Time Warp HOF Ballot 1974

[chowbeng]

Voting for no one this year. Null vote.

[jdw]

Originally Posted by chowbeng

Voting for no one this year. Null vote.

I'll treat that as submitting a blank vote, since I think that's what you mean. Rather than "abstain" where you ballot isn't counted, you want the ballot to be counted.

John

[ifspuds]

Kreitenberg
Tjeenk-Willink
Makris
Granger
Ormiston
Liao Jr.

[metsgeek]

Ulrich
Tjeenk-Willink
Liao Jr.
Mikey K.
Nunez
Ayers
Johnson
Dietrich
Noel
Joyce

[fvamos]

Nunez
Dietrich
Liao Jr.
Kreit
Stell
Granger

[fhomess]

CF Rudel Dietrich
SP Corky Stell
SP Lex Tjeenk-Willink

[ifspuds]

I think Perry made it in last year, Frank.

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by ifspuds

I think Perry made it in last year, Frank.

See, he was so good I voted for him once he was already in! Or my old ballot didn't get cleared properly, take your pick.

[Elendil]

Ormiston
Cook
Dietrich
Joyce
Liao
Tjeenk-Willink
Makris

[knightni]

Genarito Nunez
Bud Ayers
Wilford Woodworth
"Grumpy" Abraham Noel
Bud Ulrich
Lex Tjeenk-Willink
Cal Granger

[jeheinz72]

Ormiston
Cook
Dietrich
Davis
Kreitenberg
Liao Jr
Tjeenk-Willink
Makris
Granger

[jdw]

From one of the League's GMs:

Originally Posted by Snowman

So, anyone have an alias with which they'd like to register my vote please? I really hate to unscramble my password....

Luther Ormiston
Rudel Dietrich
Mike Kreitenberg
Alan Liao Jr.
Hank Makris

John

[ndinardo76]

Kreitenberg
Nunez
Ayers
Dietrich
Noel
Joyce
Ulrich
Tjeenk-Willink

[BadluckinOOTP]

Nunez
Cook
Dietrich
Noel
Joyce
Krietenberg
Tjeenk-Willink
Makris

I'm pretty anti-closer in the ACTUAL MLB, unless you're just dominating (i.e. Eckersley, Rivera) or have racked up the most saves ever (in the modern era) like Hoffman.

Granger, however, while he did grab a bunch of saves. Never had one year, where he just lights out dominating. His strikeout numbers are average, he might have walked a tad too many guys.

A good reliever absolutely, but hall-of-famer, I don't think so.

I, personally, don't think Rollie Fingers should be in the real hall of fame, and Granger is like a poor man's Rollie Fingers.

[Vris]

Ormiston
Dietrich
Stell
Tjeenk-Willink
Makris

Johnson
Liao, Jr
Kreitenburg
Joyce


As far as Granger goes, that 1961 season is one of the best seasons by a relief pitcher TWB has ever seen. That said, I'm not ready for a reliever in the HOF and think those are more up to the VC.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by BadluckinOOTP

I'm pretty anti-closer in the ACTUAL MLB, unless you're just dominating (i.e. Eckersley, Rivera) or have racked up the most saves ever (in the modern era) like Hoffman.

Granger, however, while he did grab a bunch of saves. Never had one year, where he just lights out dominating. His strikeout numbers are average, he might have walked a tad too many guys.

A good reliever absolutely, but hall-of-famer, I don't think so.

I, personally, don't think Rollie Fingers should be in the real hall of fame, and Granger is like a poor man's Rollie Fingers.

Granger did have one dominating season, 1961
He also had alot of average seasons and some seasons where he was more of a liability than a asset
Not a HOF character
Also not sure why jdw did not list his ERA+

He has no real peak to speak of
Was not consistent and had some seaons that can only be classified as bad

[rudel.dietrich]

We do have a slew of excellent relief men coming down the pipe

John Patterson who should be a lock for the HOF
Arnie LaFeaux who put together a very fine career and is borderline HOF

and a couple of others who are late into their careers

Granger might be the first canidate but he is also the least worthy of a slew of closers who are going to follow in the next 10 seasons or so

[jdw]

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Granger did have one dominating season, 1961

Actually, he was just as dominating in 1952 and 1956. 1955 was a shade below them, and it took him a while to win back his job the season.

