2016 Pre-Integration Era HOF Candidates

[GaryPassamonte]

I don't have a problem with any of the 19th century candidates. I think the 20th century candidates leave something to be desired.
Also, having one of the 3 categories considered for HOF inclusion span from the beginnings of baseball all the way to 1947 is not fair to the possible candidates. Two categories would be much more equitable. Maybe a category pre WWI and one post WWI to 1947 would be better.

[FirstYearCards]

HOF too watered down as it is. Pick a number (100, 200, 250 etc.) and cap it. Someone gets voted in, someone gets booted.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It just gets sillier and sillier. Marty Marion hit .263 with around 1400 hits. Wes Ferrell won 193 games with a 4.04 ERA. Even adjusted for the times, he is not remotely a HOF pitcher. Here are the pitchers most comparable to Wes, according to Baseball Reference.

1.Jack Stivetts (936)
2.Sadie McMahon (915)
3.Tommy Bridges (906)
4.General Crowder (904)
5.Jouett Meekin (903)
6.Brickyard Kennedy (900)
7.Guy Bush (896)
8.Lon Warneke (894)
9.Rick Sutcliffe (891)
10.Dave Stewart (891)

[travrosty]

everybody should be in the hof.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by travrosty

everybody should be in the hof.

Hahaha. Maybe they should open the Hall of Participation.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by conor912

Hahaha. Maybe they should open the Hall of Participation.

Ringo Starr could be the honorary chairman.

Von der Ahe, Herrman and Stovey have merit. The other players are part of the Hall of Very Good.

[darwinbulldog]

Marty Marion is a joke. Ferrell might not be a HOF pitcher, but he's a reasonable candidate as a HOF player. How many other pitchers put up better numbers at the plate than they allowed from the mound? I can think of one. Factor in the batting numbers, and he was more valuable than at least a couple dozen of the already-inducted pitchers.

Wins Above Replacement? I'm glad you asked.

Sandy Koufax:
Career -- 49.0
7-year peak -- 45.2

Wes Ferrell:
Career -- 61.6
7-year peak -- 53.2

P.S. I agree that Parisian Bob is conspicuous in his absence.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It just gets sillier and sillier. Marty Marion hit .263 with around 1400 hits. Wes Ferrell won 193 games with a 4.04 ERA. Even adjusted for the times, he is not remotely a HOF pitcher. Here are the pitchers most comparable to Wes, according to Baseball Reference.

1.Jack Stivetts (936)
2.Sadie McMahon (915)
3.Tommy Bridges (906)
4.General Crowder (904)
5.Jouett Meekin (903)
6.Brickyard Kennedy (900)
7.Guy Bush (896)
8.Lon Warneke (894)
9.Rick Sutcliffe (891)
10.Dave Stewart (891)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Nuff sed about Wes Ferrell, IMO.

Vote Percentage Received for the Hall of Fame:

1948: 0.8

1949: 0.9

1956: 3.6

1958: 3.4

1960: 3.0

1962: 0.6

I'll put my faith in 71 years of history since he retired. The notion that somehow someone deserving was overlooked for 71 years does not resonate.

[Rich Klein]

I was shocked when I saw Frank McCormick on the list of 10;

Not listed as Sherry Magie is a much better choice

Rich

[darwinbulldog]

Or you could look at, you know, his statistics.

History in this case is just a euphemism for the mistakes of less informed voters. Anyway, sorry about your cognitive dissonance, but if you're ever falsely convicted and sentenced to life in prison I would hope the exonerating evidence that comes to light 25 years later isn't dismissed by people who put their faith in history.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Nuff sed about Wes Ferrell, IMO.

Vote Percentage Received for the Hall of Fame:

1948: 0.8

1949: 0.9

1956: 3.6

1958: 3.4

1960: 3.0

1962: 0.6

I'll put my faith in 71 years of history since he retired. The notion that somehow someone deserving was overlooked for 71 years does not resonate.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Your analogy doesn't work. There is no new evidence. Just the same record he has had since 1941. The one on which of the nearly 70 or so panels that have voted since he was eligible, he received no more than 3 percent on the scattered occasions he received any votes at all.

[z28jd]

No one has mentioned it, but since the 2013 vote, they dropped Tony Mullane from the ballot. That was a ballot that had three get elected, Hank O'Day, Jacob Ruppert and Deacon White.

Dahlen will be elected this year. He got ten votes last time and that was with almost everyone voting for O'Day, Ruppert and White. Since voters had a maximum of four votes, those three took up 70% of the votes, leaving a maximum of 20 to be split among everyone else and Dahlen fell two votes short. With all the SABR advancement in figuring out the value of players to his team, Dahlen has jumped to the top of the charts as one of the best players of his era.

His career WAR is 75.2, which is higher than Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson, Luke Appling and Barry Larkin(to add a couple SS in there).

WAR is a cumulative stat, so the more you play the higher it should be. I don't think anyone here would argue against Derek Jeter going in on the first ballot.

Jeter 2747 games, 71.8 WAR
Dahlen 2444 games, 75.2 WAR

That means that Dahlen was more valuable to his team than Jeter was to his. Since WAR is huge now in Hall of Fame talk, if Dahlen doesn't go in, then you have a continuation of a mistake that has been made since they put in the big group of players in the early 40's, because that's when Dahlen should have been elected.

