Let's talk about Ed Williamson...
 

I decided to get a free trial of Stathead (https://stathead.com/), which is just a more in depth analysis built on top of Baseball Reference. Pretty cool for nerds like me, but probably not for most people. Also, this is not a paid advertisement of any kind, just something interesting I found.

I wanted to see how some more modern analytics would rank my favorite era of Base Ball and what I found was somewhat surprising.

Ed Williamson (my favorite 19th Century player) was regarded by his peers as the best player they had ever seen (this is a direct quote from Paul Hines, Cap Anson, and a committee in 1894 that included James Hart, James O'Rourke and Arthur Irwin). To say that this was widely believed among his contemporaries is not a reach.

Williamson's stats at first glance don't back this up. They are good, yes, but the greatest? There are a couple of things you have to take into account, all facets of the game in the 19th Century were important, but absolutely none were as important as fielding prowess. Ok...This is starting to make a bit more sense. Williamson was an incredible fielder, arguably the best of his era.

So I started looking at more advanced metrics, offense and defense, without even thinking about Williamson and a picture began to emerge. I wanted to see how players from 1871-1899 stacked up and what I found was a bit surprising.

NOTE: For Runs Created and Runs Produced, I divided by PA to get their "Efficiency", basically turning RC and RP from a counting stat into a "how effective were they really during each Plate Appearance". Also, I narrowed it down to players with 2500 or more PA's. The rest of the stats are as is since they already made sense and speak for themselves.

The categories in the screenshots are all from 1871-1899 and they are as follows (2 defensive, and 2 offensive metrics):

Efficiency (via Runs Created, RC/PA)
Runs Produced w/Efficiency (in order to make it into a non-counting stat and more of a "potency per PA" stat) (RP = R + RBI — HR)/PA
dWAR (info: https://www.baseball-reference.com/a...position.shtml)
Fielding Runs (info: https://www.baseball-reference.com/a...position.shtml)

These are all top 30 lists and Ed ends up 77th and 94th, respectively, on both offensive lists in case you were wondering. I hope you all find this interesting!

Jeremy

Those numbers look really good for Germany Smith. I put together his pose-run years ago, not realizing I'd be sitting on a gold mine one day. He has a lot of cards out there compared to many players. I guess people saved his cards because he was top of the tops.

Yep, defensively, Germany Smith was #1 by a long shot. Nice job on the pose-run!

Thanks. It was my first try on one, and I completed it in one year. Gillespie took like 8 years. Esterbrook has been going for over a decade, and is a little over half-way finished.

On Williamson, I think I have a card or 2 of his, I'll look and see. Was he also called Ned? Fun list you put together there.

Here are a couple.

Very nice Williamson's!

Here is mine:

Yes, he was also referred to as "Ned", but only by the media when Ruth was chasing his record in 1919 and ever since and no one really knows why. He was always Ed while he was living.

Ned is just one of many nicknames for Edward. One listing I found just stated it was a sporty version of Ed, not that I would put much stock into that description of it.

I have one of these. This one isn't mine; mine is in the safe deposit box right now. But it's one of the best n172 cards, IMO. Sad how he passed on way too young.

Great card James!

Ed did pass on much too young, but he had a very full life and was an incredibly interesting person.

Here is the YouTube bio I did on him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD78vNkcpA8

That is a great bio of Ed Williamson, sir. Well done!

Thank you! It was probably my favorite of the few that I did.

Great stuff! Since no one's shared this pose yet- this is my one and only Williamson card, acquired from a member a couple of years ago:

That's a beauty! OJ's are a slippery slope, you can't have just 1.