Circle of Greats: Redemption Round #5

This Circle of Greats (COG) vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle, but only to select three players who will be restored back on to the main ballot after having been previously been dropped from eligibility.  This fifth “redemption round” (we also held such rounds after the 1960, 1950, 1940 and 1930 rounds of voting) gives voters a chance to reconsider past candidates who have been rejected.

In this round you may include on your three-man ballot any major league baseball player who was born between 1922 and 1969 and has neither been elected to the Circle of Greats nor is currently on the 1922 part 2 regular COG ballot.  As usual, you must vote for three and only three  to cast a qualifying ballot.  The three players who appear on the most ballots will be restored to eligibility for the next regular, induction round of COG voting.  If your personal favorite doesn’t come in the top three this time, do not despair — he will have other chances in future redemption rounds, which are currently scheduled to be held once after every ten regular induction rounds.

There are many, many players who are eligible for your votes in this redemption round. As an optional aid to your selection process, I’ve put together two spreadsheets, one for pitchers and one for everyday players, that include some stats for a substantial selection of relevant players: Redemption Round 5 Optional Hitter List and Redemption Round 5 Optional Pitcher List. The spreadsheet with everyday players includes 167 166 players who played at least ten seasons in the majors and accumulated at least 32 Wins Above Replacement (baseball-reference version). The pitcher list includes 132 131 pitchers who accumulated at least 25 pitching Wins Above Replacement (two of them, Teddy Higuera and Don Wilson, played only nine seasons in the majors). Again, these spreadsheets represent entirely discretionary lists — your full options are as stated: all major leaguers born between 1922 and 1969 who have not been inducted into the COG and are not on the 1922 part 2 ballot we are also voting on this week.

The deadline to cast your ballots in this redemption round is Sunday night, June 22 at 11:59PM EDT. You can change your votes until 11:59PM EDT on Friday night, June 20.  You can keep track of the vote tally in this redemption round here: COG Redemption Round 5 Vote Tally

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Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago

Vote:

Kevin Brown
Dennis Eckersley
Willie Randolph

BillH
BillH
10 years ago

Dave Winfield, Roberto Alomar, Ken Boyer

koma
koma
10 years ago

Mark McGwire, Dennis Eckersley, Omar Vizquel

RJ
RJ
10 years ago

A quick note on your pitcher list birtelcom: it includes the already elected Mariano Rivera. Otherwise, thanks for putting these together! They’re really going to help.

Hartvig
Hartvig
10 years ago
Reply to  RJ

It also includes Gene Woodling, who is on the current ballot.

Francisco
Francisco
10 years ago

Jeff Kent, Roberto Alomar, Kevin Brown

Mike G.
Mike G.
10 years ago

Kevin Brown, Rick Reuschel, David Cone

Hub Kid
Hub Kid
10 years ago

Luis Tiant, Dwight Evans, Dick Allen

MJ
MJ
10 years ago

Rick Reuschel, Kevin Brown, Don Drysdale

donburgh
donburgh
10 years ago

Jim Abbott, Dave Parker, Willie Stargell

Mike HBC
Mike HBC
10 years ago
Reply to  donburgh

YES, DONBURGH, YES!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so happy that somebody has joined me in the Jim Abbott camp. I voted for him on the original 1967 ballot, I’ve voted for him in every Redemption Round, and i will continue to do so. You’re my new favorite person today, Donburgh.

JEV
JEV
10 years ago

Kent, Brown, Sutton

ATarwerdi96
ATarwerdi96
10 years ago

Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage, Rafael Palmeiro

Andy
Andy
10 years ago

Dennis Eckersley, Kevin Brown, Dave Winfield

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
10 years ago

birtelcom, once again I thank you for helping to give a list of “probables” in terms of the voting. I appreciate it very much, as I’m sure many of the other voters do.

I’m going with an all-pitchers ballot:

Kevin Brown
Jim Bunning
Luis Tiant

For the record, had they been on the ballot, I would’ve voted for Brown and Bunning(and Sandberg, which I did) in the 1922 round.

PP
PP
10 years ago

Dewey, El Tiante, Alomar

Luis Gomez
Luis Gomez
10 years ago

Roberto Alomar, Luis Tiant, Rafael Palmeiro.

