Some positions like left field can get thin pretty quickly.
True dat.
Of course it is. I don’t want to leave Cobb out of a round that also includes Trevor Hoffman, especially in a system that is somehow creating tiers of excellence. Cobb is Inner Circle, and his flexibility is an asset - not a back door. All HOF voting has always involved politics and systems-gaming - this one would garner even more of it since the system is a black box mystery as to what the next steps are.
I would never game the system, but trust me, it won’t end up mattering.
I tried to do this on the SDMB a long time ago, by the way. It petered out for a lack of enough people voting so hopefully this works, but while my approach was a little different - I don’t fully understand yours yet, and do wonder how Trevor Hoffman can get this many votes this early - it was the same basic idea of STARTING FROM THE TOP. The benefit of this approach is
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You will clear the decks of all the real Hall of Famers. Joe DiMaggio might not make it in the first round or two, but he’ll make it, and
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There won’t be any Harold Baines / Jesse Haines / Chick Hafey choices. The odds of that are absolutely zero unless you ask people to elect a ridiculous number of players. The marginal calls will be for players on the level of Lou Whitaker, Don Drysdale, and Arky Vaughan, not clearly substandard players like George Kelly and George Kell.
It’s a fool’s errand I’m on, and I’m a fool to think a small group of the SDMB could elect an ideal HoF, or even a better one than currently exists,
But a group of genuine baseball scholars/historians/experts could, I think, do so following the general principles I’m proposing here, and I’m trying to demonstrate how such a system would work.
You’d need people more knowledgeable and more dispassionate than we are (and I think we’re pretty knowledgeable and pretty dispassionate) to draw accurately and fairly on all eras, all leagues, all forms of MLB, bearing in mind the perils of recency bias and the peril of overvaluing Old Tyme baseball whose stats and players can’t simply be compared to those of the modern game.
But so far we’re doing a pretty good job of evaluating the superstars of the game.
I think the big things to consider for Old Tyme players is more how they compare to the players of their time than comparing them players from the 70s or 2010s.
Ruth is the most extreme example, what he did as a slugger & a hitter from 1919 to 1927 was almost insane, In 1920 Babe Ruth hit more Home runs (54) than any other AL teams and all but one NL team. He didn’t break the home run records, he completely shattered them in every way possible. But he did this with a high batting average and leading the league most seasons in OBP.
Walter Johnson is another easy one. Beyond his wins, winning pct, Shut outs and Strike Outs, there was a stat that was used in the 70s and has since disappeared that really told his story. While he had a .599 Win Pct his teams were sub .500.
I would suggest that if you keep using positions that a non vote count. If the nobody votes outnumber any players then nobody from that category gets in.
Well, it’s been a few days and still not enough responses to the third question so far to move on to our fourth one, but while we’re waiting, I found it interesting the Joe Posnanski put out a newsletter (I don’t subscribe, but I got the teaser) entitled “Who are the Core Hall of Famers,” addressing some of the same questions we’re trying to answer here. An excerpt:
I met someone yesterday who kind of gave me a great answer to this core Hall of Famer question without even trying. It was the father of Steve Iwanski, owner of Charter Books and one heck of a guy. Steve told me that he and his father play this great game. See, Dad has the world’s smallest Hall of Fame. Every time Steve would ask about a player, no matter how great, Dad would say, “No, not in my Hall of Fame,” and give a reason.
Like, Steve would say: “Sandy Koufax?”
And Dad would say: “No! Too short a career.”
Steve would say, “Mariano Rivera?”
And Dad would say: “No! He was a reliever.”
Steve would say, “Cal Ripken?”
And Dad would say: “No! Not with that batting average.”
Steve would say: “Brooks Robinson?”
And Dad would say: “No! Not a good enough hitter.”
Etc. What a fun game. I love this so much, of course — it reminds of my Willie Mays Hall of Fame — but I also think there’s something to this. There has been no perfect player, obviously. You really can knock anybody if you want. Ruth corked his bat. Mays took amphetamines. Williams couldn’t field. Griffey was done as a great at 30. And so on.
