Time Warp HOF Ballot 1973

[Y0DA55]

Ormiston
Cook
Perry
Lett
Stewart
Stell
Ulrich
Tjeenk-Willink
Liebermann
Helton

[Vris]

Ormiston
Cook
Dietrich
Perry
Lett
Stewart

Tjeenk-Willink
Makris
Liebermann
Helton

[tward13]

Helton
Liebermann
Stewart
Stell
Dietrich
Ormiston

[fhomess]

RF William Perry
CF Rudel Dietrich
LF Paul Lett
LF Arnie Stewart
SP Lex Tjeenk-Willink
SP Randy Lieberman
SP Joe Helton

Note to John: Stewart should be listed at 1B. According to Cato (it's actually got his full career), he played 1339 games at 1B and 1090 at RF. NONE at LF.

[chowbeng]

RF William Perry
LF Paul Lett
LF Arnie Stewart
SP Randy Liebermann
SP Joe Helton

[pat]

Helton
Ormiston
Liebermann
Cook
Tjeenk-Willink
Perry
Ulrich
Lett
Stell
Stewart

Just wondering, is the site down? I can't visit it and I can't export some late-minute changes.

[jdw]

Originally Posted by fhomess

Note to John: Stewart should be listed at 1B. According to Cato (it's actually got his full career), he played 1339 games at 1B and 1090 at RF. NONE at LF.

Thanks. I copied Lett as the "form", changing it for Stew. I thought there was some place that I listed position, but was overlooking it.


John

[jdw]

Originally Posted by pat

Just wondering, is the site down? I can't visit it and I can't export some late-minute changes.

Beats me. I ran into the same thing when coming home.

John

[pat]

I thought I'm the only one. I've talked to Avi on AIM but he says the site works for him.

[pat]

It works for me now after he linked me to the forums.

I really can't open it for hours. I've been hitting refresh all day (all night for you).

[canadiancreed]

Possibly a DNS issue

[jdw]

For the folks who vote for Walter Davis and not Paul Lett, I have a question:

Why?

Sifting back in my memory of the times...

They were born 10 months apart. Lett being the older. Davis got to the bigs earlier, simply because he was a bonus baby taken #1 overall in the draft and had to be brought up 3 years after being drafted. Lett was taken later in the 1st round and allowed to develop.

Both came to the Phils in 1950 as part of the clubs first Grand Rebuilding Project (there were too many to count before they finally committed to it). Lett was the prized prospects in a deal that sent Garland Sisk & Artie Albrecht to the Giants. Davis wasn't quite the prized prospect when he was sent by the Cubs along with a lot of other pieces to get Chuck Rauch and a lot of other pieces. Davis by that point had taken a share of talent hits.

Based on memory, without going back through the almanacs to review the ratings, I don't think that there was a point after those trades (03/02/50 & 04/16/50) until 1965 when they were both washed up that *any* GM in the league would have ever traded Paul Lett straight up for Walter Davis.

That's not to say that we might not be able to cherry pick a given year like 1957 where in hindsight you'd rather have Davis' "peformance" over Lett's for that given year. There is at least one season like that where Davis was a better hitter, and two seasons where Lett was hurt and "jaking" it where the value of 150 games of Davis was higher than 110 games of Lett.

But if you asked the 16 GM's prior to 1957 and after 1957 whether they'd trade Lett for Davis, they would have laughed at you.

Even Davis' own manager before and after 1957 would have rather had Paul Lett. Hell... he tried to get Paul Lett on several occassions.

One might in hindsight claim that someone might have traded a Lett for Davis in those 1950-52 seasons when Davis was in the bigs and Lett was in the minors. No one back then would have. Davis wasn't highly regarded, and his wasn't all that great after a tease of 1950. The GM's then would have taken one of the two best hitting prospects in the minors instead of Davis.

We joked about Lett being a drinking, skirt chasing, injury jaking clubhouse cancer. Even after all these years, we still do because it's fun and it's the personality that all of us created for Lett. Well... except for Tribe Frank, in whose mind Paul was a happily married man who drank in moderation and went to church every Sunday, even on road trips. They're jokes, and they colored Paul's "personality" in the game. Which was great because he's a memorable player, where as who among us has a clue what the personality of Lett's peer Abraham Arsenault? Enk and that's about it.

