Goslin, Brown, Drysdale

Dahlen, Wilhelm, Goslin

Well, I guess that you can toss that whole “strategic voting” business out now 🙂 :
– Dave Winfield (the biggest oversight of the COG for players actually in the real HOF)

after Winfield there’s no one else as obvious, but I do need to list three names, so…
-Goose Goslin – one of the biggest oversights by the BBWAA of post-1920 players later elected by the Veteran’s Committee, along with Arky Vaughn and Johnny Mize.
-Hoyt Wilhelm – best reliever not named Mariano

Round 121? Yikes. My daughter was still in high school when this started. Remarkable job by Birtelcom and Doug to keep us engaged. Also, very appreciative of really exceptional contributions of many posters who have far greater sophistication than I do, too numerous to name–all of whom demonstrated very high WAR totals, both aggregate and Peak Value.

Now, I have to torture myself a little to figure out where these last votes go.

Joel Peralta just signed with Seattle.
His MLB career began at age 29.
He has appeared in 589 games.

Most Games Pitched, first 11 seasons of a career, age 29+ :

677 … Kent Tekulve
602 … Rafael Betancourt
596 … Matt Thornton
589 … Steve Reed
589 … Joel Peralta
576 … Hoyt Wilhelm
____________________

Goslin, Winfield, Brown

I’ve done a lot of strategic voting over our recent rounds; this time I’m going to start out with a straight vote, which I may change. I’m really struck by the way the early voting in Round 121 has been different from Round 120. With my vote, the 14th, Wallace, who had 8 votes last round, will have yet to pick up a single vote, while Goslin has shot out to a substantial lead over Wilhelm. Here’s my vote: 1. My top choice is Wilhelm. 2. Ferrell stays on my list (6.1 WAR for every season as a regular!). 3.… Read more »

Wes Ferrell played in a high-offense era.
Here’s his stats, and his stats neutralized to 2014 AL, neutral park:

193 – 128 / 4.04 / 1.481
169 – 138 / 3.37 / 1.309

And, his batting stats:

.280 / .351 / .446 / .797
.252 / .319 / .401 / .720
_________________________

I have to find something else to do until the next vote. Thank you all for such an enjoyable experiment and the knowledge I’ve gained from reading your thoughts. I’m a stubborn older guy and I’ve come this far with a few of my favorites getting in, and a few not getting in. I believe I’ve voted for Rwuschel every time he’s been eligible except a few time when I didn’t vote at all due to life interfering. I now think it’s time to drop him off my ballot. Realistically he doesn’t measure up to other COG worthy players, though… Read more »

Following on Kahuna Tuna’s excellent posts about Wilhelm, and particularly his observation “Wilhelm excelled at the role he helped develop for his era, and his special pitch ensured that he could pitch more often than anyone else if his team needed him to do it. Certainly unique, and (to this point) almost CoG-worthy.” I wanted to pose a question to the group. Usage is reflective of conventional wisdom–managerial strategy about how players are deployed, what talents are valued, and even, by extension, what talents individual players work at enhancing because that’s they are asked to do. At various times, conventional… Read more »

A couple more points on the case of Hoyt Wilhelm that may be getting overlooked, not that’s it going to change any minds at this point. 1. The first half of Wilhelm’s career innings can be 100% directly compared to starter innings of the 1950s. Throughout the decade of the ’50s, there’s no discernible difference between reliever and starter performance in terms of ERA. That difference doesn’t truly emerge until 1960 and beyond. Here’s the MLB difference in ERA for starters/relievers from 1952-on, when Wilhelm’s career started. A positive number indicates a lower ERA for relievers, a negative means a… Read more »

Brown, Ashburn, Nettles

I’ll post a quick update, just to remind everyone that we’re still balloting! Through Bruce Gilbert, the 24th ballot cast:

13 – Goose Goslin*
12 – Hoyt Wilhelm*
=====50% (12)
9 – Kevin Brown*
8 – Dave Winfield*
6 – Dick Allen*
=====25% (6)
5 – Richie Ashburn, Wes Ferrell
4 – Graig Nettles*
3 – Bill Dahlen, Don Drysdale, Luis Tiant
=====10% (3)
1 – Bobby Wallace
0 – Andre Dawson, Rick Reuschel

Remember, vote changes close tomorrow, and COG balloting ends until next JANUARY on Thursday!

I was the victim of a wacky auto correct. On a different subject, I’ ve only just discovered this site a couple of weeks ago. I viewed the list of the 120 players who are in the Circle of Greats–pretty darn solid list . . . But I’m curious how it is that Kid Nichols isn’t in the top 120. Arguably, he was better in the 1890’s than Cy Young, each pitcher having started his career in 1890. Nichols missed two seasons in the early 1900’s due to a contract dispute, but pitched well over 500 innings in the minors… Read more »