Circle of Greats Round 81 Results: Voters Send Bill to COG

It was a close race between two players who had just joined the holdover list, Luke Appling and Bill Dickey. In the end it was Dickey who prevailed by a single vote, winning induction as the 81st member of the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Bill and the voting after the jump

Most Career Wins Above Replacement (“WAR”, baseball-reference version) in AL History By a Player Known as “Bill” or “Billy”
1. Bill Dickey 55.8
2. Billy Pierce 48.7
3. Bill Freehan 44.7
4. Bill Donovan 36.5
5. Bill Bradley 35.1

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76 men have caught at least 750 career games for American League teams. The highest AL career slugging percentages among those seventy-six guys (AL career OPS+ is in parens):
1. Bill Dickey .486 (127)
2. Yogi Berra .483 (125)
3. Mickey Cochrane .478 (129)
4. Victor Martinez .475 (126)
5. Ivan Rodriguez .474 (109)

And among that same group, the most AL career Rbat (aka, WAR Runs Batting):
1. Mickey Cochrane 271.3
2. Bill Dickey 261.8
3. Yogi Berra 229.1
4. Joe Mauer 221.0
5. Jorge Posada 204.5

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Most career Rbat among all catchers (behind the plate in 50% or more of career games played) who had a positive career Rfield (aka, WAR Runs Fielding):
1. Johnny Bench 269.3
2. Bill Dickey 261.8
3. Gabby Hartnett 232.1
4. Yogi Berra 228.2
5. Carlton Fisk 167.8

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Most Career WAR by Left-Handed Hitting Catchers (behind the plate in 50% or more of career games played)
1. Yogi Berra 59.3
2. Bill Dickey 55.8
3. Mickey Cochrane 52.1
4. Joe Mauer 46.3
5. Darrell Porter 40.7

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Most Career Triples in Games Played as Catcher (Regular Season and Post-Season), 1914-2014:
1. Bill Dickey 73
T2. Wally Schang and Rollie Hemsley 72
4. Ivey Wingo 65
4. Mickey Cochrane 64

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Notes on this round’s voting:

–Despite the lowest turnout for a regular COG ballot in over a year, and a rather large list of holdovers, Dickey, Appling, Roberto Alomar and Harmon Killebrew all received rather high levels of support. The latter three all earned an extra round of guaranteed eligibility. Alomar earned his extra eligibility round with a late wave of support.

–Also benefiting from some late support was Minnie Minoso. Minoso’s spot on the ballot was saved with a couple of last-hour votes. all the other holdovers also avoided falling below the decisive 10% support level.

–Every vote on every ballot that was cast this round went to a holdover — not a single vote was cast for anyone who was eligible for the first time this round.

–David Cone’s only previous appearance on a regular induction ballot was way, way back in the early days of the COG voting, back in the 1963 birth-year round. Cone appeared on just one ballot back then. This round, however, fresh off his success in last week’s redemption vote, David appeared on seven ballots, enough to earn a return engagement.

–Graig Nettles (with the support of some vocal campaigning from commenter Joseph), Richie Ashburn and Don Drysdale won enough redemption round support to return to the next regular ballot. Ashburn and Drysdale tied for the second-most votes recieved in this latest redemption round, so we’ll throw all three guys into the huge ballot mix in the next round.

–Adding Nettles, Ashburn and Drysdale to the holdover list, and with all the previous holdovers other than Dickey returning, there will be a very large total of 18 holdovers in the upcoming 1970 birth-year round. A similarly daunting nine of those 18 will be “on the bubble”, subject to being dropped from the ballot if they appear on fewer than 10% of ballots in the upcoming round. 12 13 of the 18 holdovers have returned to the ballot via the redemption route at some point. Only Killebrew, Minoso, Campanella, Dean, Ferrell and Appling among the holdovers have never fallen off the ballot. It will be interesting to see if that remains true for those six five with the packed competition coming up.

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The full spreadsheet showing this round’s vote tally is here: COG 1907 Part 2 Vote Tally.

The vote summary for recent Circle of Greats voting rounds is here: COG Vote Summary 2 .  An archive w ith 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.

Another COG data spreadsheet showing each season a COG member played in the majors, along with the team he played for that season and his baseball-reference WAR (overall WAR for everyday players, pitching WAR for pitchers) for the season, is here:
Circle of Greats Seasons

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Doug
Editor
9 years ago

Is this the first regular election (i.e. not a runoff) to be decided by just one vote?