All signs point to him going in this year though. He is recognized as the best position player not in, who played during the first 90 years of MLB, plus he is better than a lot of those players already in from that time span. He is the top returning vote-getter and just missed last time due to a numbers crunch.

The other one who should get in is Doc Adams. How his contribution to the game has been overlooked all these years is beyond me, but he has huge support from the SABR community. They named his their most overlooked legend last year and that helped push him to the new ballot. Adams should have been elected during the first ceremonies in 1939, but much of the credit he deserved wrongly went to others. If you don't think Adams should be in, then you don't know enough about him.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Marty Marion is a joke. Ferrell might not be a HOF pitcher, but he's a reasonable candidate as a HOF player. How many other pitchers put up better numbers at the plate than they allowed from the mound? I can think of one. Factor in the batting numbers, and he was more valuable than at least a couple dozen of the already-inducted pitchers.

Wins Above Replacement? I'm glad you asked.

Sandy Koufax:
Career -- 49.0
7-year peak -- 45.2

Wes Ferrell:
Career -- 61.6
7-year peak -- 53.2

P.S. I agree that Parisian Bob is conspicuous in his absence.

Glenn - I outta beat you with a (nerf) fungo bat for comparing Wes Ferrell to Sandy Koufax... shows how flawed even Sabremetrics like WAR can be.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Glenn - I outta beat you with a (nerf) fungo bat for comparing Wes Ferrell to Sandy Koufax... shows how flawed even Sabremetrics like WAR can be.

Maybe someone can explain Koufax's WAR 7 being so low despite his incredible streak of 6 seasons. He is essentially tied with WILBUR WOOD and ranked below Silver King, Stan Coveleski, Jack Stivetts, Dazzy Vance, Vic Willis, and Joe McGinnity, to name a few.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Maybe someone can explain Koufax's WAR 7 being so low despite his incredible streak of 6 seasons. He is essentially tied with WILBUR WOOD and ranked below Silver King, Stan Coveleski, Jack Stivetts, Dazzy Vance, Vic Willis, and Joe McGinnity, to name a few.

Not sure if home/road spits have anything to do with it. He was a slightly above average pitcher on the road. He was insane at home. Creature of Dodger Stadium.

Tom C

[timn1]

to play devil's advocate:

-Marion was the Ozzie Smith of his era

-Ferrell has a better record, overall, than at least a dozen HOF pitchers. The 4.04 era distorts the quality of his pitching, but his career spanned the highest-ERA era (sorry) of the whole 20th century. It's comparable to a sub-3.00 lifetime era in the deadball era. Pitchers of this period are routinely undervalued by people who can't get their heads around how much of an ERA adjustment has to be made to evaluate their careers. Ferrell's .600 winning PCT (not playing for the Yankees) is a better measure of his value.

Personally, I think Ferrell should be in, and not Marion. But there are legit arguments to be made - these nominations aren't just made at random.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yes, but in 48 and 49 when he was first eligible, and was voted on by people who surely had seen him pitch (and hit), and were familiar with how good he was or wasn't relative to his era, he got less than 1 percent of the vote, meaning probably 1 vote each year. He wasn't even an afterthought.

[autograf]

What's the argument against Pete Browning except AA? I'm a homer with him but he should be in.....................

[sayhey24]

I would agree that there are deserving 19th century candidates, but not so much with the 20th century candidates on the ballot (Even though he's not from this era -- I would rank Dave Concepcion ahead of Marty Marion).

To me, the most deserving pre-integration era candidate is not on the ballot. Cecil Travis hit over .300 every year but one from from 1934 to 1941, and made three all star teams. He peaked in 1941 at the age of 28 when he hit .359. In that year in which Joe D. had his hitting streak and Ted Williams batted .406, Travis lead the AL in hits (and was second in batting average ahead of Dimaggio). He was on pace to have a legitimate shot at 3,000 hits.

Travis entered the Army the next year, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was not the same player when he returned almost four years later.

I can certainly understand the argument against players who were on pace for Hall of Fame careers and fell just short because of injury, but how can you hold fighting for your country against a player when deciding Hall of Fame worthiness? What better definition of a Hall of Famer is there than Cecil Travis?

Of course he is also hurt by the fact that he was playing for Washington.

Greg

[Peter_Spaeth]

Oh no don't get Cole started again on Cecil Travis, I might have to whup him again.

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by sayhey24

Travis entered the Army the next year, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was not the same player when he returned almost four years later.

I can certainly understand the argument against players who were on pace for Hall of Fame careers and fell just short because of injury, but how can you hold fighting for your country against a player when deciding Hall of Fame worthiness? What better definition of a Hall of Famer is there than Cecil Travis?

Greg

I don't have an opinion on Travis specifically but I think you have a good point about WWII service. Think of Addie Joss. If he had lived, who knows if his career would have taken a left turn and ruined his HOF chances. But, since he died in his prime, he's in the HOF.

[paul]

Why no consideration for George Van Haltren?

[GKreindler]

Amen, Paul.

[btcarfagno]

Marty Marion on the ballot but not Jack Glasscock?

Makes sense.

Tom C