Circle of Greats 1980 Part 1 Runoff: Minnie Minoso vs. Scott Rolen |

This post is for voting and discussion in a runoff election to decide the winner of the 141st round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). Here are the career AL and NL stats for our two candidates.

Player	WAR	OPS+	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos	Tm
Minnie Minoso	50.4	130	1835	7713	6579	1136	1963	336	83	186	1023	814	584	216	.298	.389	.459	.848	759H8/36	CHW-CLE-STL-WSA
Scott Rolen	70.1	122	2038	8518	7398	1211	2077	517	43	316	1287	899	1410	118	.281	.364	.490	.855	*5/H	PHI-STL-TOR-CIN

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/28/2019.

Minoso also played three seasons in the Negro National League II (NNL2) and is credited with 3.0 WAR over 113 games and 520 PA, based on what are likely incomplete data.

To put those career totals into the context of the seasons in which the statistics were compiled, here are each player’s ranks among players (min. 3000 PA) for the indicated seasons, in which each played 25 or more games (for example, Minoso compiled the 12th highest WAR total over the fourteen seasons from 1951 to 1964, while Rolen had the 6th highest mark from 1996 to 2012). Bear in mind that there were 16, 18 and 20 major league teams during Minoso’s seasons, compared to 28 and 30 teams during Rolen’s seasons.

Player	WAR	oWAR	dWAR	OPS+	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Minnie Minoso (1951-1964)	12	12	114	20	6	6	6	6	8	5	4	30	9	9	11	5	15	13	45	24
Scott Rolen (1996-2012)	6	19	4	67	20	20	23	17	23	5	42	34	11	16	24	87	124	83	70	66

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/28/2019.

Our candidates’ top 100 career live ball era rankings (min. 5000 PA) look like this.

Minoso: OBP 64th
Rolen: WAR 56th, dWAR 31st, WAA 38th, 2B 44th, XBH 71st

And, here are their scores based on Bill James’ informal Hall of Fame metrics and Adam Darowski’s Hall of Stats, as well as their rankings for Jay Jaffe’s WAR Score System (JAWS). Note that the “Avg” and “Likely” benchmarks are established based on players already in the Hall of Fame. Click on the links below for each of the metrics to see the all-time leaders.

Player	HoF Standards (Avg=50)	HoF Monitor (Likely=100)	Black Ink (Avg=27)	Gray Ink (Avg=144)	Hall of Stats (Qualifying Minimum=100)	JAWS
Minnie Minoso	37	104	16	232	111	18 (LF)
Scott Rolen	40	98	0	27	143	10 (3B)

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/28/2019.

Lastly, to amaze your friends, here is a fun fact for each of our candidates:

Minoso is the only player to reach 40 XBH each season from 1951 to 1961
Rolen retired in 2012 as the only third baseman to record 10 seasons with 30 or more doubles

So, the choice is yours. However you decide, your ballot in this runoff round, unlike the usual three-name ballot, should identify only the one candidate you prefer (you will also need to add at least a little bit of extra verbiage though, because the WordPress engine that supports the site won’t accept comments of only one or two words).

All votes must be in by 11:59PM EST on Sunday night, February 16th, with vote changes allowed until 11:59PM EST on Friday night, February 14th. If the result of this runoff is still a tie, a tie-breaker process will be followed to discard the last votes cast until a winner is determined. So, vote early to ensure your vote counts! If you would like to keep track of the vote tally for the runoff, you can check this tally spreadsheet: COG 1980 Part 1 Runoff Vote Tally.