David Horwich
David Horwich
9 years ago
Reply to  Doug

This was the 6th regular election decided by one vote. Previous occurrences:

1956 – Larkin over Molitor
1940.2 – Rose over Santo
1929 – Santo over Banks and Marichal
1922.1 – Martinez over Koufax
1910.2 – Gordon over Boudreau

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
9 years ago

Craig Biggio – 763 *Roberto Alomar – 684 John Smoltz – 658 *Eddie Murray – 650 Kenny Lofton – 608 Ryne Sandberg – 607 Edgar Martinez – 507 Lou Whitaker – 493 *Harmon Killebrew – 404 Whitey Ford – 382 Bobby Grich – 376 Sandy Koufax – 375 Tony Gwynn – 346 Willie McCovey – 336 *Kevin Brown – 285 Juan Marichal – 268 Tom Glavine – 262 Alan Trammell – 239 Mike Mussina – 233 Curt Schilling – 224 Nolan Ryan – 220 Ron Santo – 217 *Minnie Minoso – 216 Lou Boudreau – 216 Tim Raines – 213… Read more »

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
9 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Kevin Brown has a shot of overtaking Lofton, though, no?

bells
bells
9 years ago

Just a small note – I was pretty sure from memory, but then checked out the spreadsheet to confirm, that Killebrew did fall off the main ballot (1934) and was re-placed on the ballot in the next redemption round (1928). So that’s 13 of the 18 holdovers that have come back on through redemption.

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

(Plate Appearances per Win Above Average) I’ve been working with this PaWaa stat for a couple of months now. Does anyone have a strong opinion on it one way or another? I like looking at the breakdowns at different Plate Appearance thresholds. This seems like an effective way to compare players with different-lengthed careers. It would be handy to arrive at a single threshold that it is agreed “okay, that is how long we should expect a Great player’s peak to be – and anything after that is gravy.” Is that 12 years? 7,000 PA? Well, some guys are still… Read more »

bells
bells
9 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

Yeah, I love this stat. I mean, I generally love the esoteric comparison methods that some of us have come up with (mosc’s has also been particularly delightful to read some insight on; and whatever happened to that poster that had that mysterious ‘peak’ method that valued Kenny Lofton above Bob Gibson?) but the PAWAA stat (too cheeky to call it ‘pawaa rankings’?) is insightful for the same reason I like looking at something like WAR/162G – it looks at productivity, aside from things like injury or service time. If I’m a modern advanced-stats nerd and I’m looking at the… Read more »

BryanM
BryanM
9 years ago
Reply to  Voomo Zanzibar

OK Voomo I’ll clamor for 9000 and 5000; Personally , I’m a consistency sort of guy, preferring consistent performance over a high peak as my personal measure of greatness; but I recognize that others, perhaps the majority prefer the players with the higher peak and perhaps a few seasons of mediocrity. Intuiting that the 5000 list would show some short career guys to good advantage, while the 9000 would show off the long-career greats…

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

Okay, I’ll take one vote of ‘yea’ as a clamor… ____ PaWaa 2000 A few notes: I’ve been working backward from the PA leaders to do Everybody in history. I’m far from finished. So this is NOT the all-time leaders. This is everybody in the COG, plus a few notables. And the stats are taken from the season Closest to 2000 PA. So there are variables. Player A – 1700 PA, next season 550 PA = 2250 Player B – 1700 PA, next season 650 PA = 2350 So I’m taking Player A’s stats at 2250. And Player B’s stats… Read more »

RJ
RJ
9 years ago

We have elected exactly half of the all-time WAR leaders for each franchise. Four have come on the ballot but have not been elected: LAD: Drysdale (on ballot) CHW: Appling (on ballot) LAA: Finley (passed over) TOR: Stieb (passed over) Which leaves eleven who have not yet come up. The seven who will be voted on in due course will all sail in. The 1971 birth class includes Pudge Rodriguez who I also presume gets in. That leaves three who will not come up soon: COL: Helton (1973 birth year) MIA: Hanley Ramirez (For now. Likely to be Stanton soon)… Read more »

David P
David P
9 years ago
Reply to  RJ

RJ – I would have never guessed that Drysdale is the Dodgers’ career WAR leader. Of course, Reese and Robinson are close to the lead and both lost substantial playing time for non-baseball related problems. Voters likely factored that in when elected those two to the COG. So while Drysdale is the Dodgers’ WAR leader, I’d say he’s more of the nominal leader.

RJ
RJ
9 years ago
Reply to  David P

It’s surprising, isn’t it? Interesting how many top Dodgers have had abbreviated careers: Reese and Robinson as you mention, and then Drysdale and Koufax with their shoulder and arm injuries respectively. Campanella had time missed at both ends of his career. Dazzy Vance was a late bloomer. Nap Rucker was done by his age 28 season.

Let’s revisit this in half a decade or so; we might be talking about Kersaw as the new Dodgers WAR leader.

