Well I'm talking about the T206 era and T206 players.

I'm really puzzled that people are against Sheckard. He was better at his position than Kling was at his. I honestly think Sheckard would be a far better choice than most players listed in here.

Sheckard is very underrated. For me he would go into the Hall Of Very Good, but he should at least be in the conversation regarding the Hall Of Fame. Sherry Magee, however, should be close to a no brainer for the HOF.

Tom C

I agree with all you say. Sheckard isn't an injustice if an omission, but I could live with his induction.

Magee? He stands the test of time. How is he not in yet? Why do we have to wait until 2020, at least?

How Magee and Bad Bill are not in when both are easily qualified is puzzling to me.

Edit: Look how long it took to induct George Davis, arguably a top five shortstop of all time! The voters don't always get it right.

Some others not mentioned that I completley forgot about:

Cy Seymour ??? .303 average, over 1,700 hits, and 61-56 pitching recrod
Ginger Beaumont ??? .311 average, over 1,700 hits, led the league in 1902 with .357 average
Jesse Tannehill ??? 197-111
Fred Tenney ??? 2231 hits, .294 lifetime average.

Magee I don't understand. He is the same as Wheat and Kelley. He should be in already.

Dahlen wasn't the defensive player that Wallace or Tinker were. Not being outstanding, just very good, both offensively and defensively doesn't necessarily mean you are a hofer. Davis was outstanding defensively. Why he didn't make it earlier makes no sense to me.

I'm busy at work, so I'll respond in depth later, but don't let the fielding percentage fool you. Dahlen was a great defender.

Sorry, I disagree. Wagner & Davis .940. Tinker and Wallace .938. Dahlen .927. I don't put too much weight on fielding percentage, but that is too big a gap. He was marginally better getting to balls based on assists, but why? Did his pitchers throw more ground balls? We just don't know. Over a 162 game average he fielded about 3 more balls than Davis, 11 more than Wallace and 30 more than Tinker. Those really aren't enough to make up for extra errors he made.

Jaws ranks Dahlen as the 10th best shortstop in history, behind only Wagner, A-Rod, Ripken, G. Davis, Yount, Vaughan, Banks, O. Smith and Appling.

He is ahead of:

Alan Trammell
Derek Jeter
Barry Larkin
Bobby Wallace
Lou Boudreau
Joe Cronin
Pee Wee Reese
Joe Sewell
Luis Aparicio
Joe Tinker
Dave Bancroft
Travis Jackson
Phil Rizzuto
Rabbit Maranville

Tom C

He hates WAR and Jaws. Even without them, you could still argue in favor of Dahlen's defense.

Here's the logical fallacy I find in your argument, and I'll spell it out for you.

Assists

Led his league in 1895, 1900, 1903

Second in 1904, 1908

Third in 1898, 1901, 1902

Fifth in 1896, 1905, 1906

8,138 fourth all time.

Defensive games at SS

Led in 1900, 1902, 1903

Third in 1895, 1906, 1907

Fourth in 1901, 1904, 1905, 1908

Fifth in 1898

2,133 total is good enough still for 12th all time.

Putouts at SS

Second in 1898

Third in 1900, 1903, 1908

Fourth in 1895, 1896, 1901, 1902

Fifth in 1904, 1905

Factor- 4,856 for second all time.

Assists as SS

Led in 1895, 1900, 1903, 1904

Second in 1902, 1908

Third in 1898

Fourth in 1895, 1905, 1906

Fifth in 1907

Total - 7,505 for fourth all time

Double plays turned as SS

Led in 1898, 1904, 1908

Second in 1895, 1903

Third in 1896, 1900, 1901

Fifth in 1905

Total - 881 for 55th All time. Higher than Tinker.

Range Factor/9 inning as shortstop

Led in 1893, 1894, 1898, 1908

Second in 1895, 1897, 1900, 1904

Third in 1901, 1903

Fifth in 1896, 1905

Range Factor/Game as SS

Led in 1893, 1894, 1897, 1908

Second in 1895, 1896, 1898, 1900, 1904

Third in 1901

Fourth in 1903

Fifth in 1905

Total - 5.80, sixth all time, Tinker is 19th.