So what is a core Hall of Famer? …
What are we missing for Round 3? Enough responses? Or enough positions filled?
As for the anecdote, I’m fine with anyone having their own criteria, but unless Mr. Iwanski was a pretty great, if unknown, MLBer it seems to me his viewpoint is a tad unreasonable. Also, what would a “Core HoF” exist of? The 10 greatest players of all time? That may be a fun personal list to discuss with friends, but not much a reason to make the trip to Cooperstown.
Well, we’ve got 10 voters to date, which is a falling off from the 13 or more we had for the first two rounds. I was hoping we could at least maintain the numbers for a while. I don’t want to pose my fourth question until all the votes are in because we need to know who’s already in before we vote on the next group.
Ooh, sorry, I missed this round. Answering without reading the other votes, to avoid the temptation to try to game the system.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
C— Yogi Berra
1B— Jimmie Foxx
2B— Rod Carew
SS— Alex Rodriguez – Especially now that we’ve put Bonds in. Rodriguez was the best player in the universe for half a decade plus.
3B— George Brett – This is a difficult choice. I think Brett was probably a bit better than Boggs, but I wouldn’t go to war over it.
LF— Carl Yastrzemski – Boy, this position dries up fast, doesn’t it?
CF— Ty Cobb – Cobb hit .366 for his career, with a slugging percentage about .500. Even pre-integration, that’s a Hall of Famer.
RF— Frank Robinson – Probably better fit in the NL, but Clemente is going there.
RHP— Roger Clemens – As I said earlier, I think Clemens is the best who ever did it. Pedro had a higher peak, I guess, but Clemens just kept being incredible (and an incredible butthead, but so it goes) for year after year after year after
LHP— Whitey Ford – His numbers pitching against everyone are more impressive, to me, than Grove’s were pitching pre-integration.
RP - Mariano Rivera – For me the only relief pitcher who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame at all.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
C— Mike Piazza – The best hitter who ever played the position, and his defense wasn’t nearly as bad as his detractors made it sound; he had a mediocre arm but he did everything else pretty well.
1B— Albert Pujols – Man could this guy hit.
2B— Rogers Hornsby – His stats look like a typo.
SS— Ozzie Smith – I really don’t know exactly how valuable Ozzie’s defense was. He was an average-to-below-average hitter. But I think he’s the single best defensive player in baseball history, so I’m voting for him here. Ernie Banks deserves to be in, too.
3B— Chipper Jones – To be clear, I hate this guy. He killed my team for fifteen years, and he was a jerk about it the whole time. But his numbers were better than his closest competition (Matthews) across the board.
LF— Tim Raines – Under-rated player. I’d take him (barely) over Stargell or Rose.
CF— Ken Griffey Jr. – Is this cheating? He played in the NL half his career, right?
RF— Roberto Clemente – Yup.
RHP— Tom Seaver – Tough call between Seaver and Gibson. Gibson literally changed the game! I dunno, I guess I’m making a bit of a homer pick here.
LHP— Sandy Koufax – On account of him being Sandy Koufax.
RP– Rollie Fingers – I don’t really think anyone other than Rivera belongs whose career was entirely out of the bullpen (I’d vote for Smoltz and possibly Eckersley, but both of them were effective starters, too). Fingers, though, had similar numbers to Hoffman and pitched 500 more career innings. Plus he had HoF facial hair.
Fingers also has a hell of a postseason resume.
This round is concluded, with 11 people voting, and the results are:
Rivera 11
Foxx, Berra 10
Pujols 9
F Robinson, Yaz, Brett, E Collins 8
Snider, Morgan, Mathews, Grove 7
Hoffman, W Johnson, DiMaggio 6
Ott, Clemente, Raines, Banks, Campanella, Griffey, ARodriguez, Cobb 5
Strictly by majority, we should cut this off at those who got 6 or more nominations, but I think (barring objection) the cut-off should be 5 votes, giving us 23 players in this third round, if only to get Ty Cobb in the Hall where people (not me) have objected he belongs long ago.