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 5000 77.6 … Babe Ruth 93.8 … Ted Williams 97.9 … Rogers Hornsby 103.0 … Mickey Mantle 108.5 … Ty Cobb 109.8 … Willie Mays 111.8 … Barry Bonds 116.5 … Stan Musial 116.8 … Albert Pujols 117.6 … Lou Gehrig 118.7 … Tris Speaker 120.8 … Jimmie Foxx 121.1 … Mike Schmidt 121.8 … Wade Boggs 126.1 … Honus Wagner 128.0 … Ken Griffey 128.8 … Alex Rod 129.8 … Chase Utley 130.9 … Joe DiMaggio 133.7 … Johnny Mize 136.4 … Rickey Henderson 138.1 … Arky Vaughan 140.8 … Jackie Robinson 141.0 … George Brett 142.5 …… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 8000 79.1 … Babe Ruth 93.7 … Rogers Hornsby 96.1 … Ted Wiliams 101.5 … Willie Mays 103.9 … Ty Cobb 108.6 … Mickey Mantle 109.2 … Barry Bonds 109.2 … Honus Wagner 115.4 … Lou Gehrig 121.0 … Stan Musial 121.5 … Albert Pujols 123.4 … Mike Schmidt 124.7 … Tris Speaker 128.7 … Rickey Henderson 132.4 … Alex Rod 133.4 … Jimmie Foxx 133.8 … Hank Aaron 141.7 … Joe Morgan 142.5 … Mel Ott 148.3 … Eddie Mathews 155.0 … Wade Boggs 156.3 … George Brett 157.2 … Ken Griffey 161.6 … Cal Ripken 161.9 …… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 9000 79.4 … Babe Ruth 94.9 … Rogers Hornsby 97.0 … Ted Williams 98.3 … Willie Mays 109.2 … Honus Wagner 110.3 … Ty Cobb 110.7 … Barry Bonds 115.7 … Mickey Mantle 116.4 … Lou Gehrig 123.4 … Tris Speaker 123.9 … Stan Musial 126.1 … Mike Schmidt 128.9 … Alex Rod 131.2 … Hank Aaron 132.0 … Rickey Henderson 134.5 … Albert Pujols 140.6 … Jimmie Foxx 151.5 … Mel Ott 156.0 … Eddie Mathews 157.7 … Wade Boggs 158.0 … Frank Robinson 158.8 … Joe Morgan 170.0 … George Brett 171.5 … Ken Griffey 173.9 …… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 10,000 82.0 … Babe Ruth 101.6 … Willie Mays 106.0 … Barry Bonds 112.4 … Honus Wagner 112.7 … Ty Cobb 115.7 … Mickey Mantle (9907) 125.5 … Tris Speaker 129.3 … Stan Musial 132.4 … Hank Aaron 136.6 … Alex Rod 137.3 … Mike Schmidt 137.9 … Rickey Henderson 156.5 … Mel Ott 165.3 … Frank Robinson 168.4 … Joe Morgan 169.0 … Wade Boggs 171.4 … Eddie Mathews 174.7 … George Brett 180.2 … Al Kaline 183.8 … Roberto Clemente 187.8 … Cal Ripken 198.2 … Carl Yaz 202.9 … Ken Griffey 213.0 … Rod Carew 234.5… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 11,000 99.8 … Barry Bonds 106.0 … Willie Mays 119.7 … Honus Wagner 120.1 … Ty Cobb 128.3 … Tris Speaker 133.2 … Hank Aaron 140.1 … Stan Musial 144.0 … Alex Rod 153.6 … Rickey Henderson 155.3 … Mel Ott 172.9 … Joe Morgan 173.0 … Frank Robinson 193.7 … Al Kaline 202.5 … Cal Ripken 208.5 … Carl Yaz 208.6 … George Brett 234.7 … Ken Griffey 264.7 … Brooks Robinson 267.0 … Pete Rose 278.1 … Paul Molitor 297.0 … Robin Yount 300.9 … Reggie Jackson 317.2 … Craig Biggio 332.0 … Derek Jeter 345.3 …… Read more »

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 12,000

99.8 … Barry Bonds
108.6 … Willie Mays
122.3 … Ty Cobb
134.7 … Hank Aaron
135.8 … Tris Speaker (11992)

147.7 … Stan Musial
170.0 … Rickey Henderson
217.1 … Cal Ripken
230.3 … Carl Yaz
288.3 … Pete Rose

328.0 … Paul Molitor
331.0 … Robin Yount
368.8 … Craig Biggio
369.4 … Derek Jeter
385.7 … Eddie Murray
454.2 … Dave Winfield

Voomo Zanzibar
9 years ago

PaWaa 13,000
128.5 … Ty Cobb
137.8 … Hank Aaron
189.0 … Rickey Henderson
251.6 … Carl Yaz
327.5 … Pete Rose

PaWaa 14,000
150.7 … Hank Aaron (13941)
280.4 … Carl Yaz (13992)
391.7 … Pete Rose

PaWaa 15,000
478.3 … Pete Rose

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
9 years ago

Voomo: In answer to your question above about how we feel about PaWaa, I guess I’ll admit what I don’t like about it. Let’s say you have two players. Each has a 10,000 PA career. Both play in neutral parks and slash the same. Player A is an immediate star. Over his first 1000 PAs, he generates 6.0 WAA. He does the same over his next thousand, and the one after that. In fact, he generates 5.0 WAA over every thousand PAs for his first 9000. Of course, as players do, late in his career, he fades and produces no… Read more »

mosc
mosc
9 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

Yes, at the very least the PaWaa for a sliver shorter than their total career aught to be taken from the HIGHEST PaWaa matching that length they achieved in their career. You want to know Pete Rose’s best 5000 plate appearances, not just the first 5000 plate appearances. On a rate basis over 5000 plate appearances, that’s how he should be compared.