Tinker did lead his league in fielding percentage as a shortstop four times, Dahlen only once, but also finished second six more times.

To be fair, Dahlen did commit more errors, but he played more than a decade before Tinker debuted and is still top 100 in games played, plus much of those errors were before the turn of the century and he made fewer later on in his career.

John McGraw called trading for Dahlen the best he ever made.

Dahlen not only should be in the HOF, he was a much better defender than you give him credit for.

Seymour was a better version of Schulte.

Beaumont had a good career, but unlike Cravath, not enough for a short one.

Tannehill is lower on the pole for pitchers.

Tenney is someone I'm surprised Frankie Frisch didn't pick.

We can beat this thread in the dirt (And I think we have). How about a poll with everyone getting only one player to vote on? I'll start the ball rolling with Ed Reulbach....

I've been thinking about a poll and was going to bring up the idea earlier but you beat me to it!

I'll edit post #1 and start the list. Right now I'm undecided if we're going to vote just 1 player in.

Anyone think we would get at least 2 votes ??

I would not vote for Ed Reulbach.

Leon, please end this thread....

So who would you vote for dumb ass???

I thought I was going to get an actual argument instead of just listing that in 21 seasons, he led the league in a few categories. I hope you realize that many of those years he was in an 8 team league, so 4th or 5th is average and all the others seasons you didn't list, he was also below average.

Range factor? Lol. That is real accurate. I would be curious how they come up that with basically no data. I will add this stat. Where as Dahlen averaged about 30 more assists per season than Tinker, his pitchers averaged over 100 less strike outs per season. Do you think all those balls that never made it in play are the reason why Dahlen had more chances? I doubt that Dahlen had better range than Davis, Tinker or Wallace, he just made a lot more errors.

Many of those years he was also at the top playing one of the hardest positions on the field.

Also, I don't think they just made up range factor out of nowhere either.

Almost everything I see suggests how great of a defender Dahlen was, and I would take his bat over two of those three shortstops, with Davis the exception.

fielding % is a worthless and terrible stat because it tells us nothing about range. a statue who could not move but made perfect plays on balls hit right to it would have a 1.000 fielding % but would be far worse at preventing hits than a player with great range who made 20 errors a year.

if the statue field 100 balls perfectly he makes 100 outs with 0 errors

player B with the great range might make 200 outs and 20 errors, obviously you prefer the latter


for example: since 2012 JJ Hardy leads among SS on fielding % with .987 and Andrelton Simmons is 4th with a .982 , HOWEVER, in defensive runs saved Hardy is 3rd with 58 a massive 68 behind Simmons. In UZR/150 games Simmons leads with 21.7 to Hardy's 11.9 so, if you just used fielding % you would be wayyyyy off on who the best SS glove in baseball is. Simmons is over twice as good at creating outs than Hardy, yet .005 worse in fielding % (because fielding % tells us nothing about the range if a player ,their arm, nor their ability to generate outs, it just tells us how good they did when they got to the ball)

Dahlen's 73+ WAR is good enough on it's own. When you dig deeper you see he's easily one of the best at his position all time. I still have no idea why he isn't in.

Magee's 63.4 WAR is right on the cusp of what I think should be required by an OF'er for the HOF. and is 40th all time for OF'ers. BUT, I have a hard time voting for a guy with a sub .800 OPS and a wRC+ of 134 (which ties him for 64th all time among OF'ers) But I can see the argument for his induction.

once again captain crass has nothing of merit to add and stomps his feet, turns red and throws a tantrum. yer like 80 right? maybe you should act like it.

I think it's funny when folks use old antiquated stats that are worthless, then when corrected with modern, more accurate stats they resort to name calling and hand wave away the data. It's like arguing evolution with a religious fanatic....

