VOTE: Time Warp HOF Ballot 1954

[DamnYankees]

Schwartz
Finley
Skjery
Kahle
Paul
Stuart
Greisbach

[Carlton]

Schwartz
Davie
Skjerly (who can forget his WS rings?)
Schukraft
Ted Stuart (greatest defensive SS ever and not a bad hitter)
Kinnear
Misisca
Harry Finley

[pat]

Paul
Booth
Riley
Kahle
Skjerly
Davie
Minzey
Liao
McAuliffe
Greisbach,

[Matt from TN]

Originally Posted by jdw

Schwarz was a power hitter inflated by his park. Since his _only_ skill was hitting HR's, on the road he was a limited player:

Well, there were those 8 GG's

If this were RL, I wonder if his massive HR seasons would've impressed enough voters at the time to let him in.

I don't think he is Dave Kingman. That's more like Frank Winsett or Roadhouse before the contact boost. Or maybe Red Wood Woodworth, if he ever deserves regular playing time. There has to be a better comparison for him. Maybe a combination of Rudy York, Ralph Kiner & Chuck Klein w/ a lower batting avg.

[pat]

Is the forums down? Thanks.

[canadiancreed]

nope working fine.

i think this year should be quite intresting for seeing who actually makes it in

[fhomess]

3B Carl Kahle
3B Troy Kinnear
1B Quentin Misisca
C Leonard "Sunny" Davie
3B David "Pops" McAuliffe
SP Remmy Paul
SP Luke Riley

[Vris]

Originally Posted by canadiancreed

nope working fine.

i think this year should be quite intresting for seeing who actually makes it in

If anyone. Everyone's ballot seems to be all over the place.

[canadiancreed]

well I think Pauls got enough to get in from waht i've seen

davie has a good chance as well

Laio is screwed

[jdw]

Matt wrote:

> Well, there were those 8 GG's

Offensive skill.


> If this were RL, I wonder if his massive
> HR seasons would've impressed enough
> voters at the time to let him in.

At the time?

No doubt.


> I don't think he is Dave Kingman. That's more
> like Frank Winsett or Roadhouse before the
> contact boost. Or maybe Red Wood Woodworth,
> if he ever deserves regular playing time. There
> has to be a better comparison for him. Maybe
> a combination of Rudy York, Ralph Kiner &
> Chuck Klein w/ a lower batting avg.

Ralph Kiner:

On-base %
1947-.417-3
1948-.391-7
1949-.432-3
1950-.408-6
1951-.452-1
1952-.384-6
Car-.398-65

Bases on Balls
1946-74-6
1947-98-4
1948-112-2
1949-117-1
1950-122-2
1951-137-1
1952-110-1
1953-100-2
1954-76-8
Car-1011-94

No, Willard wasn't Ralph. Even in BA:

Batting Average
1947-.313-4
1949-.310-5
1951-.309-7

Entirely different beast.

York also took BB, and had a placed on the OBP leaderboard five times.

And while Klein's numbers were radically inflated by the Baker Bowl and is beyond question one of the most overrated players who ever lived, his inflation included that .320 career BA. Willard just didn't hit for BA.

.236/.302/.478/.780 Kingman
.260/.312/.448/.760 Willard

Willard took even fewer BB than Kingman, which is a pretty numbing thought considering how little Kingman walked. But Willard blanced that while a bit higher BA. They also are similar in this regard:

Kingman
Slugging %
1975-.494-9
1976-.506-5
1979-.613-1

Willard
SLG
1928 - .528 - 5th
1929 - .564 - 2nd
1930 - .522 - 6th
1931 - .510 - 2nd
1932 - .622 - 1st

Despite being "great sluggers", they really didn't place consistently well on the SLG board because their BA just flat out blew _and_ they didn't support it with strong 2B numbers.

For his career as a whole, Kingman's numbers weren't bumped up by his parks:

.237/.304/.478 Home
.234/.299/.478 Road

217 HR Home
225 HR Road

The time in Wrigley was balanced out with other parks that weren't as favorable - Shea and Oakland.

I use Kingman because they are truly similar - low BA, eye catching HR, poor BB, poor OBP (actually below league average), and SLG that really aren't all that how for a great HR man.

As far as Willard being a great defensive catcher because of the Gold Gloves, it's a bit of a red herring. He was a "D" range catcher. He wasn't nimble behind the plate at all. He won it for his 10 arm. That's not to say that Cohan and Finley were much more nimble... but they were at least "C" range catchers along with their great arms. I think as total packages defensively, none of these guys combined Arm & Range like Rauch and Betters have.

Range isn't important and arm is all that matters for a catcher? Perhaps. But let's be honest about Willard defensively. He was as one dimensional there as he was on offense. Willard did two things extremely well in his career - hit HR and have a strong arm. He really was below average at *everything* else.