Chris C
Chris C
10 years ago

Will Clark, Eckersley, McGwire

PaulE
PaulE
10 years ago

Dick Allen , Roberto Alomar, TedSimmons

Phil
10 years ago

Alomar, Winfield, Kent.

latefortheparty
latefortheparty
10 years ago

Kevin Brown
Rick Reuschel
Graig Nettles

Hartvig
Hartvig
10 years ago

In my crude ranking I have pitchers at #1, 2 & 4 but I also think that we’re a little top heavy on pitchers in the COG already and with Ford & Koufax already having the most accrued eligibility and with Spahn on the immediate horizon, Feller not long after and numerous locks further down the line I think I’ll give position players a little break. Besides which a) I’m not sure how accurately you can compare pitchers and position players and b) the difference between my 2nd ranked and 8th are so small as to be nearly negligible. I’m… Read more »

Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan
10 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

My problem with that thinking around pitchers is that I don’t actually support Koufax or Ford, and I see at least 6 redemption eligible pitchers with better cases (Brown, Reuschel, Cone, Saberhagen, Eckersley and Bunning) Which is not to say I don’t agree with Nettles, and think Winfield is reasonable. I’d just like to see some pitchers on the ballot that we can put up against Koufax and Ford, instead of just assuming they will get in because they are better than anybody besides Spahn in the next couple birth years. I’m coming to accept that Koufax will probably get… Read more »

Hartvig
Hartvig
10 years ago

With 15 rounds of accrued eligibility for Koufax and 4 for Ford (try saying that 3 times fast) plus both of them being north of 25% in the current balloting (and well above in Koufax’s case) plus fairly strong support for them in virtually every round AND a long string of well below average talent year on the no too distant horizon again I think it’s inevitable that they will both get in. I don’t disagree that at least a case could be made for all of the guys you listed but with the possible exception of Brown I also… Read more »

Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan
10 years ago
Reply to  Hartvig

I agree that both have cases and wouldn’t be terrible selections, and Koufax at least is probably inevitable. That said, I’d like to see Ford up against a couple of those six guys on the main ballot for a while. If he still gets in on a ballot where they are available as options, so be it, but if he gets in just because he’s the best pitcher available on the ballot at some point in the process, then I see that as a problem. I’m not yet confident that those guys would lose a head to head battle with… Read more »

Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan
10 years ago

Oh, and make that *7* pitchers. I forgot about Tiant. I have him ahead of both as well.

BTW, For me, Brown, Reuschel and Cone at least I think are out of that grey right on the borderline area where we have to pick 10 of about 40 roughly equivalent guys. Close I suppose, but I think they are clearly above the line. But that has something to do with my position on older players and league quality over time.

RonG
RonG
10 years ago

Lou Brock, Luis Tiant, Roberto Alomar

David Horwich
David Horwich
10 years ago

Roberto Alomar, Graig Nettles, Luis Tiant

As I discussed during the previous redemption round, I think we’re likely to end up under-representing postwar third baseman, so Nettles gets one of my votes even though I think he’s a longshot to be redeemed.

Other candidates I gave strong consideration to: Dwight Evans, Dave Winfield, Dennis Eckersley.

Kevin Brown is a most reasonable candidate, but I just can’t bring myself to vote for him.

J.R.
J.R.
10 years ago

Thurman Munson, Dave Winfield, Jim Kaat.

BillH
BillH
10 years ago

Looks like you have Andy (post 16) tabulated twice- once under Andy, and again under Andy (O’s logo)

opal611
opal611
10 years ago

For Redemption Round 5, I’m voting for:
-Don Sutton
-Rafael Palmeiro
-Willie Randolph

Steven
Steven
10 years ago

Lou Brock, Ted Simmons, Ken Boyer

Gary Bateman
Gary Bateman
10 years ago

Alomar, Eckersley, Sutton

Bill Johnson
Bill Johnson
10 years ago

Rocky Colavito, Willie Stargell, and Jim Bunning

oneblankspace
oneblankspace
10 years ago

Today (Sunday) is the 50th anniversary of the Ernie Broglio trade.

RR Vote:
Lou Brock
Rich Goose Gossage
Dick Richie Allen

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
10 years ago
Reply to  oneblankspace

@34/obs;

If you judge that trade by what those players had actually accomplished at the time, you can somewhat understand it.

robbs
robbs
10 years ago

Stargell Allen Winfield

Darien
10 years ago

Jim Bunning, Rafael Palmeiro, and Bret Saberhagen

KalineCountry Ron
KalineCountry Ron
10 years ago

Jim Bunning
Mickey Lolich
Bill Freehan

aweb
aweb
10 years ago

Kevin Brown, Mark McGwire, Luis Tiant

Bix
Bix
10 years ago

Dave Winfield, Roberto Alomar, Dennis Eckersley

brp
brp
10 years ago

Randolph
K. Brown
Reuschel

Abbott
Abbott
10 years ago

Eckersley, Winfield, Alomar

oneblankspace
oneblankspace
10 years ago

*********** NOT A VOTE *****************

Please remember that R Alomar, S Alomar Jr, and S Alomar Sr are all eligible for the COG redemption round ballot.

