Bob Feller had a quick impact on professional baseball: major leaguer at 17, star by 19, superstar by 21. He had a quick impact on our voting as well, appearing on nearly 60% of the ballots in his first round and now on over 70% of the ballots. This time it was enough to get him elected, by a wide margin, as the 67th inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. Most Happy.
More on Feller and the voting after the jump.
Most Wins Above Replacement (“WAR”, baseball-reference.com version) by a Cleveland Indian, 1918-2014
1. Bob Feller 63.5
2. Lou Boudreau 61.6
3. Tris Speaker 57.9
4. Bob Lemon 48.8
5. Kenny Lofton 48.5
T6. Jim Thome and Earl Averill 47.9
8. Joe Sewell 45.6
9. Early Wynn 45.5
10. Mel Harder 43.7
11. Larry Doby 43.4
12. Wes Ferrell 43.1
The above list includes WAR for everyday players and combined pitching and batting WAR for pitchers. Including hitting for pitchers makes a huge difference for Lemon, Wynn and Ferrell.
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In 1946, Feller led the AL in strikeouts with 348 Ks. That season, the NL leader in strikeouts, Johnny Schmitz, had 135 Ks.
Warren Spahn struck out two more batters in his MLB career than Feller did in his: 2,583 career Ks for Spahn to 2,581 for Feller. Spahn faced 5,367 more batters in his career than Feller, 21,547 batters faced for Warren to 16,180 for Rapid Robert.
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Most Pitching WAR in an Age 17 Season (since 1900)
1. Bob Feller (1936) 1.5
2. Joey Jay (1953) 0.5
T3. Dave Skaugstad (1957) and Carl Scheib (1944) 0.2
Most Pitching WAR in an Age 18 Season (since 1900)
1. Bob Feller (1937) 3.4
2. Jim Brillheart (1922) 1.6
T3. Larry Dierker (1965), Von McDaniel (1957) and Bob G. Miller (1954) 1.2
Most Pitching WAR in an Age 19 Season (since 1900)
1. Gary Nolan (1967) 6.3
2. Dwight Gooden (1984) 5.5
3. Bob Feller (1938) 5.1
Most Pitching WAR in an Age 20 Season (since 1900)
1. Dwight Gooden (1985) 12.1
2. Bob Feller (1939) 9.3
3. Christy Mathewson (1901) 9.1
Most Pitching WAR in an Age 21 Season (since 1900)
1. Bob Feller (1940) 9.9
2. Mark Fidrych (1976) 9.6
3. Vida Blue (1971) 9.0
Feller’s 1941 pitching WAR is tied for the ninth-best age 22 season pitching WAR total since 1900. Then came Pearl Harbor and nearly four years of service in the Navy, after which Bob had one more superstar season and a number of good ones.
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Notes on this round’s voting:
–Bob Feller is the first primarily American League pitcher that we’ve inducted in 27 rounds (since Mariano Rivera) and the first primarily American League starting pitcher we’ve inducted in 32 rounds (since Jim Palmer).
–After several rounds of agitation in the holdover voting, the this round produced unusual stability. Every holdover except Feller appeared on over 10% but less than 25% of the vote. So there are no changes at all in the eligibility numbers among that group of 12.
–The one newcomer to receive more than a small level of support was Lou Boudreau, who fit right in with the holdovers by also receiving more than 10% but less than 25% of the vote. Lou will replace Feller in the holdover list, which holds steady at 13 guys.
–The only change in the holdover numbers at all will be that Boudreau will join the list on the bubble, while the holdover he’s replacing, Feller, was not on the bubble. So while the holdover list remains at 13, we’ll have eight guys on the bubble next round instead of the seven we had this round.
–We had a wider spread of “favorite son” voting this round than we’ve had in a long time, with six different newcomers receiving between one and three votes. All told, 20 different players received one or more votes this round.
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The full spreadsheet showing this round’s vote tally is here: COG 1917 Vote Tally.
The vote summary for recent Circle of Greats voting rounds is here: COG Vote Summary 2 . An archive with details of the 1968 through 1939 rounds is here: COG 1968-1939 Vote Summary . In both cases, raw vote totals for each past round appear on Sheet 1 and the percentage totals for each past round appear on Sheet 2.
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A spreadsheet listing the full membership to date of the Circle of Greats, along with some of their stats, is here: Circle of Greats Membership . You can also find that same link any time by clicking on “Circle of Greats” at the top of the High Heats Stats home page.