Davie, in contrast, rated "good" in Hits and Walks, was a B in stealing which despite his slow speed led to those exceptional percentage base running I mentioned.

Home Runs?

"Brilliant".

Just like Willard.

If Sunny had been lucky enough to be born a few years earlier, and got to play in the Baker Bowl, people would call him the greatest catcher of all-time because he would have combined Willard's power numbers with a higher BA and that big BB numbers.

If Willard had been born a few years later and played in Comiskey, he'd wouldn't even be pimped. His Gold Gloves numbers would be halved, at best, as he would have been fighting the more nimble yet still strong armed Finley for them through the 30s.

Kingman. Who caught. With a strong arm. And lucky enough to play with the Phab Phour, Pops, The Wizard, Cowboy and Boardway.




John

[jdw]

> Laio is screwed

I don't think he's screwed. But he does have a problem of being seen among his peers:

.272/.372/.486/.858 Troy Kinnear (1921-40)
.323/.380/.429/.809 Gus Kahle (1922-42)
.300/.347/.423/.769 David McAuliffe (1923-45)
.301/.390/.416/.805 Alan Liao (1925-46)
.305/.417/.447/.864 Steven Bussell (1926-46)
.301/.388/.465/.854 Carl Kahle (1926-48)
.279/.397/.471/.868 Dale Lamberty (1930-49)
.300/.353/.420/.772 Tequila Allen (1932-51)

That's by order of when they hit the majors.

Liao comes across a bit like Ashburn next to the Mays, Mantle and Snider trio. Except in this case it's not a trio - it's Carl, Bussell, the always popular candidate Troy and the soon to hit the ballot Lamberty. And that he's matched with another Ashburn who played on teams that won 14 flags that fly in Yankee Stadium: 9 AL Pennants and 5 World Titles.

I toss in Teq for the fun of it. Nice career. Teq was unlucky because he played no less than five seasons from the age of 18-25 as a platoon or part timer. Four of his BAs in those seasons were .310, .345, .332 and .385. Pops McAuliffe got a job at the age of 17 playing 144 games in 1925. His playing time was not reduced until 1944.

Was Teq better than Pops? I'm not sure I would say that. He just wasn't as lucky despite being a #1-4 pick similar to Pops' #1-3 selection. If he had been moderately as luck, he would have been up over 3000 hits and we'd have people clamouring for eight 3B from this era to get in.

Think about that - half the 3B in TWB in the 30s getting in.

Seems extreme.


John

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by jdw

> Laio is screwed

I don't think he's screwed. But he does have a problem of being seen among his peers:

.272/.372/.486/.858 Troy Kinnear (1921-40)
.323/.380/.429/.809 Gus Kahle (1922-42)
.300/.347/.423/.769 David McAuliffe (1923-45)
.301/.390/.416/.805 Alan Liao (1925-46)
.305/.417/.447/.864 Steven Bussell (1926-46)
.301/.388/.465/.854 Carl Kahle (1926-48)
.279/.397/.471/.868 Dale Lamberty (1930-49)
.300/.353/.420/.772 Tequila Allen (1932-51)

That's by order of when they hit the majors.

whoa! thats' a nasty class to be stuck in for HOF consideration

Originally Posted by jdw

Liao comes across a bit like Ashburn next to the Mays, Mantle and Snider trio. Except in this case it's not a trio - it's Carl, Bussell, the always popular candidate Troy and the soon to hit the ballot Lamberty. And that he's matched with another Ashburn who played on teams that won 14 flags that fly in Yankee Stadium: 9 AL Pennants and 5 World Titles.

And comparing that with Laio, who wasnt close to getting the flag till 1945-46, that defaitnely wont help his tendure with voters when comapred with those four.

Originally Posted by jdw

I toss in Teq for the fun of it. Nice career. Teq was unlucky because he played no less than five seasons from the age of 18-25 as a platoon or part timer. Four of his BAs in those seasons were .310, .345, .332 and .385. Pops McAuliffe got a job at the age of 17 playing 144 games in 1925. His playing time was not reduced until 1944.

Was Teq better than Pops? I'm not sure I would say that. He just wasn't as lucky despite being a #1-4 pick similar to Pops' #1-3 selection. If he had been moderately as luck, he would have been up over 3000 hits and we'd have people clamouring for eight 3B from this era to get in.

Think about that - half the 3B in TWB in the 30s getting in.

Seems extreme.

While I agree, I had to verfiy that Laio did 3B. I always got the imrpo that he was the Reds 2B to OSborne's SS and his retirement was the opening of the door for Skeeter.

Still, if he was on another team like the Yanks or the Phils I think more folks would have him on the ballot.