He also had alot of average seasons and some seasons where he was more of a liability than a asset

I'm guessing that a lot of the voters don't know the history of relief pitchers in the league.

The two "best" relievers in TWB prior to Granger were:

Doyle Weaver

Billy Hyberg

And they were quite literally right before Weaver - in their peak in the late 40's right after the War.

Prior to the Live Era/Post War Era, starters ate up nearly all of the innings. The Pre-War Saves record holder did it while pitching 35 Innings a year. On occasion he'd get 40, and once he got 50. He appeared in 40 games once, and in 30 games only 5 other times... all in the low-to-mid 30s.

The point being that starter endurance was insanely high prior to the Live Era, and has been in decline ever since. Similar to Real Life.

In addition, Human GM's replace Computer GM's in 1946 and brought their own ideas on using relievers to the table. Weaver throwing 84.0 IP in the first Live Era season, along with other pitchers pushing usage forward in those years, was a big change to pitcher usage in the league.

Two of the problems, though, can be seen in the two pitchers linked to above:

(a) relievers in the league not only weren't consistent as they started to get used more, but they had extreme dificultly even have more than a few "good" years

(b) probably no group underperformed their ratings in the league more than relievers in that era, and it was a massive gap down to whatever group we could come up as #2 (I would hazzard a guess that it would be all 25-28 year old hitters as a group).

I have no idea if the problem was OOTP coding, or TWB settings, or simple usage by the the GM's.

I don't think it would be TWB settings, since I can't think of what Matt would have tinkered with to do it.

On usage, one would have to say that more of the closer were being used rather conservative in the years right after the War. They would get dumped in the closer role, usually only in the closer role regardless of their endurance or the quality of the other pitchers in the pen. It's possible that GM's didn't monitor hook settings very well, but with 16 GM's that included some pretty experianced online OOTP people, one wouldn't likely see the across the board issues if it was just some GM's not being as savy as others.

I think it largely was OOTP's coding, and how the ratings in TWB were impacted it.

But one needs to know that when you look at Doyle Weaver, he was a pitcher who was fantastically more talented and with better ratings than Ace Shipley:

Ace Shipley

Doyle has a career ERA of 4.46.

Ace has one of 3.52.

Doyle had the nice ERA of 1.71 in 1946 as a closer, and 2.81 in 1951 and 2.95 in 1950... this is really good stuff. But he also was overall pretty mixxed from 1947-50.

In contrast, Ace did this in ERA:

1947-1-3.03
1948-2-2.91
1949-5-2.80
1950-3-3.05
1951-4-3.50
1952-9-3.24

Sure, Weaver's best smoked Ace's. But the reliever with the best ratings in the game, and who when he was on *was* probably the best reliever in the game, would get lapped by one of the best SP's in the league... who didn't have ratings or talent remotely close to him.

We still have some of that today in OOTP 6.5 with the league. We've had relievers with better ratings than Mick Vagness. None of them turned into Mariano Rivera... let alone the quality that Mick flashed from 1962-72.

Granger didn't 100% bash through that barrier. What he was the first to do was to roll with the wackiness of how RP's pitch in TWB and come back from it... time and time and time again.

He had a hiccup in 1954 after being the top RP in the AL. He bounced back and was the top RP in the 1955-58 period. He inexplicable couldn't pitch in 1959-60 (no talent hits that I recall),to the point the he lost his closer job. He bounced back an in 1961 was brilliant, and remained good the following year. He dropped down to "average" to "good" for the Giants in 1963-67, which is what the team contending in those years needed out of a closer.

When you look at Granger from 1952-1958 having six good to brilliant years in seven seasons, he truly was the first relief pitcher in league history to do that with a post war workload. He then looked like he was toast in 1959-60, but bounced back again.

What guys like Patterson and Delp and LaFeaux did later, Granger "innovated" or "proved" was possible. Relief pitching continues to be a frustrating part of TWB. But these days when a pitcher pulls a "Granger '54", you have some confidence that he can bounce back as long as the ratings haven't been trashed.

Not a HOF character

Not entirely sure what that means...