I’d like to have Cobb in there, because the next round is the one where, rather than vote in additional players, we move to adjust the hierarchy as chosen so far. This will give folks the chance to move Cobb higher, if they want to and if enough of us agree, or any other player whom we’ve overrated or underrated. You might object, for example, that Rivera ranks in 12th place only because “reliever” wasn’t an option until the third round of voting, or maybe you’d move to move him down a few slots because he doesn’t really have much competition for the #1 slot among relievers, giving him the advantage that Cobb, for example, is denied because there are so many stellar competing centerfielders.
There are 34 players chosen to date:
1 Ruth
2 Mays
3 Bonds
4 Williams
5 Gehrig – Aaron
7 Schmidt
8 Bench – H. Wagner
10 R. Johnson
11 J. Robinson
12 Rivera
13 Foxx -Berra
15 Pujols
16 F Robinson - Yaz - Brett- E.Collins
20 Snider- Morgan – Mathews - Grove
24 Hoffman - W Johnson - DiMaggio
27 Ott- Clemente- Raines – Banks - Campanella - Griffey - -ARodriguez - Cobb
You could also make the case for any other player to be included on the pantheon of (so far) 34 players, who you feel to have been overlooked. The procedure is simple: make your case for where you think the player should have been placed (“Cobb at #12” for example) and we will vote on your case, straight up or down by majority vote (among those voting—if only three people vote on “Cobb at # 12” and two of them, including you, vote “Yes,” ten Cobb moves up to #12, and every player below #12 moves down a slot.)
When we’ve finished, we will vote to resolve the tied votes.
I’m not sure how this works exactly. For instance, I think Cobb, Dimaggio and ARod should be ranked higher than Berra. How would you format that in a response?
One at a time.
Which is the most egregious to your mind? Once you’ve got that one selected, choose where you think he belongs. Then we’ll vote. Agree, vote yes, Disagree, vote no. Not sure, don’t vote.
Ok, I’ll start and say Cobb should be #10.
I’m having trouble with Yaz coming in higher than DiMaggio. Joe hit a full 40 points higher in career BA and would have easily surpassed Yaz in RBI and HRs except that he played 10 fewer seasons.
Yaz had 4 or 5 outstanding years but mainly is in the HoF due to longevity.
*Disclaimer: I have never forgiven him for popping out to end the 1978 Bucky Dent playoff game
You don’t need to, of course, but I’d be interested in hearing your reasoning for placing Cobb at #10.
Some of my reservations about Cobb include questioning the high B.A. era in which he played, the absence of black competition, the amount of his value contained in batting average, aside from my doubts about his character. In saying that he ranks as the 10th best player in MLB history, and as the second-best CFer, behind only Mays, which is a bit much for me.
I just noticed that I omitted a three-way tie, Musial-Mantle-Henderson, so I’ll give the revised ranking of 37, not 34, players below:
1 Ruth
2 Mays
3 Bonds
4 Williams
5 Gehrig – Aaron
7 Schmidt
8 Bench – H. Wagner
10 R. Johnson
11 Musial- Mantle -Henderson
14 J. Robinson
15 Rivera
16 Foxx -Berra
18 Pujols
19 F Robinson - Yaz - Brett- E.Collins
23 Snider- Morgan – Mathews - Grove
27 Hoffman - W Johnson - DiMaggio
30 Ott- Clemente- Raines – Banks - Campanella - Griffey - -ARodriguez - Cobb
Yeah, I agree that Yaz is ranked too high. I’ll reserve my vote until we hear from a few more people, but I’m inclined to agree. Where would you put him?
I can’t believe I didn’t notice the absence of those three. My original thinking with the first list is that Cobb was a better player than Randy Johnson. I’m talking overall value and position player vs. pitcher. I wouldn’t put Cobb above the missing 3, but I wouldn’t put Johnson above them either. So scratch my Cobb vote (for now) and move Musial to 9.