New stats are better, more accurate and based on things that are important instead of the poorly thought out stats of yesteryear. You either adapt, evolve or stay in the past. This is the way of things.

your argument about K's is poorly thought out as the player still has to field those balls and if Dahlen made outs on 30 of 100 more balls in play then he was an amazing fielder indeed!

What new stats do we have from 1891-1911? We don't have enough data to accurately calculate advanced stats from those years. He just pointed out the years that he led or was near the top of the league in traditional stats and I pointed out that he wasn't among league leaders even more times.

I don't think that you even understand my argument. You are ignoring that he also made 16 more errors to get those 30 outs. That is not very good.

How about his OPS+ of 137?

we have more data than you might think. Dahlen is 5th all time in SS fWAR, he is 7th all time in fangraph's DEF stat at SS (which is cumulative and is Def = Fielding Runs Above Average + positional adjustment) he is pretty obviously one of the greatest SS's of all time.

Pie Traynor played 13 full seasons. During those seasons he led the league in put outs 7 times, 2nd 3, 3rd 1. In assists 3 times, 2nd 4 times, 3rd 2 times. In DP 4 times, 2nd 2 times and 3rd 1 time. He was considered the greatest defensive 3rd baseman of the preWW2 era by those who saw him play. He had tremendous range often cutting in front of his shortstop to make plays. His defense was so highly regarded that he was voted the greatest 3rd baseman of all time in 1969 for the 100th anniversary of pro baseball. All of his great defense is only worth 2 WAR. Obviously the data we have is seriously lacking and can't be relied upon to properly judge a player's defensive ability.

Yet I pointed out to you how many times Dahlen led things in different defensive categories or the many times he was near the top and you want to invalidate his defensive WAR.

or perhaps the data confirms what we already know: the eye test is seriously damaged by confirmation bias.

If the same standard is applied equally to all players, even if the methodology is not perfect (and with defense it probably never will be perfect) at least the ratio of performance relative to each other is accurate enough for comparison. And will always be a better gauge than the confirmation bias ridden eye test.

Pie Traynor grades out as the 209th best fielding 3b of all time. Now, that may not be perfectly accurate, but the data isn't so awful that it is somehow screwing Traynor out of 200 spots. You can either hand wave away the data, or you have to come to the more logical conclusion; the people using inferior statistics and the eye test were wrong.


P.S. you must remember too that defense is weighted by difficulty of position SS, CF, 2b, C get the most extra weighting, DH the biggest subtraction. a really excellent 3b will generally be an avg SS whereas an avg SS would generally be an elite 3b (but it would be a waste to put them there)

To expand on my above post.


New metrics are not biased against old players. FWAR tells us Babe was the best player of all time in terms of overall production. It says he and Ted are back to back as hitters. It tells us Ozzie Smith gathered the most value at SS on defense. It shows us that the 4 pitchers to provide the most production over the course of their careers are Clemens, Cy Young, Walter Johnson and Greg Maddux.

Here is the Fangraphs DEF leaders ALL TIME at each position (excluding P ) :

C- Pudge Rodriguez

1b- Hughie Jennings

2b-Frankie Frisch

SS- Ozzie Smith

3b- Brooks Robbinson

LF-Willie Wilson

CF- Andruw Jones

RF-Jesse Barfield


now you might quibble with this list a little bit, but there's no player listed that wasn't considered the best of their era with the glove at their position. (and the spread of eras seems to show that the bias isn't as bad as one might think)

That list is way off base if you ask me. Hughie Jennings only played 331 games at first base. How can he be the best fielding first baseman of all time?