Also not sure why jdw did not list his ERA+

I'm not entirely sure ERA+ is always useful for relievers. But I did have them posted over on the other site:

RP Cal Granger

1949 - 95
1950 - 61
1951 - 191
1952 - 236
1953 - 122
1954 - 74
1955 - 166
1956 - 226
1957 - 137
1958 - 139
1959 - 78
1960 - 79
1961 - 226
1962 - 132
1963 - 102
1964 - 117
1965 - 104
1966 - 133
1967 - 114
1968 - 78

Career - 131

Goose has a 126 ERA+, which isn't a totally unfair comp given:

(a) their longevity - our setting don't allow for 42 year olds and makes 20 year olds very rare in the majors

(b) and the fact that starter endurance in the 50s and 60s, the general quality of the rotations he supported in those years, *and* the process of SIM'ing rather than playing didn't allow Granger to have the type 133-141 IP per season workload that Goose had in 1975-78.

On the other hand, I don't think Goose had the impact on the concept of RP'ing in Real Life that Granger did in TWB. Goose is part of the evolution with a lot of pitchers, but not terribly different from Fingers or Sutter or Quiz except for relative quality. Granger is a pretty clear dividing line between those who came before him and those who came after him. We haven't yet been able to generate that next step - the Granger/Patterson quality pitcher who can/will be used 150+ IP per year and sustain quality for a period of years like they did. The fact that we SIM rather than manually play and manage games may prevent that... though perhaps continuing declines in endurance will alter it as well.

He has no real peak to speak of

Depends on how one wants to define "peak".

If one is obsessed on having them consecutive, I would go with 1955-58. It's the kind of obvious one, since he was also voted All Pro by the league's GM, Commish & Press as the top reliever in the AL in those years (in addition to other years as well).

If one doesn't care if they're consecutive and is simply trying to determine what his peak level of performance was, it's as equally clear: 1952, 1956 and 1961.

We do have a slew of excellent relief men coming down the pipe

John Patterson who should be a lock for the HOF

He should be. I was the first in the league to say Patterson was the best reliever of all-time. The respect that Granger had at the time was such that people thought I was being premature.

The thing is... does one have to be better than the best ever to get in? It would be like kicking Lou Gehrig to the curb for not being as good as Babe.

The difference here is that Granger is the Lou in terms of quality, but the Babe in terms of placement in the revolution - he came first, showed the way on what previously hadn't been possible (sustained quality from a career closer), while Patterson came along and simply did it better than anyone else had done. It wouldn't have lessened Lou if he came before Babe... and it would have given Lou the added bonus of starting the revolution and breaking the records first, only to have Babe coming along and show just how mighty someone can be.

Arnie LaFeaux who put together a very fine career and is borderline HOF

I'm not sold LaFeaux is better, or much better. His issues relative to Granger are the era he pitched in (1963-68, 1971-72 being pitchers years) and his usage and longevity/IP. I think he *should* have been better than Granger... and Patterson as well for that matter. He certainly was more talented than both. But he just didn't seem click to the degree that those two did.

and a couple of others who are late into their careers

I doubt it. Willmon has had a nice career, and still is very nicely rated for his age. If he ages well he pile up more quality years. But to date, I don't think he's close to Granger.

Granger might be the first canidate but he is also the least worthy of a slew of closers who are going to follow in the next 10 seasons or so

Least worthy? Yeah... Morgan Cuellar and Vernon Goll are more worthy.

There are times when I wonder why I vote for "Rudel Dietrich".

After all, he "never won nothing". That's not just never did his teams winning anything, but individually he never won anything of note. No BA titles, no OPS titles, no OBP titles, though Dietrich was about as obsessed about his own numbers (as opposed to his team) as a certain star of the late 40s and early 50.

Then at the age of 34 while still having a 6 contact and good enough other skills, he jaked an injury (i.e. his "decendant" forced him to be early retired from the league) to protect his those numbers that he obsessed about: .313/.385/.473/.858 on the career. They were more important than the fact that his team had to run out players in the OF with vastly less ratings (including 4 contacts) the following year. After all, another 3-4 years of .222/.285/.343/.628 in the Pitchers Era intensified (he bailed out after 1963) would have risked him dropping under a .300 BA. It only would have taken 3 years of .220 at 500 AB's a year to make it .297. Hell... people even forget that he tried to quit at the end of the prior year at the age of 33 but a mix up happen.

