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

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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.

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Jeff H

1 month ago

Rolen

Paul E

1 month ago

FWIW, playing a 154-game schedule, Minoso had 9 seasons of 145+ games and a tenth in the 1961 AL season of 162 games with 152. Rolen had 5 seasons of 145+ games….. I believe, without question, that Rolen was an absolute Hall of Fame talent – a fielder to rival the best third-basemen of the last 60 years (Nettles, Schmidt, Beltre, Bell,…..perhaps even Brooks Robinson) with great range and a cannon-arm. As discussed a million times on this site, I don’t know how you quantify that but WAR seems to really like his fielding. He hit with power and took… Read more »

Doug

1 month ago

Reply to Paul E

Curious about Rolen’s very low black and gray ink numbers. Both are outside the top 1000 (yes, one thousand). Probably just a quirk, but a notable difference from Minoso’s respectable black ink score, and very high gray ink number. The case for Minoso rests, I think, on how much allowance you give him for his late career start. Minoso didn’t play in the Negro leagues until age 22, and didn’t play well there until 23. But, he almost certainly would have honed his skills sooner had he been given the opportunity to play organized ball from his teenage years, following… Read more »

Last edited 1 month ago by Doug

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Reply to Doug

Doug, I was getting ready to post when your post went up. I didn’t see it first, but I think we come out about the same place.

Doug

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

I agree, Bob. Think we both have Minoso penciled in for 4 or 5 seasons, and 15-20 WAR (or more) that he was denied because of segregation. It’s also highly likely that those seasons at the beginning of his career would have allowed him to have even bigger years in his prime. Think about Bill James age 20 and 21 study. He compared two groups of players who had similar auspicious rookie seasons. One group had that season at age 20, and the second group at age 21. To James’s amazement, he found the age 20 group averaged 50% more… Read more »

Paul E

1 month ago

Reply to Doug

RBI League leaders 9/10/2004 121 Rolen STL 114 Castilla COL 108 Pujols STL 106 Beltre LA Doug, Regarding Rolen’s lack of black ink, he was leading the NL in RBI September 10, 2004 doubling and homering with four RBI in 2 AB’s when he suffered a calf strain. At that point, he had appeared in 136 of 140 team games. He missed the next 16 games and finished with 124 RBI behind Vinny Castilla’s 131. He then proceeded to go hitless in the NLDS, played well in the NLCS (3 HR/6RBI) and went 0h/zero/nada for 15 in the WS. Oddly enough,… Read more »

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Now that Rolen and Minoso are head-to-head, I think it’s a great opportunity to figure out just how we want CoG ratings to assess careers impacted by segregation. We flew by the seat of our pants in the cases of Paige and Campanella, as I remember. I think there are only two significant Negro League players left raising this issue, Minoso and Irvin (who is on the Secondary ballot, and who may be the superior of the two). I tried to think this through for Minoso on the initial Round 1 string. Minoso should be the easier of the two… Read more »

Doug

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Good shout out on Minoso’s HBP proclivity. Should have shown those in the Stats tables.

no statistician but

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Off on a tangent, but as to your remark that Irvin might have been the better player, his Negro and minor league stats are nearly off the charts. He led in batting average his second through fourth seasons in the NNL ( .380, .387, and .369), but that only gives a vague picture, since between his third and fourth seasons came a four year gap, the first of those, 1942, spent batting a mere .397 in the Mexican League. The next three years were lost to military service. At age 30 playing for triple-A Jersey City he was batting .373… Read more »

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Reply to no statistician but

You’re ahead of me, nsb. I was waiting for Round 2, but glad you’re setting the stage. I wouldn’t have thought of the Jethroe comparison!

no statistician but

1 month ago

Here’s another tangent, or possibly just a geriatric ramble: What part does personality play in our assessment of players? Cobb and Hornsby being jerks, for instance—do we put a mental if not a moral question mark against them in our evaluations, even when we’re trying to be impartial about performance? Minoso’s outgoing personality was so expansive and—to most people not overly racist— infectious, his behavior on the field so naively appealing, that it’s only now, over half a century later, that a consideration of him can arise without the memories of his distinctive way of running, his grin, his apparent… Read more »

