Exactly; as I noted, baseball researchers generally believe that what we have, as far as Negro League game stats / box scores, is fragmentary, and thus, what has survived likely understates the “counting stats” (games played, hits, HRs, etc.) for those players.
Not counting Negro League players or managers, I think the position player champ is Ross Youngs, who only played in 1211 games. That isn’t even in the top thousand all time.
The Negro Leagues didn’t work the way the majors do; they deliberately didn’t play regular seasons that were as long, because they spent a lot of effort in the summer on barnstorming and exhibition play, which could be extremely lucrative. The stats we have are reasonably accurate for championship play, but of course don’t include exhibition play because why would it?
I haven’t followed baseball like I did as a child but as I’m looking at that list I see all of them as really good players but none as that great HOF player that I just had to see play.
Yes, his first year is next year. He will be elected on the first ballot, of course.
Joss, in addition, didn’t have injuries or just wandered away from baseball for a morel ucrative career like many early players. He died from TB meningitis, after collapsing on the mound during an exhibition game. The Cleveland Naps refused to play on the day of his funeral, which almost lead to a major early scandal when Commissioner Ban Johnson initially refused to allow the game to be made up.
A benefit game was played for his wife and family between the Naps and the AL All-Stars, and featured Nap LaJoie, Cy Young ,Shoeless Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker and Bobby Wallace. Essentially all of the greatest American League players of the pre-Babe Ruth game. The photo taken of the players for that game is of interest because of an early pre-photoshop photography trick, where a Cleveland player standing on the left of the picture ran around the back of the players and stood at the far right by the time the camera had panned over to him.
It’s also of interest because it has Ty Cobb in a Cleveland uniform (he had to borrow one) and Tris Speaker not in one (he began his career with the Boston Americans, later the Red Sox, and had yet to be traded to the Naps/Indians.)
Not even A-Rod? Manny Ramirez? Those guys are certainly HoF worthy players, if you can look past the PEDs thing.
Of the non-PED palyers, I also think Beltre goes in the category of “Wow, I’m excited this guy is playing” when I used to go to more ballgames than I get to these days.
I like the Abreu Scale, but I disagree a bit on Beltran not being a superstar. Maybe it’s the KC Homer in me - but even after he was traded from the Royals, he seemed like one of the biggest players in the game. Kauffman stole at least 2 30/30 seasons from him, and he put up really impressive WAR numbers. As I look now, it does seem his stellar defense took a massive nosedive in his later years. He was fun as hell to watch.
I loved Sheff as well. He seemed like an old school hitter that pitchers really feared, like Dave Parker. Gibson would have loved running one in under his ribs.
And like 99% of the rest of what you posted, I strongly agree. I guess Wagner’s a HOF, if you really feel you want to granulate things down to a “but we need to have a spot for a really good left handed closer!” level. I guess he’s better than Harold Baines, right?
I guess?
One of the things I dislike about people using WAR as their only go to stat is that it undervalues peak, the ability of a player to dominate. According to WAR, Mark Buerhle is a greater pitcher than Sandy Koufax. That is, uhhh… not an entirely complete picture. Even if you gave Koufax ZERO credit for retiring at 30, the fact is that for four or five years he was one of the two greatest players in baseball. (Willie Mays being the other.) That has to count for something, doesn’t it?
To my eternal frustration, baseballreference doesn’t let me (in any way I can figure out) find and sort players based on wins above AVERAGE. That often gives you a much better picture of a player’s dominance, if you will. By WAR, Harold Baines is greater than Billy Wagner:
Baines - 38.8
Wagner - 27.7
But by WAA, Wagner is way, way better.
Wagner - 16.5
Baines - 1.8
Koufax is 48.9 and 30.6, by the way. Out of curiosity, I looked up a bunch of other inner circle Hall of Famers, and with remarkable consistency, their WAA was around 60-70 percent of their WAR. I looked up Mantle, Mays, Gehrig, Schmidt, Seaver, Wagner, and Pedro, all like that. Anyone I thought of as “inner circle amazing” was like that. Guys who you think of as more being longevity guys instead of peak greatness guys, like Nolan Ryan or Derek Jeter, are indeed lower.