What's forgotten is Walter Davis' "story". That's largely because unlike Lett, we never developed a personality for him.

Davis' story?

He was the #1 overall pick the year he came out, loaded with talent. And then he promptly fell on his face and lost much of that talent. He was the Rebosse of his day - amazing talent that got pissed away.

That's in stark contrast to the forgotten "story" of Lett - Paul *wasn't* all that talented coming out of the draft, as folks taken at the end of the first round weren't in those days. Paul in the minors actually "busted his ass" to improve his talents... right through the roof to have one of the three best sets of talent ratings in the game for that generation of players (HOF candidate Arnie Stewart and HOFer John Degal probably being the other two).

We've forgotten that because Lett had talent from that day he stepped into the *majors*, knocked the living crap out of the ball from the get go, and that's all we remember. Along with the fun jokes.

Much like Rebosse, Davis rebuilt his talents to the point that he ended up having some of the best on the second or third tier of top talents in the game. Great eye. Very good power. 7 contact back when it meant something: Mo Goza was a career .305 hitter with 7 contact, while Ted McMurray was a career .294 hitter with a BA titles and a runner up. This wasn't uncommon for the era. Collectively, Davis was an OPS dream for the era, probably akin to Rick Stanley and Fred Reed of the current era in terms of a broad base of skills to punch a ticket on the OPS Top 10 like clockwork.

OPS
1957-2-.902

That's it. Walter Davis was, for one season, one of the two best hitters in the NL. In terms of being an efficient hitter, he probably was better than Silcox that season and #1 overall.

What happened?

Davis hit over .300 once, and then just scraping over at .304. He hit .282-.291 just three other times, never again strongly challenging for hitting .300. His .266 career BA was pretty indicative of where he typically dialed in.

Despite the good power base and strong contact for the era, he slugged over .450 just ones - .470 in that career year. It wasn't just that he didn't slug .450 again - he never got above .425 again.

But he walked a good deal. He was an "on base machine".

Player A OBP
1956-8-.394
1957-1-.432
1958-5-.408
1959-8-.395

Player B OBP
1951-9-.389
1952-8-.389
1953-3-.405
1954-5-.398
1955-3-.417
1957-6-.400
1958-9-.395
1959-2-.415

The first is Walter Davis.

The second is his teammate from 1956-59 Ben Cook. That's the OBP machine, a career .389 OBP man to Davis' .374 despite hitting for even lower of a BA than Davis.

What I'm trying to get across is what's forgotten:

Walter Davis was expected out of the draft to be one of the major stars of the game. An Arnie Stewart, a Dave Lemmings, a Pap Brown.

He wasn't. He blew that talent quickly.

Once he rebuilt it, Walter Davis was expected to be a Rick Stanley or a Fred Reed - a broadbased offensive player who through all his strong skills would consistently be one of the better hitters in the league.

He wasn't. Other than one single career season that sticks out like a sore thumb, he simply wasn't. Far from it.

Reality:

Walter Davis was one of the most disappointing players of the era. And known as such at the time.

He was a guy who had "#3 Hitter" all over him. He got slotted in the #2 hole because in the end the one thing that could be said about him was "at least he walked". His moderate power had a positve there when a leadoff stud like Cook hit infront of him.

Chris and I use to talk Davis up as forming a great 1-2 combo with Cookie infront of what Chris called the "Fists of Steel" combo in the 3-4 slots: Teddie McMurray and Del Yordy. That rehabbed Davis' story a bit, but no one at the time rated him above Cook, McMurray or Yordy as the consistent key players in what was the best offense in the NL of that era. Davis was a role player - the bridge from the engine to the train. He played that role well. But not exceptionally.

Ironically Delmar Yordy was another of the 50s "disappointing" players who hit under the ratings, which were pretty similar to Davis' (8 contact, less eye, better gap... that 2nd or 3rd tier of talented players in the game). Yordy was thought to be so disappointing that one member of the press (not me) thought the Reds had been taken to the cleaners when they traded for him, and that he would never amount to anything in Cincy.