Paul E

1 month ago

Reply to no statistician but

10.5 150 671 522 141 186 34 5 36 137 3 2145 51 .356.499.648 1.147 216 .514 219 338 10.6 150 672 514 142 176 37 8 38 123 0 0156 44 .342.497.667 1.164 215 .513 224 343 Off the beaten path as well, this is off Baseball Reference and reflects Ted Williams’ 1942 and 1946 seasons. The numbers across are the B-R format and are identifiable (if familiar). You know….WAR G PA AB R H 2b 3b HR etc….incredibly similar, Williams didn’t lose a step after three years flying airplanes in service to his country. BTW, the lower insignificant… Read more »

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Reply to Paul E

Ruth + Gehrig, 1923-34 111.8 + 83.1
Aaron + Mathews, 1954-66 96.4 + 83.5

So, batting .500.

Of course, Ruth wasn’t exactly easy to get along with either . . .

Paul E

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Bob,
Good job – I guess we managed to get Ruth’s best season (1923 – 14+WAR) in there while the football player from Columbia garnered 23 PA’s. But, without picking pepper out of flypoop, I imagine every manager since George (or, was it Harry?) Wright would gladly take a chance on Cobb and Hornsby – even doubling one’s aggravation in the same lineup.

I believe Bill James called the media’s unnatural affection for athletes at the other end of the spectrum the “halo effect”. And, obviously, the media drives the public’s opinion…..

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Reply to no statistician but

Nice to read your recollections, nsb. And you ask an interesting question. My inclination is to say that personality per se should have nothing explicit to do with our assessments. It’s going to have an influence nevertheless (your “mental or moral” issue), because affect can’t help but exert some push on borderline cases and may guide us towards whom we want to take the time to advocate for by building a case. But I think basic personality isn’t a baseball issue. But sometimes the impact of personality does become a baseball issue. For example, one of my thoughts about Dick… Read more »

Paul E

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Bob,
Sometime around 1987, Jim Barniak interviewed a docile, composed Allen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICD7dS0yOU4

Pretty laid-back, no? If you ever saw “A Bronx Tale” , Allen might have been Eddie Mush — anything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Tough rows to hoe for a young man

Bob Eno

27 days ago

Reply to Paul E

Interesting video, Paul. He certainly interviewed well. I wouldn’t have pictured him coming from a town of about 1000 near Pittsburgh. Nice to hear that he and Thomas made up, and he clearly appreciated Thomas’s son coming up to shake his hand years later.

At one point Allen says, about the match-up with the Big Red Machine in ’76, that over the course of the season the Phillies had a 9-0 record against the Reds before they were swept in the playoffs. It was actually 7-5. That’s a pretty intriguing turn of memory. Never rely overmuch on your neurons!

Voomo

1 month ago

Reply to no statistician but

I do not feel qualified to make moral judgments.

Doug

1 month ago

Reply to no statistician but

Minoso makes a short list with both Musial and Hornsby, in leading his league in Total Bases with fewer than 20 home runs. Fourteen such seasons in the live ball era, but only five since the end of World War II.

Voomo

1 month ago

I vote Minoso. A lot of what ifs with MM. What if he got a chance sooner? What if he played CF? What if he played on good teams? If ifs and buts were Candies and nuts We’d all have a merry Christmas, i know. I’ve been enamored with Minnie since about 1982, when I discovered his 1977 Topps card and learned how old he was. I love his story. As for Rolen, sure, he’s one of the great defensive 3B, and he could hit. But… only once was he in the top 5 in WAR, and never led the… Read more »

Doug

1 month ago

Reply to Voomo

“As for his defense, he certainly passed the eye test, and has the numbers… but those numbers are somewhat behind Robin Ventura.”

Don’t think so. In careers of very similar games and PA, Rolen compiled 18% more dWAR than Ventura, and 13% more Rfield. Certainly they were similar players, with elite defensive skills and above average offensive numbers, but Rolen has clearly better numbers on offense (30% more oWAR) and defense (and baserunning as well).