Not a winner. No impact on the game. He's most known for quitting his team at the age of 34 to protect his own stats, at a time when they still could have used him to try to avoid last place.

That's not really HOF character, no?

But I still vote for him because in his prime, he was a heck of a player. He was All Pro six times in seven years, all by vote of the GMs/Commish/Press of those years. That's no Jed Williams or Ray Kress or Dave Lemmings, but it is a very impressive accomplishment. Not many get to that level.

Granger was an All Pro reliever seven times, six of them voted on and the last one in a year where they wasn't voting. No one is at that level. Not Delp. Not Willmon. Not Lafeaux. Not even Patterson. He had just five All Pros, three of them coming in 1963-65 where there was no voting and I selected him. The two went head-to-head as closers in the same league from 1956-62. Granger was All Pro four of those seasons, Patterson twice, and Bernard Client took the other. One of the years Patterson won, he had the "best relief season of all-time" to top Granger's own candidate for "best relief season of all-time" in 1961.

Of course Patterson hit his prime from 1963-65 after Granger went over to the Giants as a 35 year old savy vet asked to eat a lot of innings to plug a leaky bullpen on an otherwise extremely strong pennant contender hoping to get over the top. Which he did, and they did. In the post season, Patterson did prove who the current King of the Pen was. But still...

Seven All Pros, the pitcher who was identified with the term "closer" in the 50s, by acclimation considered the best reliever of all-time by 1958 at the age of 30, and then went out to save another 214 games *after* that including having one of the best seasons of all-time.

That's no John Patterson. But it is a very impressive accomplishment. Not many get to that level. In fact, only Patterson has topped him in some ways, while in others Granger still hold a few records and awards that are waiting to be topped.

Sorry for the long post. I just tend to think Granger is getting dismissed here in the same manner that Dark Horse Allen was decades ago. Dark Horse only happened to be the best Center Fielder in league history until someone came along in the past decade to finally supplant him... more than 50 years after Dark Horse retired. Granger *was* the best reliever in the history, only to get supplanted by his younger rival. There is no shame in being the second best reliever in history, and the one who showed the way for the person who would supplant you.

I'm not a pimper of relievers. I tend to think their value can be overrated. On the horizon I can see only one reliever who will hit that ballot that I'd advocate - Patterson. So don't read any of this as advocacy by a mark for relievers. I'm not. But Granger was to closing what Woody was to Batting Averages, Murphy was to ERA, Oscar was to Home Runs and Speedy was to steals. It's not just the records, but the aura and respect and awe that they had. Very simply put, they were "the man" in those areas.

Oscar's been topped in HR's, and frankly most everyone would conceed that he isn't the best outfielder or even leftfielder anymore. The Boss is. But it doesn't take away from Oscar blazing a new course for the league, and showing that 40+ HR hitting wasn't something to do a flukey time or two before falling apart in a boozy haze like Willard Schwarz earlier in the 30s. You would reach a high level... and stay at that high level... and nail it again... and get back to it yet again.

That was Cal as a closer.

There was the suggestion that Granger may be a VC pick. That's where Dark Horse ended up: in the VC dumping ground. It really was a shame he had to go in that way, as it was just a case of the BWAA of the time missing the boat on him for years, and only catching up on him late when there wasn't enough time to get people educate to him. I'm willing to take some of the blame on that since I was involved in advocating Whitey Kohse and then Jed Burke... along with the fun that Pete and I had with Campbell Ditty. I want to get people thinking about Granger from the start before he ends up headed to the VC.

John

[jdw]

Originally Posted by ndinardo76

*snip*

Hey Nick! Have you checked out your Uncle Dino:

CF Dino Dinardo, San Francisco Giants

He won back-to-back Batter of the Years in the last two seasons. He faces tough competition (The Damn Arthur Adams!) for a three-peat, but he's slowly warming up his longball stroke and should go insane in that regards any SIM.

John
Giants GM, 1958-

[chowbeng]

Had considered voting for Granger, but I don't think he matches up. I wouldn't rule out doing so later years down the road though.

I had also considered Joyce, Krietenberg and Liao Jr, but it's their first ballot and they sure are not worthy of such honour.