65 runs behind Bonds).

Paul E

10 years ago

Reply to Paul E

@ Birtlecom 106 & Ed 108 :

Based on Runs Created x 27/Outs Made/AIR from baseball-reference, for the three year periods discussed initially we have:

McCovey 10.49
Edgar 9.85

….and I’m not going to do the work necessary to compare either to their peers 🙁

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Interesting that except for one brief mention by Hartvig, Perry’s ostensible long-time cheating hasn’t come up in the discussion, though it might be suppressing his vote count some: he and Niekro are currently in an exact tie for the lead in the voting — each has appeared on precisely half the ballots. Given what I think was probably more confusion than is desirable arising from the runoff round we had with Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose, I’m tempted to adopt mosc’s suggestion as to resolving all induction tie votes going forward. That is, in lieu of runoffs, a tie would… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Confusing?
I bet if you polled the field, most of us would vote for More voting, more often.

Hartvig

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

I think that with open voting your idea (to throw out the last ballot in the event of a tie) is probably the right thing to do. With a dozen Hall of Famers coming up in the next 4 birth years things are going to get complicated enough on their own.

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

I would be in favor of just throwing out the last vote, because I HATED how the timing of the simultaneous elections worked out last time. It was very confusing. I think just throwing out the last vote is easy, and much “cleaner.”

bells

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

…what if the last vote doesn’t have one of the top two? Are you addressing that by saying ‘the latest vote cast the elimination of which would break the tie’? I’m not clear from the wording. Like, if I vote for Perry and not Niekro a day early, but 5 more people vote for only bubble candidates after me (ie. not Niekro or Perry), you’ll count their votes but not mine (even for my second and third candidates)? That doesn’t seem fair, to me or the other two candidates I selected. It also doesn’t seem fair to just toss away… Read more »

10 years ago

Reply to bells

I’ll throw an idea out there: the runoff takes place before the next round of voting, but only lasts for 3 days or so. The runoff featured virtually no back-and-forth discussions between voters. Most of the debate happens in the regular rounds; people have usually made up their minds by the time it comes to the runoff. By my count only 11 of the 64 votes in the last runoff took place after 3 days, and only 7 voted after 4 days. Some or most of these voters would have voted earlier if the deadline demanded it. This way there… Read more »

bells

10 years ago

Reply to RJ

Hey RJ! I was thinking that idea in my head as well, but I was already saying enough so I didn’t mention it. 3 days seems like plenty, especially for a 1-on-1. I do like the opportunity for more discussion, and people explained their choices more than they often do for ballots, but you’re right, there wasn’t a ton of back-and-forth.

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Dr. Doom

10 years ago

Reply to RJ

I think that would be a good solution, RJ, but birtelcom really didn’t seem to like the idea of not starting the next round right away, so I wasn’t considering that. But it’s probably the best solution.

Insert Name Here

10 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

I think RJ has the ideal solution. In general, I think holding a runoff is best since many voters either a) do not vote strategically (and therefore there would be many who voted for both of the tied candidates and would be forced to declare a preference by a runoff) OR b) vote so strategically that they may ignore the race for the actual COG slot in favor of voting for 3 favorite candidates who are on-the-bubble, or in some other way have voted for neither candidate. The only way to make this work fairly without a runoff is have… Read more »

Author

birtelcom

10 years ago

Reply to Insert Name Here

That’s that’s the best argument I’ve seen against the “drop the last vote”, avoid-a-runoff method — the argument being that without a runoff, voters who included both of the tied players on their ballots are effectively disenfranchised in the decision between the two.

My only concern about a “snap” three-day runoff before starting the next round is that there may be a group of voters who only have periodic access to the site and might find it difficult to participate.