*********** NOT A VOTE *****************

mosc
mosc
10 years ago

Drysdale, Nettles, Winfield

Artie Z
Artie Z
10 years ago

Kevin Brown, Robbie Alomar, and quite possibly the only player who will be eligible in our voting rounds with 70+ WAR and not be elected to the COG – Rafael Palmeiro.

paget
paget
10 years ago

I had less trouble coming up with my three votes than I thought I would. Dave Winfield Dick Allen Willie Stargell –Winfield remains, in my opinion, the player we’ve let drop off who most belongs. –As far as fearsome hitters who didn’t contribute in many other ways, I’d take Dick Allen well over Edgar Martinez. Not sure how to account for Edgar getting elected and Allen not even being able to stay on the ballot. Allen at least played in the field. Moreover, he was a plus base runner. –I could have chosen a few other players over Stargell for… Read more »

mosc
mosc
10 years ago
Reply to  paget

Top-50 OWAR and no steroids taint (Sheffield, Manny). Winfield outhit relative to position: Edgar Martinez, McCovey, Stargell, Walker, Mize, Palmero, and Snider (who gets a CF boost). You have to really view Winfield as a very poor defender to think he doesn’t belong. RFIELD would tell you he’s one of the worst offenders ever over a career but that doesn’t match his reputation at all. He won SEVEN gold gloves. Call him average if you want, but one of the worst defensive corner outfielders ever? That’s just wrong.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

Agreed on his defense. And I don’t mind repeating myself – as a mid-late 80’s bleacher creature, this eyeball test says that there’s no way Dave! Dave! Dave! Dave! Dave! was anything less than average. If maybe, maybe his long body had a slow first step, he more than made up for it with his arm (both the throws he made and the ones he didn’t have to because of the respect he got). _____ And I’ll put my vote where my mouth is. For the guy who never played in the minors and went out as the oldest player… Read more »

mosc
mosc
10 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

My next three would be Randolph, Eckersley, and Sutton.

I don’t like Kevin Brown for some reason. Maybe those last two yankee years or the huge deal to an aging pitcher are coloring things too much for me.

Steroids era is maybe not significantly accounted for in my mind for him though. In 2004 he pitched a 4.09 ERA with a pitcher friendly PPFp of 99.0 and I’m supposed to know that it equates to an ERA+ of 110. 110!!!

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

Yeah, I hear you. He was lousy for 10 of his last 13 games. That’s enough reason to hate on him.

And of course there was that time that Kevin Brown drowned a sack of puppies.

Doesn’t quite make up for a five year peak of 7.4 WAR while leading two different teams to the WS, I suppose.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

Okay, some cherry-picked numbers to accompany the sarcasm:

Sampling of COG pitchers, et al…
Best 5 year WAR stretch:

44.1 Randy Johnson
42.7 Pedro Martinez
42.5 Bob Gibson
42.5 Robin Roberts
41.7 Roger Clemens
40.9 Sandy Koufax
40.3 Greg Maddux
40.1 Phil Neikro
39.9 Tom Seaver
39.1 Wilbur Wood
37.3 Gaylord Perry
37.1 Juan Marichal
36.9 Kevin BROWN
36.8 Fergie Jenkins
36.5 Curtis Schilling
35.4 Johan Santana
35.2 Bert Blyleven
31.0 Jim Palmer
30.9 Rick Reuschel
30.8 Clayton Kershaw (early sample)
29.4 Steve Carlton
28.2 Mike Moose
27.7 Nolan Ryan
25.1 Tom Glavine
23.8 Whitey Ford
21.0 Babe Ruth

RJ
RJ
10 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Winfield’s Rfield really takes a beating from the fact that he played on for so long. He doesn’t rate too poorly for the majority of his career: negative 27 Rfield over his first 14 seasons is about two runs worse than average on a per year basis. That’s not a ridiculous number, especially if Rfield is indeed capturing some deficiency in range or positioning that the eye doesn’t easily pick up. But, because he could still contribute with the bat, he kept on playing, and obviously he lost something on defense. Over half of Winfield’s negative Rfield comes from his… Read more »

bstar
10 years ago
Reply to  RJ

The only other defensive measures out there that cover Winfield’s career are DRA and Tom Tango’s WOWY system. DRA has Winfield at -118 runs. Still searching for a WOWY Winfield number… mosc: I don’t think it’s really correct to say, “Rfield is suggesting Winfield was one of the worst RF’ers in history.” What it IS suggesting is that Winfield was *quite possibly* one of the worst fielders to get over 1000 starts in the outfield past the age of 30. I’ve probably said this before, but the disparity between Winfield’s defensive reputation and his stats are similar to Dale Murphy’s.… Read more »

mosc
mosc
10 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Winfield’s RFIELD through his age 30 season? -50. He was not only a well thought of defender with multiple gold gloves, he would go on to win 4 MORE gold gloves in his early 30s. This isn’t a player who aged beyond his defensive reputation (Jeter), it’s a player who’s reputation was always better than RFIELD now says.

