With this election, we start selecting two a year. It’s a very crowded field again, and it’s not getting any easier. There are four to six, depending on your methodologies, new names that warrant serious GOR consideration. I usually try to handicap in my head who I think will win. I’m often right, or at least the guy who I think will come in second will win. This election, I can’t decide among from about 5 guys who I think are going to go one-two.
Since it’s so crowded, let’s stay with 4 days to work out our rankings. This election will close Sunday.
2 Mark Baldwin
2 Charlie Bennett
1 Pete Browning
3 Fred Carroll
2 Bob Caruthers
1 John Clarkson
1 Charlie Cominsky
4 Abner Dalrymple
1 Jerry Denny
4 Fred Dunlap
3 Pud Galvin 6th
3 George Gore 4th
1 Arthur Irwin
7 Charley Jones 10th
2 Tim Keefe 2nd
2 Henry Larkin
8 Bobby Mathews
11 Levi Meyerle
2 Joclo Milligan
1 Tony Mullane
3 Tip O’Neill 10th
2 Jim O’Rourke 3rd
5 Dave Orr
14 Lip Pike
1 Paul Radford
1 Danny Richardson
3 Hardy Richardson 7th
4 Pop Snyder
2 Harry Stovey 5th
7 Ezra Sutton
1 Monte Ward
2 Curt Welch
3 Mickey Welch 9th
5 Ned Williamson 8th
We had our first player to drop off from loss of eligibility: Joe Leggett. He made it thru all 15 years without being elected. Altho I advocated his selection early on, it seems somehow appropriate that he made it as far as he did without being chosen. I firmly believe that if the real Hall had started in 1885, he absolutely would have been enshrined in 1886, right after Creighton. But I also believe that if he hadn’t been selected in 1886, he never would have. So while I believe that we got it wrong, we also got it right at the same time.
Names coming up shortly:
1901 Oyster Burns, Jack Glasscock, Harry Staley
1902 Dan Brouthers, Icebox Chamberlain, Con Daily, Dave Foutz, Shorty Fuller, Ad Gumbert, Connie Mack, Tommy McCarthy, Doggie Miller
1903 Cap Anson, Eddie Burke, Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Bill Hutchison, Silver King, Denny Lyons, Sadie McMahon, Fred Pfeffer, Adonis Terry, Perry Werden
I’ll set up the 1900 Manager Election tomorrow.
Bob’s ballot
I am extremely uncomfortable with my ballot. Leaving Monte Ward, Mickey Welch and Hardy Richardson off, seems somehow wrong. And yet, I don’t know who I’d kick off to enable them to be on it. Plus I have 4 pitchers in the Top Five slots, which seems unjustifiable, and yet again, I don’t know who I’d slide up into the Top Five and at whose expense.
1. Keefe
2. O’Rourke
3. Clarkson
4. Galvin
5. Mathews
6. Stovey
7. Browning
8. Gore
9. Mullane
10. Williamson
Terry’s ballot:
Tough ballot this year; I can throw a hand towel over the top 6-7 players, they are that close. After picking as many nits as I could, this is what I came up with:
1. Harry Stovey- 143 ops+ (O’Rourke 133), 54 points of black ink (O’Rourke 23). O’Rourk 54 WAR, Stovey 47 WAR in 3000 fewer atbats. O’Rourke is a terrific candidate. Stovey, to me, is a slightly better candidate.
2. Jim O’Rourke– I like Stovey slightly more but O’Rourke, in my opinion, is a solid B- or C+ level Hall candidate.
3. John Clarkson– 134 era+, 82 WAR and 60 points of black ink, wins in extremely close call over Keefe.
4. Tim Keefe– An argument can be made that he should rank higher than Clarkson. His WAR is 82.5 to Clarkson’s 82.1, but his era+ is 127 to Clarkson’s 134. Black ink is 60-58 (Clarkson), gray ink 252-246 (Clarkson again). They are similar enough that it seems silly to separate them on the ballot.
5. Monte Ward– 65 WAR combined; career hard to quantify, but he’s probably the only player in history to have over 15 WAR offensively, defensively and on the mound.
6. Charlie Bennett– I moved him way up. His ops+ was 142 for an eight year stretch, and his defensive reputation was sterling. He was one of the most durable players of his time as well. It’s hard to comp a guy from such a different era, but I’d say that he was somewhere between a poor man’s Pudge Rodriguez and a rich man’s Bill Freehan. It’s a shame that his Hall case has never gotten any legs.
7. Bobby Mathews– It seems like he’s been on the ballot forever, and it’s tough to compare him to the pitchers who came later.
8. Lip Pike- Early superstar, getting lost in the stampede of high end candidates.
9. Tony Mullane– Solidly between the Clarkson/Keefe level and the Welch/Galvin/Caruthers level; will “only” 284 wins keep him in line behind the comparatively weaker, but over 300 win guys? Film at 11.
10. George Gore
Honorable mention, in order for write in purposes:
Pete Browning– Was he the Manny Ramirez of the 19th century? I forgot about him, or he would rank somewhere in the lower part of the top ten. I’ll move him up next year; he ain’t winning this year anyway.
Hardy Richardson
Mickey Welch– A deeper look places him clearly below the other 300 game winners, and below Mullane as well.
Pud Galvin– Huge win total more of a statistical outlier than an indication of greatness.
Bob Caruthers- Somewhere between Spud Chandler and Bob Lemon; strong hitting helps his cause, but as a pitcher he was helped significantly by playing for dominant teams. Only 7 years as a regular pitcher, 123 era+ very good but nowhere near high enough to compensate for the other factors. To me he’s a middle of the pack D level candidate.
Results:
From 8 ballots:
83 Jim O’Rourke
79 John Clarkson
*****************
74 Tim Keefe
41 George Gore
39 Harry Stovey
31 Pud Galvin
25 John Ward
18 Ned Williamson
17 Pete Browning
14 Charley Bennett
13 Mickey Welch
12 Hardy Richardson
11 Tony Mullane
11 Tip O’Neill
10 Bobby Mathews
5 Lip Pike
2 Fred Carroll
2 Ezra Sutton
1 Bob Caruthers
Strangeland 