[BPS]

McAuliffe
Paul
Davie
Kahle
Liao
Riley
Misisca
Stuart

[jdw]

> While I agree, I had to verfiy that Laio
> did 3B. I always got the imrpo that he
> was the Reds 2B to OSborne's SS and
> his retirement was the opening of the
> door for Skeeter.

Players often get "retired" at positions other than the one the player most at.

Carl Kahle played 1B and C his last three years because Jimmy Dunkel was too good to hold back.

Liao got moved off 3B by Foster Hempkins, which was always funny since Foster was just two year younger at 34 when he did it.


> Still, if he was on another team like
> the Yanks or the Phils I think more
> folks would have him on the ballot.

If he played for the Yanks, he'd be in like Gus Kahle.

I don't say that to encourage people to vote for Liao. I'm not a fan of "If Player X is in, Player Y needs to go in" arguements unless Player X is an inner circle HOFer. It would also help if Player Y were better.


John

[haggis007]

Originally Posted by Vris

If anyone. Everyone's ballot seems to be all over the place.

By my unscientific count, Paul and Kahle are looking good, with Swervin, Riley Davie and McAuliffe just missing, so far. In deference to John, I will not point fingers or anything . . .

[scprideandms]

Kahle

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by scprideandms

Kahle

A subscriber to the Enkiel HOF voting program

[jdw]

BTW - this only gets tougher next year:

Dale Lamberty, 3B
New York Giants 1930-49

Dewey Mickelsen, OF Ancestor
Chicago Cubs 1928-48
Cincinnati Reds 1948
New York Yankees 1949

Ping "The Outlander" Hung, OF Ancestor
New York Yankees 1929-49
Philadelphia Phillies 1949

Bud Breckenridge, CF
Pirates 1929-49

Lamberty is a consistent name mentioned in "Greatest 3B of All-Time" discussions.

Dewey was a force at the plate, and a triple Gold Glove winner in his youth.

Ping is high on the all-time BA and SB lists, even losing two years to the war and five years to the loaded Yanks OF *after* going 2-2-4 in BA the three years immediately prior to being sent to a back up role.

I think Breckenridge is probably the most underrated great player in the game's history, which is saying something when we look at who the Vet Committee has been forced to vote in (Dark Horse, Seifried, Ray of Light). I'm not at all saying that Breckenridge is as good as those three. He's underrated because there's next to no buzz on him, both during his career and after it. Even when he retired, the TWB Public Relations Department didn't even do a bio on him like they did for Lamberty, Dewey and Ping.

He's a hard player to describe to those who "didn't see him play". I think the best that could be said is that he was a bit like Rickey Henderson because he could do so much well. You see the .303 BA and five placements in the BA Top 10. He didn't have huge HR power, but he had all around midrange power - high 3Bs for the era, 10-19 HR, and some 2B, so he was strong enough to make the SLG leaderboard six times. But his strength, like Rickey, was getting on. 13 times in the Top 10 in BB. 11 times in the Top 10 in OBP, including four OBP Titles. A big run scorer, 10 times in the Top 10 in Runs, 4 times the leader, 8 100+ R seasons, three other times 90+. And he could run. 751 career SB, playing in the same league as Speedy Perly that meant six times runner up and five times in 3rd place in SB.

And he played CF. He never was Morton Chamblee or Dave Arkless out there, but he was above average in range.

I think Breckenridge to a tie - above average at *everything*. He wasn't a BA champ, but he did hit for good average. He wasn't an HR champ, but he had above average HR power and strong gap power & speed. He wasn't Speedy on the base paths, but in the NL in his era, he was second to Speedy. He wasn't a Gold Glove CF, but he was a good one. His one area of true excellence was taking walks, which combined with his good BA consistently gave him a very high OBP, which combined with his strong speed made him a great run scorer.

His career isn't quite as long in terms of PA's as many candidates. Part of that was due to playing four years behind Sam Kass, the last three of which Breckenridge already appeared to be good enough to start. In the end, he was good enough to get a HOFer traded to open up CF for him. He also seemed to take a hit as the game went Live.

Quite a wonderful player. I know Jeff of the Pirates is knee deep in Pirate history. Perhaps a nice bio can be done prior to next year's class so he doesn't run the risk off falling off the ballot. Then again, the Vet has been kind to forgotten Pirate OF's.

Anyway... next year it's tough again.


John

[bigjas]

Carl Kahle
Alan Liao
Leonard 'Sunny' Davie
Adolf 'The Human Torch' Greisbach
Bobby Martin
'Swervin' Ervin Skjerly
Jon Minzey
Troy Kinnear
Ricardo 'Tiny' Bowden
Dave 'Red Fox' Arkless

[Ankhiel]

allright, next time i'll keep my vote private