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Reply to Voomo

I don’t think the argument for Rolen is that he’s great because of his defense. I think it’s that he’s great because of the magnitude and balance of his offense and defense together. Here is a list of third basemen whose careers are complete, sorted by WAR/162G: Schmidt 7.2 McGraw 6.7 (in a very short career) Mathews 6.5 HR Baker 6.5 Boggs 6.1 Rolen 5.6 Chipper 5.5 If you slice Adrian Beltre’s career to Rolen-length, picking an optimal period, you’ll get him to 6.1. There are valid ways to slice things up that don’t place Rolen quite so high, but… Read more »

Voomo

1 month ago

Reply to Bob Eno

My admittedly cherry-picked reference to Ventura was based on this chart:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/tz_runs_total_tf_career.shtml

Paul E

1 month ago

Reply to Voomo

Voomo,
Quite an odd coincidence that Rolen is tied with Nettles despite 3,700 less innings. And, I KNOW that Nettles could field. It’s kind of ‘eye-test’ type stuff.

As far as gray ink/black ink, Rolen incurred a ton of serious injuries and he just wasn’t going to place among league leaders in the ‘compiling’ stats and, in the rate stats, the steroid guys tended to take those spots

Voomo

27 days ago

Reply to Paul E

I’m definitely not arguing against Rolen being in our COG. This is a fun exercise to focus on two players from different eras with different skill sets. I think they are of similar “value”, and both comfortably within the lower tier of our group.

Paul E

27 days ago

Reply to Voomo

I certainly do not disagree. Definitely a tough call

Bob Eno

1 month ago

Minoso.

Richard Chester

27 days ago

I’ll go with Minoso.

Doug

27 days ago

I’ll take Minoso.

no statistician but

27 days ago

You start with an arbitrary condition, that you have to elect someone or someones, anyone or anyones, to keep pace with the HOF numbers. Then you posit a premise, that a group of players who have been rejected for the honor, time and again in many cases, are the pool from which to choose, then you posit another premise, that they’re all of approximately the same worth, and from that a third, by implication, that they’re all worthy of election, so it doesn’t really matter in what order they’re chosen. OK. But after this batch of not quite border-liners enter… Read more »

Paul E

27 days ago

Reply to no statistician but

Hear, hear !!!!

Doug

26 days ago

Reply to no statistician but

It is a conundrum. But, if the HoF is also having its quality standard debased, and if that is the standard we’re trying to mimic, then that’s what we get. I’m open to suggestions on this issue, or others. Bob Eno proposed using a ranked ballot to better distinguish the group’s preference for a candidate. I think that’s at least worth an experiment, so will give it a try with the next election. Another thought I have is a replacement CoG election. If there is a candidate outside the CoG that might be considered better than a player already in,… Read more »

Voomo

26 days ago

Reply to Doug

This doesnt address the stated concern (might in fact exacerbate it), but id love for us to have a Second Chance ballot or two, where anyone who has ever been on one of our ballots for more than one round gets another look.

As for reducing or tiering the current COG, I love re-examining and improving on processes.
Is it a concern that our numbers have dwindled? While the opinions of the small, core group that are active right now I trust more than 50+ quiet lurkers, does the larger number of voters make our conclusions more ‘valid’?

no statistician but

26 days ago

Reply to Voomo

I would strongly argue against reducing the current COG or replacing its members, once elected. Second guessing after the fact? Declaring voters’ choices from years past null and void or stupid and unworthy? If that starts happening I’ll be gone. At my age, of course, I’ll be gone soon enough regardless, but, please, let’s not open that can of worms. As a solution it solves nothing, and it would inevitably turn into a contest of my favorite against yours. The argument that, if Walker made it, then why can’t we have Helton is one thing. Bunning’s got more WAR than… Read more »

opal611

26 days ago

Reply to no statistician but

I don’t say much, but I’ve been around and voting since almost the very beginning. I also am strongly against the idea of voting out/reducing any of the members who have already been elected. If we would like to highlight the “best of the best” and/or acknowledge that some of the COG are “greater” than the others, I would much rather implement additional rounds to select the “Inner Circle” of the COG. Although in general I think ranked ballots are great, I am also not a huge fan of switching our methods at this point in the process. If we… Read more »