RJ
RJ
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

mosc, you’re looking at his positional adjustment. His Rfield through age 30 is -1.

Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

Jeter (in some quarters) has also always had a better defensive reputation than rfield suggests. If rfield is to be believed, far from aging beyond his rep, he’s held pretty steady and maybe even improved as he’s aged. Since 2008, Jeter’s rfield is -9 per 650 PAs. Ok he’s playing a little more DH, but not that much 54 games vs. 775 at short. Adjusted, that means -9.6 per 650 PA of playing short. Going from the beginning of his career, you have to stop at 2000 to get a better number for rfield per 650 PAs, and it isn’t… Read more »

Artie Z.
Artie Z.
10 years ago
Reply to  mosc

Regarding Jeter, I know there are 900 things that go into being a league leader in some standard defensive stat (who the other players in the field are, who the pitchers are, etc.), but Jeter was never consistently on the leaderboard for defensive statistics. Except defensive games at SS – if I’ve counted correctly, he had 13 top 5 finishes in games at SS. Okay, and he does have 8 top 5 finishes in putouts, and 9 in fielding percentage. But he only has 4 top 5 finishes in double plays, only twice has he finished top 5 in assists,… Read more »

bells
bells
10 years ago

Okay now here’s the redemption vote according to my methodology. I take four measures of player value as a gauge of how players compare across advanced metrics that value things slightly differently. Then I give them a cumulative rank with all players on the ballot over 50 WAR, adding their ranking of each measure. Here are the measures: WAR – the ‘classic’ way of measuring a player’s value over a player the team could have gotten to replace the player, over that player’s career, to show how ‘good’ that player was. WAA+ – adding the wins above average players (rather… Read more »

bells
bells
10 years ago
Reply to  bells

Those were the top 15 on my list of 54 eligible players (forgot my spreadsheet list started on row 2 when I wrote my last comment). Here are the rest, in order: 16. Dick Allen 17. Dwight Evans 18. Andre Dawson 19. Jim Bunning 20. Dennis Eckersley 21. Billy Williams 22. Keith Hernandez 23. Dave Stieb 24. Sammy Sosa 25. Bobby Bonds 26. Dave Winfield 27. Gary Sheffield 28. Chuck Finley 29. Kevin Appier 30. Jim Wynn 31. Don Sutton 32. Willie Davis 33. John Olerud 34. Orel Hershiser 35. Chet Lemon 36. Will Clark 37. Willie Stargell 38. Robin… Read more »

Mike HBC
Mike HBC
10 years ago

Jim Abbott
Curtis Pride
Jim Eisenreich

Always.

Nick Pain
Nick Pain
10 years ago

Sutton, Reuschel, Dwight Evans

Joel
Joel
10 years ago

Kevin Brown
David Cone
Roberto Alomar

Low T
Low T
10 years ago

As a Rangers fan, I watched Kevin Brown be an amazing ass to anyone who got within 50 feet of him. He made Clemens look like a nice guy, and the only guy I can think of who rivals Bonds in that area. I can’t vote for him and feel good about it.

Alomar, Winfield, Nettles

Bryan O'Connor
Editor
10 years ago

Kevin Brown, Mark McGwire, and Dennis Eckersley

TJay
TJay
10 years ago

McGwire, Dick Allen, Ted Simmons

jeff hill
jeff hill
10 years ago

Jeff Kent
Kevin Brown
Will Clark

Kirk
Kirk
10 years ago

R Alomar, Reuschel, and Aparicio

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
10 years ago

For anyone interested, the top 5, through 46 ballots cast (the spreadsheet, plus jeff hill and Kirk): Kevin Brown (16) Roberto Alomar (15) Dave Winfield (12) Dennis Eckersley (9) Luis Tiant and Rick Reuschel (7) Dick Allen and Rafael Palmeiro are next at 6, followed by Mark McGwire and Graig Nettles at 5. Jim Bunning, Willie Stargell, Jeff Kent, and Don Sutton are next at 4. Lou Brock, Dwight Evans, and Ted Simmons are sitting at 3 votes apiece. I’m not going to got below that level, because at 2 or 1 we’re really not talking about guys with a… Read more »

David Horwich
David Horwich
10 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

What happens if we have a tie for the last slot?