Maybe you could do a greatness score, defined as WAA/WAR. But I don’t know how to do it without manually looking people up individually.
This makes sense to me. Wagner didn’t play much, but he was terrific when he did. I wouldn’t vote for him, though. It’s just too little for me.
It can be pretty subjective, so I googled the qualifications necessary for the Hall with the hope it could at least loosely define the attributes necessary. I found this:
Eligible Candidates — Candidates to be eligible must meet the following requirements: A baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty (20) years before and ending five (5) years prior to election.
That’s no help at all! LoL I would definitely choose Buerhle and Colon because they were great pitchers. The others don’t particularly move me … … … I don’t feel that doing things consistently well for an extended period of time is enough. Anyone connected to steroids or any other form of cheating are out in my book. Home runs don’t really impress me because everyone hits them. For me, at least, you have to be a truly special player to make the Hall of Fame like Roberto Clemente, Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Warren Spahn, Sandy Cofax, etc, etc.
This is just the candidacy window for selection in the primary vote. They deliberately don’t set any sort of minimum quality standard; that’s up to the voters. (I also believe that reference is a bit out of date; they tightened the window to a ten year period, not 15.)
And of course, statistical standards have changed. You can’t judge a pitcher today based on the standards of the 1910s, to use an obvious example. If you set any sort of arbitrary performance standard it would quickly become apparent that the standard wasn’t a good one.
That’s why I like using a Keltner List approach; it helps frame the case for a player in a way that avoids arbitrary lines.
I had to google it but, from what I read, it sounds good.
I think “doing things consistently well [but never really being amazing]” is kind of the defining characteristic of both Colon and Buehrle.
I tweeted Adam Darowski, the head of product development at b-ref. He said that this is available at Stathead. I don’t really grok the difference between b-ref and Stathead, but here ya go:
Well, you may have point because I am definitely biased when it comes to Buehrle. I consider him one of the greatest lefties of all time. He played for a relatively weak team and may have won 20 games every year for a strong club.
Bill James wrote about this once, discussing the peak value of a player as opposed their career value, and contrasted Sandy Koufax with Warren Spahn. Who was a better left handed pitcher? Koufax is widely considered the greatest left handed pitcher, based on his peak value. Spahn finished his career 363-245, though, which is about the same as Koufax and Drysdale put together. (He also lost 3 years to WWII and didn’t win a major league game until he was 25).
Sometimes when people discuss the greatest player or argue HOF numbers, sometimes they are discussing peak value and sometimes career value.
That’s the problem with the Hall of Fame–it’s a self-defining institution. You’re a Hall of Famer if you’re in the Hall of Fame. There are no standards, other than being named on a percentage of ballots.
Thank you, this is great.
I mean, the top guys are… exactly the guys you would expect. It seems to me this issue of WAA (conceptually; I’m not saying the stat is perfectly calculated) is really important in this discussion, though obviously the top of this list is all guys we all agree on, no one is saying Hank Aaron is a fringe candidate. As you work down the list though you hit some interesting names.
Larry Doby is 82nd here. Doby’s selection to the Hall was at least significantly helped by his being a pioneer in integration, but I don’t think even I thought he’d be in the top 100 all time in WAA. It’s a very impressive thing - there are over 250 players in the Hall of Fame, after all, so being top 100 by any aggregate rating system is a hell of a thing. (This includes his Negro League stats, but that’s only 141 games so it doesn’t change things much; without them he’d still be around 125th, which is still tremendous, and anyway I think those years have to count.)
Here’s something; Aaron Judge is already on this list. He’s 131st. Of the top 200 shown here, only Josh Gibson got on the list with fewer games played. Judge is basically two good years and a few years just to qualify to be a Hall of Famer.
Do you have a subscription? I scanned through the list, and it cut off after 200 or so, and I didn’t see any pitchers on the list. Maybe the criteria Darowski sent me didn’t include them in the query.
Clearly, pitchers are not included.
I had a subscription once but I let it lapse.
One of these things is not like the others.
I believe that Stathead is the paid-subscription “premium” version of BBRef (and Sports Reference’s other sports sites).