Bob Eno

26 days ago

Reply to opal611

I agree with opal when it comes to voting people out. The original CoG project was to do a much better (and well justified) job than the BBWAA, not to be perfect. I think we’ve done well so far. There are a couple of picks I disagree with and argued strongly against, but we have a lot of different views here and I’m sure others feel similarly a a couple of choices I’ve backed. (I’d also hesitate have a voting base of nine reverse the choices of far larger participating groups.) So far we’re within margin of error of birtelcom’s… Read more »

Voomo

26 days ago

Reply to Bob Eno

WAR is dubious for pitchers, and defensive stats before advanced computer tracking are problematic.
Perhaps we try to conduct our analyses moving forward without ever mentioning WAR.

no statistician but

25 days ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Bob: If I were one to take umbrage, I would certainly have swallowed a big dose after coming across your passing comment about my view of lower career WAR. Luckily I never touch the stuff. Gives me acid reflux. Au contraire, as those effete continentals are always saying, I’m anything but a fan of having cut-offs based on WAR for worthiness of consideration. Doug is more into the 65 WAR borderline business (see his comment below on Minoso). To me, WAR has become a stumbling block for open discussion, the evil elephant in the room that we all are wary… Read more »

Doug

25 days ago

Reply to no statistician but

Just to clarify the notion of a 65 WAR “rule”, I mention that only as an observation. Nearly all position players, save for catchers, who reach 65 WAR have been included in the CoG, while relatively few (10, including Jackie, Ichiro and Shoeless Joe) below that number have been so honored. I’m not saying 65 WAR should be a rule, or that it’s a good “rule of thumb”, only that, based on our voting to date, a player reaching that level stands a very good chance to be elected to the CoG. FWIW, the equivalent barometer for catchers would be… Read more »

Last edited 25 days ago by Doug

Bob Eno

25 days ago

Reply to no statistician but

nsb, It was by no means my intent to throw shade upon you, much less to encourage you to distill it and consume it! I made the mistake of conflating your comments about a gradually lowering threshold with a parallel discussion about WAR threshold to which I thought you were referring. Given your oft declared suspicion of WAR, especially pWAR, I should not have. You picked up on my response on Ford and that your objection is valid. I misremembered the issue with Ford. Going back to look at fWAR (not very thoroughly, I’m afraid), I think the difference is… Read more »

Author

Doug

25 days ago

Reply to Bob Eno

Actually, we won’t get to Pujols and Sabathia until round 3. Unless I fiddle with how the ballot is constructed.

Let me know if you think round 2 (holdover round) or round 3 (new ballot players round) would be better for trying out a ranked ballot.

Bob Eno

25 days ago

Reply to Doug

I don’t think it makes a difference, Doug, so long as the rule for staying on the primary ballot remains 10% of ballots cast, rather than “votes” (which could mean a doubling of the required amount). The principal target of the idea originally was to create a distinction in weight between direct support of CoG admission and strategic votes to preserve ballot eligibility.

Doug

26 days ago

Just to amplify on my selection of Minoso, I was penciling in seasons (4-5) and WAR (15-20) for him as compensation for the opportunity denied him due to segregation. Doing so moves Minoso to somewhere between 6th and 10th place in JAWS for left-fielders, in a cluster with Manny, Raines, Goslin, Al Simmons and Ed Delahanty, all within 4 WAR of each other (66.0 to 69.6). It’s notable that NONE of the eligible left-fielders outside the JAWS top 10 are in the CoG. That JAWS ranking (6 to10) for Minoso compares to a 10th ranking for Rolen at 3B. Rolen… Read more »

Last edited 26 days ago by Doug

opal611

26 days ago

My vote is for Scott Rolen.

Thanks!

Paul E

25 days ago

Minoso

bells

24 days ago

If push comes to shove (as it does in this zero-sum runoff), my vote is for Rolen. But I think Minoso is a good choice, I’ve waffled in my analysis of him over the years (and over the last few weeks). I didn’t have him in my three for the main round, but before I published that vote, I was strongly considering putting him in… there’s the stats as a starting point, which are good-not-‘great’, and some of the ‘what if’ mentioned up thread was mitigated by the incorporation of a few (small) seasons of NL stats for him, adding… Read more »