The difference is that Davis had one career year, and some other valuable ones but not really all star or all pro level. Yordy had a career year in 1955. He also was a terrific player in 1957-58. Six All Star games to Davis' one. At some point in 1956-57, after he proved his 1955 Batter of the Year wasn't a fluke, Yordy stopped being one of the most disappointing players in the game.

He became one of the most respected hitters of the second half of the decade.

I like Walter Davis a great deal. I tend to accept his playing below his ratings as one of those things that happens in OOTP, similar to memorable players like Garland "Gun For Hire" Sisk and Ace Shipley playing above their talent to become stars. I liked that Chris and I were able to talk enough about his place in the Rowdy Reds 1-2-3-4 order that he ended up redeeming himself. He's one of those guys I look at and can see, that despite being neither what he could have been but also not what he *should* have been, he did have a nice career. He was a "good" to "very good" hitter many years. That he was a terrible defensive player never really mattered since strong defensive players like Yordy and Matt Praks were around to pick up the slack in the outfield. He had one shinning year as a hitter. He played a role in a pair of World Title teams that were quite memorable from their era. He was part of one of the tragic clubs of all-time, the 1961 Braves... though perhaps the only folks who remember that club would be Rudel and I.

I like that players destined to be great can "fail" yet still have nice, worthwhile careers.

Lett was a guy who *wasn't* destined to be great. He made himself into a great prospect. It was quite a bit more rare in that era than now for a late first rounder to have that happen, whereas now it's common (just happened to a *4th* rounder). Lett then backed up that great potential with great performance in the bigs. And became probably the most colorful player in the era simply because we could throw anything into his mouth.

So...

Why Davis over Lett? Or in the case of Chris, why Davis over Cook?


John

[metsgeek]

Originally Posted by jdw

We joked about Lett being a drinking, skirt chasing, injury jaking clubhouse cancer. Even after all these years, we still do because it's fun and it's the personality that all of us created for Lett.

By "we", do you mean the voices in your head?

[Spielman]

Luther Ormiston
Rudel Dietrich
Paul Lett
Arnie Stewart
Bobby Johnson
Randy Liebermann
Joe Helton

[fhomess]

One of the things I look at when it comes to HOF players is whether or not that player was a guy opponents feared. I always got the impression that Lett was one of those guys. Davis was a good player, but he certainly wasn't a guy that you feared.

FWIW, Lett had talent ratings of 5/8/5/4/6 as an 18 year old 1B at the end of 1945, which is the year the Dodgers took him with the 14th pick of the draft. The following season, Davis was drafted 1st overall, and had talent ratings of 7/7/4/7/6 at the end of that year. Why was he drafted 1st with those ratings? He wasn't. By that point, he'd already taken hits to contact and eye (4/4/46) and power (7/25/46).

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by fhomess

One of the things I look at when it comes to HOF players is whether or not that player was a guy opponents feared. I always got the impression that Lett was one of those guys. Davis was a good player, but he certainly wasn't a guy that you feared.

By that logic no-one from the Reds of that era would have been voted in. Just look at the predictions of the 57 and 59 World Sereis for proof of that.

[rudel.dietrich]

Orminston
Johnson
Dietrich
Perry
Lett
Stewart

Stell
Makris
Liebermann
Helton


If you guys have an opening, let me know
I will have to get the license to OOTP6 again, but I would be willing to come back since it looks like you guys have everything back going again and the league is moving forward.
Again, great job guys!
I didnt think it could be done but you guys have proved me wrong

[pat]

I'm not sure if there's an opening, but we'll let you know. We miss you man. Check out my team now.

[metsgeek]

Originally Posted by pat

I'm not sure if there's an opening, but we'll let you know. We miss you man. Check out my team now.

You'll get more of a chuckle if you you check out the Red Sox wallowing in the cellar

[pat]

Originally Posted by metsgeek

You'll get more of a chuckle if you you check out the Red Sox wallowing in the cellar

Come on, Pete. We all experienced being in that spot. You'll rise soon enough.