Bill Dahlen Top 10 Similarlity Scores

#1 George Davis - HOF
#2 Bid McPhee - HOF
#3 Herman Long
#4 Bobby Wallace - HOF
#5 Omar Vizquel
#6 Luke Appling - HOF
#7 Luis Aparicio - HOF
#8 Dave Concepcion
#9 Ozzie Smith - HOF
#10 Frankie Frisch - HOF

Translation - Someone is greatly missing from his rightful spot in Cooperstown.

you logical fallacy is : CHERRY PICKING


probably because he was good enough to play SS and 2b too (which very few 1b in the history of baseball could do)

but if you want me to limit it to guys with 1000 games or more at 1b, you get Cap Anson #1 for first baseman on defense.

the only other player in the top 5 at their position all time (with no PED attachment) who isn't in the HOF is probably Joe Torre (and admittedly, he played a lot of his career outside of C so that might not even apply)

Let's see, using fWAR:
C- Bench , Carter, Rodriguez, Fisk,Berra (I was wrong, Torre is 7th)

1b-Musial, Gehrig, Foxx, Anson, Pujols (Pujols still active, but will be in)

SS- Wagner, A-Rod, Ripken,Davis , Dahlen (arod and dahlen not in)

2b- Hornsby, Collins, Lajoie,Morgan, Gehringer (all in)

3b- Schmidt, Matthews, Boggs, Brett, Chipper (Chipper eligible in 2018)

RF- Ruth, Aaron, Ott, F. Robinson, Kaline (all in)

CF- Mays, Cobb, Speaker, Mantle, Dimaggio (nuff said)

LF- Bonds, Williams, Henderson,Yaz,Ed Delehanty (all in but Bonds cuz roids)


so yeah, the only non PED impacted player in the top 5 at their position who hasn't gone in is Dahlen.

Unlike basketball, you can't be inducted twice. Torre has a worthy case as a player alone, but he's in. That's all that matters.

Or the model, which is biased, is completely wrong. You have done nothing but hand wave. There is nothing logical about any of your posts. You just want to hand wave away what people have seen. However, current defensive metrics are partially based on...the eye test. We now observe where balls are hit or for older players try to recreate that data, which is not available for Dahlen.

If you have a player who has poor range but gets a lot of balls hit right to him, he is not as good of a player who has to use his range to get to the same number of balls. Or another way to put it, Derek Jeter has led the league in assists and put outs, but we have enough observable data to know that he is not a good defensive player. I will trust those that saw Dahlen play that say he wasn't a HOFer and not a top defensive SS. I trust the people who saw Pie Traynor play and consider him the greatest 3B up to 1969. If you want argue otherwise, present new facts or data. If you are going to be lazy and just cite WAR, there is no further need for discussion.

I wasn't cherry picking your list. Was no one else surprised to see Hughie Jennings' name at first base? A guy not known for playing first base? Numbers aren't always the whole story. He played the equivalent of just over 2 seasons at the position but he is rated as the best ever. I don't think so.

You trust those who saw Dahlen play that didnt think of him as a Hall of Famer. Yet they didn't see Sherry Magee as one either. You support Magee, I support both, but how is your logic applicable to Dahlen but apparently not applicable to Magee?

I already posted my reasoning. I am fine with neither being in and saying Kelley and Wheat or Tinker and Wallace don't belong. I think we can agree that there are players in the HOF that don't belong. So, player A being in doesn't necessarily mean player B should.

I personally despise arguments like this because everyone ALWAYS overlooks the great Negro Leaguers of the past . It's like they get shafted twice: once when they were alive and again when they're dead.... :(

That's true, but I've argued ad nauseam for these players and everything I've seen suggests they're amongst the best ever at their respected position.

ummm...no

this kind of argument against science is why we have anti-vaxxers, acupuncture and all sorts of other nonsense out there parading around like it has evidence behind it. an opinion has zero weight next to factual data. zero... nothing confirmation bias removes the eye test from any sort of meritorious consideration.

So you are claiming that science doesn't use observation? Lol.

Dancing Santas?
 

:p.

science uses observation, but not opinion. there is no artistic merit in analyzing data.

science- player A has accumulated 128 defensive runs over his career


eye test- player A was below/above avg in the 15 games I saw him in

Nick- Please go away, this is ridiculous......

no, you go away. you haven't given any meaningful data to back up anything you have said. I have. you don't like losing. sorry, work harder.

If you don't like this thread, why go in it?

apparently he just wants to yell at clouds...

anyway, I'm with ya on Dahlen and I'm opting out of the thread as I don't see much more to be gained in it.

There is a God!!!!!!!